It was curious how, as consciousness rejoined him, accompanied by the smell of antiseptics, the electronic chirps of medical machines, a distant throbbing of drug-dulled pain, and the familiar low rumble of a fusion drive, that his first thoughts were of that ancient video-relic. He parted his dry lips and heard the raspy sound of his own voice. “Toto, I don’t think we’re in New Canton anymore.”

“He’s awake!” The voice was Ulysses Paxton’s.

“He’s delirious,” said Deena Onan, a tone of concern in her voice.

He opened his eyes a little, squinting against the stinging brightness. Deena’s face leaned in front of him, and she spoke slowly and loudly, as though he’d been pierced through the eardrums instead of the chest. “My—name—is—not—Toto!”

He chuckled, and it came out as a rasp.

Deena held a straw to his lips, and he sipped, sloshing the water around his mouth to wash away the cotton. “How long?”

“My name’s never been Toto, Lord Governor.”

He looked at her. She was a mess—a large purple bruise on her left cheek, the bridge of her nose taped, and a half-healed cut on her lower lip. Her skin looked red and slightly parboiled.

Ulysses looked even worse, with bandages seemingly covering half his body, and bruises the rest. His eyes still looked red and irritated—from seawater or smoke, Aaron couldn’t tell—and the big man occasionally emitted a deep liquid cough. There was a brace around one knee and another around one wrist, but nothing appeared to be broken.

Nothing appeared to be overly healed either. He hadn’t been unconscious too long, then. He wondered how bad he looked, then decided he didn’t want to know.

A medic in a green-and-white jacket checked his pulse. Aaron glanced up at the man’s chiseled profile and cleft chin, and decided that he must be a doctor.

Aaron was startled when the doctor turned to shine a penlight into his eyes, and he saw the man’s full face for the first time. A jagged pink scar extended up from the right corner of his mouth to his forehead, crossing his right eye socket. The eye on that side was a silvery artificial orb with a black lens in the middle. He could see something moving beneath the glass as the eye changed focus.

The doctor’s eyebrow rose as he saw Aaron’s reaction. “Not much to wake up to, I’ll admit, but it’s lucky for you. If it wasn’t for this scar, somebody with my qualifications would never let themselves be stuck on a tramp freighter.”

A shorter, older man with a gray beard stepped forward. “Hell, Doc, you love it, and you know it.”

The doctor glanced at the bearded man, but didn’t argue. He turned back and examined the red-tinged bandage taped to Aaron’s chest. “The shard of ferro-glass missed your aorta and your spine and only nicked a lung. You’re a lucky man, Lord Governor. There are a lot of ways you could have been dead.”

You don’t know the half of it. Aaron looked past the doctor to study the bearded man. He wore a blue merchant marine shirt, untucked at the waist, and a white cap with captain’s bars pinned in the middle. The only decorations on the shirt were a pair of gold DropShip wings and a stylized set of tank treads crossed with a red lightning bolt. A tanker’s pin. Why does a DropShip captain wear a tanker’s pin? He recognized the face as the man who had piloted the LoaderMech that had come to their rescue.

The bearded man stepped forward, studied Aaron for a moment, then wrinkled his nose. “Don’t smell like a duke,” he said.

Paxton stepped in close to him, frowning. “Respect!”

The captain didn’t flinch. He looked up into Paxton’s eyes. “Well, he’s not my duke.” Then he looked back at Aaron and shrugged. “Still, he’s a customer. Don’t pay to be too rude to a customer, long as they pay.”

Aaron grinned. He liked the man’s pluck. “You’ll get paid, Captain…?”

The captain tugged at the brim of his cap briefly. “Captain Gus Clancy of the DropShip Tyrannos Rex.”

“I’ll ask again. How long have I been out?”

“Three days,” said Paxton. “We’re well on our way to the JumpShip.”

“No one is coming after us?”

Paxton smiled slightly. “We pulled six Gs getting off New Canton. I would have never believed an Excalibur could do that without shredding apart. I’ll hand it to Captain Clancy; this ship is much more than it seems.

“We had some planetary defense fighters dogging us, but Captain Clancy put some missiles across their bows and then pulled a high-G slingshot maneuver around the third moon that had us all wondering if we were going to clip a mountaintop. But nobody tried to follow us after that, and things cooled off.”

Aaron nodded. “The assassination attempt failed, and their attempts to correct that mistake were getting increasingly messy. They finally cut their losses.”

Captain Clancy seemed to remember something, and dug a folded piece of paper out of his shirt pocket. There was a ring-shaped coffee stain on the back. “I reckon that might explain this. Came in for you on the datafax from New Canton an hour ago.”

Paxton glared at Clancy. “You read it?”

Clancy looked indignant. “It’s my blasted datafax.”

Aaron glanced at the doctor, his practiced eyes neither avoiding the man’s scarred face, nor staring at it. “Doctor, will you excuse us for a moment? Apparently I have nothing to hide from Captain Clancy, so he can remain.”

“Well, ain’t that nice,” said the captain sarcastically.

Aaron looked at Deena. “Read it.”

She took the paper, her eyes widening as she saw the name at the top. “It’s from the Lord Governor.

“‘My dearest, Duke Sandoval. It is with great horror and regret that I apologize for the unfortunate events that befell you during your hasty departure from New Canton. Imagine my delight when I learned that you had miraculously survived the accidental crash of your DropShip. Let me assure you that, despite some miscommunication with the local authorities, you were never in any danger.’”

Aaron saw Paxton’s mouth curl into a sneer.

Deena continued reading. “‘Although present circumstances divide us politically, let me assure you that I have nothing but the highest personal regard for the Duke and his family. Perhaps in another time, we will yet again be allies.

“‘Lord Governor Harri Golan,’ blah, blah, etc., etc.”

Aaron chuckled. “Covering his ass.”

Deena looked puzzled. “How so, Lord Governor? He’s allied himself with our enemies, and he’s trying to be cordial?”

“He fears I’ll seek personal revenge, or worse—that Liao’s incursion will ultimately be repelled, leaving him alone and in a very embarrassing position. He knows it was an assassination attempt, probably by that toad Sebhat, not the Lord Governor himself—not that it matters to me. He knows I know. He knows I have enough money to hire many assassins.”

Paxton looked concerned, probably imagining an escalating war of assassination attempts. “And will you?”

“What would be the point? I’m above petty acts of revenge. Better to make him worry and fret about it, lying awake every night listening for footsteps outside his door, torturing himself, until one day when I approach him. That day, he will beg to find my favor again. Isn’t that better in the long run?”

Paxton nodded. “The Duke is wise.”

Aaron grinned. “The bodyguard is diplomatic. I wonder what you’d have said if I’d put a price on the bastard’s head?”

Paxton just looked at him and cocked an eyebrow.

“Lord Governor,” said Deena, leaning in close to look at his face, “you look tired.” She turned to the others. “He looks tired.”

Clancy crossed his arms over his chest. “Tired, is he? When we’ve still got business to attend to?”

“He’s tired,” she insisted.

“Excuse me,” said Aaron. “Do I get a say in this? Hello? Still the Duke.”