"Some light would be good," Wixa called out.

Maiga agreed, but didn't know why Wixa was shouting at her about it. Before she could answer though, lights came on, making her raise an arm to shield her eyes. When she lowered it again, she found they were standing on a platform, inside the wall that closed it off from the trains. Dust and bits of debris lay on the ground and the metal walls had brown streaks where rusty water had leaked in.

On the back wall of the platform, in big letters and in various languages again, were the words:

"They had that up until they built the wall to stop idiots getting off anyway," Wixa said.

"Why is there no exit?"

"Restructuring," Wixa explained. "They adapted this whole sector and this station ended up stuck in the middle of a lot of power systems. It's just not accessible from the outside any more."

"So this stop exists only on the line?"

"Exactly. On the line, but not the outside."

"Okay, so why are we here?"

"Let me show you." She led the way, and Maiga saw footprints in the dust. Some of them small enough to be Wixa's, but other larger ones too. Her alert status heightened. "In here." Wixa said.

'Here' was a door, marked in a language Maiga didn't know. Wixa pulled it open and stepped inside. For a second, Maiga hesitated and then followed her.

She stepped into a nest.

That was the first word that came to mind. A small, dim, room, with alcoves either side. One of them a bathroom, even smaller than the one on the Friss. The other held a low bed, clothes scattered on it, or hanging over rails above it. Stores, dried food mainly by the look of it, stood piled against the walls and one corner had some minimal cooking facilities. A smell of cooking, of unwashed clothes, unwashed bodies hung in the air.

In the centre of the room stood a large chair, currently turned towards the visitors and away from the part of the room that really took the attention. Banks of computer control panels and screens, dozens of screens, covered the wall, rising almost to the ceiling.

Maiga jumped back and grabbed at her knife, when what she'd thought were more grubby clothes piled on the chair suddenly sprouted limbs and a head. A man, tall and very thin, unfolded from a curled up position and rose.

He held out his hand to Maiga. A hand so pale as to be almost blue grey. His face was pale too, and lined. Maiga guessed he might be sixty. She still found that hard to tell, she'd so rarely met people that age until she came to Hollow Jimmy. His thin, grey hair fell down past his shoulders as he pushed a hood off his head.

"Captain," he said. "I am so glad to meet you at last."

Maiga didn't offer her hand. Instead she offered Wixa a glare that demanded an explanation for this bullshit.

"Maiga, this is Gry. He, ah, as you see, he already knows who you are."

Maiga glanced past Gry to the screens. Most showed video feeds from all over Hollow Jimmy. Not only the human sector, but the rest too. Even - she almost gasped - the Command and Control Centre, the station managers going about their business. Some feeds showed exterior views, the ships docked there or orbiting. The Trebuchet.

"I think Mr Gry knows who everyone on the station is." Maiga turned back to the two of them.

"Mister." Gry chuckled. "Mister. Mister. See, she says it quite naturally."

"What the hell is going on here?"

"You have found the heart of the station, young lady. The heart of Hollow Jimmy." He glanced at Wixa. "The feeds don't do her justice. A handsome girl. Look at the flash in those eyes. You chose well."

"Chose?" Maiga frowned. "What does that mean?"

"Gry, hush a minute," Wixa said, "Let me explain to her."

Gry nodded and sat in his chair again, folding his legs up so he sat with the soles of his bare feet pressed together, his hands holding his ankles.

"Gry is, was, an intelligence agent like me. He's - um - well." She glanced at him. "He's been monitoring the station from down here for several years."

"And living here?" Maiga glanced around at the makeshift arrangements. A nest she'd called it in her mind. That's exactly what it was. A nest, in a cave.

"Saves on rent," Gry said, laughing. "No bills. Nobody comes here. Only Wixa."

"I help him out," Wixa said, "bring him supplies."

"Why?" Maiga asked. "What's the point of this?"

"My assignment," Gry said. "Assigned to Hollow Jimmy for intelligence gathering."

"Assignment, but..." Maiga hesitated. He couldn't know everything else and not know about Earth surely? Not know that there was nobody to assign him any more?

"Oh of course, Captain, no longer on assignment, but to be honest, I wasn't for a long time before that. Before Earth. Wanted to take care of the place, you see. Guard it."

Maiga glanced at Wixa, frowning. How could she go along with letting him live this way? The man needed help; and not just with restocking his food supplies.

"Gry is the best at gathering Intel that the service ever had," Wixa said, her tone sincere. "He's a technical genius. He can tap into every system on the station from here, look anywhere there's a camera, hear anywhere there's a microphone."

"And that's a lot more places than even our friends the Klaff know about," Gry said. "So many old systems you see. Undocumented. Forgotten. But not by me. I know all of them. I know this station as I know my own body."

His eyes glowed as he spoke, a tremor in his voice. He reached for a panel and caressed the edge of it. He thinks he's part of it, Maiga saw at once. Like a spider in the middle of its web. The web may not be an actual part of its body, yet it seemed connected to it. An extension of its body. Did Gry feel the same about the station? Or was it something different? He'd said she'd found the heart of the station and she'd thought he meant this room, but what if he meant himself? What if he saw himself as one of the station's systems? A component.

"Of course there are some places there are no cameras," Gry went on. He giggled, a high pitched sound that made Maiga nervous. "But I have an alternative." He pointed at a screen, the image not static, but moving. A station corridor, but low, near the ground, people's feet and ankles flashing by.

"Oh, don't tell me." Maiga moaned the words. He had to be kidding. "That's Glyph isn't it?"

"I have access to his visual and auditory systems," Gry confirmed. "Amazing the places a cat can go."

So Glyph's curiosity had a more biological origin than she'd thought. Not its own mind, but Gry's.

"Okay," Maiga said, after a moment's thought. "This is all very fascinating for lovers of the surreal, but what the hell does it have to do with me? Wixa, why did you want me to meet Gry before I left?"

Wixa and Gry exchanged looks for a while, nodding and eyebrow raising.

"It's time she knew," Gry said. "Things are happening. We can't wait much longer."

"Right." Wixa folded her arms across her chest, looked at Maiga. "After the destruction of Earth we knew Hollow Jimmy would attract humans, because it's a safe haven now. But we knew that would bring trouble too. That it would change the nature of the human community. We wanted to protect that community."

"We didn't know exactly what the trouble would be," Gry said. "We didn't foresee how much that mad pirate bitch would bring with her. But she's the biggest threat. She's scheming."

"I know that," Maiga said. You didn't have to have a mysterious lair monitoring the whole station to know that.

"And worse. Her activities outside, her piracy, is pissing the aliens off big time," Wixa said. "The Big Four have protested officially to the Klaff about her being allowed to use this station to sell her stolen goods."

Maiga glanced at the screens showing the station managers' command centre. Gry saw everything. Knew everything.

"They've asked for her to be banned from the station," Gry said. "The Klaff don't normally do that, you know what they are like about free trade. Well they've refused so far, but the pressure is building. Some people think a blockade is a possibility." His pale hands clasped each other in a convulsive grip. "If it goes further than that, if the Big Four break the treaties that keep all military vehicles out of this sector of space, if they attack the station, then it's over for us here. Over. Won't let that be. Won't let..." He was breathing hard now and Wixa put a hand on his shoulder.

"We needed someone who could lead the humans," Wixa said. "Unite them, or at least oppose the ones who threatened our way of life here. And we chose you."

"You... chose me? To lead? Why?" She couldn't understand it. They wanted to protect the lifers from the flood of drifties, yet chose Maiga? Was Maiga not a driftie herself?

"You're trained to lead," Wixa said. "I'm not. My job was always in the shadows, not in the light."

"But there are higher ranking humans than me living on the station. There's a damn general and couple of admirals!"

"Well you have something else," Wixa said. "Something different that they don't have."

"Me?" She still didn't get it. "Are you saying I'm special in some way? Why the hell do you think that?"

"Because Ilyan did."

Gry nodded at Wixa's words, took her hand. "You were the one who made the choice, my dear. You were right. It has taken a while, but I think she is ready now."

Ready? All Maiga was ready to do was to run away. Nothing here had changed her mind. They had made a mistake in choosing her. She had no interest in leading the humans, in taking power. And she didn't have the knack. She didn't have the charisma a leader needed. Ilyan had it, she'd seen it almost hypnotise people. Bara had it too, Maiga had to admit that. But Maiga was just ornery and inclined to be impatient with people. That didn't draw anyone in; it pushed them away.

Yet, she had started to enjoy her life on the station. Her quarters had started to feel like a real home. That thought made her stop for a moment and frown at Wixa. All those gifts she'd brought to decorate the place. She'd been trying to make Maiga see it as home. And no wonder she got so mad when she thought Maiga was messing up her relationship with Chervaz. She thought that he tied Maiga to the station too.

"Maiga?" Wixa said, her voice lower, more nervous than usual. "We... We made our choice. Are you ready to make yours?"

~o~

She wanted time to think, Maiga told them. And now she sat on the train, Wixa sitting across from her. Going by the intense look on Wixa's face, she was trying to actually read Maiga's thoughts. Well, sorry, that's once place even Gry has no surveillance.

There was something Maiga had to mention though. A thought she had to put into words.

"Wixa."

The word seemed to startle Wixa. "Yes, what? Are you --?"

"There's something I have to say. Something I noticed about your friend Gry."

"The smell?" Wixa asked, wearing an expression she probably imagined to be innocent.

"No, the smell didn't bother me so much. It's something slightly more important than that."

Wixa squirmed. "Oh, um, you mean that he's mad?"

"That's it!" Maiga said, snapping her fingers and pointing at Wixa for a second. "You put your finger on it. He's madder than a box of frogs!"

Wixa frowned. "He's not that bad."

"He lives in a hole and spies on the station using... kitty-cam!"

"Well, yes..." Wixa sighed and ran her hands through her hair. "Look, he wasn't always like that. He was my friend. He was my first partner in the field in Military Intel and he taught me so much. He was, he still is, a genius."

Maiga nodded. That sounded fair. Madness aside, that was a hell of a setup he had down there. And with his -hah- mobile surveillance device he could likely see almost anywhere on the station. Like a god. No, only part a god, omniscient, but impotent. He could see, but he couldn't do, others had to be his hands.

"When I retired here," Wixa went on, bringing Maiga's attention back to her. "I found him here on Hollow Jimmy. This was a long time after we'd worked together and I'd been told he was dead. Hah, I keep running into dead folk here, don't I?"

She glanced up as they stopped at a station. Several more to go before their stop.

"Well, it turned out he was undercover here. He had a new identity as a retiree, but actually he was here to gather Intel. You know how many humans and others come and go from this place. It's an ideal centre to gather info. Like I told you, that's what Major Jax and her girls and all their predecessors did. But Gry is more a technical intel gatherer. He was here to monitor the network and the communications systems."

"Well, what happened? How did he end up...?" She jerked a thumb back behind her.

"He built that place just to work from at first, but he started staying down there longer and longer. He went totally native about Hollow Jimmy, you see. Started caring more about the station than about Earth, shifted his loyalties. Eventually he faked his own death report, so he could stop working for High Command. And then he just started staying down there in his... lair. Taking care of the station, he says. I don't think he's left there in over two years now. Even before then, he lived there for months at a time."

"Wixa..." Maiga found it hard to know what to say, Wixa looked depressed about it, she didn't need reprimanding. And anyway, what could Maiga say to anyone about failing to nip something in the bud before it became dangerous? "Did you try to get him to see a doctor?"

"In the early days, I did. When he was still living topside for at least part of the time. But he wouldn't go and I couldn't force him. I just... well, he was my friend, my partner, my best teacher. I did my best to help him. But it wasn't enough, I suppose. Now I guess I'm just trying to keep him alive."

Is this who I'm supposed to ally myself with? Maiga wondered. A madman and his keeper. Am I supposed to trust that either of them have sound judgement? Wixa may not be mad, but she feeds a madman, feeds his disease. And what do the two of them really think of me? What does Gry think of any of the figures he sees on his screens? Are any of them people to him, or just puppets to play out the drama he wants to watch?

"Why should I believe I'm the best person for this job when the person who chose me is crazy?"

"I chose you too, and I'm not crazy," Wixa said, a weak smile on her face.

Maiga glanced at Wixa's blue hair and declined to offer an opinion on that.

"In fact," Wixa said, "I was more keen on you than he was. He had his eye on Chervaz." She winced when Maiga grimaced at the name.

"I think Gry has an eye on everyone on the station." She looked up suddenly, searching for a camera lens. "He's probably watching us right now, isn't he?"

"Probably," Wixa said, shrugging. "You either try not to think about it, or you start showering in the dark. Anyway, I argued that the newspaper would be an important factor, but that you were the one for the job. That with the right, ah, guidance --"

"Guidance? You mean, manipulation don't you? You were never interested in being a trader, but you knew I'd just bought a ship and you came up with that idea as a way to stop me leaving. You brought me gifts to make my quarters homely. You encouraged me to see Chervaz. I know what you were doing, Wixa. You wanted to tie me to the station, make me think of it as home. Make me love it, as you do."

"Is that so wrong?" Wixa demanded, some of the flash in her eyes coming back. "Should I have let you wander off looking for the 'High Committee'?" She sneered the name a little, just as Bara had. "They'll come here eventually, and maybe after they've gone, you'll be gone with them. You and the rest of the drifties. And all us old lifers can go back to the way things were."

"Drinking coffee all day? Holding cat club meetings?"

"Why not? We've all done our time, risked our lives. We deserve peace. That's all we've been looking for, peace."

"And so you recruited me to fight your battle for you. You tried to make me want to fight, tried to reprogram me, as if I was your damn robot cat!"

"No!" Wixa shouted back at her. "No. I never thought of you that way. But I could see you were... Hurt. Retreating. You needed help to find your strength again. And in the end, I just wanted to do that because I was your friend, whether you wanted to fight or not!"

Wixa flopped back in her seat and Maiga stared as she rubbed a hand across her face to wipe away tears that had started down her cheeks. More manipulation? Faking? Or was she sincere? Did she really see Maiga as a friend, whichever path Maiga chose?

And it mattered, she realised. When she'd thought about leaving before, seemed so long ago now, she'd thought of taking Wixa with her. Couldn't imagine leaving her behind. Of course she'd thought of taking Chervaz too. Things changed.

"It's our stop," Wixa said, looking up, and then wiping her nose on her sleeve. She looked embarrassed now about her display of emotion. The train slowed and they got off. As they left the platform Wixa spoke quietly.

"Have you decided?"

"I still need some time alone, to think about it."

"Okay. I'll see you in the morning?"

"Yes."

Wixa left her, moving away slowly and looking back often, as if afraid to take her eyes off Maiga, in case she simply disappeared. When she was out of sight Maiga walked off slowly herself. Her Snapper chirped in her pocket and she dug it out, to find an automated message sent from her terminal in her quarters, from the alert she had set up there. The Trebuchet had left the station.

Long ago, she had hacked into the traffic control system and left a bit of code to flag the Trebuchet's comings and goings. And didn't that prove that she had already decided to fight?

But what did it matter now? She kept her head down as she walked, but knew people were staring. Perhaps they'd calm down soon, and she'd vanish into the crowd again. Or perhaps she'd spend her days looking over her shoulder. She'd done that for too long.

She reached the Circuit, and began to walk, where she normally ran. The tall windows kept her attention as usual, the stars beyond them. Somewhere out there lay a new home. If Wixa and Gry wanted to live out their lives in this metal box that was their choice. But Maiga wanted to live under the sky again.

She thought for a moment about the planet where they'd found Max. Perhaps that resort Wixa mentioned was a good idea after all. A delightful garden spot.

Max. She wondered how he was getting on. He's started working in one of the factories, he'd told her a few days ago when they'd run into each other. Hard work perhaps, he looked tired, as if he didn't sleep well.

Was it thoughts like that which made her different from, and incompatible with Wixa and Gry? She related to Max as a man. She noticed his tiredness and that he'd cut his hair regulation short. And to her these weren't just little facts to file in a mental database for analysis. She might not be sentimental or soft hearted at all, but at least she related to people, however awkwardly. They weren't puppets to her.

She stopped now and gazed out of the window. This was the place she'd stood with Chervaz, before they'd gone back to his quarters and made love for the first time. He'd reminded her of Ilyan sometimes and she'd chided herself for comparing the two all the time. But they had similar opinions on some matters. Something Ilyan had told her once, that she felt certain Chervaz would relate to, came to her mind, the words of an ancient sage.

Good women too.

Long ago it seemed now, she'd chosen to stand by Ilyan and fight the most powerful opponent she could imagine, High Command. In comparison, Bara was a mere inconvenience. A mouse scratching at the floorboards. Maiga smiled.

And when you have a mouse, then what you need is a cat.