Agnes had a hard time being a passenger. Being in charge of the Euryalus had felt like being a passenger sometimes, with the AI guiding the ship to wherever she told it to go, and a navigation officer who did the real job of deciding when the ship had arrived at the correct place. Agnes had been the captain and therefore was basically along for the ride—but at least she'd been in charge and took responsibility for everything, including the things that went wrong.

But now she really was a passenger, and if something went wrong she'd be just another life for the crew to save, and any advice she might give would not be welcome. All she had to do was sit in a seat, drink coffee and maybe watch a movie along with a hundred other passengers as they took five hours to go to the Moon. She intended to do none of those things.

She sat now with her feet on another chair at the table in the main lounge of the shuttle. Other passengers lined up for food and drinks at the on-board canteen. Some watched the lazy way the stars wheeled around the windows as the ship spun to create the illusion of gravity. Some people found the sight literally sickening. At least cleaning up vomit was one thing Agnes didn't have to take responsibility for.

The chair opposite her creaked as Dorac sat down after parking the car in the hold of the shuttle. This was starting to be an expensive case. Another call would be necessary to the agency to try and convince them that the Dorac family really would cough up the necessary expenses. Maybe they would send them an invoice for costs to date. She opened her fone to make a note to remind herself about that later.

'Have you heard the news?' Dorac asked. He was munching on a candy bar he'd bought at the canteen. He hadn't bought her one.

'No. Something good?'

'Franco's dead.'

She looked up from her fone. 'When?'

He transferred a file to her fone. She regarded it for a moment: a news bulletin about a man's decapitated body found in Istanbul. DNA testing showed it to be Francisco Bail, a baker who was wanted by the police. The authorities were trying to trace anyone who had seen the man in the twenty-four hours prior to his death.

'Decapitated. I guess it wasn't suicide then.'

'An interesting method of killing,' mused Dorac. 'Not something a paranoid would do. Not something ordinary criminals would do either. That is, they might use it opportunistically, if the means arose. But they wouldn't leave the body where it could be found.'

'So you're saying whoever did this wanted the body found. Terrorists? They meant it as a message or warning?'

'Yes.'

Agnes glanced out of the window. The Moon had swung into view, already larger than it appeared from Earth, a huge beach ball floating on a black sea.

'I should contact the agency,' she said. 'They might have an agent on the Moon. We could meet, get some back-up. Maybe Nancy Jong is behind Franco's death. She found out Franco told us about him, disposed of Franco, left him to be found so we'd learn about it and back off.'

'We met Franco three days ago. She'd have to work fast.'

They sat in silence for a while, Dorac idly ripping some of the stitching out of his chair with his fingernails. He sat forward, put one hand on the table ready to stand up.

'I have a sudden compulsion to check on the car,' he said.

Agnes frowned. 'Left something there?'

'No. But it occurs to me that the Nuncio was blown up in a car. Franco probably told whoever killed him who we were—a Sirian and a Sape woman, physical descriptions and so forth. If he valued his life he'd do that, trying to save his own neck. We might be shadowed already. Three days would be enough time to notice two people like us kicking around in Istanbul, and the car we kicked around in. I'm just a little concerned that we might have an unwelcome device secured to your car even now.'

She scratched the scar on her forehead. 'You Sirians are always suspicious.'

He looked down at her. 'And you Sapes are responsible for making us that way.'

She stood up and nodded. 'Point taken. Let's go.'

***

Modus operandi.

Agnes's education had been a standard one: she finished school at ten, graduated with a degree in Environmental Science at fourteen, joined the Navy at eighteen and had been there ever since. The subjects she'd studied both at school and university were the standard ones and at no time had Latin been among them. But now the phrase came from some forgotten corner of her brain that must have heard it years ago.

Method of operation.

The Nuncio was disintegrated by a car bomb. Perhaps whoever did that was working to a particular style they always employed. A check of assassinations and attempts to assassinate might reveal a series of car bombs in the past that would establish a pattern. Maybe Nancy Jong used it to dispose of her victims because little evidence was left afterwards. Maybe she liked to see the target vanish into shreds of flesh. Maybe she just hated cars.

It was possible a terrorist on the Moon had agents on Earth, but not likely. She mustn't let Dorac's suspicious Sirian mind cloud her judgment.

They exited the lift to the cargo hold of the shuttle and Dorac led the way to the bay where their car was stored. Its size meant it was suitable for transport in one of the smaller, unsealed bays. If anyone wanted access to it, there was nothing to stop them.

Dorac knelt down to look under the chassis. 'What does a car bomb look like?' he asked.

'Sort of like a car bomb I guess.'

'Thanks. Good to know.'

Agnes cast her eyes over the outside of the vehicle and peered into the radiator grille, the vents, any potential place a small but powerful device might be set.

'You know the Nuncio's car might have been detonated by something that looked like part of the car,' she pointed out. 'Think about it: the legitimate security forces didn't notice anything out of place and we can presume they did a sweep of the car before the parade.'

'So look for something that should be part of the car.'

It was frustrating to think she was so unfamiliar with her own vehicle that she couldn't remember every part of it. Of course, if the would-be assassin really had fashioned a bomb that looked like a normal part of the car and replaced the actual piece, even knowledge about the vehicle might not help.

'Ah,' said Dorac, his voice muffled with his head under the chassis. 'I don't think that should be there.'

'What?'

'Well it's not roadkill. But it does look a bit like a car bomb would look if it was meant to be a car bomb.'

Dorac's flippancy was starting to grate.

He pushed himself out from under, holding a small flashlight in his teeth. Agnes turned away as the beam hit her in the face.

'Let me look.'

She lay down on the floor as Dorac held the flashlight on a spot behind the passenger side rear wheel. There was a black box there that wasn't mirrored by another one on the other wheel, and which seemed to serve no purpose.

'It's a bit stereotypical,' she said, taking her own brand of flippancy for a walk. 'A small black box. I wasn't expecting something with the word "bomb—handle with care" on it, but still...'

She found herself breathing hard, and it wasn't from having her head jammed under the back of a car. Crawling back out, she adjusted her blouse which had ridden up to expose her belly.

'Any ideas, Captain?' said Dorac.

It was almost a relief to slip into military mode. What would the captain of the Euryalus have done?

I would have sent in Jackie Szymanski and Lyle Prescott with a bomb disposal AI to do the dirty work, that's what.

Well, she didn't have those resources now, just herself and Dorac. This was going to be difficult. Time to think instead.

The bomb might have been placed before they boarded the shuttle, but it was unlikely. The garage at their hotel had secure, separate lock-ups for each guest vehicle. They'd been in the car since leaving the hotel until they drove onto the shuttle. And if the bomber had intended to blow them up, they would have done so by now, before they boarded. So the bomb had been placed there since the vehicle had been parked.

'You were with the car until a few minutes ago, weren't you?' she asked. 'I was up in the lounge, and you came to meet me there. And then two minutes later you got suspicious and we came down to find a bomb.'

'Yes. Which means—'

'The bomber is on board.'

That actually made her feel better. If the bomber was on the shuttle, it was unlikely they intended to detonate the device until after they'd disembarked on the Moon. So they were safe for the next few hours.

'They were quick. Probably watching for me to leave the car.'

The scar on her forehead itched. That was never a good sign. There were places to hide on the shuttle, but there were also places to hide right here in the cargo bay, and if the bomber had secured the device between the time Dorac left to go the lounge and their return a few minutes later, they could be right here in the bay with them.

Dorac must have had the same idea. They both glanced around, Dorac flashing his light into various dark corners. Nothing.

'What do we do about the bomb?' she whispered. 'If we report it to the crew we'll have to answer all sorts of questions. The authorities are looking for Franco's killers, and if it comes out we'd seen him recently...'

Dorac nodded. 'You know anything about removing bombs?'

'I've seen it done on holovision.' The thought of climbing under the car with nothing more than tools from the car's kit and trying to defuse an unknown explosive device appalled her.

'So have I. I don't think either of us should try it.'

He whirled and shone the flashlight behind him. The beam was too weak to illuminate much, but Agnes thought she caught a glimpse of movement, the faintest blur of darkness against the greater dark of the unlit cargo hold.

'Who's there?' called Dorac.

There was a sound this time, but not an answering hail. Someone had stumbled into something. Agnes reached instinctively for a sidearm, and muttered a curse when she realised they had no weapons, since they couldn't bring them on the shuttle.

It occurred to her that if the bomber was hiding out there in the darkness and wanted to kill them, detonating the bomb right now while they stood beside it was a handy method. Of course, the bomber might well destroy himself in the process.

Dorac stepped away towards the sound. All Agnes could see was the beam of the flashlight and his silhouette. She headed back to the lift to see if there was a contact to turn the main lights on.

Behind her, Dorac shouted. There came a loud clang and a thud, and someone running. Agnes turned to see the edge of the flashlight beam catch a pair of dark-clad legs.

She reached the lift and touched a contact. Lights came up in the hold just as a door on the far side slammed shut. Dorac headed towards the door, running between the cars, containers and other items arranged on their pallets in the hold. When he reached the door he struggled with the handle for a few moments.

'Locked!' he called.

They met in the middle of the cargo hold. Dorac had a scratch on his arm.

'Whoever it was had a knife. If I still had my retuka I could have caught them.'

'Did you get a look?'

'A brief one, and only a profile. But that was enough. I recognised her.'

'Who?'

He almost chuckled as she patched his bleeding arm with a bandage taken from the car's first aid kit.

'The female cop from Eridu. We had a run-in with the police after the Nuncio's assassination. It was her all right. Blonde hair, slim, fast. It was only a brief glance I got just now, but it was her.'

'She was on Eridu? Why?'

'Maybe she's Nancy Jong. Probably our assassin.'

Agnes realised that in order to extract the car's first aid kit, she'd had to open the doors. The bomb hadn't exploded. 'You think it might be possible to start the engine without dying?'

'Maybe. More likely the assassin will be among the first people off and an explosion down here won't kill anyone not in the hold.'

'Or, they'll wait until we're driving somewhere and detonate it remotely, somewhere isolated.'

He shook his head. 'A number of my people were killed on Eridu. This woman doesn't care about collateral damage.'

Which left the problem of what to do about the bomb. Agnes checked her fone. They would be landing in three hours. She hoped Dorac wasn't going to suggest attempting to defuse the thing again. She put a hand on his arm as he bent down to look at the device again.

'No.'

He smiled back at her. 'Don't worry. Just taking a look.'

He emerged again a moment later. 'Here's the thing: it's not attached to anything. That is, the black box is just held on with a piece of tape to the underside of the axle housing. Which means you were probably right when you suggested it's meant to be detonated after we leave. The bomber could easily watch us disembark, then press the contact whenever she wanted. We sort of had the same idea on Lizard when we were going to blow up Zeus.'

He slid under the car. Agnes almost grabbed his feet to haul him out again, but instead stayed and fretted until a minute later he clambered back out, this time holding the black box in the five fingers and thumb of his right hand.

'Safe and sound,' he said, smiling.

'Fuck you.'

'You're welcome.'

Dorac placed the black box on the roof of the car and looked at it in the clear light. It was just a small cube, unadorned with any marks or contact points.

'Gives off a nasty feeling, doesn't it?'

Agnes cast around to see if the assassin might be have returned, but of course she hadn't. Not out in the open where she was likely to meet them. It felt like every muscle in her body was tensed, trying to stay as far as possible from the bomb while still giving an air of indifference like Dorac. Agnes had already been blown up once during her military career and hadn't enjoyed it much.

'What do we do with it? Throw it into space?'

'For the moment we keep it.' He slipped it into his pocket.

They remained silent in the car until the announcement came that all passengers had to return to their seats. As they sat down in the main cabin there was a live feed on the holovision showing the ship settling down onto the Moon. Mountains and craters abounded on this rough terrain, surrounding the domes and square blocks of a sizeable city. Agnes noted that every extra-terrestrial city looked roughly the same, but given the hostile surroundings on their respective planets and the need to build environments sustainable for life, that wasn't too surprising. Was it possible to find anywhere in the galaxy suitable for humans without the need to terraform or hide under domes or underground?

Maybe we aren't meant to be out here at all, she thought as the ship settled onto the tarmac of the space port.

'There she is,' said Dorac, nudging Agnes in the elbow.

A woman had taken a seat in the next aisle along. Thin, blonde haired, almost half Agnes's size. If it came to a fight Agnes was confident she could overpower the woman. She was tempted to do so now. The woman glanced over at them and Dorac smiled and held up the bomb so she could see. Her face tightened.

'That's Nancy Jong, I'm guessing,' he said.

'Take a look at this.' Agnes showed him some information on her fone she'd just received from her security firm. The picture was a close match. The text below told them that Nancy Jong (aka a string of other names) was wanted everywhere, but clever enough to stay free. She was the subject of a Syndicate Combined experiment to manipulate emotion within a human being but had escaped at the age of ten after killing two of the scientists.

'Good for her.'

Agnes frowned at the Sirian, but let any possible retort go. The thought of a little girl being tortured like that, her mind manipulated in some obscene manner, riled Agnes so much there was a danger of being sorry for the bitch.

As soon as the seatbelt sign was off, Dorac rose and headed back to the lounge. Agnes followed, feeling the change in gravity now the ship's rotation had stopped. A number of the passengers laughed or expressed surprise at how light everything now felt. Agnes ignored them—as if going to the Moon was anything special!

They were supposed to head down to their car, which also held their luggage, and wait there for debarkation instructions. But Dorac whispered a few words to her and they stood in line with the other passengers waiting to leave, as close to Nancy as they could get.

The woman ignored them and did a great job of appearing to be just one of the crowd. Agnes focused on her hands in case she reached for a fone or some other device that might set off the bomb. The line shuffled towards the main door of the ship and out into customs.

Agnes stayed right behind the woman, Dorac to her left as they handed over their documents and had their ID's checked. It would have been interesting to see what name came up on the screen when the reader was held to Nancy's wrist. She was cold-blooded for sure, not disturbed at all as Agnes stood within a metre of her, not glancing over her shoulder as she passed through the inspection. Agnes was still right behind her as they headed for customs.

The woman carried a small case that she held casually, swinging it gently in one hand. Agnes and Dorac had left their luggage in the car, and they passed through the day visitor barrier quickly; Nancy was held up for a minute while her case was searched. When she emerged from the line the three fell once more into step.

Agnes felt like she was on a raid back in her navy days. Adrenaline was already pumping through her. That wasn't good; it clouded judgment.

Forget the bomb. Just don't fuck this up.

The more the crowds dispersed within the terminal, she reasoned, the more likely Nancy was to make a dash for it. Over her shoulder, Dorac was pacing along slowly, shortening his long stride to keep pace with them.

Two groups of people were moving through the main doors of the terminal, one set coming in, the other leaving. At that moment, Nancy made her break. Agnes raced off after her and collided with one of the men coming in. She stumbled back on course, ignoring the man's shouts.

As Agnes cleared the doors, the low gravity caused her to misjudge a step. She sailed high, came back down, skidded and fell as she emerged outside. Ahead of her, Nancy seemed more used to the gravity and bounced away at a pace Agnes couldn't match without more practice. After a few strides Nancy put her hand into her pocket and at the same moment there came a dull thud from inside the terminal.

Agnes looked back through the doors, expecting to see the terminal rocked by an explosion. But all seemed well; Dorac was standing in the doorway, apparently whole. What had made that sound? As she stood up and walked, or rather loped, back to the entrance an alarm sounded inside the terminal.

'What happened to the bomb?' she asked, checking that Dorac wasn't still holding it.

'I dropped it into a garbage chute,' he said. 'You heard it go off? With any luck it just blew a rubbish bin to bits and no actual people.'