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holster.
    Kittanning had rolled over, crawled to the edge of the crib, and was trying to pull himself to stand when they came into the nursery. Mom Lara had mentioned Kittanning starting to crawl a few days before; remembering how long Cally had taken before crawling, Ukiah could only guess that Kittanning had grown impatient with his lack of mobility.
    Kittanning grinned in toothless delight at the prospect of being picked up.
    â€œHe’s probably wet,” Ukiah warned.
    â€œI know.” She allowed Ukiah to pick Kittanning up, hovered close, stroking Kittanning’s puppy-soft hair. “I need to go, but I’ll be back after work. I want to hear everything about your trip that you couldn’t tell me over the phone: like what the Ontongard scout ship was like, and what you remember now about growing up with the Kicking Deers.”
    While they had talked at length the entire time he was in Oregon, he’d edited what he said over the phone, just in case someone overheard. It reminded him of Hutchinson.
    â€œThere’s a Homeland Security agent coming to the offices later today. He’s been asking questions about me and Max and the shooting at the airport,” Ukiah told her as he walked her to her car; Indigo carrying her suit jacket.
    Worry flashed across her face. “Why?”
    â€œI don’t know. I’m worried someone might have linked it back to the Mars Rover.”
    â€œI’ve gone over all the reports by the police and the coroner’s office: they read like two biker gangs went to war over a site for a rave. It should be strictly a local FBI case.”
    â€œA rave?”
    â€œDance parties held in abandoned buildings.” Indigo used her key fob to unlock her car. “It’s nearly textbook contamination of reports: one of the first people into the old terminal decided that the Ontongard equipment looked like the audio/video setup for a rave and influenced everyone else.”
    â€œAre you sure someone else didn’t doctor the reports?”
    â€œI’m fairly sure.” Indigo slid on her suit jacket, coveringup her pistol now that they were out in public. “There’s a history of the Hell’s Angels and the Pagans fighting turf wars here in Pittsburgh. I heard more than one reference to the Hell’s Angels supplying drugs to raves that afternoon.”
    Ukiah winced as the combination of “Ontongard” and “drugs” connected in his brain with lots of sharp edges.
    â€œWhat is it?” Indigo asked, seeing the reaction.
    â€œMaybe nothing.” He stalled her as he backtracked through his memory of exploring the scout ship. His father, Prime, had sabotaged the scout ship so it crashed, and then used explosive charges to bury it under the Oregon Blue Mountains. By all evidence, Prime had smashed everything useful during a running fight, and Hex, wounded to the point of forgetting the ship’s location, had never found his way back.
    â€œTell me.” She covered his hand with hers.
    â€œEvery ship carries an arsenal of machines that create bioweapons. The machines are called the Ae.”
    â€œAnd they weren’t on the scout ship,” she guessed, eyes going wide.
    He nodded unhappily. “The armory was empty. There were broken weapons scattered all over the ship, but I just realized that I didn’t see the Ae among them.” Kittanning squirmed, adding a wet diaper to the list of world-threatening problems. “If Hex took the Ae with him, though, he has had them for over two centuries with the Pack hounding him the whole time. It’s possible a Pack dog, even Rennie himself, has already destroyed the Ae and Rennie was too wounded to remember.”
    â€œBut you don’t know where they are.”
    â€œI’m going to find out,” he promised her.
    Â 
    After Indigo kissed them both good-bye, promising to call after the autopsy, Ukiah carried Kittanning back into the