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He’d been rocking for over an hour now.

Sitting in the middle of the room, Iago had removed most of the furniture, getting rid of some, and placing others in storage.  A lot of things had been knocked around in all the actions the ship had seen – while normally such things were secured prior to going into action, he . . .

He’d forgotten.

It was a good excuse, though, to get rid of it all.

He didn’t need it – didn’t need the objects he felt sure were full of scanners and bugs.

He’d found one, in the new chair that Zeela Cann had had brought to him recently, when he’d broken the arm of the old one.

Broken, a part of his mind asked.  Or had they set it up to fail to justify putting the spying device in his room?

He had torn the new chair apart until he’d found it.  He’d known it would be there.  It was cleverly disguised as a smartchip, but he knew the tell-tale signs of it being more.  The angles on the circuitboard were a little too curved, some of the colors not quite the standard shade of green.  This was top-level equipment, disguised incredibly well as something mundane.

He was sure of it.

Clutching it in his hand, so hard that the edges cut him, he ignored the pain, and rocked more.

Why had everyone he trusted turned on him?  The Captain, Zeela, even Pirra.  They had treated him like an outsider – spied on him, lied to him.

It had to be because of what he’d seen.

Sometimes he wondered if any of it was actually real.  Perhaps they’d never even gone into combat.  Perhaps in the night they had taken him and hooked him into a system that merely tricked his mind into thinking he was experiencing these events.

For all he knew they weren’t even in the Mopu system.

Elliot was out doing volunteer work helping to repair part of the irrigation system in the garden.  Easy work, it would be good for him.  Even if it wasn’t real, it would help allay their suspicion and give the boy something to focus on.

He’d always kept a few Blank Boxes around, for security reasons.  Just turn them on, they jammed nearly all recording or spying equipment in a small, adjustable radius.  The smart system would provide enough false data to not arouse suspicion.

Of course, by even using it, if they were paying serious attention, they would see through it.  He’d know for sure, if they came for him when he put it on.

An even better reason to get Elliot out.

He hardly wanted his son here if they came in to take him away . . . to where, he couldn’t even fathom.  But if they had lied to him this much, manipulated, used him . . . then they might do anything.  There might be a secret deck . . .

No, there couldn’t be a secret deck, he scolded himself.  He knew the Craton inside and out!

Unless . . . unless he’d never known it?

He was too afraid to contemplate that to its conclusion.

A sound chimed on his door, and his heart nearly stopped.

But the door didn’t open, and no one even requested entry.

For a moment, he waited, for the door to be forced open and for a Response team to rush in.  To think it could even be Pirra leading them, to arrest him . . .

All for what he’d seen.

Because they were after that knowledge, weren’t they?  They didn’t know what harm it could do, did do, had done to him.  They would only want to know it so they could know the thing, to know all things.  Catalogue them, put them in a computer record and then lock it away.  Along with him.

Just not Elliot . . .

Pirra had always loved him like family.  His only hope remained that, if they had to take him, she might be kind to his son.

Because right now they had no way out.

The door, he realized, had not been forced.

He wanted to look out with the camera, but his own Blank Box was preventing that.

Rising, he went to the door, listening through it for the tell-tale sound of armed officers moving, shuffling, waiting.  But he heard nothing.

Opening the door cautiously, he saw no one.

But on the floor near his door was a small plastic card.

Taking it, he saw it was folded in half.  He stepped back inside, moving away from the door in case they still blasted it open.

Then he opened the card.  In the dim light he preferred anymore, it was hard to read, but he could still make it out.

What you have seen is a gift, it said.  I can help you.

Await further contact.

His heart was beating again, his pulse pounding.

This could be a trap, he thought.  But no . . .  No, it wasn’t.

There was an image below it.  It was a cube, the three-dimensional object rendered in 2D with lines . . . but there was an extra set of lines, that connected to nothing, heading off into . . .

Into a space beyond the spaces they knew.  Beyond the dimensional space that all of humanity before him had ever been limited to . . .

Iago Caraval, a man who believed himself lost, realized that he was not alone.

Someone else knew.

Someone else was on his side.

Tears streaked down his cheeks and he slid to the floor, crying and laughing both.

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