The luxury apartments Abraham referred to were built into the domed section on the central rock of the colony, not so far from its archaic gun turret. This was the central living space for the colony, a nearly spherical asteroid about three kilometers long by two wide, hollowed out and divided into two large residential sections and a central business section. The centre of all three of these spaces and the luxury sector were graced with wide, pleasant parks, and the walls of all the sectors were covered in creepers, ivy, and hanging plants. Large windows on one side of all the asteroids gave a view of the distant sun, and the slow rotation of the entire structure allowed this weak sunlight to shine into all the sectors for about 10 hours every day. Living spaces were primitive but spacious, and they learned that about 400 people lived in Rockhome 3, although no one was registered and no one could say exactly how many people lived there, but everyone knew everyone else's comings and goings. By the time the PCs reached their luxury apartments they were already known to the entire colony, and the guide that Abraham had assigned them had already provided them with a broad outline of how the colony worked and how the station was structured. They settled into their apartments by late afternoon, enjoying a large verandah overlooking an open garden space fashioned from an old crater on the asteroid, over which a huge plexiglass dome gave them a stunning view of the asteroid belt, grey and brownish rocks of various sizes hanging almost completely still in a cloud of dust through which the light of the distant sun streaked in complex angular patterns, the shadows cast by the larger rocks creating a lattice of darkness amongst the glittering dust particles that filled the belt.

  “This is not luxury,” Dr. Delecta complained after they had explored their rooms and regathered on the balcony, wrapped in the coats the colony had loaned them. Although their cargo had been unloaded in record time and people were already working on the life support systems the entire station was still very cold, and their rooms, which had been unoccupied for months, felt like tombs.

  “It’s luxury for them,” Olivia told her, waving her hand in the direction of the asteroid. “A shower with real water pressure, cotton towels not disposable paper, your own climate control. Truly we’ve made it,” the last with her typical sarcastic sneer.

  “It’s better than most places I’ve lived,” Adam said in a low rumble, and Dr. Delecta patted his hand knowingly.

  “Well, compared to our ship …” she muttered. “Maybe we should stay there!”

  “And offend our hosts?” Al Hamra asked, putting on a theatrical tone. “We can’t have that! We’re getting repairs done at a fraction of the cost on Coriolis, let’s keep them sweet.”

  That was true enough. By a terrible irony the station had a surfeit of supplies for repairing damage to vessels, even though they lacked enough materials to maintain their own life support systems. “That is the saboteur’s cunning,” Abraham had told them. “Whoever it was knew exactly what to do to make sure we could not repair it ourselves, and would need to use all the supplies we did have just to keep it running temporarily. They wanted us to die slowly, or humiliate ourselves begging for aid.”

  “There’s a psycho on board,” Siladan pointed out. “Not sure keeping them sweet is going to protect us from that. What if they decide to be more direct the second time around.”

  “There’s always a psycho in these places,” Olivia retorted.

  “I expect they have guards on all the places they need them,” Al Hamra replied, waving away their concerns. “We just have to stay a few days, then they can do whatever they want to each other.”

  “Maybe the psycho decided to jump ship on the Vision Thing,” Dr. Delecta suggested. “Rather than stick around to enjoy the fruits of their handiwork.”

  “Seems likely,” Siladan said. “Who wants to stick around for freezing weather and bad air? Too bad for them if they did.”

  “Bitter irony,” Al Hamra agreed, “But there were other ships in the docks. Maybe they were counting on lighting out in one of them once things got worse. Or maybe they were expecting Abraham to put out a distress call.”

  “Be funny if they had a plan with a merchant in Coriolis to cash in on this and we got here first,” Adam mused, and Dr. Delecta clapped her hands together.

  “That’s it!” She exclaimed. “That would explain how Arkial knew. Tracking messages on Coriolis.”

  Al Hamra laughed. “Someone’s gonna be mighty angry if so. Maybe we could offer to buy their parts at a big discount and sell them off in another system.”

  Everyone laughed at the irony of that, and the conversation turned to griping about the low-quality accomodation, before they began preparing for their evening appointment. An hour later they made the short walk across the luxury section of the station to a door on the far side of the garden, where the Consortium agent was lodged. Apparently all the colony’s guests were clustered around the same crater.

  The agent’s door opened after one ring, and they found themselves facing a short, willowy young woman wearing a long, simple blue evening gown, carrying a glass of sparkling wine and smiling up at them through ruby red lips. “Salaam,” she greeted them. “Come in!” She led them through a well-lit, thankfully warmer hallway to a large oval dining room, where an older woman stood waiting for them. She, too was resplendent in a long red sleeveless evening gown that hugged her figure closely, and a cascade of silver jewellery on her shoulders and wrists. Unlike the young woman who had let them in she had pale skin, the same rare colour as Olivia’s, and blonde hair, which was even rarer in the Third Horizon generally, and almost unheard of among members of the Consortium Faction. The Consortium Faction had been formed by crew and residents of the Zenith generation ship, which had been carrying a genetically diverse population, but very pale denizens of that ship were rare and almost entirely restricted to two family groups, all of whom had rebelled against the ship’s leadership and migrated to the surface of Kua, becoming founding members of the Zenithian Hegemony, the Consortium’s primary rival Faction. In the Third Horizon natural blond hair was a strong marker of Zenithian Faction affiliation, not Consortium.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  “Salaam,” the woman greeted them. “I am Inge Silwerstern, a representative of the Consortium on this colony.” She gestured to the younger, darker-skinned woman who had led them in. “This is Dr. Angbat, the colony’s psychiatric consultant. I have invited her to join us for dinner.” She gestured to the table, which was groaning with a wide range of food. “My apologies,” She said as she showed them the food, “Given the circumstances the fare is a little humble, but I hope you can tolerate it. Drinks?” She gestured to Dr. Angbat, who began pouring sparkling wine for them all as they made their introductions. A young man in formal dhoti and kurta slipped in to take their coats, and they toasted the health of the colony before taking seats at the table.

  “Is that freshly-baked ahi?” Siladan asked with obvious pleasure, pointing to the tray of large grasshopper-like insects in the centre of the table.

  “Done alive,” Dr. Angbat said by way of confirmation. “They grow easily in our station’s gravity, and our horticulturalist is a master with them. Unfortunately the recent sabotage damaged their environment, so the whole station has been eating them the last two days when we realized they weren’t going to survive the week. Please enjoy the unexpected luxury!”

  Siladan thanked her and began crunching on one of the big, juicy insects, and with that the formalities ended. Everyone began to eat, making easy conversation over dishes of live-baked Ahi, vegetarian biryani, somewhat stringy goat meat and a surprisingly delicious moussaka. Inge was particularly interested in gossip from Coriolis, revealing to them that she had been based on Rockhome 3 for nearly a year and missed the life of the big station. She asked Dr. Delecta about fashions and celebrity gossip, Siladan about the latest developments in Archaeology Alley, Saqr about the condition of the Station, and Olivia about life on Kua, while Al Hamra and Adam watched the conversation and Dr. Angbat served food and drinks like a good junior partner at a work dinner. After a long period of gorging, as they were all sitting back satisfied, the young man unobtrusively removed the half-empty dishes, replacing them on the table with a plate of fruits and a stack of baklava, and as if by magic small glasses of sweet kohol appeared, almost red in colour. They toasted again, and then Inge got down to business.

  “I have a small request for you,” she told them after she had told the young man he was free to go home. “I need you to find the person who sabotaged this colony.”

  “You think they’ll do it again?” Al Hamra asked.

  “Maybe,” she said. “But more than that, I’m concerned it’s not the work of an individual. Sometimes, as you know,” Here a nod to Olivia, “The colonists themselves sabotage their colony, either because a strange cult has taken root or as a precursor to an uprising.”

  “You think there might be an uprising here?” Dr. Delecta asked her. Uprisings on remote colonies were not uncommon, and they usually had catastrophic consequences for the colony itself, either because of inter-communal violence or because the Consortium was ‘forced’ to send in the troops of its Colonial Agency. “Is that why Abraham didn’t report the sabotage or send a distress signal?”

  Dr. Angbat shook her head. “No, his reasons were more prosaic. This colony is barely making enough money to keep up with loan repayments. He was worried that if the sabotage became public the colony’s debtors might foreclose on it.”

  “That’d be bad,” Olivia said, nodding her head knowingly. Colonies often had unusual and bespoke debt agreements that spanned generations, in which current residents of the colony were considered responsible for the principal from the original loans used to found the colony. Those loans could be huge, depending on how long the colony had lasted and how unprofitable it had been, and although the Consortium typically intervened to ensure that the conditions to trigger foreclosure were extremely difficult to meet, when foreclosure did happen the special arrangements of the original loan could see the extant colonists forced into debt-slavery or penal service, essentially working double-time in extremely penurious conditions until the principal was repaid. For larger and longer-lasting colonies that could mean multiple lifetimes of servitude, and colonists were willing to go to extreme lengths to avoid that outcome.

  “Could the sabotage have been organized to force foreclosure?” Dr. Delecta asked innocently, receiving a stern frown from Olivia. They were at dinner with the Consortium’s agent, who would be the person most likely to arrange such treachery.

  “No! Of course not!” Inge rushed to deny the implications. Then, more slowly and carefully, “I have reached out to all the debtors, and confirmed no such possibility. I’ve also confirmed they have no interest in foreclosure. The colony is paying off mostly only the interest on its original loans, and they are very happy for that arrangement to continue indefinitely. In fact, they likely would have been willing to offer an additional extremely favourable loan to bail Rockhome 3 out of its current predicament, if they had a ship and crew ready in time.”

  “Why didn’t you?” Adam asked bluntly. “You’re the real boss here aren’t you? Could’ve shipped something in at cost.”

  She raised her hands placatingly. “Unfortunately that is not the Consortium’s role here. Agents such as myself have to remain neutral as much as possible, or the various Factions with interests in the success of the current system will try to interfere in our work. But,” seeing their shocked expressions, she continued, “We can intervene in emergencies and I was beginning to think I might need to act. It was fortunate you came along, since direct Consortium involvement can come with its own complexities.”

  “But you’re willing to get involved indirectly now,” Al Hamra concluded, “By paying us to do this investigation. And you want us to keep it secret, I assume, and report the findings to you.”

  She nodded. “I’ll pay you 5000 birr for the work,” she told them, eliciting happy nods from everyone gathered at the table. “Dr. Angbat has agreed to help you confidentially. Once you have an answer to the question of who did it, we can decide together how to act. If it’s an individual, we can tell Abraham. If it’s a movement… well, then I will have to decide what to do.”

  “We’re only going to be here for three days,” Al Hamra told her, “to repair our ship. I don’t think we can make an excuse to stay longer.”

  “Three days will be enough, I think,” she replied, spreading her arms wide in a magnanimous gesture of confidence. “How hard can it be?”