Kamak said his uncle’s name, and Corey heard almost nothing after that. Every word they said faded into the background, blurring together into a dull roar, like ocean waves in the distance. Fleeting words and phrases scraped at the edges of his hearing, but all went ignored.

Even with things at their worst, with Morrakesh hot on their heels, Corey had been able to take some comfort in the fact that his Uncle Richard and the rest of the Church were stuck back on Earth, millions of lightyears away. Now Richard was here, out in the stars with him. Alive. But that could change. His thousand yard stare locked in on the cockpit for a moment. They hadn’t gone far. Paga For was still just moments away…

Any thoughts of vengeance got smacked right out of Corey’s head when Kamak backhanded him across the temple.

“Focus, Corvash,” Kamak snapped.

“I was listening!”

“Eat shit,” Kamak said. “I know a man planning vengeance when I see one.”

Corey rubbed an aching temple and grumbled to himself under his breath.

“Now, Farsus, as you were saying before Corey got all thousand-yard-stare?”

“I wanted to know more about this ‘Great Wheel’ your uncle spoke of.”

“Nothing about it is specifically familiar,” Corey said. The added twist of the Great Wheel did help keep Corey’s mind off the fact that his uncle was still back on Paga For, waiting to be slaughtered like the animal he was. Corey tried not to think about how satisfying it would be to beat Uncle Richard to death and instead focused on Farsus’ theory. “Lot of Earth religions have things about wheels, I’m pretty sure.”

“But not yours?”

“Not really,” Corey said. “They didn’t really do reincarnation or anything. One and done, which is why you had to earn your way to a good afterlife by doing everything the Church said to do.”

Corey’s teeth started to grind as he spoke, so Farsus dropped the subject of the Corey’s childhood cult.

“I have been searching the infonet as well, and found several references to this Great Wheel, all fairly recent,” Farsus said. “Given the circumstances, I find it likely that this is a rising trend among fanatics, and that, absent one oppressive belief system, your uncle simply latched on to another. One of the most pervasive trends among cults is a sense of community, after all.”

“That does sound like Uncle Rick,” Corey said. While as morally bankrupt as every other member of the Church, Richard had never been possessed of a backbone. His courage began and ended at abusing people weaker and more vulnerable than him. Removed from the Church structure that gave him power, he’d be quick to latch on to any other similar faith.

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“If it brings you any comfort, he looked to be in terrible condition,” Farsus said. “Alone, deprived, starving, mocked by all around him.”

“Suffering’s nice,” Corey said. “But I want him dead.”

“All in due time, Corey Vash, all in due time.”

The vague promises of future retribution did little to calm Corey’s rage. He turned that burning desire towards the one thing that might actually move him closer to vengeance on his uncle, and headed for the cockpit. Tooley was sitting in the pilot’s seat, legs crossed, with a blank expression on her face. Corey didn’t know if it was a good or bad sign she was no longer feigning enthusiasm for space flight.

“Tooley.”

“Hey Corvash,” Tooley said. “No, we’re not turning around.”

“I- shit. Am I that easy to read?”

“Yes.”

Corey sat down anyway, and tried to enjoy the scattering of starlight. Paga For’s binary star system made light speed jumps difficult so they had to fly at conventional speeds for a while. Corey sat back and tried to enjoy the view, but could not escape the thought that more spectres of his past were lurking on every star.

“We don’t even have to land,” Corey said. “Farsus could probably make the shot hovering in low atmosphere, we could-”

“Do us both a favor and shut the fuck up, Corey,” Tooley said. She scowled, momentarily, but her face softened as she turned to Corey. “I’m sorry. If it were up to me we’d kill your bastard uncle, but we’ve got other shit going on.”

“We’ve spent a lot more than one bullet on a lot dumber shit,” Corey grunted.

“I know! Okay? I know,” Tooley said. “I know it sucks. I know it’s unfair I got to disembowel a Structuralist and you don’t even get to glare at your uncle, but it is what it is. We’ve got to start being smart about this shit at some point. Or at least try to.”

Corey said nothing. Tooley let him stew in his silence for a moment.

“So. Need a distraction? I’ll be free in about a quarter of a cycle, we can hook up.”

“Oh, is that happening again?”

“Don’t be weird about it,” Tooley said. “In the figurative sense, I mean. We can get weird about it in other ways.”

The moment of coy flirtation passed in a moment, and Corey’s oppressive anger resurfaced.

“Not right now,” he grunted. Blinding rage was a bit of a turn off. Tooley couldn’t say she was surprised. She didn’t have much else to offer, though. There weren’t a lot of potential distractions aboard the ship.

“I got to level with you, Corvash, if you’re here for sympathy, you’re talking to the wrong gal,” Tooley said.

“And here I figured you were the person who knew the most about hating family members,” Corey said.

“Yeah, I do know how to hate ‘em,” Tooley said. “It’s liking them that’s the problem.”

“There is nothing about-”

“I ain’t talking about your uncle,” Tooley snapped. “You miss your mom, Corey. Nothing wrong with that, you’re just in the worst possible place to try and deal with it. I hate my mom, Kamak and Farsus barely know theirs, Doprel’s would try to eat him…”

Tooley trailed off for a second while Corey sank into stone-cold silence.

“Eh, fuck, I don’t know, I think To Vo mentioned a mom once, and it didn’t sound negative,” Tooley said. She scratched an itch on her nose as she spoke. “Maybe talk to her.”

“I don’t need to talk to anyone.”

“Oh shut the fuck up,” Tooley said. “Take it from the chick who was about to kill herself a few swaps ago. Talking helps.”

Tooley returned her attention to the Hermit’s controls as they reached the edge of the binary star system’s interference. Corey left, both to give Tooley some space to focus, and to have an excuse not to talk.