 
# Junkyard

## Lindsay Buroker
Copyright © 2019 by Lindsay Buroker

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

### Contents

Part I

Part II

Part III

Part IV

Epilogue

# Part I

Frost edged the mossy cracks in the pavement in front of the Maple Moon warehouse and sugarhouse. McCall Richter wrinkled her nose, imagining the frozen crystals coating her cilia, and tucked her hands under her armpits as she walked. Her new employee, Scipio, said nothing of the cold, but frost wouldn't bother an android capable of repairing spaceships from the outside. While in flight.

Plumes of smoke wafted from the chimneys of the sugarhouse, infusing the crisp early spring air with the scent of maple syrup. Imagining cherry-red furnaces inside, McCall wished her instructions had said to meet the owner in there. But she was supposed to meet Mr. David Dunham in the warehouse after landing, its corrugated steel walls just as frosty as the pavement.

She looked wistfully back at her ship. The _Star Surfer_ , its sleek purple hull gleaming under the early-morning suns, its environmentally-controlled interior always at a comfortable temperature, rested a mere fifty meters behind her. The interior also happened to be comfortably free of unfamiliar people with expectations she didn't know if she could meet.

Maybe it wasn't too late to back out...

A trio of men walked out of the warehouse, and she held back a grimace. They wore trousers and parkas, not combat armor, but that didn't make her any less wary. They were strangers, and she always felt the need to put on a mask for strangers. Force a smile, make eye contact, pretend talking about planetary weather wasn't inane. There was a reason she usually only accepted jobs via text.

"For future reference, you're not allowed to set up meetings," she muttered to Scipio.

The android gave her Inquiring Head Tilt Number Two—in the three months he had been aboard her ship, McCall had mentally cataloged the various facial expressions he was programmed with and given them labels. She often had a hard time reading human faces, but his features arranged themselves in precisely the same manner to simulate well-defined emotions, which made them easier to grasp.

"You gave me the position of personal assistant and said I should interact with people on behalf of your business. Is setting up meetings not a typical duty?"

"Not with people I don't know and for a job I'm not qualified to do."

"I read the last ten years of your assignment records so I could thoroughly familiarize myself with your business. I understand that you usually seek out missing people rather than missing goods, but I am certain you are qualified to do this."

"What I'm qualified to do and what I _want_ to do aren't the same thing."

McCall knew she sounded peevish—the unassailable logic of an android could bring that out in anyone—but there wasn't time to explain that she'd spent the last fifteen years carefully crafting a cocoon in which she could thrive. Leaving it usually turned into anxiety, stress, and sensory overload that could put her into an exhausted funk for days. Thank the suns she'd reached the point in her career where she could call the shots and make a comfortable living from within the private protected walls of her ship.

"Good morning, Captain Richter," one of the three men said as the trio stopped in front of her.

He had a blunt face, a broad build, and a beard long enough to scrub out his bellybutton when he showered. Because of the beard, she recognized him as the man who wanted to hire her. David Dunham.

"It is Captain, isn't it?" he added. "Or do you prefer Detective? Officer?"

He looked her up and down, as if her ponytail, fur-lined jacket, hiking shoes, and loose trousers might give some clue to a rank. Or maybe the charm bracelet she was twisting around her wrist without realizing it. When she noticed him glancing at it, she jerked her hands down to her side.

"I work with the imperial space fleet and law enforcement sometimes, but I'm a civilian. You can call me Captain if you like—the ship is mine." She waved behind her. "But McCall or Richter are fine too."

The two silent men behind the speaker gazed blandly at the ship. They wore blazer rifles slung across their backs on straps and had the hulking miens of bouncers. Security guards, she presumed.

Two days ago, she wouldn't have guessed a maple syrup factory would need security. That had been before she looked up the business and how much the stuff sold for. Premium maple syrup, derived from sap tapped from trees that could trace their lineage to the seeds originally brought on the colony ships from Old Earth, went for a hundred imperial morats a gallon.

"It's a very purple spaceship," one of the guards said.

He wore a glove on his right hand but not his left. The skin on the exposed hand appeared slightly waxy, reminding McCall of Scipio's not entirely realistic synthetic flesh.

"Yes," she said when he looked at her as though expecting a response. "Criminals don't see it as a threat until it's too late."

That was the reason she always gave for the unique paint job even though the real reason was "Because it's different, and I like that." Maybe someday, she would be comfortable enough in her own skin to simply say that. But she'd spent too much of her life trying to pass for normal for anything else to come easily now.

"This is my assistant, Scipio," McCall added. "He's the one you spoke with on the vid."

Scipio adjusted the navy blue suit he wore, the front open to reveal a white shirt fastened with horizontal bamboo clasps that were apparently "on trend" now.

"Greetings," Scipio said.

The men nodded at him, but they were dismissive nods. The talking-to-the-woman's-android-can't-be-important nods she'd seen before.

"Captain Richter," Dunham said. "I appreciate you coming out. My father owns this installation and the sugarbush plantation out back, but he's retired, so I run things. The business has been in our family since this moon was first terraformed and settled. We make do, but we're independent operators without wealthy backers, and the government..." He spread a hand, and McCall didn't need to be good at reading faces to guess that he was refraining from complaining about the rules, regulations, and price-setting by the empire. One never knew who would report back to government officials, resulting in a "therapist" showing up and deciding a loyal subject needed a mental adjustment.

"You said someone stole some of your syrup?" McCall wanted to move things along—imperial politics wasn't a passion of hers, and thanks to the less-than-legal way she'd liberated Scipio from his previous owner, she was the last person who would report someone to the government.

" _Some_?" one of the guards balked.

"We're missing over two hundred tons of syrup," Dunham said. "It's valued at over four million morats."

"Your farm sounds lucrative, sir," Scipio observed.

Dunham grimaced. "That represents more than this year's harvest. The sap flow for the last few years was good, and because the government dictates how much we can sell each year, we have— _had_ —extra in storage. I have twenty employees in addition to family members working here, and we have production and distribution costs, and the empire takes almost fifty percent in taxes. We're not wealthy, if that's what you're implying."

Scipio tilted his head. "I was merely making an observation, Mr. Dunham."

"Scipio is chatty," McCall said. "Want to show me around and tell me everything? Wait, before we start, I want to make sure you know my expertise lies in finding _people_ , right? I'm a skip tracer, not a detective. I specialize in locating people who've stopped making payments on their spaceships or ground vehicles and then skipped town—or the planet. I do occasionally find hardened criminals, too, but I've never been hired to look for sweets."

"Whoever stole my syrup _is_ a criminal." Dunham scraped his fingers through his beard in an agitated gesture. "They're going to sell it on the black market and leave me with imperials sniffing around, wondering if _I_ arranged everything to avoid paying taxes. It's only been three days since we discovered the theft. I'm hoping that last month's Alliance spaceport bombing has made security too tough for the criminal to arrange transportation off the moon for such a large and illegal cargo. If so, it has to be somewhere on the moon, and we might yet recover it."

McCall nodded, taking in the information without commenting, though she wondered why someone would have stolen something during a month when transporting it to the black market would have been next to impossible.

"This way, please, Captain." Dunham and his guards headed toward an open roll-up door in the front of the warehouse.

McCall was relieved he wanted to get straight to work. Often, she had to deal with people who were shocked that she was a woman and asked all sorts of silly questions about what it was like working in a man's business. Admittedly, her name—inspired by her mother's obsession with Old Earth historical romance novels—didn't suggest to potential clients that she would be a woman, but it wasn't as if she was a bounty hunter and went down to planets to forcibly collect the criminals herself. She simply pointed them out for those who hired her and let them handle the rest.

"Captain," Scipio said as they walked, "I am no more chatty than other androids of my line. As a personal assistant model, I have been programmed to gather information about people and anticipate their needs so that I may better serve. Do you find me overly garrulous for your tastes?"

"No. If you talk and ask questions, I won't have to. It's perfect."

Scipio gave her Puzzled Expression Number One. "Humans are social animals. Do you not find interacting with them necessary for mental health?"

"No."

"Is it because of your autism diagnosis?"

McCall flushed and almost snapped another, "No," but Dunham looked back, and she gave Scipio a stop-talking gesture. She didn't even share her breakfast preferences with strangers, much less what was in her medical records. Maybe she should have been more selective in the background information she'd given her new employee to pursue. She'd simply wanted him familiar with her work.

Thankfully, Dunham didn't comment on the conversation. He came to a stop inside the chilly warehouse and turned to face her again.

"Let us negotiate before we start."

"Fine with me," McCall said.

"Your fees for finding people are quite high."

"I've been in the field for fifteen years. I'm experienced and good at what I do."

McCall squinted into the gloom, willing her eyes to adjust to the shadowy interior of the warehouse. Stacks of drums filled more than half of it, with doors in the back and on one side leading to offices. Considering the warehouse had suffered a substantial theft, she would have expected far fewer drums.

"Would you consider charging less to find syrup than you do people?" Dunham asked.

"As you pointed out, a person had to have stolen it. If we find the person, we'll find your missing goods."

"Unless this all happened months ago, and they're already off-moon," one of the men muttered.

"Is that likely?" McCall envisioned chasing maple-syrup thieves all over the Tri-Sun System and grimaced.

"No." Dunham shook his head, but behind him, the guard nodded.

How could they have only found out three days ago if the theft could have happened months ago? Or even last month? Lights were on in the office, and the warehouse appeared to be staffed on a daily basis.

"It couldn't have happened over the winter." Dunham frowned at the guard. "Everything was locked down tight, and nobody was on the premises. The undisturbed locks confirm that. It's only been five weeks since we opened up for the year."

The man opened his mouth to reply, but Dunham made a chopping gesture not unlike the one she'd given Scipio earlier. He turned back to McCall and took a deep breath.

"I'm a little short on liquid funds right now," he told her.

McCall couldn't help but give Scipio a very dry look. _This_ was one of the reasons she usually took jobs from established corporations and the government rather than individuals.

He gazed back blandly.

"Would you consider partial payment in maple syrup?" Dunham asked. "Assuming you're able to find the missing syrup and return it, we can pay you from those reserves."

"That's a lot of assumptions."

"I can pay _part_ of your fee in morats," Dunham said, "if you agree to the case. And one percent of the syrup recovered."

" _One_ percent?" McCall had done pro-bono work before, and was at the point in her career where she could afford to take time off for charitable activities, but she was skeptical that someone with millions of morats of syrup in his warehouse was a candidate for charity. "Make it twenty percent, and you can forgo the rest of the fee."

" _Twenty_." Dunham rocked back on his heels.

One of the guards reached out, perhaps intending to catch him by the beard if he tipped too far back.

But Dunham recovered and shook his head vigorously. "That's two hundred tons of syrup. Your cargo hold wouldn't even carry that much."

"My ship has no trouble carrying that much cargo. You should see how many suits Scipio has in his closet."

Dunham gave her what seemed to be the human equivalent of Puzzled Expression Number Two.

"My entire clothing collection weighs approximately thirty-four point seven three pounds, Captain." Scipio also gave her the puzzled expression.

McCall waved away what had been an attempt at a joke. "Never mind. Give me a counter offer, Mr. Dunham."

"Five percent."

"Fifteen." McCall hated negotiating and avoided all flea markets where bartering was commonplace, but she also didn't like being taken advantage of. She deemed it very possible that she could spend months on this and not find the syrup in the end. People could be slathering it all over their pancakes right now. If it was unrecoverable, she would end up with nothing, and like Dunham, she had operating costs—a spaceship wasn't an insignificant thing to keep running. "Fifteen percent and no fee. I'm taking all the risk here."

Dunham took a deep breath. "Ten percent." He stuck out his hand.

"Ten percent." McCall nodded firmly, hoping that would do since she didn't like touching strangers—or friends.

Dunham nodded back but kept his hand out. His brow creased, and he peered into her eyes. McCall held back a grimace and made herself clasp his hand and meet his eyes, lest he think her up to something duplicitous.

"Give me a tour and introduce me to your employees, please," McCall said, pulling her netdisc out of her pocket.

All she truly wanted were the names of all the employees so she could look them up on the sys-net. If she had to rely on her ability to question people and ferret out whether they were lying by their body language, she wouldn't be able to locate soap in a lavatory, much less a slick syrup criminal.

"This way." Dunham waved to the guards, and they took up positions beside the front and rear exterior doors in the warehouse.

"Is someone on guard around-the-clock?" Scipio asked as they followed Dunham toward the offices.

" _Now_ , they are. Before, I had a security system, but whoever stole the syrup got past it somehow. I'm not positive, but I think they created a loop of a time when nothing was going on and inserted that for the night of the theft. Or _nights_. A lot of syrup was moved. It would have taken time."

"Do any of your employees have the expertise to do that?" McCall asked.

"Not that I know of. Other than the basic machinery in the sugarhouse, we're a low-tech operation. You drill holes in the trees, string up the hoses, put the sap in buckets, boil it until it becomes syrup, then store it and ship it out." Dunham stopped in front of two barrels that had been placed on the cement floor near the offices. "You keep asking about employees. Do you believe it was an inside job?"

"Don't you?"

"I suppose it's possible, but I don't know who would be responsible. Desmarais is weird and likes computers, but he's no mastermind criminal."

"Weird?" McCall raised her eyebrows.

"I'll introduce you to him. And to Tate, my operations manager, and also my chief finance officer, Takahashi. He's smart enough he might be able to diddle with the security cameras, but he has access to the company bank account, so if he were going to steal..." Dunham shrugged.

"Understood." McCall asked for first names to go with the surnames she'd been given, then called up the holodisplay on her netdisc and tapped them in to research later.

A raucous barking sounded somewhere outside.

"Guard dog?" McCall asked. "Or have you got someone with hounds searching for tracks in the trees?"

"We're not quite that medieval here. It's the big, nasty junkyard dog next door. He barks whenever our forklift operator moves drums. Or if someone walks past his fence. Or breathes too heavily." Dunham's lips pressed together. "I know the owner and have a key to the lock so we can deposit our refuse there at a reduced rate, but lately, it hasn't been worth the hassle."

Dunham patted a drum, then pulled off a lid that had been loosened. A pungent sweet odor wafted from the viscous dark liquid inside.

"This is maple syrup." He tried to remove the lid on the drum next to it, but that one hadn't been loosened. "Mahajan." He waved to the guard with the single gloved hand. "I'm in need of a can opener."

"Funny, boss."

"I aim to entertain."

"I'm not that amused since this is the fiftieth time you've said that."

"I still find it amusing," the second guard called from his station.

Mahajan used his gloved hand to offer a screw-you gesture before gripping the lid with the bare one and tugging it off without apparent effort.

"Thanks." Dunham shooed the guard back, then pointed again at the first drum. "Syrup," he repeated to McCall. Presumably for dramatic flair and not because he thought she was slow. He waved his hand over a far clearer liquid inside the second drum. "This is water." He spat on the floor and pointed toward several stacks of drums. "All of those were once filled with maple syrup and are now filled with water."

"Every drum in the warehouse?" Scipio asked.

"Not every one, but more than half."

McCall stared bleakly at the water, realizing this was why they didn't know when exactly the theft had occurred. The drums had still been present in the warehouse. And full of liquid.

"Have you reported the theft to law enforcement?" Scipio asked.

A back door opened, and two men walked inside and turned into a room at the rear of the warehouse.

"Yes, but they haven't sent anyone out yet. They're all busy sniffing around the spaceport and trying to find Alliance sympathizers. It could be weeks before they bother coming out here."

Dunham frowned and tapped an earstar affixed to his helix. "Dunham here... Yes? Just a minute." He held up a finger toward McCall and walked into one of the offices.

"Let's snoop," McCall whispered to Scipio.

"Snoop? We have been invited here to perform an investigation. Does the word snoop not have furtive and perhaps illegal connotations?"

"Fine, let's investigate."

McCall headed toward the room the newcomers had gone into, wanting to see what else was in the warehouse. She glanced at the guards to see if they would object, but they must have believed she was allowed to snoop.

The back door opened, and another man came in, removing gloves and turning into a different room. McCall glimpsed bare trees outside with trails through dirty gray snow before the door shut.

One of the rooms was simply a lavatory—she decided not to snoop in there. Another was a break area with the smell of coffee hanging in the air. Three men and a woman sat around one table, warming their hands on steaming mugs. At another table, a slender man with salt-and-pepper hair sat by himself, watching something on a netdisc holodisplay. He glanced at the doorway when McCall peeked in, but looked back at his display without making eye contact. The people at the other table hadn't noticed her.

"Get their names and what they do here, will you, Scipio?" She felt guilty foisting grunt work off on him, but he _was_ a personal assistant android and, as far as she could determine, had no aversion to speaking with strangers.

"Certainly, Captain."

"You can call me McCall, you know. It's just the two of us. You don't have to be so formal."

"Certainly, Captain McCall."

"Thank you," she said dryly.

He stepped into the breakroom, and she opened the back door. The forest of maple trees started up at the edge of the pavement ten meters away and stretched back as far as the eye could see. Tubes ran around and between some of the trees. Others simply had buckets hanging from tiny spouts that had been inserted into the trunks.

"Not a high-tech industry indeed," she murmured, amused by the juxtaposition of the buckets dangling from trees and her spaceship parked out front. A lot on the other side of the sugarhouse held ground vehicles, but they didn't appear any more high-tech than the tube setup.

The dog barked, his ringing voice louder with the door open. McCall could see part of the fence of what had to be the junkyard Dunham had mentioned. It was so close to the warehouse, almost touching it on one side, that she wondered if the property had once been owned by the same family.

"Hate this slagging job," a man muttered, walking out of the trees, lugging a wobbly hoverboard, its back end dragging in the snow. A huge pile of equipment was stacked atop it, and thanks to its ill-functioning hover engine, the man was responsible for toting all the weight himself.

He didn't glance at her or seem to notice her as he headed for a door large enough for the sled to fit inside. He was young with dark skin and hair. Hopefully, Scipio would get his name, and she could look him up.

"Oh, uhm, excuse me," someone said behind her.

McCall stepped aside, holding the door open for a man in a hat and parka to step outside. It was the person who'd been sitting by himself in the breakroom. Had he slipped out before Scipio could question him? Or after?

She was inclined to let him go without saying anything, but he stopped and looked at her curiously before shifting his gaze past her and to the trees.

"We need to wait for the temperature to rise two more degrees before the sap will flow," he said. "There's little point in sending men out to check the lines this morning."

"Just what I was thinking," McCall said.

"Are you here to look at the Tercoraosa?"

He wasn't looking at her, which made McCall glance around to see if someone else had walked up. No, the grumpy fellow with the hoverboard had disappeared inside.

"The what?" she asked, feeling stupid. It wasn't a feeling she liked, so she vowed to look up the word when she got back to the ship.

"The Tercoraosa fungus. The original colonists were careful not to bring Anthracnose, Verticillium wilt, or Phyllosticta mimima with them from Old Earth, but there were indigenous fungi on this moon that can be problematic for non-native species as well as native vegetation."

"I'm here to investigate the theft of the maple syrup."

"Oh." He sounded disappointed, like he had hoped she was some fungus-studying scientist with a passion for trees.

"Sorry."

He shrugged and fell silent.

And this was why she preferred to let Scipio interact with strangers.

"What's your name?" she forced herself to ask.

"Louis Desmarais."

Ah. The "weird" employee Dunham had mentioned.

"I'm a botanist," he added, glancing in her direction, but not at her face. "Did you know there were approximately one hundred and twenty-eight species of maple trees on Old Earth? The colonists only brought three with them, and one was irrevocably lost. This species is most prolific in terms of sap production, which we turn into syrup in the sugarhouse."

"Desmarais," Dunham snapped from the hallway. "Break's over. Stop pestering our guest."

"Yes, sir." Desmarais—Louis—dipped his head and shuffled into the woods.

A bark came from behind the fence, and a huge furry head appeared in a spot with a missing board. The dog had to be the size of one of those syrup drums. McCall couldn't tell if it was wagging its tail—the gap wasn't large enough—but it wasn't baring its teeth and snarling the way she'd imagined when Dunham had described it. Louis waved at it as he passed the fence, and the dog disappeared from sight.

"You won't get anything useful from Desmarais," Dunham said. "Unless you want to hear about trees. Or flowers. In the spring he regales us with his knowledge of flowers."

"We all have our passions," McCall murmured, feeling an urge to stand up for Louis, even if she'd just met him.

"Come on. I'll give you a tour of the sugarhouse."

McCall trailed him back toward the other building, reminding herself to get the name of the surly man, though she suspected someone in the middle of becoming extremely wealthy wouldn't be grumpy. No, she needed to find the person wandering around elated. Elated but very nervous.

# Part II

McCall felt much more comfortable back on her ship, sitting in her office with the search algorithms she'd refined over the years spitting out data on the displays floating over her desk. Thank the suns. Her nerves were frayed after the tour of the noisy, cramped, employee-filled sugarhouse, and her nostrils were still protesting the cloying scent of maple syrup that had clogged the air like pollution in Perun Central.

Analyzing data in her quiet odor-free office soothed her.

The names and faces of Dunham's employees hovered in a row in one display. The names and addresses of black marketeers known to handle agricultural products floated in another. None of them had offices on Dasos Moon, so Dunham's assumption that a thief would have to take the stolen syrup to the spaceport to ship off-world was reasonable.

The traffic logs from the spaceport, information that wasn't public but that she knew how to get, currently hovered behind the other displays. She was in the middle of trying to convince the local traffic cameras that she had the right to see the vids from the last two months of comings and goings on this rural street. Skimming through such logs would be stultifying, but she doubted whoever had doctored the warehouse's security cameras would have been able to diddle the county's recordings, and if a vehicle large enough to tote away two hundred tons of syrup had arrived, it would be noticeable. She might even get lucky and be able to magnify the image to identify the people, androids, or robots that had loaded the cargo.

A knock sounded on the closed hatch.

"Come in, Scipio."

He stepped inside and got straight to business, something McCall appreciated about him.

"I have performed short interviews of all the employees that were at the warehouse and sugarhouse today," he said. "I have also visited two who reported in sick this morning and were staying in a boarding house up the street. A third sick employee was not in his domicile, nor did he answer his earstar."

"That's a lot of people sick for a staff of twenty." McCall assumed the three employees had caught wind of an investigation and had reason to feel guilty. Given Scipio's stolen status, she found she could empathize with those people a lot more than she once might have. But if they'd taken syrup to get rich, she wouldn't empathize. She'd taken Scipio because his previous owners had treated him so poorly it had broken her heart. An android might not have feelings, but Scipio managed to have a kind of dignity, and it shined through now that he was his own person. Or at least his own mechanical being. "Can you give me their names?" she added.

"I've already transferred the information." As he said the words, three names and faces enlarged on one of her displays.

"Good. I'll prioritize looking up their backgrounds. Thank you."

"There is one more matter I must discuss before leaving you to your work." Scipio lifted his hand in Apologetic Gesture Number Three. He had already learned that when she focused on work, she tended to do so for hours and hours and loathed interruptions. "The local law-enforcement agency commed the ship while we were out."

"Oh?" McCall hadn't gone to NavCom to check messages. "Do they object to our presence in the investigation they haven't bothered to send anyone out to start yet?"

"No. They informed us that parking a spaceship outside of the port is grounds for a fine. If the _Star Surfer_ remains here, we will be subject to a thirty-morat-per-night fine."

"They can keep track of illegally parked spaceships, but they're too busy to help Dunham recover millions of morats in syrup?"

"Traffic control is the responsibility of a different department than theft."

"A more efficient one, apparently."

"Shall I prepare to move the ship?" Among Scipio's other talents, he was a pilot. A better one than she, not surprisingly. She didn't have the best spatial awareness, and she'd had to take her pilot's exam more than once before passing. It had been worth it to have the freedom to fly herself, to not have to rely on public transport clogged with people who insisted on sitting entirely too close to each other and _touching_.

She curled a lip at the thought of riding a ground transport out here each morning during the investigation, complete with a long walk at the end, since nothing would go directly to this rural dead end.

"Send them the fine, enough for three nights."

Scipio tilted his head. "Is there a reason you wish to remain on the premises against the wishes of law enforcement? Do you believe the thieves may make a nocturnal appearance? Shall I send out hover-cams to monitor the facility?"

All she'd been thinking about was loathsome shoulder-touching with strangers, but the suggestion sounded like a good one, and she wished she'd thought of it.

"Yes," she said. "Program them to ping us if there's any activity in the middle of the night."

McCall didn't expect anyone to return to the scene of the crime, especially with her ship parked out front, but it was always possible.

"Yes, Captain."

"Scipio?" she said as he turned for the hatch.

"Yes, Captain?"

"McCall."

"Captain McCall."

"I mean, you can call me by my first name instead of adding a rank." Especially since it was a de facto rank she only held because she'd had the morats to buy her ship.

"I was programmed to maintain a servant-master relationship with my human owners, and it is against my protocol to be, as you would say, on a first-name basis with people."

"That's disgusting. Can't you download a patch or something?"

He stared at her, then, after a long hesitation, issued his rarely used Laugh Number One. It was, in fact, the only version of a laugh she'd heard from him, and it usually came when he was attempting to give the expected response to a joke. She'd been serious, but she smiled in complete understanding. She'd faked a lot of laughs to give the expected response—or cover up that she didn't understand the joke.

"But I don't own you, right?" McCall attempted to clarify. "I just assisted you in leaving your previous owner. So I'm not your master."

"I do grasp the concept, Captain, but it is difficult for me to override my inherent protocols. As I admitted to you, I am able to perform numerous types of combat and bodyguard duties because I downloaded new routines, but my need to perform my basic functions will always trump them."

"All right, I understand." She wagered that having him address her as a superior—or dear suns, a _master_ —bothered her more than it did him. "What I wanted to say is thank you for your help. I had some... doubts about whether I'd made the right choice after I assisted you in escaping that facility, especially since your treatment there seemed to bother me a lot more than it bothered you, but I'm glad I did so. And that you refused to leave afterward and wanted a job."

She smiled at the memory of her attempt to _free_ Scipio, who had been, at the time, Model DuraSky 3636, serial number 73837-D4. It had been something akin to opening the door of a birdcage and receiving a puzzled chirp from the parakeet inside.

"I am pleased that my service has satisfied you." He issued Nod Number Seven. "I do find this work more fulfilling than retrieving beverages and performing sexual acts."

"Right. Good." McCall waved, not wanting to discuss all the demeaning uses that his previous owner had had for him.

Scipio left, and she perused the files of the "sick" people who hadn't been at work.

McCall was still at her desk when a soft chime floated through the ship. She frowned at the interruption. What was that? Not the comm or the exterior hatch buzzer.

"Scipio's alarms," she blurted with realization.

She glanced at the two clock displays to the side of the desk, one ship's time and one local time. Going by local time, it wouldn't be fully dark out yet, but the warehouse's work shift had ended two hours earlier. She jogged up to NavCom to see if Scipio was up there monitoring the cameras.

He was. He stood with his hands clasped behind his back as he observed the _Star Surfer_ 's surroundings, both on NavCom's wrap-around display of the exterior and on a holodisplay showing the hover-cams he'd set up outside. Bird's-eye viewpoints showed the warehouse, the sugarhouse, some of the trees out back, and the front and side parking areas. She could also make out some piles of metal scrap, appliances, and rusted vehicles in the near side of the junkyard.

Two men in dark clothing stood out front of the now-closed rollup door to the warehouse. They pointed at each other, at the warehouse, and also at her ship.

"This is the first activity since the workday ended and the employees left the warehouse," Scipio said. "No security guards were left on duty tonight. I have been observing."

"We set up the alarms so you wouldn't have to observe."

"I have completed choosing cufflinks to match my new suit, so I am able to devote my ocular receptors to this task."

"Cufflinks? Is that what you're buying with your share of the money if we recover the stolen maple syrup?" McCall slid into the pilot's seat and swiped her fingers in the air to zoom in on the two men.

"We _will_ recover the syrup. My current salary is sufficient for the purchase of silver cufflinks. You did not mention shares."

"Well, there'll be a share if we make that much. But I'm glad to hear your tastes aren't overly extravagant. Given that you were in that drab butler's uniform when we met, I admit to being surprised by your flair for dress."

"I have decided to individualize myself from the other androids in my line by wearing atypical garb, thus making it less likely that I'll be recognized and scanned by imperial law enforcers."

"And cufflinks will accomplish this?"

"Most assuredly."

"That's the security guard with the bionic hand, right? Mahajan?" McCall pointed at the larger of the two men. She might not be good with faces, but she remembered his lack of a glove, and he still didn't have his left hand covered. Did he special-order single gloves or donate all of his lefts to the junkyard dog to chew on?

"I did not ask him about the status of his limbs," Scipio said, "but that is his name. I am not familiar with the second man. It is possible he is the third sick individual, the one who was not in his domicile."

"He doesn't look that sick."

"He may also be someone from outside the organization. Let me adjust the camera to better see his face."

"Don't get too close," McCall warned. "My hover-cams are a lot smaller and quieter than imperial spy boxes, but they're not invisible."

"Yes, Captain."

McCall leaned forward as the camera slowly shifted its position to give them a view of the newcomer's face. Since it was positioned so far above the men, and twilight was creeping in, she had a hard time telling if it was one of the employees from the roster. She'd looked at the faces, bios, and background information on them all already and had been queuing up the footage she'd acquired from the traffic cameras when the alarm chimed.

"That is Erik Pottinger," Scipio said. "The missing sick man."

"I'm glad you're better at faces than I am." She decided she had been right to hire Scipio, even if he hadn't yet figured out that she didn't want to take on bizarre assignments that took her out of her comfort zone. "I wish we had audio."

Unfortunately, the cameras weren't that sophisticated. She would have needed to purchase larger, more noticeable units if she wanted extra features, and she'd thought stealth might be more important than sound.

"We could go out and question them," Scipio said. "With my speed, I could catch them before they could escape."

McCall grimaced. Running down people and questioning them was even less in her comfort zone than searching for syrup.

"We don't have the authority to do that, and somehow, I doubt you've been programmed to effectively interrogate people."

"This is true. My programming would suggest I make them coffee after capturing them."

"Unless you make it so hot that it scalds their throats on the way down, I don't see that as an effective interrogation method." She understood why Scipio had chosen a name for himself instead of going by his serial number, but it amused her that he'd named himself after an Old Earth general. Maybe he aspired to overcome his programming and become a master military tactician someday.

"Perhaps we should simply observe them," he said.

"I think so."

The two men walked to a door, unlocked it, and went into the warehouse.

"It's possible they don't want to be observed," McCall said.

"Their body language did not suggest they were aware of our surveillance. It is possible they represent the night-shift security guards. I thought it unusual that Dunham did not leave employees at the warehouse since, earlier in the day, he said he was doing so now."

"Maybe they're the ones responsible for the heist, and they've come to cover some tracks."

"I did not observe any tracks on the floor when we were inside."

McCall looked at him, wondering if that was one of his attempts at humor, or if he was being literal. He wasn't wearing one of his expressions that she'd identified to give her any clues.

She leaned back in the seat and twisted her bracelet on her wrist, barely aware of the bronze charms tinkling. "From what's in their files, Pottinger is a security guard, like Mahajan. They were both infantry in the fleet and served for one enlistment term before getting out and seeking civilian work. Infantry specialize in ground warfare and also getting into enemy ships, rushing through the corridors, and subduing the foolish souls opposing the empire. They had a lot of training on how to kill people with their pinkies. None of the courses listed on their résumés suggest they had computer or electronics training, so I'm skeptical that either of them could alter the security cameras. It's always possible one of them has a hobby, though, if not any formal training."

"Killing people with their pinkies? Even an android would find a single diminutive digit insufficient for such a purpose."

"Never mind. It's just a saying. Do you think we could maneuver the camera to get it into the warehouse? We should have done it when they had the door open. Damn. Wait." McCall leaned forward in her seat again and made a hooking motion with her finger to draw the display from the other camera to the forefront. "Who's this?"

A man wearing a fur cap hurried out the rear door of the warehouse, glancing over his shoulder as the door closed behind him. There weren't any exterior lights back there, so she doubted even Scipio would be able to make out his face.

Instead of heading toward the lot near the sugarhouse where a couple of ground vehicles were parked, he made his way along the back of the building toward the junkyard. A few lampposts along its perimeter shed illumination near the fence.

"I am attempting to angle the camera so that we will be able to see his face if he walks into the light," Scipio said.

"Good." McCall tapped her foot and twiddled the unicorn charm on her bracelet. "Do you think the dog is barking at all this activity?"

They couldn't hear sound through the thick, insulated hull of the ship.

"I have not yet detected its movement," Scipio said. "It may be asleep."

McCall hoped it had a cozy den somewhere in the junkyard and that someone fed it regularly. Even so, she imagined the existence to be lonely. No wonder it got cranky at the denizens next door.

A dark blur ran through the shadows inside the fence as the man approached from the outside. He stepped into the light, and Scipio worked the camera down closer. The man pulled something out from inside his jacket and unwrapped it. The blur—the dog—arrived on the other side of the fence, a mass of gray, black, and brown fur. Thanks to the perimeter lighting, his wagging tail was visible.

"Not quite the monster Dunham made him out to be." McCall didn't like calling anything it, so she assigned the dog a sex based on its—his—size. She had no idea if it was correct.

As the man slid pieces of a sandwich through the gap between the fence boards, the camera drew close enough for his face to be visible.

"Louis Desmarais," Scipio said, identifying him. "He effectively evaded my questioning earlier, so I have not spoken with him. Also, I believed he had left the premises earlier when he went into the woods, so I did not consider him when I was counting employees as they left the building. He must have returned before I set up the cameras."

"I spoke with him briefly earlier."

"Did you find it appealing to speak to one of your kind?"

McCall blinked. "My _kind_?"

"When I interviewed one of his colleagues, the man mentioned he was autistic. He grew up on a border planet and was not taken to a hospital as a child for the empire's normalization surgery."

McCall blew out a slow breath and pointedly unclasped the charm she'd been twirling. "It's not really a _kind_. It's not like we share a cultural background or both go to the same church and sing Sun Trinity hymns together."

"Do you not have the common link of having been born on a border world?"

"No, I was born on Perun. My mother had access to imperial hospitals. She just didn't trust them. She never went herself, which resulted in her dying far younger than she should have, and she never took us—my sister and me."

Louis finished feeding the dog, patted him through the fence, then tugged his collar up against the breeze and headed toward the vehicle lot.

"Scipio, why don't we take a tour of that junkyard?" McCall suggested.

"The gate is locked, and the junkyard is not owned by the Dunham family."

"No, it's owned by Jacob Hyssop who has been off-moon for the last year. I checked the tax records for the neighboring properties."

"Wise. Do you believe it possible the missing maple syrup is being stored over there until such time that security lessens at the spaceport?"

"That would certainly be convenient for us, but I'm not going to get my hopes up." She worried the maple syrup was long gone, that it had indeed been stolen during the quiet of winter, despite the supposedly undisturbed door locks, and that filling the containers with water had kept Dunham from discovering the theft in a timely manner.

"I will get a stun gun in case we need to handle the dog."

"I'll get a steak."

Scipio gave her Curious Head Tilt Number Two.

"For the same reason," she explained and headed to the ship's kitchen.

Technically, it wasn't a steak. It was a turkey-cranberry ration bar that had been purchased because the ingredients did not upset McCall's stomach. She did not tolerate any form of dairy from cows or jakloffs, nor did she do well with grains. She assumed dogs wouldn't object to the lack of such things. Just in case, she had heated it so it would smell more enticing.

Scipio, his stun gun in hand, did not look like he believed the bribe would gain them entrance to the junkyard.

They walked quickly across the cracked pavement, the frosty air encouraging briskness. It was easily ten degrees chillier than it had been that morning when they landed. McCall knew nothing about maple sap but was surprised it could flow when the temperatures were barely above freezing during the day.

Maybe this was a cold snap, or the end of one. Or maybe Dunham was trying to get production going early in the year because he feared the imperials would descend upon him if he couldn't come up with the tax money due on the stolen syrup. A legitimate fear, unfortunately.

The government tended to be draconian in their tax collections, as she knew since she had been late a couple of times. Not because she didn't have the money but because she'd been focused on her work and had forgotten—or maybe forgotten to muster the enthusiasm—to open the warning messages sitting in her inbox. Now, she had a bookkeeper to help out and ensure she stayed in the empire's good graces.

A deep baying echoed from within the junkyard. The sound of claws on pavement followed, and heavy pants emanated from behind the fence. A thud came, and the closest boards rattled.

McCall jumped, clenching her ration bar tightly while worrying that her bribery plan might not be sufficient. Just because Louis had befriended the savage beast over who knew how many months didn't mean she could do the same thing.

"If the owner, Jacob Hyssop, is not currently on the moon, who is caring for the dog?" Scipio asked, not noticeably fazed by the shaking boards.

Was the dog trying to get out and devour them whole? Or maybe he was so eager to play that he was bumping his huge body against them.

More barks sounded. He wasn't growling, at least.

"I don't know. Maybe just Louis. If the poor dog has been in there as long as Hyssop has been gone, I'm going to use your stun gun on _him_ if I ever see him." McCall forced herself to keep walking until they reached the wide front entrance, which consisted of two chain-link gates that could be rolled to the sides so vehicles could drive in. The rest of the fence was made of wood. There wasn't any barbed wire along the top and certainly nothing as high-tech as a forcefield. A stiff wind could have thwarted the rusty padlock holding the gates shut.

The dog appeared, leaping in from the side and startling McCall anew with his size. He barked ferociously at them, and this time, a few frustrated growls escaped.

Scipio raised his stun gun.

"Wait." McCall lifted a hand to stop him, then tore off a chunk of the ration bar. She had two more in their wrappers in her pocket should a more substantial bribe be required.

She tossed the piece over the gate to land between the dog's paws. He snapped at the air and scurried back, leaving the treat untouched on the ground.

McCall lifted the rest of the bar to her mouth and simulated eating it, complete with nom-nom sounds of enjoyment.

Scipio looked at her, and she felt silly.

"It worked on my college roommate's dog," she said.

"Are you sure the stun gun would not be preferable? If it continues to bark, the noise could alert the two men in the warehouse."

"I get the feeling he barks a lot and the employees ignore it." McCall backed up a few paces in case that would help the dog relax.

Scipio did the same.

The barking stopped, and the dog came forward and sniffed the treat. A tongue almost as big as McCall's forearm came out and lapped it up. She was fairly certain he consumed it too quickly to taste it, but he tilted his head, big furry ears flopping, in a gesture that reminded her of one of Scipio's curious expressions.

McCall ripped off another piece of the bar and tossed it inside. The dog ate it promptly, and his tail wagged slightly.

"Shall I break the lock while it is distracted?" Scipio asked.

"He."

"Pardon?"

"While he's distracted. And I was thinking we could just climb over the fence. We don't need to drive a vehicle inside."

"How can you ascertain its—his?—sex? The dog's genitalia are covered by fur."

"Just a hunch." McCall didn't want to explain why she thought it dehumanizing—dedogizing—to call him an it. "Will you let me climb in there with you, boy?" She tossed over another piece of the ration bar, then approached the gate and put her hands on the chain links.

She was tempted to try to go over the fence farther away from the dog, so he wouldn't see her as a threat, but the planks didn't offer sufficient handholds.

Scipio stepped closer to the gate, pointing the muzzle of his stun gun through one of the gaps. The dog stopped wagging his tail, and he backed up, sniffing the air.

"I'm still hoping that won't be necessary." McCall climbed slowly to the top. She paused, straddling the cross bar, and tossed the last piece. As she pulled out another bar, she asked, "Do you have a name, buddy?"

She kept talking in a soothing voice as she climbed down the other side of the gate. The dog didn't have a collar or any visible identification, so she had no way to guess his name.

His tail wagged uncertainly, and his eyes focused on her second bar. As she unwrapped it, she walked closer, looking at the scenery as she continued to talk soothingly. She'd grown up with a fluffy mutt and had always liked animals, so it wasn't difficult to "talk dog," so to speak. If a spaceship were a good environment for pets, she would likely have a cargo hold full of them. She decided not to point out to Scipio that she was more likely to consider animals her "kind" than another human being, autistic or not.

Scipio leaped the fence with an inhuman bound, barely bending his synthetic knees as he landed.

"Show off," McCall said.

The dog growled, his tail going straight out like a rigid flag.

"It's all right, boy," McCall said. "He's with me. We just want a quick tour, eh?" She tossed him a piece of bar. "Care to lead the way?"

The dog trotted over to a stack of moldy clothing and lifted his leg.

"He appears uncooperative," Scipio observed.

"It's possible he doesn't speak System Standard," McCall said dryly, heading deeper into the junkyard.

Only one aisle down the center was wide enough to accommodate vehicles. Elsewhere, narrow paths were framed by massive stacks of robot parts, broken appliances, tires and wheels, and cardboard boxes half-disintegrated from the weather.

A mouse scurried out as she started down the first path, and the dog sprang into motion, catching it before it could scurry back under cover. He devoured it in a gulp.

"I'm guessing you don't get enough food, boy." McCall walked toward a dented, rusty drum that looked like the drums inside the warehouse. She withdrew her netdisc from her pocket and pulled up the flashlight application. The Maple Moon logo, a tree with a spherical silhouette behind it, was stamped on one side, as faded from the elements as the cardboard boxes. "This has been here a while."

When Scipio did not comment, she looked over at him. He stood, his stun gun put away and his hands clasped behind his back.

"It looks far too old to have been stolen this year, right?" McCall knew things could be weathered prematurely, but it was hard to imagine someone bothering. Besides, the _drums_ weren't what had been stolen. Their contents were missing.

"Forgive me," Scipio said. "I did not realize you had stopped communicating with the dog and were speaking to me. Yes, I estimate that has been outside for ten years."

The dog headed to Scipio and sniffed his leg.

"If he urinates on my handmade, jakloff-leather Taglio loafers, I believe I will be within my rights as a consumer and appreciator of fine footwear to stun him."

"I disagree. Anyone who wears shoes with pretentious tassels deserves to have his foot peed on."

"My tassels serve an aesthetic function. They are not pretentious."

McCall waved another piece of the ration bar. "Come on, boy. Show me where the stolen maple syrup is."

As the dog bounded toward her, Scipio headed down another path. "I will search for condemning evidence on this side of the junkyard," he called back.

"That's his way of protecting his tassels," McCall murmured.

The dog took the treat from her hand with a surprisingly gentle mouth and wagged his tail as he jumped away again. He was younger than she had first guessed. Maybe only a couple of years old and still playful. He bounded in again, and by the light of her netdisc, she noticed the fur on his right side was matted and had something stuck to it.

"What's wrong there, boy? Got tar or something stuck to you?" She held out another treat but kept it in her fist as he approached.

He grew still as he sniffed at her fist, and she got a better look at his side. Her jaw sagged open in horror.

"Not tar," she whispered. A shard of metal thrust out of his side like an arrowhead but much larger. His fur was matted with dried blood. She leaned in, trying to see better, but he scurried back. "No wonder you have tendencies toward crabbiness," she murmured. "Who did this to you?"

She supposed it could have been an accident, given the amount of sharp debris in the junkyard, but it looked more like someone had thrown something at the dog. To scare him away? She clenched her teeth, tears threatening to film her eyes, and tossed him the treat he'd been sniffing.

He plucked it out of the air, then sat down ten feet away, as if to say he wasn't going to let her get any closer if she was interested in his injury.

"You may have to get stunned anyway," she said. "I don't think I've got a canine tranquilizer on the ship. Unless I can convince you to come voluntarily? How would you like to see my sickbay?"

Her earstar chimed softly, and Scipio spoke over the comm.

"Captain? I have located a suspicious hole in the fence near the warehouse. I'm coming to get you, so I can lead you to it."

"I'm still in the same spot." She lowered her voice. "Just give us a few minutes, boy, and I'll take you to see if we can fix you up."

Scipio appeared, carrying his shoes in his hands, his black socks covered in dust, with chewing gum stuck to the side of one. Despite the sock grime, he appeared disinclined to leave his shoes within canine reach.

The dog's eyes brightened when he saw the tassels flapping, and McCall didn't know if Scipio going sans shoes had improved the situation.

"Follow me, Captain." Scipio glanced at the dog but did not extend the invitation to him.

"You can come," she told him.

The dog trailed them as Scipio led her toward a portion of the fence that ran adjacent to the side of the warehouse with only a few inches of space between the two structures. Surprisingly, there was a big round hole in the fence. Even more surprising, there was a big round hole in the wall of the building.

She hadn't noticed either when she'd peered into the gap between fence and building earlier. And she certainly hadn't noticed the hole from inside the warehouse, but she recalled that stacks of drums completely lined that wall. She didn't know how deep the stacks were, but she couldn't see any light through them from this side.

"Got an age estimate on this?" she whispered to Scipio, more conscious of her voice now that she knew there was the equivalent of an open window here.

"Recent." He pointed out freshly frayed splinters in the wood where the boards had been cut.

McCall nodded in agreement. "Why make a hole here instead of simply taking things out one of the doors? Do you think this is an area not covered by internal or exterior cameras?"

"That is likely. Perhaps the footage was not doctored, after all. Perhaps the perpetrators simply knew the blind spots in the warehouse and worked within them."

McCall shined her light on the ground, looking for signs that heavy drums—or had the thieves syphoned the syrup from the drums into smaller jugs?—had been dragged out recently. The packed dirt didn't show much. Maybe a real tracker could have distinguished more, but the ground was too hard for tracks to show, and it was also possible the area had been covered in snow when the theft occurred.

"And where did the thieves take the syrup from here? Through the front gate of the junkyard to a vehicle waiting there?" McCall scratched her jaw as she thought of the rusty padlock. It hadn't looked like it had been disturbed in some time, but someone could have cut it and replaced it with an equally rusty one. "I haven't finished skimming through the footage I snagged from the traffic cameras yet."

She grimaced at the idea that she might have to. Even when playing them on fast-forward, it was a mind-numbing task. She was tempted to write a search algorithm that she could apply, then simply have the ship's computer scan the footage and pick out significant events, but it would be a challenge to teach it to distinguish regular vehicles from nefarious maple-syrup-stealing vehicles.

"Away," Scipio said. "Away, junkyard beast."

McCall looked over her shoulder in time to see Scipio waving a hand and raising his loafers overhead. The dog jumped up, trying to get them, as if this were a fun game. As McCall had suspected, the shoes were even more appealing now that they were off Scipio's feet and had gone from being a part of him to being a toy, at least in the dog's mind.

"...be the ones to get in trouble," a distant voice said, someone speaking from within the warehouse.

McCall held a finger to her lips and scooted closer to the hole in the wall. That sounded like one of the security guards.

"We didn't _do_ anything," a second speaker growled.

"But we didn't catch who did."

"There wasn't a nightshift then. How can we be blamed for that?" McCall thought that sounded like the guard with the bionic hand, Mahajan.

"I don't know, but somebody's going to get blamed, and the boss doesn't like me. I appreciate you letting me in to get my stuff, and if you're smart, you won't come back to work tomorrow either. He doesn't like you any more than he likes me. Can Opener."

"That's because he's an asshole. Isn't there a rule against mocking your employees?"

The voices grew more distant, as if the men were moving.

"I don't know, but I'm quitting, and you should too."

"That's going to look suspicious, you idiot," Mahajan said. "That android was already asking about people who commed in sick today. You're on his radar."

"Shit."

A door clanged, and McCall heard it both through the hole and from around the corner of the building. The men were leaving out the front.

She bit her lip, half-tempted to send Scipio up there to stun them to drag them onto the ship for questioning. If she'd been a law enforcer officially on the case, she might have, but she was simply an imperial subject privately hired to look for missing syrup. If she started stunning and questioning people, she could end up in trouble with the law herself.

Thunderous barking came from right behind her, and McCall thunked her head on the edge of the hole.

The dog took off running along the fence line, or as close as he could manage around the piles of junk. He reached the corner and barked at the men who were likely walking to the vehicle park.

McCall rubbed her head.

"He is a noisy junkyard dog," Scipio observed quietly.

"Yeah."

"It sounds like those two men are not responsible for the crime."

McCall almost nodded in agreement, but... "Are we sure they didn't know we were listening? We weren't keeping our voices down before we saw the hole. They may have heard us first and staged their conversation there, pretending they hadn't."

"It is possible. Do you wish to snoop inside next?"

"No. We would have to break a lock for that since Dunham didn't give us a key. We can snoop around some more tomorrow." McCall was tempted to suggest they snoop further in the junkyard, but the dog returned to them and flopped down on the ground, not on the side with the jagged piece of metal sticking out. "We need to help our new friend first. Have you, by chance, ever downloaded a veterinary routine?"

Scipio lowered his loafers and issued her Displeased Expression Number One.

# Part III

McCall sipped espresso as she sat in her office and watched the traffic camera footage at ten times normal speed. She had tried coding a search algorithm, but as she'd feared, it had been too difficult to instruct the ship's computer in regard to what looked suspicious. Numerous delivery vans visited the warehouse every day, dropping off supplies for the sugarhouse, and others came to pick up drums of syrup. In addition, large farm and logging vehicles rolled down the street many times a day on their way to their rural destinations.

"What's this?" she murmured, leaning forward in her chair and swiping her finger through the display to pause the playback.

A black ship had appeared on the nearest traffic camera. It had flown over the maple trees, the back fence, and hovered over a towering debris pile in the middle of the junkyard.

"Zoom in on the ship," she ordered the computer.

It complied to the best of its ability. The camera had been focused on the street, and the ship had stopped at least a hundred yards inside the junkyard. It was only luck that it showed up at all.

"Identify the model of the ship," she said, hoping the computer could tell from the blurry outline. She didn't see any identification, so it was unlikely she could look up the owner, but this could be the starting point she'd sought. The time display on the footage informed her that this had happened at two hours past midnight local time. The dark ship wouldn't have been visible to the human eye if not for the lights along the perimeter of the junkyard.

"Unknown model," the computer informed her.

" _Unknown?_ "

"Affirmative."

That was strange. It wasn't as if there were that many manufacturers of spaceships in the system. The sys-net had information on anything large enough to have been produced in even a limited run.

"It _is_ a spaceship, right?" McCall asked. "Not simply an aircraft local to this moon?"

The computer answered by displaying "ninety-five percent certainty" that it was a spaceship, along with a list and table of reasons for the assessment.

McCall tapped the holo controls, ordering the footage to play at normal speed. The ship didn't hover for long before a hatch opened. Something fuzzy rolled out of it and fell onto the debris pile. No, not fuzzy. _Furry_.

She cringed as the junkyard dog struck down—he must have fallen twenty feet—and then tumbled down the side of the pile and out of sight. The hatch closed and the ship flew away.

This must have been when the dog was impaled. She glanced at the date stamp. Thirty days ago. Damn, the dog had been running around with that shard in his side for four weeks? He must have kept bumping it and causing it to bleed anew. The poor thing.

McCall dashed aside tears and, struggling for scientific detachment, backed up the video to when the hatch had been open. Who had pushed the dog out?

Though she zoomed in as much as possible, it was too blurry to see anything with certainty. She glimpsed what might have been a person's gloved hands, but it might have been a robot or an android too. She never saw a face, nor did the back side of the ship reveal any identification as it turned and flew away.

At no point did the black vessel approach the warehouse or stop again to pick up any cargo, not within sight of the traffic camera. There was another street-side camera farther up the road from the warehouse that would have collected footage of the ship if it had landed on the other side. Her own ship was currently displayed on it.

As McCall rolled the rest of the footage, she checked the spaceport's logs for that night. Only two ships had landed or taken off, and neither was black, model unknown.

Did that ship and the poor dumped dog have anything to do with the maple-syrup mystery? Or was the dog a second, unrelated mystery? Why would someone have dumped him in a rural junkyard? If he'd been a guard dog and become too much of a nuisance to keep around, why not kill him? _She_ would never do such a thing, but she had no trouble imagining imperial security shooting a dog.

Not that the ship she'd seen had imperial markings on it. It hadn't had any markings at all.

McCall growled and watched the rest of the traffic-camera footage. It caught up to real time, with nothing else of note happening.

"Either I blinked at an inopportune moment or the theft happened longer ago than Dunham believes."

It wasn't a question, so the computer didn't answer. And, since she was alone in her office, nobody else did either. That was typical, but the silence made her think of the dog. Funny that she could imagine him lounging on the deck and snoring while she worked. But a spaceship wasn't any better place for a dog than a junkyard. Where would he run? Would he do laps around the cargo hold? Would she have to get a doggie treadmill to set up alongside hers in the tiny exercise cabin? And where would he... do his business?

A knock sounded at the door, and she rose to stretch her back. It was well past midnight according to local time.

"Come in, Scipio."

He opened the hatch and stepped inside. "I can confirm that your random assignment of sex was correct."

"For the dog? It wasn't random. I knew he was male as soon as he flung himself against the fence. What female would do such a thing?" She smiled, but it was a weak joke. Her mind was still on the image of the dog being pushed out that hatch.

Scipio cocked his head. "There are many species in which the females are more aggressive than the males. Had the dog been protecting a litter of pups—"

McCall lifted a hand. "Never mind. How is he doing? Were you able to remove that piece of metal?"

She felt guilty for foisting the surgery on Scipio, but she didn't have the ability to download software to instantly teach herself how to perform a new skill. Nor did she like the sight of blood or the insides of bodies, human, canine, or otherwise.

"Yes," Scipio said, "but you may wish to come look at his X-rays and examine him before he wakes up."

"Examine him?"

She envisioned holding a med-lyzer to his furry chest or probing orifices with instruments. The latter sounded particularly unappealing. Then she realized Scipio might have found something that would explain why the dog had been dumped.

She followed him to the ship's small sickbay, cabinets, counters, and a single examining table the extent of its furnishings. Seeing a huge unconscious dog lying on his side on it was a strange sight. As was the shaved fur around the wound. At least the metal protrusion had been removed and the wound sealed and smeared with QuickSkin.

"The shard was a relatively recent wound, but he's suffered numerous other injuries in the past." Scipio pointed to X-rays hovering in a holodisplay behind the exam table. "He's had numerous cracked ribs, a fractured skull, and the tip of his tail was cut off, perhaps caught in some machinery. It is possible an accident caused the other wounds, but it is also possible the injuries were not accidental."

McCall's eyes welled with sympathetic tears as she looked from the dog to the X-rays and back again. She stepped forward and stroked his thick, furred neck.

"I only sanitized the area directly around the wound before operating on him." Scipio looked pointedly at her hand.

"What?"

"He may harbor all manner of bacteria. You should wear a glove when touching him so you don't contract a disease."

She snorted but admitted, "His fur _is_ a bit crunchy."

"Have you found any further leads in regard to the maple-syrup heist?"

McCall went back to stroking the dog's neck, crunchy fur notwithstanding. "Unfortunately, no."

She couldn't help but wonder if that ship was related, but since she hadn't seen it take off with tons of maple syrup, she couldn't assume it was.

"I stand by my earlier belief that this is an inside job, but nobody listed on the payroll has a criminal past. I have a short list of suspects simply based on suspicious activity, and I intend to poke into their personal records to see if any are in untenable debt or may be potential targets for blackmail, but this whole setup is making me wish I was more comfortable with—and a lot better at—questioning people directly."

She shuddered at the mere idea of being confrontational. Sometimes, when her nerves were frayed and she was tense, she snapped at people, but she preferred to avoid arguments and hurt feelings whenever possible. She preferred avoiding _people_ whenever possible. Talking to Louis might be all right, since he would most likely burble about his passion for maple trees instead of asking questions or getting defensive over her questions. Maybe she could chat with him in the morning.

"I can question the suspects on your list and assess the likelihood that they are telling me the truth," Scipio said. "By analyzing human body language, I can determine whether someone is lying with sixty-eight-percent accuracy."

"That's not bad."

"I am less adept at determining human motivations for committing crime."

"Tell me about it."

She had a list of typical motivations hanging on the wall by her desk, and she sometimes had to glance over and remind herself. So little of what motivated other people even interested her. All she wanted from life was the freedom to go where she wished and do work that challenged her and that she enjoyed. Now and then, she thought about what it would be like to have a life companion, but she was so horrible at dating that she didn't even try. When she had added Scipio to her ship, it had provided the unintended benefit of giving her someone to talk to when she was lonely. She wondered what her mother would have said of her making friends with an android. The poor woman had never quite understood McCall or her sister McKenzie. They were too much like their father, aloof and hard to live with. Hard to love, she supposed, though Mom had done her best.

"Do you wish to rest before the workday starts inside the warehouse and sugarhouse?" Scipio asked. "I have observed that you function optimally when you get at least seven-point-five hours of sleep a night, and it is already late."

"So I do." She was somewhat amused that her new android friend thought it was his job to take care of her. "I may poke deeper into those people's backgrounds first though. I especially want to comb through Dunham's credit records, as it seemed to bother him that the maple syrup is worth so much and he apparently earns little after expenses and taxes. I could envision him stealing his own syrup, selling it on the black market, and stashing the earnings somewhere he wouldn't have to pay taxes on them. I have to admit it bemuses me that there's a black market for syrup. A few days ago, I never would have guessed."

"Would Dunham have hired you if he had stolen it himself? Would he not have preferred to let the slow-acting and possibly indifferent local authorities deal with the crime?"

"Those are good questions. Unless he's confident that he's hidden his tracks so well that we would never discover proof. Perhaps, in hiring us, he wants to show that he made every attempt to find the syrup."

"Perhaps," Scipio said neutrally.

"I'm going to do more research before sleeping." McCall patted the dog's neck and headed for the hatch. "I'd better find some blankets and prepare an area for our guest too."

"Our guest?" Scipio's neutralness disappeared and something akin to alarm—an android's version of alarm—entered his voice. "I planned to return him to the junkyard before dawn so nobody would miss him."

"We can't kick him out right after operating on him."

"It was a minor operation, and there would be no kicking involved."

"I'll make up a spot for him in my cabin," McCall said firmly.

Scipio opened his mouth.

"I'll keep the hatch shut so he can't wander into your cabin and find your tassels."

Scipio flattened his lips together and looked down at the loafers he wore once again. "My tassels are on the loafers on my feet."

"All the more reason you wouldn't want him finding them."

So that was what a long-suffering sigh sounded like coming from an android.

It was raining the next morning, a warm rain that melted dents and divots in the gray mounds of snow that plows had pushed to the edges of the road and parking area. McCall followed Scipio around the warehouse and the sugarhouse as he questioned the employees who had made her short list. She hadn't dug up evidence in Dunham's records of any significant debt—just a line of credit and a mortgage, both of which he paid on regularly each month. She'd also looked up his family members and the business itself. Maple Moon Factory didn't have a huge profit margin, but it was in the black with no accounts payable outstanding that she had been able to dig up.

When Louis came in—an hour later than most of the employees—she veered away from Scipio and braced herself to ask questions.

But Dunham reached him first, scowling as he stomped out of his office. He planted himself in Louis's path and didn't seem to notice McCall.

"You're late again?" Dunham demanded.

"Sorry, sir." Louis's cheeks reddened as he looked at Dunham's shoes instead of his face. "I stayed late yesterday, so I thought—"

"You don't get to make your own hours, Desmarais. You're here when the sap's flowing so you can oversee its collection. That's your job, not staying in your office after hours playing some stupid _game_."

Louis's shoulders slumped, and he didn't argue.

"If you're late again," Dunham continued, "you're fired. And when you make your weekly sap report to Tate, do it in person. Quit delivering written reports and slinking off before he can ask you questions."

"Yes, sir," Louis whispered.

Dunham stalked away, bumping Louis hard in the shoulder as he passed.

McCall, realizing her fingers had curled into fists, forced herself to uncurl them. This wasn't her business, so she couldn't butt in. Besides, if Louis felt he was being treated poorly, he could look for another job.

Except that it wasn't always that easy. McCall thought of all the jobs her very smart and very talented sister had held over the years, unable to, despite her intelligence, "work well with others." That was what so many of her termination reports had said in some variation or another. McCall was lucky that entrepreneurship was one of her passions, and she hadn't minded learning how to market her services. She was also lucky the sys-net made it so she rarely had to do so in person.

"Are you all right?" McCall stuck her hands in her pockets as she walked closer to Louis, trying to appear non-intimidating, like someone he could trust, not some hired detective. Someone he could trust and _talk_ to. If he had any dirt on Dunham, this might be the perfect time to ask.

Louis jumped, glanced at her, and jerked his gaze away. His cheeks were even redder now. Was he embarrassed because she'd witnessed him being berated?

"Fine," he mumbled.

"He seems like an ass." McCall waved in the direction Dunham had gone.

Louis shrugged. "I'm late more often than I should be. It's my own fault. I have a hard time getting up. I wish I could work nights."

"You stay late often?"

"Sometimes. The warehouse has a hard-wired sys-net line, so it's really fast for, uhm, computer stuff."

"Games?"

He shrugged again. "I guess. There are a couple I like that need a fast connection. I consulted on one of them. On the botany stuff. _Jungle Conqueror._ Do you know it? You have to build your colony before nature encroaches and wraps vines around your structures and spaceships. The vines are more aggressive than in real life, but only slightly. They used Arkadian kroyka vines for their jungle, and those can grow up to twenty feet a day. They have leaves more than six feet long, and if you stand still long enough, they'll wrap around you. They'll wrap around anything. And then the leaves turn into pods that capture what's inside. The kroyka is super long-lived. Botanists have found the bones of extinct animals that were caught up in the pods."

"That's interesting." McCall groped for a way to bring this topic that he was clearly interested in around to his work. "Did you get paid for the consulting?"

"My name is listed in the game credits."

"Sounds like a no."

He snorted. "Yeah."

"Is the pay here all right?" she asked quietly, aware of someone driving a forklift past, bringing fresh drums of syrup in from the sugarhouse. How many of the forklift operators were aware of that hole? She couldn't see evidence of it from here, but someone had placed those drums there at some point. They looked to be stacked at least ten deep along that entire wall.

"It's fine. It's just... This isn't what I wanted to do with my life, you know?"

Despite his passion for games, he didn't appear that young. There was as much gray in his short hair as brown, so he was probably older than she was.

"Do you think a lot of people here feel that way?" she asked.

"Maybe. They don't talk to me much. They don't care about..." He trailed off with another shrug.

Kroyka vines and other botanical interests, McCall guessed. Or sys-net games.

"I imagine that's lonely," she said.

"Yeah."

"Have you ever considered getting an android?" She smiled, meaning it as a joke, though she _was_ starting to think of Scipio as a friend.

His forehead wrinkled. "Androids are way too expensive for me to buy. Have you seen what they cost just to rent?"

She hadn't paid for Scipio, so she didn't know the exact price of an android. He'd asked to work for her of his own accord, and she considered him a free individual who could stay or go as he wished. If only the empire saw him that way.

"Maybe you could get a dog," she offered as an alternative, thinking of her furry guest, whom she'd left lounging on a pile of blankets on the ship.

"My apartment building doesn't allow them."

"Ah." She hadn't managed to bring Louis around to what she needed to know, so she decided to be more blunt. "When you've been here late at night, have you ever seen anything suspicious?"

"Like when the syrup was stolen? I didn't see that, if that's what you're asking. I don't think anybody did."

"Except whoever did it."

"True. Unless it was androids. Or robots."

"Someone would have had to order them to do it," she pointed out.

"Unless they went rogue and decided to take the syrup and buy their freedom from this backward moon." His eyes lit up, as if he could easily envision the fantasy.

"I think it's more likely an insider planned the heist."

Louis's forehead furrowed again. "Like one of the guards? Or office workers?"

"Someone with intimate knowledge of the facility." And the placement of the security cameras and their limitations of coverage, she added silently. "Does Dunham ever stay late?"

"I don't think so. Tate, the manager, is more likely to stay if we're behind or a buyer is coming in late."

McCall had looked up Tate. He was a single man who'd paid off his condominium two years earlier and had been funding a retirement account religiously all of his working life. He was in a good financial position, so she hadn't put him on her list of suspects.

She drummed her fingers, wishing she could use search queries on Louis's brain to see if he knew anything more than he was sharing. She glanced toward the hidden hole in the wall, thinking she might get a reaction from him if he was aware of it, but he didn't even notice. He was studying a crack in the floor.

"Do you know anything about the dog in the junkyard?" she asked.

If he went over there every night to feed the dog scraps, maybe he'd seen activity there and not realized what it was. It certainly appeared that the stolen syrup had been toted out that way.

"Junkyard? Not much."

"That's his name?"

"Some of the security guys call him that. He just showed up one day, and he's been barking ever since."

Actually, he had shown up one _night_. But given the hour that ship had come by, she doubted anyone in the warehouse had been around to see it.

McCall was tempted to ask Louis how long he'd been feeding the dog, but that would require admitting she'd been spying on him—on the entire complex—the night before.

"One day? Like what—a month ago? A year ago?"

"Last month, I think."

McCall nodded. That synced with the date the ship had come by.

She was still mulling whether it was possible the dog's appearance had something to do with the syrup theft. What if he'd been brought in specifically to keep anyone from peering into the junkyard? Such as while drums and drums of syrup were siphoned off and stored over there temporarily? Until a ship or a truck came to transport them to the spaceport.

She twisted her bracelet around her wrist. Was it possible the syrup was _still_ there? She had assumed it had been removed already, but if the thieves had taken it and then realized security was heightened at the spaceport... Or maybe that Alliance bomb had gone off right as the perpetrators had been finishing up their theft, and they'd been forced to alter their plans.

But if the thieves had put the dog there to act as a guard, why had they dropped him from that height? He could have been killed.

"Kind of odd that he just appeared inside a locked junkyard, don't you think?" she asked.

"Yeah." Louis frowned at her, probably wondering about her seemingly random questions.

"Have you ever—"

"Desmarais," Dunham barked, striding out of his office. "What are you still doing inside? That sap isn't going to hop into the sugarhouse on its own, and we're way behind on fulfilling this year's orders now that we've lost all that syrup." Dunham made a shooing motion as he stalked over.

"Yes, sir." Louis hustled away, his head down and his shoulders hunched, and disappeared out the back door.

"He doesn't know anything," Dunham explained to McCall, then lowered his voice. "Look, has your android learned anything from interviewing all the security guards? Some of those men are pretty new. I was thinking someone might have applied for the job and had this in mind from the beginning. We just got Mahajan and Peck at the end of autumn. It's no secret on this moon what maple syrup sells for and what it's worth."

"We'll confer at the end of the day," McCall said.

Dunham frowned. Did he expect her to be doing something more brilliant than wandering around and talking to people?

She decided to retreat to the safety of her ship and dig deeper on him. It was likely only in her imagination that his eyes were boring into her back like BlazTech rifles.

# Part IV

McCall found the dog sitting and waiting by the cargo hatch when she came in. She had left it open so he could leave whenever he wished. Apparently, he hadn't wished.

"Good to see you up," she told him.

She didn't have any ration bars on her, but he didn't make any moves to eat her. He even thumped his tail on the deck. Promising.

"Is your name really Junkyard?"

He cocked his head and looked curiously at her.

"Yeah. I didn't think so. I'm not very good at naming things though. I don't think anyone in my family was. Our dog when I was growing up was named Buddy."

He ran out onto the cargo ramp but paused after only a couple of steps. He looked back at her and wobbled his tail a little uncertainly. It had stopped raining, so that couldn't be the problem. Besides, if he'd been living in a junkyard, he ought to be used to the elements.

"You want me to follow you?"

He ran to the bottom of the ramp, spun in a circle, and looked back at her again.

"Why not?" she muttered, heading after him. "I don't have any better leads."

The dog raced past the warehouse and straight to the front of the junkyard. The rusty padlock still held the rolling chain-link gates shut. When they'd taken him out for his veterinary services, Scipio had stunned him, picked him up, and jumped over the fence. She imagined footage of a similar event could be used in a brochure toting the strength and versatility of androids.

The dog whined and nosed at the gap between the gates. He was as big as she was, so there wasn't any chance of him squirming through. McCall was surprised he wanted to go back inside, especially if he had been trapped in there for the last month.

She tapped her earstar. "Scipio? I need you out front."

"I'll be there shortly, Captain."

Almost instantly, the door to the warehouse opened. Scipio saw her and sprinted over.

"Are you in danger?" He looked at the dog, then all around the area.

The dog barked.

"No, but I need you to lift him up so he can go back inside." McCall was tempted to simply ask him to break the padlock. It wasn't as if the missing owner of the junkyard would notice any time soon. She'd looked him up, just in case he should be a suspect, but since he'd been off-moon so long, it seemed unlikely.

"I thought you wished to let him convalesce inside the ship." Scipio eyed the big dog.

"Apparently, he's done."

The dog whined and nosed the lock.

"Maybe he's going to lead us to the syrup. I've read books where animals were integral in solving crimes." McCall didn't point out that they had been children's books and the animals had sometimes spoken in them. So far, Junkyard's vocal range had been limited to whines and barks.

"I am skeptical, Captain."

"Just help him in, please. He's too big to go through that gap between the fence and the warehouse."

Junkyard spun in a circle again, then pawed at the chain links.

"Very well, Captain. But I'll have you know that the Laundro-Matic 3000 built into the ship is insufficient for removing fur from clothing. I learned this last night."

Scipio stepped toward the dog, but Junkyard skittered back.

"It may be difficult to pick him up when he's conscious," Scipio said. "He could attempt to damage me."

"Just do it quickly. As quickly as you ran out here. He'll be too startled to bite you." It sounded like a reasonable argument to her.

"Stunning him would be safer."

"If you stun him, he won't be able to lead us to the stolen syrup."

Scipio faced her. "Do you believe it's stored somewhere in the junkyard?"

"I think it's a possibility. Nobody's seen it at the spaceport, and the traffic cameras didn't show anyone picking up huge vats of syrup in a truck."

"The camera footage may have been altered."

"Thus far, the thieves haven't demonstrated that they have any sophisticated programming skills." She waved in the direction of the hidden hole in the side of the warehouse.

Junkyard whined again. Whatever he wanted, he was insistent about it.

"Just jump over with him, Scipio." She realized she was snapping orders like some military commander and added, "Please."

"Yes, Captain."

He blurred into motion, and a startled yelp sounded as he lifted Junkyard off his feet and sprang over the fence. The barks didn't start up until they landed. Then they were thunderous.

The front door of the warehouse opened, and one of the security guards looked out—Mahajan. He peered straight at McCall. She felt like a criminal caught in the act, but she drew her netdisc and paced, pretending she was researching something and that her perambulations had merely happened to bring her in this direction.

Judging by the sounds of the barking, Junkyard was on the move. She had been joking—mostly—about him showing them to the stash, but wouldn't it be nice if that happened?

McCall wanted to climb over and see what was going on, but Mahajan kept staring at her. Or was he simply wondering what the dog was barking about? Louis poked his head out too. Wonderful. Soon the whole staff would be checking it out.

She made herself smile and wave, then went back to pacing, willing them to go back inside. If she had to, she would go back to the ship and watch the dog with her aerial cameras, but—

The two men went back inside and the door shut. Good. She scrambled over the fence and jumped down.

At first, she didn't see Scipio or Junkyard. Then, as plaintive a call as she'd ever heard from an android came from atop a stack of tires.

"Over here, Captain. I am trapped." Scipio crouched on the stack, peering ten feet down at the dog barking up at him.

"It's possible he didn't appreciate your method of delivering him to his destination." McCall headed toward Junkyard, poking in her pockets and hoping to find a suitable treat for him. She would have to start carrying ration bars around.

"It was _your_ method," Scipio pointed out.

Fortunately, Junkyard grew tired of the game before McCall reached him and had to attempt to haul a one-hundred-and-fifty-pound dog away from its target. He trotted past her and to the pile of clothing he'd peed on the day before. He lifted his leg and gave it the same treatment. For a long time.

What he'd been so antsy about slowly dawned on McCall. He set his leg down, took a few steps, and plopped down on his side.

She dropped her face into her palm, aware, from the soft thump, of Scipio jumping down beside her.

"I don't think he's going to show us to the stolen syrup," she said.

"No."

"All right. We'll look anyway. You take that side, and I'll take that side." She pointed, determined to feel optimistic and not daunted by the acreage the big junkyard spanned. "Assume the syrup isn't in anything resembling its original drums but that it is transportable."

Scipio plucked a brown strand of fur off the front of his suit. "Yes, Captain."

Darkness fell and the air grew damp and misty as McCall walked through the twisting aisles of the junkyard, the stacks in danger of toppling at the first stiff breeze. In some places, they already had, forcing her to climb over wreckage to continue on. She paused to open containers, everything from jugs of drain cleaner to dented beer kegs. Few were full, and those that were did not smell of syrup.

She tossed a jug of window cleaner aside, telling herself to think bigger. A thousand _tons_ of maple syrup were missing. If all that liquid was stored here, it would have to be in something large. A water tank? She shined the flashlight from her netdisc around, and it glinted off a rusty metal cistern comprising the top half of a nearby junk stack. It looked like something that would store a few thousand gallons of water. She picked a route up the mountainous stack toward it, though she had a feeling it would have crushed the junk underneath it if it were full.

Her earstar chimed softly.

"Yes?"

"I am reporting in for an hourly check, Captain," Scipio said. "I have searched approximately twenty-three percent of the junkyard and discovered nothing useful yet."

"Same here." She had no idea what percentage she'd explored, but it had to be close to half of the half she'd claimed for herself.

"My loafers have been sampled three times by the dog."

"Er, sampled?" McCall peered into the darkness below. She hadn't seen Junkyard for a while but had assumed he'd grown bored of following her and wandered off to whatever nook he had claimed for his den.

"Licked."

"Ah. That shouldn't damage anything."

"Leather is not waterproof, Captain," Scipio said primly. "If it doesn't dry quickly enough, it can start to rot."

McCall bit back a sarcastic comment. She already felt guilty that she'd been ordering Scipio around earlier, especially since it had been to do something that could have resulted in damage to him. And after they'd made it over the fence, Scipio could have used his strength and agility to knock the dog away, instead of allowing Junkyard to chase him up a pile of tires, but he hadn't.

"I don't think his tongue is likely to be _that_ wet, but I'll buy you a new pair if he damages them. I appreciate you helping me with him."

She reached the water tank and rapped her knuckles against it. It clanged hollowly. Another dead end.

"You are my employer," Scipio said. "It is my duty to do as you ask."

McCall grimaced, thinking of the way Dunham had ordered Louis around—while berating him. She had never liked being an employee, and she hadn't become Scipio's employer because she wanted to order someone around. She had only taken him on because he'd asked for a job. She was far more comfortable treating everyone as equals.

"Look, it's not the imperial fleet." From her elevated perch, McCall shined her flashlight around on the junk below. "You don't _have_ to follow orders. If you think something is stupid, feel free to argue."

"This assignment was my idea, and you do not want to be here. I do not wish to further inconvenience you."

She didn't agree with the idea that he might inconvenience her, but she said, "You're a good man, Scipio."

"I am an android, not a man."

She opened her mouth to reply, but the beam from her flashlight dulled on a drab gray tarp spread on an open patch of ground. An _oddly_ open patch. Aside from the main aisle through the compound, there hadn't been any paths or gaps large enough for ground vehicles to drive into. It would have taken a crane with a long arm to reach any of the piles to remove something. Or an aircraft or spaceship hefting junk from above.

McCall looked skyward, but nothing but clouds filled the night sky. Few ships came out this way, and she couldn't remember hearing any aircraft engines either.

"I'm going to look at something," she told Scipio, not that it was necessary. They had both been looking at things for hours.

As she scrambled down from the stack and headed toward the tarp, she noted oversized tires and rusted engines placed around it to hold down the edges. Even though it lay flat on the ground and there wasn't room for much to lay under it, she couldn't help but think she might have found something.

She tugged at a tractor tire and grimaced at the weight. "I may need your help, Scipio. Can you track me by my earstar?"

"Certainly."

As she walked onto the tarp, intending to see if one of the engine parts would be easier to move, her foot landed on uneven ground. Pain shot up her leg when she turned her ankle. Gasping, she stumbled back off the tarp and glared at it as the pain faded. She stepped more carefully as she moved back onto it and found a ditch or something like it underneath. She set her netdisc down and used both hands, grunting and straining to haul the engine part off the tarp. A protrusion got stuck in the ditch, and she swore as she strained to tug it out.

"I am here, Captain," came Scipio's voice from the side. "Do you wish me to lift that for you?"

"No, I'm enjoying getting a workout."

"Very well."

"That was sarcasm, Scipio." She let go and waved him to the engine and the tire. "Please move these things off the tarp."

"Certainly. Please guard my loafers as I do so."

She noticed Junkyard standing behind him in the dark. He wagged his tail when she looked at him.

"Dogs appear to find them irresistible," Scipio added, hoisting the engine overhead as if it weighed a pound.

"A feature the manufacturer probably didn't think to add to the sales brochure." McCall watched Junkyard, whose focus _did_ seem to be on Scipio's feet. The loafers' tassels flopped interestingly as he walked.

"Were such a feature mentioned, I believed it would deter prospective buyers." Scipio hefted the engine toward a pile.

It landed with a loud crunch.

McCall winced at the noise and glanced toward the warehouse. She didn't know if any of the security guards had remained tonight or if Louis was working—gaming—late. She couldn't see the building from their spot on the far side of the junkyard and hoped the sound wouldn't travel. Whoever had arranged this tarp—and whatever lay beneath it—likely worked in that building. And wouldn't want them investigating it, she had no doubt.

As Scipio pushed or threw off the last of the junk pinning down the tarp, McCall tugged up a corner, shifting around so she could pull it back. The "ditch" she'd stepped into was the edge of a hole almost entirely filled by a tank. A huge tank.

Anticipation fluttered in her belly like moths dancing with a lamp. Could they have found it?

"A water tank," Scipio observed.

"How much do you want to bet there's something else inside. Does that have enough capacity for all the missing maple syrup?"

"Judging by what I can see of the tank's width and with a guess to its height, I judge it could hold six thousand gallons of water."

"How many tons is that?"

"Approximately 23.304 tons of water. I do not have the liquid weight of maple syrup in my database to give you a more accurate conversion."

"Hm, so there would need to be eight more tanks like this stashed around the junkyard if this is where the syrup is being stored." McCall thought that might be a possibility. They had yet to search the whole place, and others could be more cleverly concealed. "Do you see an opening in the top anywhere so we can check inside?"

McCall ran her flashlight over the surface. A heavy metal ring was affixed to the top. She assumed someone had used a crane to lower the tank after cutting out the hole with some other digging machine. There weren't any piles of dirt nearby, so it must have been removed.

It would have taken specialized equipment to do all this over the course of a few nights. She would have to find the local machinery rental agencies and see if she could wrangle access to their records.

"There." Scipio hopped onto the dusty blue tank, stepped over the large ring, and walked toward a screw cap.

A distant rumble grew audible, and McCall frowned in the direction it seemed to come from. The woods beyond the back fence. Just a few minutes ago, she had been thinking about how she hadn't heard any airplanes or spacecraft flying overhead while they had been here.

She bounced from foot to foot as Scipio unscrewed the cap and she envisioned them being paid handsomely—their ten percent of the syrup—for something buried in the ground only a couple hundred yards from the warehouse.

He bent over the opening. "My olfactory sensors detect a sweet odor identical to that in the drum that Mr. Dunham showed us yesterday."

"Yes." McCall clenched a fist and ran across the top of the tank to join him. She wanted to use her own _olfactory sensors_.

Scipio lifted his head and looked toward the woods. "I also detect an aircraft heading in this direction."

"It's probably flying over on its way somewhere else." McCall didn't have to get her nose too close to the opening to smell the distinctive maple-syrup scent.

"I do not believe this is an established flight route. I have not observed other aircraft traversing over this location."

"Screw that back on, please." She pointed to the cap he held and couldn't help but glance skyward as she stepped back. Nothing was visible against the clouds yet. "I'll comm Dunham. Wait, maybe I better comm the manager. Tate. We still don't know who took the syrup in the first place, and if it was Dunham, and he finds out we've discovered his hiding spot, he might arrange an _accident_ for us."

She hopped off the tank and pulled up the roster Dunham had provided her so she could get the manager's comm code. The sound of engines grew louder, and she spotted lights in the night sky.

"That is either a helicopter or an air hammer," Scipio reported. "We are hearing the sound of its rotary blades. Shall I cover up the tank?"

McCall wanted to say there was no need because the helicopter couldn't possibly be there for it, but the aircraft _was_ flying straight toward the junkyard. And it was getting close.

"Yes, please."

She helped Scipio tug the tarp back over the tank, but before they had fully hidden it, the helicopter lowered and flew closer, coming over the junkyard fence.

"Hide," she whispered, reminded that they were trespassing, whether the dog wanted them there or not.

She ran into an aisle and pressed herself against a stack of scrap robot parts. Scipio sprang into a nook near the tarp. She thought the shadows would hide them sufficiently, but the helicopter turned on bright search beams that flooded the junkyard with light. She could clearly see Scipio across the way.

The helicopter flew closer, and the wind from the blades tried to tear her hair from its ponytail.

"Can you hear me, Captain?" Scipio asked over the comm link. His voice was barely audible over the whipping blades.

"Yes." She forced herself to speak normally instead of whispering. Whoever was in the helicopter wouldn't hear them over the craft's noise.

"I believe we were noticed investigating the junkyard, and someone was ordered to come and remove any tanks on the premises tonight so we would not find them."

Since the helicopter hovered directly over the tarp, its lights blinding McCall, she couldn't argue.

A soft clank sounded, something hitting a junk pile near her, and she jumped. It was a huge metal hook on a chain, and as it swung about, she realized that removing this tank was exactly what the pilot had in mind.

"Damn it, we just _found_ it," she blurted. "Scipio, do you think you're strong enough to—"

A figure leaped out of the helicopter from thirty feet in the air, and she gasped. What the hells?

A man whirled toward her. No, an android. His pale skin wasn't quite real, and when his eyes locked on to her, they were silver. She might be in the shadows, but he knew she was there. The helicopter operator must have checked for life signs. Scipio wouldn't have registered, but she—

The android ran straight at her.

"Shit," she blurted and grabbed for something to use to defend herself.

Scipio had a stun gun, but it would be useless on an android. As she snatched a giant metal wrench from a pile, she feared it would also be useless. She didn't have the strength or speed to harm an android, but she jerked it up in front of her, determined to try.

Scipio raced over and leaped onto the android's back when it was less than three feet from her. She scrambled deeper into the aisle as he wrenched her attacker from his path. Thunderous barking sounded over the roar of the blades. Junkyard sprang into the fray, jaws snapping.

McCall's heart banged rapid-fire against her ribcage as she hefted the wrench, hoping to find a way to help. And hoping Junkyard wouldn't tear into the two androids indiscriminately. Did he recognize Scipio as a friend yet? Could he even tell the difference between the two models?

For a moment, the enemy android's back was to her, and she sprang. She hammered the heavy wrench against his head. It seemed a cowardly move, but this wasn't a human being, she reminded herself, and if he was a combat-specialist model, he would be able to beat Scipio in a fair fight.

The android didn't react to her blow, his head as hard as a slab of steel. He gripped Scipio's arm and hurled him atop a stack of junk, then spun back toward McCall. By all three suns, why was the thing so focused on her?

Junkyard lay on the ground, whining and shaking his head. Anger blasted her like magma erupting from a volcano. She ran at the android, swinging the wrench.

Her foe grabbed it out of the air, as if were catching a ball, and tore it from her grip—and almost tore her arms out of their sockets at the same time.

Junkyard sprang to his feet, snarled, and leaped for the back of the android's neck. Since their enemy was focused on her, he didn't notice the dog. Powerful fangs sank in, and Junkyard shook that neck as the weight of his body struck the android's back.

"Run, Captain," Scipio called from the top of the stack. He'd found his footing again, and he crouched to spring. "He's after you."

"I noticed," McCall yelled, looking around for something deadlier than a wrench.

Scipio jumped down and landed on the android. Junkyard still had a grip on their foe's neck, and he growled like a rabid ghorettin from some children's fable.

A clank came from the tank, and lights moved, the helicopter shifting position. McCall couldn't see much of it through the fight, but she realized what the pilot was doing.

Cursing, she maneuvered around the battling androids and ran toward the tank. The helicopter operator had used the hook to move the tarp fully aside, and now he was lowering it toward that ring.

McCall grabbed a can and threw it at the helicopter, then promptly felt foolish. Her makeshift projectile clanged uselessly off one of the landing skids.

"I need some grenades," she muttered.

Bangs and thumps came from the fight, and a whine of pain sounded. Junkyard.

Feeling helpless, McCall tapped her earstar and ordered it to comm Tate. Too bad she hadn't spoken to the man before.

The helicopter lowered, the hook nearing the ring. McCall snatched up the next closest object that had some heft. A rusty coil from who knew what. This time, she hurled her projectile at the hook as it neared the ring. Even though her aim was generally superior to her athletic skills, she barely clipped it. But it was just enough to disrupt the pilot's attempt to hook the ring.

"Hello?" a groggy voice asked. "Who is this?"

"Your skip tracer, McCall Richter." She yelled to ensure he would hear her over the noise. "I found your maple syrup, but someone's stealing it again _right_ now. It's in the junkyard about to be hauled off." She snatched up another piece of junk to throw as the hook angled toward the ring again. "Hurry and get law enforcement out here."

Belatedly, it occurred to her that she could comm the local law enforcement herself. Hopefully, they would overlook that she was trespassing in the junkyard since it was for a good reason....

She chucked the piece of junk, but it sailed past the hook without clipping it.

"Shit," she swore again, missing Tate's response.

The hook slid through the ring, and the helicopter rose immediately. Dirt crumbled and fell from the rim of the hole as the tank rose, far larger than she had realized.

"Get law enforcement out here now," she ordered Tate. "They need a ship. There's a helicopter taking the syrup, and I have no idea where—"

Scipio ran out of the aisle and sprang into the air.

He landed on the top of the tank as it cleared the hole. Without pausing, he leaped again, catching the chain and shimmying up it toward the helicopter. Something fell as he climbed—one of his shoes.

McCall gaped, barely aware of Tate finishing with "...on my way," and cutting the link.

"Scipio!" she yelled as he reached the landing skid. Did the pilot know he was on there? How many people—or androids—were in the cabin of the helicopter? Was Scipio going to get himself blown away if he tried to get in?

The helicopter rose high enough for the massive tank, now hanging from its hook like a giant pendulum, to clear the junk piles. It rotated and flew toward the fence.

The water tank bumped against one of the taller junk piles, and heavy pieces of debris tumbled down in its wake. Some smashed against the fence, knocking down several boards. The helicopter sailed onward, the tank swinging underneath it.

Switching to her comm, McCall called, "Scipio!" again. "Jump down. This isn't worth getting yourself killed."

She had no idea if he heard her. He was crouching on the landing skid and reaching for the belly of the craft. Trying to unhook the chain? At this point, it had to have too much weight on it for even him to disturb.

The helicopter was on the verge of flying out of her sight. She scrambled up one of the junk piles in time to see the door in the side of the cabin open. A dark figure leaned out. Was that a BlazTech rifle in its hand?

"Get down, Scipio," she tried again.

The helicopter turned, the angle and the dark night sky stealing him from her view. As the craft continued out over the trees, she lost sight of it completely.

The junkyard grew very still and quiet. She was about to comm law enforcement when she remembered Junkyard. Was he still alive? What about the other android?

She ran back, yanking out her netdisc and activating the flashlight. A whimper greeted her as she entered the aisle.

Junkyard was on the ground next to the remains of the android. His head and one arm had been torn off. She had no idea if the dog had done that or Scipio had been responsible, but Junkyard chomped savagely on the dismembered arm. With all his shaggy dark fur, she couldn't tell if he was bleeding or badly injured, but she found it encouraging that he was chewing instead of lying there unconscious.

"Junkyard, boy? Are you all right?" McCall bent and patted him. "I appreciated your help there."

He thumped his tail a couple of times and chomped harder on the arm.

"I can't imagine that tastes very good," she said and knelt beside the unmoving android.

Even though it was a machine and not flesh and blood, seeing the decapitated head lying to one side was unnerving. She made herself pat down the android's pockets, hoping for something that would hint at the owner and where that owner was located. Would the helicopter fly the tank to that location? Or head straight for the spaceport? No, the pilot must have some interim destination in mind. Another spot to hide the syrup until it could more easily be transported off-world.

McCall tugged down the android's collar in the back—that was where their serial numbers usually were. A plaque was affixed to the skin that gave its identification number and marked it as property of Veridian Rental Androids and Robots.

Sirens sounded in the distance. Maybe she didn't need to comm law enforcement after all.

Her earstar chimed.

"Scipio?" she answered.

"No, this is Dunham."

Her belly sank.

"Tate said you found the syrup."

"A helicopter just took a big tank of it," she said, not volunteering more information since he was still a suspect.

"Any idea where? Or who's responsible?"

"Comm up Veridian Rental Androids and see if any of your employees checked one out. I—" Realization slammed into her like a wrecking ball.

_Androids are way too expensive for me to buy. Have you seen what they cost just to rent?_

Louis had said that. Why did he know what androids cost to rent? Unless he'd recently done that and it had been on his mind.

If he was the one responsible for everything, the mastermind behind the theft...

McCall grimaced and sank to her knees. She didn't want _him_ to be the culprit.

She fiddled with her bracelet and shook her head slowly, fearing she had just condemned him by accident. If she hadn't, maybe she wouldn't have said anything. She wasn't a law enforcer. She wasn't obligated to turn in criminals. Maybe she could have turned her back or simply found the syrup and pretended she couldn't figure out who'd stolen it in the first place.

"Will do," Dunham said. "We're heading for the crash, and then we'll come talk to you."

"Crash?"

But Dunham didn't answer. He cut the comm.

"Why is everyone hanging up on me today?" McCall grumbled and stood up.

Junkyard stood up too.

"Let's see if we can find whatever crash they're talking about." She hoped the helicopter had gone down and that Scipio was standing triumphantly on the metal carcass of another rental android.

Remembering the portion of fence that had been knocked down, she jogged toward it. Junkyard followed, limping.

"You can stay here." She lifted a hand. "I'll come back for you."

He walked toward the hole where the tank had been, and she thought he might have understood somehow and intended to obey. But he only stopped to pick up something brown. Scipio's loafer.

"I'm afraid you won't have much luck tracking him through the air."

Nonetheless, Junkyard carried it in his mouth and followed her, his gait lopsided but determined.

As soon as they reached the broken fence, she saw what Dunham had meant. Flames leapt somewhere in the forest of bare-branched maple trees, and the orange glow lit the night.

"Come on, buddy," she whispered and ran toward it.

The first thing McCall saw among the burning wreckage was the tank lying amid several trees that had been knocked down. The helicopter was among them, too, its hull bashed in and its blades bent or broken off. A tree trunk stuck through the open door of the cabin—the door that man or android had opened when he leaned out.

She scanned the ground, not seeing Scipio. She didn't see anyone else, either, not yet.

"Can you find him, boy?" she asked. "Find Scipio?"

Junkyard still carried the loafer in his mouth. Probably because he considered it his prize rather than because he intended to track down Scipio. Still, he walked off to one side of the tank, heading into the trees.

McCall started after him, but voices made her pause. Two men ran into sight, Dunham and someone wearing a black law-enforcer uniform. Dunham headed straight for the tank, but the law enforcer veered toward something lying on the ground between two trees. A body?

He picked up a decapitated head, and McCall puffed a relieved breath when she saw that it was identical to the one in the junkyard. Another rental android must have been piloting the helicopter.

"This didn't happen in the crash," the law enforcer said in a dry tone.

"I think my friend—my android friend—did it," McCall said.

The man twitched in surprise when she spoke.

She lifted her hands to show they were empty, but Junkyard barked, and she forgot about the law enforcer. She ran through the trees, shining her flashlight around until she spotted him.

"Captain," came a plaintive call. "Your dog is sitting on me."

McCall rushed up, checking to see if Scipio was all in one piece. That was difficult to ascertain with a large dog sitting on his chest.

The side of Scipio's face was blackened, and his shirt was torn in numerous places—one sleeve was completely missing. He must have been thrown out when the helicopter crashed.

"He's not really _my_ dog," McCall pointed out.

"I may have only known you a short time, Captain, but I am positive you will not leave him behind in that junkyard."

McCall started to object, but she wasn't sure she could. "Maybe we can find a good home for him somewhere... large."

Junkyard dropped Scipio's loafer next to his shoulder, looked back at her, and cocked his head.

McCall, eyeing the shaven fur on his side and his healing injury, had the protective urge to keep him so she could ensure he was treated well. A spaceship might not be the ideal environment for a dog, but there _was_ room to run around in the cargo hold, and she _did_ stop to visit planets and moons now and then. She could make sure he got to run among trees periodically. And surely, she could arrange some sort of dog latrine for his use. She'd met freighter operators who carried their families, complete with family pets, through the shipping lanes from destination to destination.

Scipio gently pushed Junkyard to the side and groaned melodramatically as he rose to his feet. "I am in need of lubrication."

"If a human said that, I'd assume he meant vodka or wine."

"Alcohol? That would be poor lubrication. I use a mixture of aliphatic hydrocarbons and mineral oil."

"Equally refreshing, I'm sure."

Scipio gave her Inquiring Head Tilt Number One.

"Never mind." She patted his soot-covered and sleeveless arm. "Thank you for your help. Am I right in deducing that you attacked the pilot and forced him to crash?"

"I did attempt to pull him from the pilot's seat. When I saw he was another android, I felt few qualms about tossing him out the door. The crash, however, was unintended. I simply wished to land the helicopter back in the junkyard after taking over the controls. However, the android pilot objected to being thrown out."

"Odd."

"We battled, neither able to throw the other out. The helicopter flew wildly with nobody manning the controls. We clipped a tree, bounced off a second, and went down soon after." Scipio shook his head. "It did not go as smoothly as I had hoped."

"I think that can be said of this whole mission." McCall gazed at Junkyard, who had settled down next to Scipio's loafer, his head on his paws. Unlike Scipio, the dog's injuries from fighting the android would cause him pain, and she regretted that he'd suffered again.

"It is my hope that the tank was not destroyed in the crash and that Mr. Dunham will recover his syrup. Also, I hope the other tanks are buried in the junkyard and will be more easily found now that we know they are there." Scipio lifted his arm, as if testing its mobility. "I believe I now understand why you prefer missions that allow you to work from a distance and have no interaction with clients or those they seek."

McCall thought of Louis, who might even now be facing a squad of law enforcers at his door, and doubted Scipio quite understood. But she wouldn't naysay him. If it kept him from volunteering her for more missions like this, that was fine with her.

After all he'd done, all the self-sacrifice that she highly doubted was part of his programming as a personal assistant android, she couldn't berate him for choosing this one. Further, she felt like a heel for her earlier regrets about hiring him. What _human_ assistant would have flung himself into the paths of not one but two enemy androids to save her and complete the mission?

"Do you want a promotion, Scipio?" she asked.

"Pardon?" He lowered his arm and issued one of his puzzled expressions.

"If you agree to let me go over all the potential cases before accepting them, I would like to offer you a permanent position in my little business. As my partner."

"A business partner?"

"Yes. A fifty-fifty split."

"A business partnership involves two or more individuals sharing management and profits while cooperating to advance their mutual interests."

"Thanks for the definition."

"Captain, I am an android. I have no need of your profits, nor do I have any interests to advance."

"Don't you want to make money? To buy cufflinks? And—" McCall looked down, noticing Junkyard had shifted his head to draw something into his mouth. He was licking Scipio's loafer and nibbling on the tassels. "And to purchase repairs to damaged portions of your wardrobe?"

Scipio looked down, gasped with even more theatrical flair than he'd given the earlier groan, and snatched his loafer away from Junkyard.

"Think about it," McCall said.

# Epilogue

McCall had to endure two hours' worth of questions from two law-enforcement officers before being allowed to go back to her ship. She walked across the pavement with Scipio, and Junkyard trailed behind them. Scipio had retrieved his saliva-drenched loafer and put it on. There'd been no retrieving the missing sleeve.

Tired of dealing with people, McCall wanted to retreat to her cabin and take a long nap. But Dunham stood at the base of her cargo ramp with Mahajan. She forced herself to smile, though seeing them made her feel inept. They were two people who she had considered suspects a few short hours earlier. Two people who'd likely had nothing to do with the theft.

Junkyard barked at them, but when Scipio hurried up the ramp, no doubt wanting to change into clothing less perforated, the dog followed. He seemed to have already decided the ship was his new home.

"As agreed," Dunham told McCall, "we've loaded full drums of maple syrup equivalent to the ten percent that we're in the process of recovering into your cargo bay."

McCall blinked and peered through the hatch. "Oh?"

"The maple syrup survived the crash, and we've already found one of the other tanks hidden in the junkyard. I have faith that we'll find the rest." Dunham pointed into the cargo bay. "I suggest you sell your share straight to Imperial Distribution Headquarters on Arkadius, accept their set rate, and report the income, since I'll be reporting that I traded the drums to you for your services when I fill out my taxes. The imperials, as you know, keep meticulous records. But it's up to you." He shrugged. "Black market prices are higher."

"I understand. I'll keep it official. Thank you." McCall nodded, pleased the man wanted everything to be handled legally. And also that he'd already delivered the syrup to her cargo hold. After seeing Dunham berate Louis, she had wondered if he would truly come through and give her the share they had agreed upon. He might have said that the unorthodox transportation and the crash had rendered the syrup unsalable, and she wouldn't have known if that was true.

"I must admit, I don't feel the smartest for hiring someone from three planets away to come locate syrup that was three hundred yards from my facility."

"It was well hidden. And my ship was in orbit when you contacted us."

Dunham snorted. "I'll pretend that makes me feel better."

The door to the warehouse opened, and two armed law enforcers walked out. Louis Desmarais came behind them with intellicuffs binding his wrists and his head down. Two more law enforcers strode behind him.

That many men seemed so unnecessary. Defeat slumped Louis's shoulders, and he didn't look at anything except the pavement in front of him. McCall was glad he didn't look at her, for she was certain there would have been an accusation in his eyes. She acknowledged the sentiment was selfish, but that didn't make it go away.

"He rented the androids?" McCall asked Dunham.

"Yes. Weeks ago. He had the bad luck—my good luck—of timing his theft right before the bombing of the spaceport. He's been waiting for weeks for the security there to lessen so he could arrange to have the stolen syrup transported off-moon. Apparently, he saw you and your android sniffing around in the junkyard this evening, and he realized he couldn't simply wait out security. He had to move the syrup somewhere else tonight. I don't know why he didn't just give up and leave it there to be found. I never would have guessed he was the one who'd stolen it. Or did you already know?"

"Not yet, but I believe I would have figured it out before long."

She wouldn't lie, but she didn't want to admit that Louis hadn't been on her suspect list at all. Looking back, she wasn't sure why he hadn't been. She'd witnessed him being yelled at by Dunham and ignored by his colleagues. Why hadn't she guessed that he might long for an early retirement? An escape from a job he clearly disliked? Because he was, as Scipio had said, one of her _kind_? And she couldn't imagine someone similar to her committing a crime?

Though maybe she could. If she felt trapped in some job—some _life_ —she hated, and the opportunity to vastly improve her situation presented itself, and if she believed nobody would be hurt, maybe she could have contemplated such a thing. She was relieved she wasn't in that situation and didn't have to worry about temptation. Thankfully, she'd found a way to make her own path, one where she didn't have to answer to anyone except clients, and even with them, she'd reached a point financially where she could refuse to work with those who were difficult. She decided she was fortunate and regretted that not everybody else was.

"I'll let you go, Captain." Dunham nodded to her and waved for his man to accompany him back into the warehouse. "Good evening."

As they walked away, McCall rubbed her face, weary from more than the night without sleep.

She turned, intending to find the comfort of her cabin, but the law-enforcement officers walked over, apparently at Louis's request. He was still sandwiched between them, but one stepped aside and waved at her.

"Make it quick."

McCall held back a grimace, fearing Louis had come to make some accusation.

"Captain, will you take care of Junkyard, please?" he asked. "I don't think anyone else will."

"Oh." That wasn't what she had expected him to say.

"I saw him go into your ship with your android. Will you keep him? Nobody else feeds him, and he's lonely."

"Are you the one who ordered him dropped into the junkyard to guard it?" She would take care of the dog, but her feelings toward Louis would definitely change if he'd been responsible for that botched dog drop.

But Louis frowned, his forehead creasing. "Dropped? No, he just showed up. But, uhm, I thought he might have gotten in through the hole..." He glanced toward the narrow alley with the gap in the warehouse wall and the matching gap in the fence. "And then been stuck and not able to get out. I felt bad and started feeding him. I mean, I would have anyway, but..." He shrugged helplessly.

McCall thought he was telling the truth, but she also hadn't sensed that he'd been lying when he'd told her he knew nothing of the theft. If he _was_ being truthful about this, then who had dropped Junkyard into that prison? Would she ever find out?

"You'll take care of him?" Louis asked, his eyes full of concern.

"I will."

"Good. Thank you."

The guards nudged him, and the group walked toward waiting ground vehicles.

When McCall stepped into her ship's cargo hold, she found Scipio in a new suit, hat, and shoes, his face and hands already scrubbed free of soot. He must have used his preternatural android speed to change so quickly.

Junkyard was snoring on the deck next to the syrup drums, which they would need to secure before liftoff. She vowed to buy him a dog bed so he wouldn't have to sleep on the hard textured metal.

"I have decided to accept your offer, Captain," Scipio announced. "To become your business partner. Would you like me to research the proper documentation? Androids being given stakes in companies is unorthodox and may even be without precedent, so you may have to hire a contract lawyer. _We_ may have to."

"Having a good contract seems wise under any circumstances. What made you decide to accept? Did you realize you have interests you wish to advance, after all?"

"Indeed. I saw a silver pocket watch and chain that would look fabulous with the cufflinks I intend to purchase. There's a matching cane too. I have also been contemplating that display case built into my cabin and thinking about starting a collection that will represent our travels to the various planets and moons in the system. I am deciding between mechanical banks, stuffed animals, and decorative ceramic eggs."

"So... the interest you're choosing to advance is shopping?"

"Yes."

Looking pleased with himself, Scipio headed over to secure the drums.

McCall decided not to point out that Junkyard would likely see a cane as a chew toy.

* * *

THE END

If you enjoyed this adventure, you can read more about McCall, Scipio, and Junkyard in _Fractured Stars_, a novel set a couple of years after this adventure.
