“Almost three anna now, it’s been” the old Consortian began, taking a seat as well, leaning casually over the soot-covered table. By the dirt on his work suit, he obviously didn’t care about accumulating more grime.

“There were ten of us still here,” he continued. “Two other – suspended survivors like Traejan and me – and others working on keeping the past alive. We helped each other, tried to help the people in Panak. That’s a nearby… settlement.”

“Many people there?”

“Fewer every annum these days, or so Traejan tells me,” he offered. “Not the most amenable of people, nor their Ginga – the ignorant thug – who runs the place.”

Kyso twisted his lips, wagged a finger at her.

“I would not recommend you deal with him.”

She nodded, thug or not, ignorant or not, revealing herself to any established authority, had never been a been a good idea for her. She gestured for him to continue.

“But… as hard as we tried, nothing changed, not really,” Kyso’s voice grew tired, deflated. “What we have here, it’s practically unusable. Our search for the necessities of survival was getting us desperate, nowhere or killed; until the rumor.”

“Rumor?”

He shifted in his seat; rubbed his beard with a dirty hand.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

“More than a rumor, we were given specific details about an underground complex with a large cache of trilium; maybe a six’s worth. You can imagine how we reacted.”

Of course she could. That much could probably power the resort for years, more than she dared carry.

“Traejan, Kaelin and the others were determined to go. It was too good to pass up and close enough to the Ice Line to be relatively safe.”

“You didn’t go?”

“No,” he told her, bitterness in his voice, lifted a hand to his chest. “That annum… my lungs… I was very ill. What can I say? We have no medicines to speak of either. I stayed back, Jossick and Felda stayed with me.”

“You aren’t a native of this world are you?” she asked gently.

He smiled.

“I wondered when you were going to ask about that,” he replied. “I was born on Propero Crassis Decimus.”

“That’s a long way from here,” Althea knew. “It’s on the other side of the galaxy.”

He looked down for a moment, then back up at her.

“Is it–”

She didn’t know enough about the world to offer a proper, comforting lie.

“It’s supposed to be,” was the best she could come up with. “I haven’t been that far.”

It was a mistake to bring that up, she realized, seeing the effect her doubt had on him; his slumping posture, narrowing of gaze, exhale of breath. She returned the conversation to the local, recent past.

“What happened to them?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” he confessed. “They left, didn’t stay in Panak, though. The folk there, they blamed Traejan for the disaster, hated him for a long time.”

He sighed, dropped the hand.

“I did too,” he admitted, “for a while.”

He shook his head slowly, sad eyes looking for something in hers, sympathy perhaps.

“It’s wrong … to blame someone, simply for surviving. What he lost…”

“What did he say happened?”

“It was crazy, didn’t make sense. I know he found a few friends from Panak to join in on the trip, maybe they were responsible.”

Kyso pursed his lips, conflicted.

“He said they turned on each other… started killing each other. Then the constructs came… and… and– killed the rest.”