Gus made a mental note to collect them on her way back.Madras weren’t common in the Consortium, so she wasn’t worried about someone seeing them and immediately jumping to certain conclusions.
Still, better safe than sorry.
Her optimism that everything would turn out alright lasted until she rounded a row of containers and stumbled onto the scene of a massacre.
Blood was everywhere.In pools on the ground.Streaks that ran up the sides of the containers.Arterial spray.There wasn’t an inch of space that Caius or his assailants hadn’t managed to bleed on.
Gus stared around in dismay.“I don’t think I’m going to be able to hide this.”
The three from before wouldn’t have been alone.People would come looking for them.When they discovered this place, the first thing they’d do would be to spread out and conduct a search of the nearby containers.They’d find Gus’s sanctuary.All her efforts would be for naught.
“Think, Pityrodia.What can you do in the time you have remaining?”Gus muttered.
There were no bodies.So at least there was that.
Though what Caius had done with them was a mystery for later.
The whir of the cleaning bots she’d summoned earlier interrupted her panic.
That was it.If she couldn’t hide the blood, she’d spread it far and wide.Lay a false trail the humans would have no hope of following.
Gus whipped out the wrist scroll she kept on her person at all times.A basic model, it was nothing fancy, but it allowed her to communicate with the station’s systems.
Her cover on Titan was that of a shipyard administrator.She’d given herself admin privileges her first week on the job far beyond what she would have normally been allotted.
If, every once in a while, she also “vanished” certain containers using those same privileges, there was no one who would hold her accountable since a certain level of corruption was expected—and even encouraged—on Titan.As long as you didn’t go too far or mess with someone you shouldn’t, no one would comment.
That was how she’d managed to create her sanctuary.By redirecting certain containers.Mostly those who’d lost their owners.Either through death or because they failed to pay their station dues.
In a matter of seconds, the first of the cleaning bots she’d conscripted rounded the corner.
There was a whir as it deployed its cleaning brushes.Without the cleaning liquid, disabled courtesy of Gus, the bristles would spread the blood in small, concentric circles, leaving a trail behind it as the bot went on its merry little way.
With no bodies and no clear source, Caius’s pursuers would have no choice but to search the entire yard.
All several miles of it.
The last two bots trundled around the corner, joining the first in creating a path that would hopefully throw Caius’s pursuers off the scent.
Stopping only long enough to collect the now fully grown madras, Gus headed back home.Preoccupied as she was juggling an armful of madras while also re-activating her security systems, Gus failed to notice the boy standing as far on the opposite side of the room as he could get, his eyes wide and his features set in an expression of worry.
It wasn’t until a hand wrapped around her throat from behind, yanking her more firmly into a hard chest that she started paying attention again.
“Who are you?”the owner of that hand growled.
Two
Despitehermountingpanic,Gus retained enough calm to realize the question had been posed in Tuann.A language few humans understood.
None of whom were likely to be on Titan.
Caius gave her another little shake.“Answer.”
Again, he spoke in Tuann.
“I-I don’t understand,” Gus stammered in Consortium standard.
A human would be scared in a situation like this—well, even more scared than she was.Since her current identity was that of a human, human behavior was what she would model.
