“Like no Crafter I ever saw,” he whispered to Shibo.

“Modified,” she answered softly. “They get free, change themselves.”

The Renegade Crafter squatted on heavy treads which supported the weight of a swollen hull. Ceramic curves bristled with retrofitted capabilities. Snouts. Antennae. Tools. Grapplers. Sensors. Polybind extrusions. Ports. Distorted gunmetal-blue pouches like livid sores.

He stood motionless as his internal alarms jangled with nervous, skittering fear. The Crafter looked dangerous. His sensorium shrieked with warnings of the electromagnetic net the Crafter cast about it. Cloying fields wrapped like cobwebs around Killeen. Probing. Poking brassy filaments into his sensorium.

“Killeen!” Hatchet called. “Translate.”

He had to force himself to stop staring at the Renegade.

He turned to Shibo. Her gaze said to him silently that she, too, was fighting an impulse to bolt.

They exchanged rickety smiles. Killeen let out a long breath, then unlocked his internal alarms. His sensorium subsided into muttering, worried notes.

He and Shibo lowered Toby carefully to the spattered concrete. “We’re safe, standing here?” Killeen asked Hatchet.

“Safe as anythin’ gets. The Renny’s already sent out identifyin’ codes, say we’re a mech work team.”

“But a mech could see—”

“Wouldn’t bother. ’Round here, work area, they just go by the electromag-tag, the Renny told me.”

“Still, should we—”

“Get goin’ ! Tell him ’bout that list things we want.”

Killeen took hesitant steps toward the Crafter. It towered on its augmented treads. Wads of compacted mud and mechwaste were trapped in the lower grooves of it. In some places the metal was slick, polished, and fresh-turned. Back behind that Killeen could see a scabbed, pitted carapace—the original Crafter, which had mutinied against mech civilization to save itself.

Killeen called up Bud. The Face said:

Ready to try.

Can’t promise I’ll get it all.

Killeen studied the Crafter warily. A long moment passed. Without thinking he held his hands open in front of his chest. It would not help make contact but it did give him the feeling of being ready for whatever the Crafter might do. Abruptly Killeen remembered the mouse he had seen long days ago. It, too, had stared in fascination at a being huge and unknowable. It had put its paws up, as if to touch the untouchable. Killeen had been squatting to relieve himself. The mouse might not have understood even that much.

Killeen searched among the Crafter’s many sensor probes. He could not tell which might be watching him.

“Trying to reach it?” he asked Bud. He had tapped Bud’s dry presence fully into his sensorium. At this range the Crafter could easily pick that up from stray fringing fields.

Killeen sensed something gray and huge sliding into the cloudy verge of his sensorium. An angular weight.

Feel something.

Language is changed.

Lots of this I don’t remember.

I’m trying to—

A spike of color exploded in his head. It swelled and faded within one heartbeat and left him.

It reads the list from you.

Approves.

Will get most of it today.

“When?” Killeen asked.

Another soundless splash of color. Then a raw scrape, like sand in his throat. He blinked.

While we do our work.

Wants us go with it.

“Where?”

This time the colors dispersed in waving ivory filaments.

Factory nearby.

We steal some things.

Hatchet asked, “What’s he saying?”

“Wants we steal from one these factories.”

Hatchet nodded. “We been here before.”

Killeen slowly thought words without speaking. I want medical help for my boy. He had to visualize each word separately to be sure Bud got it. The Face was good at picking up on speech, but faulty at internal work.

A pause. Then fine traceries of amber crackled in him.

Boy has Aspects?

What difference does that make? There was no point in telling it anything extra.

Is good if not.

Boy is young human?

“Of course,” Killeen said irritably.

There was some translation difficulty between Bud and the mech. The Crafter had no word for “children.”

Hurry up. The soundless, livid explosions in his mind burst against his eyelids.

Boy not have even full human sensorium?

“No, not yet, I—”

“What’re you telling it?” Hatchet demanded. “Leave me be, I’m—”

“Dammit, don’t waste time on—”

“Back off!” Killeen pushed Hatchet away one-handed without turning his head.

Not yet. Look, a navvy caught him with some Marauder class weapon. Got my left arm, too, see? Whole control complex is cut off. If—

Boy is like animal then.

Crafter says is useful.

We’re not animals! You—

No.

Says is like animal.

If boy without Aspect disks in head.

I asked for help, I’ll bargain for it, see? We steal for the Crafter, it fixes my boy.

“Killeen! What’s—”

Crafter says you not understand.

Boy is to help steal.

Killeen forgot himself and spoke out loud. “The boy isn’t part that!”

Boy must steal.

“Look, he’s not part of the deal,” Killeen said angrily. “We want—”

Hatchet shoved Killeen. “Dammit, what’re you—”

Killeen batted at the man with one hand, still looking up at the Crafter. He wished he knew which sensor to address.

Hatchet punched Killeen in the gut. Killeen hooked his boot behind Hatchet’s leading foot and yanked it off the concrete. Hatchet fell. Killeen kicked him in the side and backed away. “Shibo!”

She glided between them from nowhere, hands held out in what seemed a casual way. But her fingers were rigid, curved cutting edges. Her exskell hummed. It would be good armor in a hand-to-hand fight.

Hatchet sputtered, swore. Cermo-the-Slow edged closer, automatically moving to help his fellow Bishops.

Killeen watched Hatchet get up on hands and knees, his big eyes judging the situation. Striking a Cap’n was a major offense. Hatchet might call on the other Kings to rush both of them. Killeen could see Hatchet think this through, his wobbly chin tucking under, and decide against. Then the chin bobbed up as Hatchet reset his face to mask some of his anger. “You make the deal straight, hear?”

“I am. Crafter’s got some fool idea.”

“You listen him!” Hatchet got up, dusting his palms. He stayed in a crouch. Killeen saw that if Hatchet gave the sign the others would come at them.

“I will. But—”

“Listen good!”

“It’s talking about using Toby. The boy’s in no condition—”

“You listen.”

“I won’t—”

“The Renny knows lots more’n you.” Hatchet frowned, thinking. His face went suddenly blank. “Ah, right.”

Hatchet had somehow understood what the Crafter meant. Killeen wanted to ask but knew he could not trust the answer. The man’s face was now impassive. His chin was underslung, as if to disown what the mild expression implied.

Killeen let his breath out slowly. Best to stall. If Hatchet found some way of going around Killeen, of get ting what the Kings wanted without using a translator, all hope for Toby was lost. “Yeasay… yeasay.”

“Damn right,” Hatchet said severely. “Talk out loud, too. I want hear everything.”

“Yeasay.”

Hatchet nodded imperceptibly to the other Kings. They relaxed slightly.

Wants you all come.

Show you what to take.

“How long will it be?”

No measure.

Killeen whispered, “Crafter won’t say.” The longer they spent here, the greater the danger. Some Marauder would see them.