I crossed via the airgate with Maxilla and Medea and we were met by the master, a hirsute, sluggish man called Okeen. He ran the place with a staff of four. It was a twenty-month contract, he explained, and then they stood down in favour of a fresh crew. They didn't get many visitors, he told us. They'd be happy to resupply the Essene's technical needs, for a competitive price, he told us.
He told us plenty. Isolation does terrible things to men's minds.
We couldn't shut him up. I finally left him with Maxilla. Maxilla could talk too.
Medea and I went to the station's central hub to see if the resident astropath had received any messages for us from Gideon. It was a dismal place of rotting and poorly maintained hallways and dark hangars. There was a background smell that I decided was spoiled meat and Medea maintained was stale lactose.
It turned out that, despite Okeen's non-stop chatter, there was one thing he hadn't told us.
Someone was waiting for us in the recreation lounge.
'Gregor.' Fischig rose to his feet from a threadbare couch. He was dressed in black with a waist-length shipboard cape of dark red, wire-shot fully that was secured at his throat with a small, silver Inquisitorial crest.
I faced him across the room. "What are you doing here, Godwyn?'
'Waiting for you, Gregor. Waiting for a chance to make things right.'
'And how do you propose doing that?'
He shrugged. It was an open, relaxed, almost apologetic gesture. 'I said things I shouldn't have. Judged you too quickly. I always was a hard-nosed idiot. You'd think my years of service with you might have taught me the error.'
'You'd think/ quipped Medea.
I held up a warning finger to silence her. 'You made your feelings perfectly clear on Hubris, Fischig. I'm not sure we can work together any more. There's a mutual lack of trust/
'Which I want to do away with/ he said. I'd never heard him so calm or sincere.
'Godwyn, you questioned my purity, branded some of my actions heretical and then offered to redeem me/
'I was drank for that last part/ he said, with a tiny flash of smile.
'Yes, you were. And what are you now?'
'Here. Willing. Reconciled/
'Well/ I said. 'Let's start with the "here" part. How the hell did you know I'd be here?'
He paused. I looked round slowly at Medea who was studying the deck.
'You told him where I'd be, didn't you?'
'Uhm…'
'Didn't you?'
She snapped round to face me, every bit as haughty and rebellious as her dear, damned father. 'All right, I did! Okay? We need Fischig-'
'Maybe we don't, girl.'