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"Communicating with them isn't fun," she said grimly. "And I can't really trust them. They don't see me as an individual; I'm just another sensory input device."

"Mallory," Mrs. Brown said in her patient-grandmother voice. "Sometimes we have to do what we don't want to do in order to learn things. You have a direct line to a near-omniscient hivemind. Don't ignore that because they were mean to you."

Resentment flared inside Mallory, but she knew that reacting would sound petulant. "If you're so eager to get access to the hivemind, why not let them sting you?" she asked lightly.

Mrs. Brown smiled. "Because I have you." She waved a hand as if hurrying the tense moment past them. "And I have enough to deal with connected to Eternity. And about her, she'll be mostly asleep. She'll keep life support going, and the elevators, monorail, atmosphere, water reclamation, energy; all of that comes from involuntary systems, like our circulatory systems. Think of it like watering a plant while your grandmother is out of town on a cruise."

Mrs. Brown had killed two men in self-defense when she was a young woman, and a few decades later, she had murdered her second husband. She'd killed him in self-defense, but then had tried to cover it up. Coincidentally, her case was the first murder Mallory had ever solved. Mrs. Brown went to prison for ten years. Currently she was technically breaking parole by living aboard Eternity, but humans were desperate to ally with alien races, and, ex-con or not, Mrs. Brown was connected to a sentient space station. The station and everyone on it would be quite upset if humans extradited her, so the federal prison system concerned themselves with just about any problem rather than appeal to bring her home. Mallory figured this made Mrs. Brown the most powerful human in existence.

Mrs. Brown gestured for Mallory to follow her, and they went to the back of the cave, which transitioned slowly from rock and dirt to sleek metal.

"Damned if I know why you don't wear an environmental suit," Mrs. Brown muttered. "You don't have the sense to come in out of the rain." She reached the end of the cave and put her hand on the wall.

"I honestly didn't think Eternity would try to give me frostbite," Mallory said as a door opened in the cave wall, sliding back to reveal the interior of one of Eternity's many elevators.

"But she told you to wear one, didn't she?" Mrs. Brown said. "You need to listen."

"Fine, the next time Eternity says I will be in a subzero room, I'll put a coat on," Mallory said with a smile.

Mrs. Brown didn't smile back. "Don't be smart, girl. You know what I mean."

The door closed and the lift began to move laterally, then drop into the depths of Eternity.

*  *  *

Mallory was getting tired of the riddles. She was exhausted from the hike and just wanted to go take a hot shower.

"Next time, you think Eternity could give me a lift to the secret cave? That'd save a lot of effort and frostbitten fingers."

"You're letting the environment distract you." Mrs. Brown faced her and looked up, hands on tiny hips. "You haven't asked the biggest question, Detective."

Mallory raised an eyebrow.

"Why did I ask you, of all people, for help when you're connected to the very beings I'm trying to keep this information from?"

Mallory crossed her arms and thought. It was a good point. Brown had asked for the person who had the biggest connection to the Sundry to hide something from them. Mallory didn't connect with them voluntarily, and she didn't think they could just spy through her eyes and ears if she didn't let them, but she wasn't entirely sure how much the hivemind could take from her if they wanted to. "Yeah, I'm wondering that. So what's the answer?"

The lift came to a stop. Mrs. Brown smiled at her like a dad pulling a station wagon into Disney World. "You're about to see something amazing, and I want to enjoy it while you do. Have you ever wondered how the station operates, how she knows everything that happens?"

Mallory shrugged. "No more than I wonder how a car or computer works. If it works, I don't worry about it."

"The station has symbiotic connections with more than me," she said. The doors opened. "And the Sundry have more connections than just you."

Mallory stepped out of the lift onto a catwalk with a shaft going up and down beyond her line of sight. Around them swarmed Sundry, both blue and silver, creating glittering patterns as they crisscrossed. The noise was almost overwhelming, the buzzing of thousands of wings.