Scave boars were unlike any other beasts on New Nowhere, for when the first pioneers’ pigs went feral, as all frontier livestock inevitably do, they didn’t just get big—they grew into hideous and majestic monsters. People faulted the Spirines. The pigs who rooted in the dirt too close to the Dyssian ruins were bestowed with a disease of the bones that blackened their tusks and twisted them into thorny spears that could gouge through the bark of an iron tree. To say nothing of their musk … so powerful, a pack of scaves could clear out a village by scent alone.

Farmers hated them. Ranchers feared them to the point of dangerous paranoia. And despite all attempts to eradicate their populations over the centuries, the scave boars of New Nowhere were one of those wretched problems to which the best solution—and by some accounts, the only one solution—was to shrug, and hope those roving packs would just pass you by.

So, the next morning, when Caly found the human sleeping in the dirt behind the Saloon with one arm wrapped around a spotted scave piglet that was almost as large as he was, she couldn’t help but wrinkle her nose in disgust, and doubt every single decision that had led her to him.

As she approached, one of them, either the pig or the human, she couldn’t tell which, snorted so loud it almost woke both of them up. When Caly’s shadow fell on him, Taws muttered something about light pollution, squeezed the pig tighter, and both pig and man started to snore again, almost in sync.

The sun rose over the roof of The Last Drink, gentle enough to warm up Caly’s neck. The whole saloon was leaning dangerously, and most of the windows had been smashed out. Furniture spilled out into the dusty street, as if even the saloon had gotten drunk and lost its stomach. The contents of its last meal included two dozen dusty locals, sleeping off the night on the wraparound porch. Olm was somewhere among them, and his slumberous rumblings made the floorboards rattle.

Caly prodded the human with the tip of her boot. “Maple syrup,” the human muttered, “The whole bottle, please. I like when my waffles float.”

Caly didn’t know what a waffle was, nor why it should be desirable to have one floating in tree sap, and she didn’t really care. Even the human’s dreams are pure nonsense.

Caly tipped her head, letting the sunlight hit him in the face. Taws waved his hand as if he could make the sun go away, and, between smacks of his lips, said, “I’m still eating!” The boar, upset by the movement, let out a little indignant grunt, and used its black tusks to shovel its way out of the human’s grip.

“Where ya going?” the human said sadly, still sleepy or drunk or both, “We were just about to have bacon …”

But the piglet was already trotting off down the dirt street, headed home. The human sat up and shielded his face from the sunlight with one hand. He squinted up at her, and for a moment, Caly thought she saw a flash of real intelligence in his dark eyes.

“I thought you were a dream.”

“Well, I’m not,” Caly said. “And don’t ever dream about me again.”

He didn’t smile, so much as grimace. It looked like he was hurting. The less perceptive might’ve guessed the pain was from his hangover, but Caly thought there was something else wrong with him. And then, after a considered moment, she thought, Who cares? Not my problem.

“Guess I overslept,” the human said, kicking mud off his boots. “I should be on the road.”

“You owe me a hundred fifty thousand synars.”

“A hundred fifty thousand? I could buy a farm in Yonder for that—”

“You owe my partner the same,” Caly added.

The human looked at his hands, frowning as he turned them over and inspected his palms, too. “Maybe I am still dreaming.”

“Lucky for you,” Caly continued, “You’re in a unique position to help us out.”

“How do you figure?”

“Yole. You’re going after her. I talked it over with my partner, and he seems to think there’s a chance you might actually be able to kill her—”

“I’m not going to kill her.”

“Whatever. Here’s the deal: she’s got a bounty. The Mayors of New Nowhere have put in quite the sum for her head. You, me, and Olm split it three ways. Forty for the two of us, and twenty percent to you, because you owe us. Don’t worry, we’ll pull our weight.”

“Alive?” the human asked.

Caly shrugged as if to say Anything is fine, when she was really thinking, There’s no way you’re going to get the Mad Queen alive.

“And this will, in your eyes, make us even?”

“Yes.”

“One problem. The way I see it, I never promised you any money.”

“You cheated.”

“So did you.”

“You stole.”

“The only way you’d know that, is if you tried to steal, too.”

Caly blew a frustrated breath through her nose. This was going nowhere. What would the mentors of Marse say? New paths yield new profits, or something like that.

Caly softened her voice, and tried again. “You’re a pacifist?”

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“Depends on how you define it.” Taws made a disgusting sound in his throat, and hocked something up. Caly was glad her visor was still dark, for it hid her disgust. “You don’t like killing people.”

“Does anyone?” the human asked. “Nevermind. Don’t answer that.”

“If you don’t help us get our money,” Caly said, “Olm and I will die.”

“Everyone dies.”

“That money you stole,” Caly said. “That was it. Our debts are due. Without it, we’re dead.”

He stared at her, though he couldn’t see her face. Then, he closed his eyes and dropped his head. As she had been trained to do, Caly pressed the attack.

“I’ve seen the way you move,” Caly said. “But if you want to take Yole down, you’re going to need help. Olm and I, we’re good. Damn good. But we can’t take on Yole alone. The three of us can help each other do the right thing.”

The human gave a small, weary smile. “You sure know all the right words, don’t you?”

“Just say yes.” Caly put out a hand.

He took it.

And when she pulled him up to his feet, she almost fell over. Damn, he’s heavier than he looks. Taws dusted himself off, accomplishing very little. He swept his hair behind his ears, and threw his poncho over his shoulder in an attempt to look heroic.

“So,” he said, gallantly, “You really need my help?”

Thanks to the visor, he couldn’t see her roll her eyes. “Yes,” she said flatly, “We really do.”

“And, as a man of honor, I am obliged to give it.”

“Then we’re agreed?” Caly asked. “Forty, forty, twenty for Mad Yole’s head.”

“And her body,” the human said. “Alive. You can keep your money.”

“I … you … what?”

But the human was stretching his arms over his head, and didn’t seem to hear her.

Is this a trick?

Is he insane?

She’d thought he was a little loose in the dome before, but now the worry set in. Maybe this wasn’t such a good plan after all …

“Forth!” the human shouted, loud enough to rouse the drunkards asleep on the porch. “To victory! And peace!” He pulled open his vest, and brought out the largest revolver she’d ever seen, and aimed it triumphantly at the sky. Though the blinding sunlight gleamed off its hard, utilitarian contours, a light inside the cylinder glowed brighter still.

“We go to the Northern Palace, in the name of Justice, to end the reign of that infamous Queen!” And he marched past Caly, as proud as a prize-winning steer.

Caly put her head in her hands, and groaned. “Human,” she said. “North is that way.”

***

The clouds crawled across the sky like bloated earthworms, their underbellies illuminated by a dusty yellow sun. The wind brought with it a chill that cut through the warmth of her suit. She had to wriggle her fingers and toes to keep them from going numb. Olm was sitting behind her, so at least her back was warm while she piloted the three of them through the high desert.

The human didn’t have a ride. No bike, no off-roader, and no homemade hovercraft to his name. So, for now, he was squeezed behind Olm on the back of the Synod bike. Caly still had no idea how he’d outpaced her and Olm on their trek to the Orphanarium.

Plates of reddish gray sand were outlined with a dramatic dusting of white snow. In some places, the sand and the snow buried the road, so Caly was forced to navigate by coordinates alone. Tough knots of grass sprouted up in clumps, blades fanning out like knives made of glass. When she rode over them, they shattered beneath the force of the bike’s repulsors, sending sprays of ice in their wake.

After a few hundred kilometers, they stopped to stretch and deal with their respective biologies. Olm, returning from behind a sparse bush, was buckling his belt when he asked the human, “So, uh, Taws. Where are you from, anyway?”

“The Local Group. Well, I guess it’s more local to us. But humans originated on Earth.”

“Never heard of it.”

“It’s galactic east of Core. Close, but not that close.”

Caly eyed him doubtfully. If humans were close to the Synod Core, then how had she not heard of them? For that matter, how did they not show up in the public records at all?

“I’ll show you,” the human said. Once more, Caly saw those silvery threads writhing over the backs of his hands as the human brought his palms together. When he opened them, an illuminated image shimmered into being. A star map, with a few dozen labels on it. A pretty parlor trick, and a useful one, but Caly couldn’t see where the light was being projected from. She didn’t have time to ask before the human started interacting with the map.

“Here,” he said, and without moving his hands, Ilna Solin became highlighted, “Is your Capital.”

“You mean our capital,” Caly said.

“Sure.”

The map zoomed out. The labels shrank, and the galaxies blended together. “And a few million light years to the galactic east—” he pointed at a haze of galaxies, slightly separated from the rest, “This is our local group, where almost every single human is, right now.”

Only this cluster was in normal space. It swirled and shimmered at the center of a Lake.

Caly snorted.

“Hm,” the hrutskuld said, uncomfortably.

“What?” the human asked.

“What do you mean what?” Caly said. “This whole playing dumb thing is getting old.”

Taws’ eyebrows knitted together, more confused than ever. Caly had to admit, it was a pretty good act.

“It’s not that I don’t believe you human,” Olm said.

“I don’t,” Caly said.

“It’s that you cannot have come from there.”

“Why not?” Taws looked genuinely shocked.

“Because those galaxies are lost.”

“Lost?”

“Drowned in the void. Dead space,” Caly added. “There’s nothing there. Nothing but a Gray Lake.”

“A what?”

“Is he serious?” Caly looked at Olm, who could only shrug. Neither of them had seen anything like this. Even those little orphans back at Gran’s would’ve been taught about the Lakes that dotted the Synod.

So, Caly rounded on Taws, almost pressing her helmet to his face, “Listen, Human. Because I’m such a nice person, I’m going to explain this under the assumption that you’re not yanking my chain, and somehow, you made it all the way through this life without hearing about the Gray Lakes. Nobody lives there. Nothing can live there. They’re empty. Nothing there but stars and cold rocks floating around them. Each one is a broken piece of the universe, where ships lose their drive, anything that lenses won’t lens, and communicators unravel like pieces of string. Not even the Dys could build out there, which means there are no hyperlanes in the Lakes. Nothing goes in. And,” she jabbed him in the chest with a single, extended finger, “And no one comes out. So if you’re going to make up a bald-faced lie, either get the basic facts right or find yourself a more gullible group of idiots.”

Caly turned on her heel and stomped back toward the bike.

“What did I say?” Taws asked.

“She’s got a thing about liars.”

“I wasn’t lying. You believe me, don’t you?”

Olm rubbed his chin thoughtfully and gave a deeply puzzled and noncommittal, “Hm.”