Once near the beginning, Preasi the Quick Acting declared that she would be exporting coffee to all the new colonies, even the ones who had broken from World and declared they wanted nothing to do with it.

"What do you think about this?" Aphelka asked Elvenheim. "Do you think we should stop her? It could disrupt the stability of the human realm!"

"I'll think on it later," Elvenheim said.

"I think she is insane," Byque said bluntly to Elvenheim. "I think you should talk to her, do something about it."

"I'll talk to her later," Elvenheim said, trying to concentrate on her work.

"Do you think I should do something?" Case the Timid asked her.

"Only if you want to," Elvenheim said.

"Do you think she knows what she is doing?" Xysphael worried.

"I am sure she does," Elvenheim said with gritted teeth.

"Where should I--?" Mindeham began.

"I don't care!" Elvenheim snapped.

"I'll just put your lunch here, then," Mindeham said in a miffed tone of voice, putting Elvenheim's sandwich down next to her experiment and leaving in a huff.

***

One of the main new areas of psychology opened up by the advent of the warp drive was that of the Journey and its effects on the human brain. Studies had been done before on doorways and the effects of walking inside and outside, but never before had there been such an instantaneous way to travel. Certain ships in the early days provoked strange mental effects on their pilots, until people figured out that at the very least a big red button to ceremoniously push would give a pilot something to mentally prepare themselves around. Still, despite the best warning lights and big red buttons psychology had devised, for Poll and Navem, being one instant in terrible danger and the next instant in safe familiar surroundings did not serve to comfort them but instead muddled the two in their minds, giving them a sense of urgency that was not really required.

"Calm down," the person on flight control duty said. "Tell me the pertinent points."

Navem and Poll quickly conversed with each other.

"There is an alien ship running unchecked throughout human space," Poll said, checking the list off on her fingers. "The adventurers that went to check its progress have been captured or killed. This includes Elvenheim, who has been captured by the enemy."

"Please land at Dock 1 for debriefing," flight control said. The two were interviewed for two hours, then were sent back to their families, the ships logs more reliable than their recollections. The next morning, the two met to discuss what to do. Their local fast food shop was the most private place they could find, and Navem ordered an Orange Fizz so that they could sit down.

"I don't think they are going to try to rescue Elvenheim," Poll said. "I don't think we have enough people left to organise that. They're going to attempt to nuke the ship with Elvenheim inside. Even if the others are all dead, she would still be alive."

"So the question is how do we rescue her?" Navem asked, playing with his straw. "We will need the help of someone with a lot of resources. Who would want to risk their lives and their money for something like this?"

"If we're looking for people to help us that have a lot of resources and motivation to help Elvenheim," Poll said, "why don't we ask the gods?"

Navem choked on his drink, but after getting the Orange Fizz out of his lungs, reluctantly agreed that it was a good idea.

***

It took three hours to get their mission approved, but since Elvenheim's war rig still had Poll listed as captain, their ship was ready for them once they had the necessary paperwork.

Xysphael was the first person they were going to try to reach, mainly because his charity organisation was famous enough that they knew where its headquarters was, and thus where to start looking for him. They loaded up their ship, and blipped into the right system. Due to system laws on where you were allowed to warp into it, it would take them a few hours to get to the station where the headquarters were housed. The duo used that time to attempt to find an appointment time available to see Xysphael.

"Do you have to play the hold music so loud?" Poll asked Navem.

"They were finishing up my favourite song when it first came on. I want to see if they'll bring it back."

"Don't live in such hope, Navem," Poll said, shaking her head.

In fact, his favourite song had just started again when the receptionist came back online.

"I am sorry, he is booked out for the next couple of days," she said.

"Can we book an appointment at the first moment he is free, then?"

They booked a ten minute slot four days away, and considered their options.

"Paradrei was on that fancy casino station last I heard," Poll said.

"Worth a shot," Navem agreed. They turned around, and exited the system.

The casino station confirmed Paradrei was in residence before they had time to ask, by blasting a series of advertisements over the radio at them, including one about 'winning a dinner with Paradrei'. They navigated the large volume of occasionally unreliable traffic (it's worse than the battlefield, Navem complained), and found a very expensive berth. They stepped into the casino, moving through contrasting calming beige walkways filled with potted plants with rooms filled with flashing lights and bright colours. After half an hour of walking around getting lost, Poll spotted one room with a poster for the Paradrei dinner prize.

The room was mostly empty, apart from a row of chiming video game-based poker machines in the corner. The light was turned down low, so for a second they didn't see the man slumped over a table in the corner.

"Hello?" Navem asked cautiously, going up to the figure. "Hello?"

Poll cautiously poked the man in the shoulder. There was no response.

"Is he asleep?" Navem whispered.

"Is he alive?" Poll replied.

"Always and forever, I'm afraid," the figure responded, making them jump. He sat up, and rubbed his bleary eyes. "What can I do you for?"

"We're looking for Paradrei," Navem said.

"That's me," the man confirmed.

"Oh, good!"

"Really?"

"Elvenheim's been kidnapped, and we need your help!"

"Huh," Paradrei said, shaking his head as if to clear it. "Well, sit down, sit down. You'd better tell me all about it."

***

Paradrei was a surprisingly good listener. Occasionally they thought he had fallen asleep, but he asked pertinent questions at the end, which made them think he had still been listening.

"I am afraid that if you want resources to help Elvenheim, you have come to the wrong god," he said ruefully. "My resources are kind of low at the moment. Negative, if I am honest."

Paradrei told them about his whirlwind adventure through the casino, winning fountains of gold, losing fountains of platinum, making friends, making more enemies, and finally a week later waking up to find he was in severe debt and was being asked to pay his dues.

"But I think while I was having the time of my life, the life of my butler ended," Paradrei said sadly, "because he never wired me the needed funds, and so I was stuck here until I paid off my debts."

Paradrei had reluctantly agreed to become a casino attraction, making a minimal wage kept by the casino until he had paid back all that he owed.

"I get a bonus when someone comes to see me," Paradrei said, "but I'm not really in a partying mood these days, and nobody really wants to win a dinner with a washed up god who is seriously considering an ascetic lifestyle. So by my calculations, I will be free to help you in... 150 years."

"How much exactly do you owe?" Poll asked, and winced at the sum.

"If you stay for another half an hour, I'll get my bonus," Paradrei said hopefully.

"I guess we could," Poll said, feeling sorry for him. Paradrei proceeded to let them know what he could remember of the gods' movements, locations, and personal electronic addresses, which were mostly a few decades out of date but perhaps still worked.

"Don't lose your money," Poll said to Navem, as he wandered over to the game machines.

"Just playing for nostalgia. I used to play this one when I was a kid," Navem said.

"Who do you think would be best to go to for help?" Poll asked Paradrei.

"Well, we all like Elvenheim, so anyone would help," Paradrei said. "Case, if you can find him, has the resources you'd need. Aphelka would be good to get hold of, too, and I'd wager Trem would be handy to have around."

"Right," Poll said, writing this down. "Thank you very much for your help. I hope you get out of here as soon as possible."

"Thank you," Paradrei said, looking sad.

"Hey, why is it asking me to see the management?" Navem asked, pointing to the screen of the game.

"Holy hell," Paradrei said, eyes wide. "I think you've won the jackpot!"

***

As it turned out, Navem hadn't won the jackpot, but had got a high speed score for the game, which came with its own prize. Poll privately suspected being sober had something to do with Navem's relative prowess, but wasn't going to say so.

"Can you put the prize into Paradrei's account?" Navem asked.

"Friends of his, are you?" the manager asked, eyes narrowing in calculation.

"Sort of. We're from Elvenheim's group," Navem said. The manager typed a few things into a spreadsheet, brow furrowing in concentration.

"Tell you what," she said. "If you record an advertisement for us, and promise to ship Paradrei away from here before he weasels his way into another floor game, I'll wipe off the whole debt. He's not a big attraction these days, and keeping the debt is killing us with inflation as it is."

"Oh, we would really appreciate that!" Poll exclaimed.

"I really appreciate this," Paradrei said for the fifth time as they flew out to the designated warp zone. "Elvenheim has some fine people, fine people."

"Hi! I'm Navem, one of Elvenheim's great adventurers! Can you beat my score in Warp Jumper 5000? I dare you to try!" the radio said.

"You should consider doing voice acting on the side," Poll said to Navem.

"Not likely," Navem muttered, embarrassed.

The plan was to get Paradrei settled back home on his station (Party Prime, as it was officially named), and then use his contacts to try and find some potentially more helpful gods.

"There's a lot of traffic around your station," Poll remarked as they headed towards it. Poll had quietly refused to call the station by its name, which Paradrei seemed to not notice and Navem definitely did.

"Oh, Party Prime has always had a lot of visitors," Paradrei said, waving a hand.

"Even when you weren't there?"

"Sure! My butler--"

"Who you said is dead--"

"--always welcomed my guests in my absence. Eh... maybe he had a cousin or someone who would have taken over?"

There was no security at the docking station, which Paradrei assured the others was totally normal for Party Prime, and swiped the airlock open with a fancy gold access card.

"Ah, it's good to be home," Paradrei said cheerfully, walking down the corridor.

"There doesn't seem to be much partying going on," Poll said nervously.

"Oh, probably the party is in its recovery stage," Paradrei said. "Now, where would I find my--?"

"Sir!" A clanking figure ran down the hallway towards them. "Sir! Sir, it is indeed you! I had thought you would never come!"

"Rivaldi! You're alive!" Paradrei said happily, as the figure caught up to them. Rivaldi was ten percent ancient-looking old man, ninety percent high tech robot. He did not look particularly happy, more desperate to see them if Poll and Navem were interpreting the cyborg's expressions right.

"Oh, every moment alive is a waking torment, sir," Rivaldi said. "But I knew the systems like noone else, sir, so they did this to me to keep me from the ultimate escape."

"Well, much as I am glad to see you, Rivaldi, I do not approve of cybernetic enhancements against your will," Paradrei said, frowning. "Who are these people, and have they been brought to justice?"

"Oh, no, sir, they won't let us leave or communicate with the outside. Sir, I am so glad that you're back to vanquish them!"

"Vanquish who, Rivaldi?" Paradrei asked, looking righteously angry on Rivaldi's behalf.

"The pirates, sir!"

***

It turned out that shortly after Paradrei had left for the casino, a band of cyborg pirates had come into the area, and had immediately seen Party Prime as a soft target, and a potential base in the area. The station having been designed to welcome guests rather than repel them, it had been short work to infiltrate the station and kill, scare away, or in the case of Rivaldi, enslave and roboticise the original inhabitants.

"This is Party Prime, not Pirate Prime!" Paradrei said, scandalised.

"Oh, they do plenty of partying, sir," Rivaldi said sadly.

"Right, then," Paradrei said, his eyes narrowing. He swung around to Poll and Navem, suddenly authoritative. "What ordinance have you got on your ship?"

It turned out that getting rid of the pirates was a simple matter of ushering Rivaldi safely onto Poll and Navem's spacecraft, then having Paradrei, who didn't have any electronic enhancements whatsoever, walk into the middle of the station to set off an EMP. At least two thirds of the pirates were temporarily paralysed by this manoeuvre, and Paradrei used the front end loader that had been used to clean up after the more raucous parties to bundle them into holding cells. The last third were harder to deal with, though less so when wielding a front end loader. He was only shot and killed five times, which Paradrei thought was quite skilled of himself. The last pirate was the hardest, holding up in a closet and screaming something about revenge for his parrot. He was eventually brought out by Navem finding and resetting the robot parrot, and Paradrei holding it to ransom. The pirate eventually capitulated, hobbling out of the closet with his cybernetic leg still inoperable, and glaring at them all with his one natural eye.

This all accounted for, Paradrei happily let Rivaldi out from the shielding of the spaceship, and told him that he was going to leave immediately to help his new found friends.

"But sir!" Rivaldi wailed.

"I'm sure nothing bad will happen this time," Paradrei said, patting Rivaldi on the shoulder. "I believe in your abilities."

"Sir, don't leave me here!" Rivaldi began, but Paradrei had already entered Poll and Navem's ship.

"Sorry," Poll said to him, and they left the butler behind.

***

The first place they went to on their journey was an out-of-the-way station, which Paradrei assured them was a drop-off point for messages to Case.

"Though of course, he might know already," Paradrei said, shrugging. Case was almost never seen these days, but his spy network spanned the whole of human space, and beyond. This drop-off point consisted of a particular station-bound e-address.

"Perhaps one of you should send the message," Paradrei said after a bit of thought. "The last I heard from him he said to stop using this address to invite him to parties--which I ignored, so anything from me might just go straight into his spam folder."

They spent a little bit of time on the note.

"At these coordinates," Paradrei read out, "Blahblahblah, Elvenheim was captured by an unknown alien ship, potentially of the alien race called 'sun devils' by those on the 93rd frontier. Being immortal, she may still be alive, and so an attempt to rescue her is being planned. Please contact Paradrei, Poll, or Navem if you wish to join the official rescue effort.

"Much obliged, the above," Paradrei finished. "Is that okay?"

"Fine," Poll said, and so they sent it.

Their next port of call was World, in the heart of human territory, from which the overarching government of the human race sent out its decrees. These decrees were almost universally ignored outside of World's solar system, but the act of receiving (and ignoring) the decrees was considered part of human culture, and any threat on World was generally met with universal condemnation and fought with the entire resources of the human race.

Aphelka wasn't officially part of the government, but was on the payroll of a number of different politicians as an advisor. Paradrei tried the call number he had for her, but it had been disconnected.

"I'm sure Case reads everything he receives, or at least someone in his organisation does, but Aphelka has extensive spam filters, so we'll have to be careful in composing this letter," Paradrei said.

In the end, they tried three times, from each of their email addresses, avoiding the names of the other gods (generally found in conspiracy emails), the words 'help' or 'assistance' (usually used by people who thought Aphelka had much more time and power than she did), or exclamation marks. It took a few hours, but eventually Navem got a reply back.

"We've got a meeting with her office for tomorrow," Navem said.

"Excellent! Time enough to go shopping," Paradrei said cheerfully.

***

Paradrei, now with the funds of Party Prime at his disposal (admittedly much pillaged by the pirates), took them out to World on what the others suspected was a nostalgia tour of all his favourite places. Most of their time was spent dragging the god away from very old nightclubs and casinos, but in amongst the revelry they managed to buy some World-suitable clothes.

"Because despite having an appointment, her secretaries might not let you in if you look too... frontier."

"But we're in our official uniform," Poll said.

"And we have you," Navem added. Paradrei sighed, and explained to them: one, that uniforms weren't considered suitable wear on World, however smart-looking they might be, and two, that people on World didn't really consider the gods as gods.

"We come from here, after all," Paradrei said. "We were just normal Worldians, once."

"But surely," Navem said, trying to get his head around this, "Even if they don't consider you gods, they must consider you VIPs."

"Apart from Aphelka, who works hard to earn their respect, the rest of us are sort of considered half historical relics, half weird old people. Like how you would consider your great grandfather, I guess."

Navem and his family held his great grandfather in very high regard, so this didn't really help him understand, but he accepted things were different, and moved on. He still was a bit shocked at the way the secretary treated Paradrei, though.

"Fine," the secretary said, after getting their names. "Last names?"

"Uh, 3238?" Poll said.

"I don't have one," Navem said.

"I've forgotten," Paradrei added after a moment. "Aphelka might know."

"Don't be smart with me," the secretary said, his eyes narrowing.

"Hang on," Poll murmured, searching quickly for 'Paradrei' and 'Last name' in the major database. "It's Johnson-Lee. I'm sorry for the hassle."

"I have a half mind to send you on your way for cheek," the secretary muttered, scowling. "As it is--"

A small light blinked on at his desk. He sighed, and waved a hand.

"Come this way, please," he said, unhappy, and led them to Aphelka.

***

Aphelka was technically the oldest of the gods, and there was a significant amount of grey in the hair she had pulled up into a World-style bun. She stood up when she saw them, and moved around from behind her desk to greet them.

"Paradrei, it is good to see you again," she said smoothly. "And you must be Navem, and Poll?"

"That's right," Poll nodded. She explained the situation, about how Elvenheim was kidnapped, her fleet decimated, and an alien ship was moving throughout human space, kidnapping and killing humans as it went.

"And what were your thoughts on how I could help in this situation?" Aphelka asked them.

"If you could donate resources, that would be wonderful," Paradrei said. "If you could help us find the others, that would be an immense help, too."

"Well, I haven't heard from anyone but Case in a while, but if anyone knows where the others are, he would," Aphelka said, going back to her desk and picking up her tablet. She entered a number, and waited for about a minute and a half.

"Yes?" an unknown voice said from the other end of the line.

"Hello," Aphelka said. "I was wishing to speak to Case. Is he available?"

"My apologies, ma'am, he's not in this sector at the moment," the person said. "May I take a message?"

"Yes, please. Tell him Aphelka would like to speak to him, regarding the Elvenheim situation."

"I will convey your message as soon as possible."

"Thank you." Aphelka dismissed the call. "Well, that's all I can do right now. I will cancel all my meetings from the end of the week; if the alien ship is still within human space by then, I will join you in your quest to deal with it."

"Thank you," Paradrei said.

"She didn't seem particularly upset," Poll remarked as they headed back to the shuttle port.

"Well, cancelling her meetings like that probably cost her a billion dollars or more, so I think she's taking it seriously," Paradrei said cheerfully. "And if she doesn't think a few more days will hurt, they probably won't."

"I don't like the thought of Elvenheim at the mercy of the sun devils for that long, though," Navem said.

"Well, no," Paradrei agreed. "Let's see if we can sort this out before Aphelka has to, then, shall we?"

The others agreed.

***

Once they were back on their ship, Paradrei looked through all of his contacts, gods, human, and alien (though not many of the last; aliens tended to party differently to humans).

"I'm not sure what to do," Paradrei confessed. "Maybe Rivaldi would know."

"Well, if he's likely to, let's go back to him quickly," Poll said. "Every hour we wait, that ship is moving further towards higher populated human space, leaving chaos in its wake--"

"Ah-ha!" Paradrei said happily. "Take that, Rivaldi, I got it on my own!"

"What?" Navem asked.

"We need to go back," Paradrei said, with unwanted dramatics, "to the scene of the crime."

The battlefield was worse than Navem and Poll remembered, and Navem spent most of his time tagging debris that was going to hit them until they found a sheltered spot behind an asteroid.

"Now we wait, and watch," Paradrei said. They did so, a bit skeptically, but after a while Paradrei pointed to a small moving object on their screen.

"There," he said. Navem tagged the object, and they watched as it moved from place to place, it slowly becoming clear that it was moving with purpose, under its own power.

"Scavengers," Poll said, as it stopped at a large chunk of ship. "It's going for the warp drives."

"Open a channel," Paradrei said grandly.

"That's your job," Navem pointed out.

"What? Oh." Paradrei looked at the screen in front of him, and eventually, after much pointing and opaque explanations from Poll and Navem, found the right button to press.

"Hi, scavenger!" Paradrei said cheerfully. The ship did not respond, and after a few minutes, they noticed it wasn't moving at all, frozen into place.

"I think you scared them," Navem said.

"Do you know where Trem is? I want to speak with him," Paradrei said, ignoring Navem. The ship did not respond for a while, but then it sent a bunch of coordinates their way, and continued on its way to the next likely looking piece of debris.

"And there we are," Paradrei said smugly. Poll inputted the coordinates, and they blipped into warp.

Trem's latest abode was in a pocket of dead space, too far away from any star for humans to want to reside there. Here he kept his junkyard, neatly bound pieces of scrap floating in space. An enormous ship floated among them, home to the more delicate pieces of scrap and Trem himself, a young-looking god dressed in a leather coat that showed the scars of his dangerous job that, with his godlike healing, he couldn't get himself.

"Paradrei, good to see you," Trem said, shaking his hand. "And are these your party minions?"

"No, these are Elvenheim's," Paradrei said, as Trem nodded at them politely. "She's been kidnapped by aliens, you see, and they're a bit upset about it."

"As you would be," Trem said, and listened to their tale.

"How terrible," he said, nodding, "and yes, of course I will be able to help."

"Oh, hooray!" Paradrei said, beaming and clapping Trem on the back. "There you have it, Poll, Navem--your help."

"Thank you, Paradrei," Poll said.

"No problem, any time," Paradrei said breezily. "Uh... if you have no need of me anymore, can I get a lift back home?"