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Lady Dalia's grandfather paused for a moment, his eyes distant. "I wasn't able to go back. The Law figured out it was me faster than I expected. I had to go on the run. I managed to stay ahead of them for a few years, came home to see my family, but what I'd had done caused friction." He looked at his granddaughter. "You and Baran were the only ones young enough not to judge me."

"Did you tell them about the fabricator?" Tristan's voice was gentle, even though he had to be fuming. Alex watched for any crack in the mask, any indication that he was angry, but as always, it was perfect. It was as if for this moment Tristan was actually this caring person.

"No, of course not. The stories I told them were simple, so they'd understand why I couldn't stay, but I made sure they couldn't tell anyone anything that would lead them to the virus."

"How about your office? Did you leave anything there? Your son locked it up, was he trying to protect you? To keep any evidence of what you'd done and why away from the Law?"

Olirian looked at Dalia, wonder in his eyes. "He did? He screamed at me the last time I visited. He told me to never come back, that if I did he'd tell the Law."

"He was angry, but you were still his father. He wouldn't have betrayed you."

Olirian sobbed for a few seconds, and Dalia wiped his tears away.

"The office?" Tristan asked. "Was there anything in it?"

The old man shook his head, then looked uncertain. "I don't think so. It was..." his eyes seemed to be searching for something, "a long time ago. I wouldn't have left anything that could lead back to Salvation, it would have been foolish." He became agitated. "Dalia, did I leave something? Did I--Am I going to kill the universe after all?"

"No, no, Grandfather. You didn't leave anything, the universe will be safe, I'll see to it." The words didn't reassure him. She looked to the doctor, who was tapping commands on the status screen for the bed.

"He's exhausted, Lady Dalia. Mental fatigue, not physical. I can give him stimulants, but what he needs is actual rest."

"Where is the warehouse?"

Alex heard urgency in Tristan's tone, but outwardly he was still calm and friendly.

"The warehouse?"

Tristan nodded. "Where the fabricator was. You disconnected the space from the system, but you didn't tell us where it is."

The old man eyes fleeted around nervously. "It--Telrize, Brian picked it because they offered both information and physical storage."

"That's enough," Dalia said, her voice soft. She smiled at her grandfather. "Rest, I'll be back when you wake." The man closed his eyes and the agitation left him. She motioned for Tristan and him to follow her outside."

The moment they left the room Tristan's face changed. Gone was the warmth, the caring expression, and back were the hard eyes, the flat, thin lips of someone who never smiled. He was thinking, Alex could tell that much after all these years. It was the ears, straight up, facing forward as if there was an interesting sound there.

The change didn't surprise him as much as it used to. He'd seen Tristan slip in and out of plenty of masks now. He'd seen him seduce men and women to gain access to whatever they needed. He'd been an older man once, and all he'd done was add gray to his fur, and when he'd stood, hunched over, and had trouble walking, Alex had been convinced he was old as much as anyone else.

Tristan didn't need to feel anything, he was that good of an actor. If he'd made that realization a few years earlier, it would have crushed him. Maybe it would have kept him from the life he was living now, but Alex doubted it. He'd convinced himself of so many lies to get to Tristan, realizing the truth wouldn't have done him any good.

Now, the knowledge barely made an impact on him. Who Tristan had been to seduce him hadn't been real, there had been nothing behind the mask except this hard, uncaring alien. Alex even hardly thought of that person anymore. The only time he saw him now was in the occasional dreams, and even in those, more often than not, Alex ended up choosing the Tristan he knew, over the one he'd thought he'd known. Mind Docs would have a field day with him.

"Was he telling the truth?" Tristan's voice had no accusation in it.

"Of course he told the truth," the woman said. "My grandfather isn't a liar, he did what he did because he had no choice, how can you think otherwise? He's a good man."

Tristan didn't comment, because the question hadn't been directed at her. Alex went over what the old man had said again before answering. So long as Tristan felt he was working on the problem, he would let him take his time; of course this was probably an evaluation more than anything else. Tristan had this sense about people that let him work out the truthfulness of their word far more efficiently than anything Alex could do.

"I can't comment on anything relating to the virus. That isn't my field. What he said about the coercion sounded plausible enough. If he's really an amateur he wouldn't have enough of a knowledge base to build any sort of program before seeing the environment it would have to work in. Vaults can be tricky because the inside of one can be completely different from the outside. Detaching it and the fabricator from an index is easy enough, I was doing it in my first year of school. There isn't much to prevent it because there are no reasons anyone would want to do that to their vault. It's a lot harder to reconnect it than to disconnect it."

"Can you find it?"

"If I have access to the physical server, without any problem."

"The fabricator? Can you find it?"

Alex considered that. "I'm going to need a layout of the warehouse that predates when Olirian changed the system to compare with the current layout."

"How easy is it to get?"

"Not that easy. Places like that update every backup. If it had happened a few days ago, or a few months, I could have dug back far enough to find an unaltered backup, but after thirty years, anything that old will have been erased to make more space. I'd have to know of someone who had a reason to had kept a copy on an isolated system."

Alex shook his head. "The simplest way to find it will be to walk around the warehouse physically. I can compare the layout to what's really there. It won't be quick, but ultimately, it's faster than searching around the net."

"Good," Lady Dalia said, "then you'll be able to get to it before my brother does."

Tristan shrugged and she stopped walking.

"What does that mean?"

He stopped and faced her. "I haven't taken the job yet."

She stared at him. Her mouth worked, but no words came out.

Alex looked at Tristan, but kept his reaction from showing. There was only one thing that mattered to the alien, his survival. Everything else he did was to ensure that. This virus put his survival at risk, so why was he acting like it didn't matter to him?

"How can you not take it? Didn't you listen to my grandfather? Everyone in the universe is going to die."

Tristan shrugged again. "Why should I put my neck at risk to clean up your family's mess?"

"Money? This is about money? The universe is at risk and you want to put a price on it?"

Tristan's lips quirked up into a slight smile. "Everything has value. How much is a life worth to you?"

"You--you want me to pay for everyone in the universe?"

Tristan shook his head. "I'm not that greedy. I'm only charging you for one life. The others are free of charge; after all, to save that one life, I have to save everyone else. You heard your grandfather, the virus is extremely contagious."

Dalia seemed at a loss. "You can't put a price on a life, anyone's life. Life is priceless."

Alex snorted, making them both look at him. "The prison system assigns value to every life it takes in. The Bounty boards are filled with people being assigned value. We're all worth something to someone." He didn't add anything, he didn't think Tristan would be pleased if Alex mentioned that he personally didn't think life was worth all that much. The alien was aiming to make a profit out of this after all.

"Fine, a hundred million. That's what I'm going to pay you to save the universe."

"Half of it now. The rest when I deliver your brother and confirmation the virus has been destroyed."

She pulled a data pad and angrily typed on it. "There. By the time you get to your ship there'll be someone there with a money chip. You mercs are all the same. Money is the only thing you care about." She turned and stormed away.

Tristan headed in the opposite direction, and after half a dozen turns Alex glanced at him. "What was that about? I mean really, you don't care about money. And I'm pretty sure you'd go after the virus even if she'd refused to pay you."

"She wants her brother back. She just paid to get him back alive."

Alex smiled. "You charged her for only one life."

"His." Alex thought Tristan had smiled too, but it had been too fleeting to be sure.

A man was waiting beside the ramp when they reached Tristan's ship. He presented a small case to Tristan, which contained one chip. The alien gave the case back to the man, and the chip to Alex. It was his job to spread the money throughout the accounts.

After Tristan unlocked the ship Alex went in and sat at his board. While Tristan took them out of the ship, Alex distributed the money. Tristan had over three hundred different identities spread around the universe. Alex's two dozen felt like a paltry attempt in comparison. How the alien managed to keep track of all of them was beyond him. Alex had built an index to do that job.

It took him an hour to set up the distribution, splitting the amount in chunks of various size and backdating them throughout the last decade. He'd installed programs in each identity that would then make transactions between each other as well as with Alex's IDs and various companies Alex had coerced his way into specifically to move money around like this. It didn't matter how thorough the Law's investigators were, they wouldn't be able to track where the money had come from or who it ultimately went to.

That done he went to do a checkup of the cryo system. They'd only used it the day before, as far as his body was concerned, but it had still been months since he'd last made sure they worked properly, in objective time.

"That can wait," Tristan said. Alex looked at the alien who was typing something as he stood. "On my bed, now."

Now? Really? It had barely been a few days since the last time. He almost voiced his question, but realized the stupidity of questioning something he wanted.

He ran into the room, threw his clothes on the chair by the door. He prepared himself and lied on his stomach on the bed. He barely heard Tristan enter, and didn't look behind him as he felt the mattress shift under his weight. Hands grabbed his hips, and he was flipped on his back.

Before the surprise had passed, his legs were on the alien's shoulders and Tristan was using him.

It was rare that he did so facing him, and Alex rejoiced in seeing his face. He didn't search it for any signs Tristan cared; he didn't, but that didn't matter to Alex. These were the only times when Tristan touched him, and Alex craved it.

He moved his legs to wrap them around the Alien's waist, freeing the neck for him to put his arms around it. Tristan let him, moving at a speed that made this feel best for him, not Alex, but that didn't matter either. It still felt amazing to him and he had no problem giving voice to his pleasure.