I'd decrypted his puzzle easily enough. He'd left it in Zykovski six-gen, a function he knew I could deconstruct, and the pages of slipbeacon data that unfolded had led me here: an abandoned energy plant on another mined-out rock somewhere in the cold backstretches of Imperial space.

In the greater bodies the forge was easy.

Then we'll just have to unprovoke him.

It was a spur-of-the-moment decision to buy the car.