Boggs was missing.

This in itself was not an unusual thing. In the two years since the death of his little daughter the big man was known to occasionally hit the synth during his shift. Then he would stagger off into any of the hidey-holes that could be found among the caverns and warrens of Strombekker Station. They kept him on the payroll simply because the Conglom needed its Suits and Boggs was a man who could don a three-story tall Handler and play it like a finely tuned instrument for days in the radiation-filled vacuum of the inner system. That's where the Conglom's Collectors were. And the money.

If Strombekker's had been riding Newton's whip in-system then Boggs's supervisor, an equally seasoned Suit named Almeter, would have been hopping mad. But Strombekker's was coasting outward to rendezvous with the Barges that wandered in from beyond Sirius. Yet after several hours of missed work even Almeter's patience evaporated like ice under low pressure.

"Seen Boggs?" he demanded in the down-shift locker room.

A half dozen men and women with impressive musculature and quick eyes looked at each other with what amounted to a collective shrug.

"Anyone?" Almeter barked.

A Rigger named Peckwish slammed a locker door and said: "I sent him out to the old docks this morning. Control pinged me that a Weirdling ship had vectored in overnight."

Almeter frowned. Pressure scars warped his brow and cheeks to make him look like an angry miniature titan. "Why send Boggs?" he demanded.

Peckwish raised his hands. "Rob Billitty was busy on another job."

Almeter closed his eyes and ordered his augmented glands to release a hormone called supervisory patience. Rob Billitty. The old joke at Strombekker's: whatever happened, that old space-hand Rob Billitty would always be with them.

Strombekker Station fell in-system four times a year to harvest the quicksilver spheres from the living Collectors. The giant human-designed creatures used the intense radiations from burning Sirius to help open Einstein-Hawking-Pradishar keyholes into the very fabric of the universe. Once open, the Collectors harvested the primordial probability schqema that powered starships, far-flung colony worlds, and the economy of an interstellar civilization. Strombekker's purpose was to carry the full Q-spheres to a transfer orbit where empty Star Barges waited to hustle their cargo to energy-desperate worlds and customers.

Almeter said, "Explain more, Peckwish."

Peckwish grinned at his own joke. The Suits of Strombekker's occasionally played into the quirky mythos that surrounded their work: the claim that by pulling out the very stuffing of the cosmos they were radically altering reality. Whenever an employee made a mistake they would blame good old Rob Billitty. Even Almeter had used it on a few occasions himself.

"Peckwish," the tone was an order.

Peckwish shuffled and explained: "Boggs has dealt with Weirdlings before. Knows the lingo. Sort of."

Almeter nodded. "Makes sense. Anyone try a check-in?"

"Can't raise him. I figured ..."

"What?"

"Is Boggs in trouble again?"

"Depends. How much work is there to do?"

Peckwish shrugged. "My shift's over, Boss. That's B-Trick's problem now."

Almeter growled something inaudible and backed out into the corridor. In his own way Peckwish was right. The next shift, B-Trick, was due to start in ten minutes. Any irregularities would have to be reported to the B-Trick supervisor. If Boggs didn't turn up soon there might be trouble, for both the missing Suit and his supervisor.

Almeter shunted his transceiver and called: "Boggs? Please answer."

No response. From the nearby locker room he could hear chuckling. A-Trick could have done better by Boggs, Almeter reckoned angrily.

Almeter glanced at his dai-slate. He skimmed inventories and the Q-sphere maintenance tasks his team had knocked down. Except for the missing Boggs it had been a good shift, overall. Incoming work showed three ships vectoring toward Strombekker's. He paused. The icons registered them all as Weirdlings. It was odd to have so many ships from that species, a species from just beyond the galactic rim, arriving at once.

Almeter switched a channel and looked at the status of the old docks. A trickle of power and some sort of activity registered down in a vacuum bay at the station's south pole. A grav-drop could have gotten him there in five minutes but his dai-slate had to re-route him past a vacuum bridge that had collapsed almost a century ago. He called Boggs twice but there was still no answer. By the time he reached the large docking bay door a tickle of worry was growing in Almeter's belly.

The portal surrounding the door was bathed in green and Almeter stepped onto the cold metal plates of the docking zone. It was a huge, dim cavern and he emerged near the main landing skirt. A hundred meter swath of blackness stood a few bare meters away. A faint flicker of blue shimmered whenever dust touched the energized field-screen that kept the cold death of space at bay. Squatting like a whale on the verge of pouncing was the chitinous form of the Weirdling ship. Almeter walked past its whorls and appendages toward a distant glow. When he was a dozen meters away he stopped.

Tall dark forms, like creatures cloaked in mist, stood in a semi-circle before Boggs. The big man was kneeling next to a work lantern, his back turned toward the aliens. Even from where Almeter stood he could see the shoulders of the man's filthy work-alls shake as if he were struggling with something.

Quickly, Almeter moved toward the scene. "Boggs?" he called.

The big man did not answer.

Almeter walked past, and later he decided through, the dozen Weirdlings and up to the missing Boggs. The big man pivoted slightly and looked toward his approaching supervisor. Almeter halted and stared. Boggs's broken face was alight with tears and joy. In his arms he held a very surprised but very happy-looking six year old girl. The little toothy visage framed within a mop of dark ophelian hair looked a great deal like the man who held her.

"It's my Deena," Boggs choked out the words and a sob racked his chest and shoulders.

"Papa, don't cry," the little girl whispered.

Almeter stared quizzically from man to child and back to the man. Boggs kept photos of this child in his locker and on a mantel in his little run-down apartment. Both were shrines, of a sort. Although this child seemed slightly older than the one in the photos it was definitely Deena, Almeter realized.

But Deena had died from Steelth Syndrome almost two years ago! Almeter had attended the sad little funeral in a dusty church alcove near the heart of the Station. He could still smell the flowers Conglom HQ had ordered decanted for the wake. Almeter placed a quivering hand on Boggs's shoulder.

"I don't understand," the old supervisor said. Somewhere he thought he heard his dai-slate buzz.

Boggs cleared his throat. It would have been an effort for him to pull his eyes from Deena, so he said to Almeter while staring into the little girl's face: "It was the Weirdlings, Boss. They brought her back to me."

"Boggs. This is impossible."

The big man's voice rose slightly: "Boss, don't say that! She's here. All that matters."

Almost plaintively Deena placed her hand atop Almeter's where it rested on her father's shoulder. It was warm and soft and slightly grubby in the way that only a child's hand could be. When she stared into Almeter's eyes he saw a mix of puzzlement, happiness, and fear amid the hazel specks. The dai-slate buzzed like a worried insect.

Almeter turned toward the nearest Weirdling. The mist-creature was a gauzy, out of focus simulacrum of a veiled humanoid. Its sketch of a face featured a pair of large black eyes above twin slits that may have been nose and mouth. The thing stared beyond Almeter to some point at the far end of the bay. Then it seemed to shift its attention and refocus those blank eyes upon him. Almeter had the impression of looking into the same void that the nearby field-screen kept at bay.

"How…" Almeter began to ask. He stopped. Could these things understand him?

As if in reply the Weirdling said: "We speak the Tongue. Be it difficult for us." The voice was a rasp. Like static on a deep space radio band.

"How did this child come to you?" Almeter asked.

"She appeared among us. Alone. Frightened."

"How?"

"This we know not. Against all probability she came to our dark world on the Edge of All Things. We learned her Tongue. Cared for her, and then discovered from her descriptions where she may have originated."

The dai-slate droned. Almeter stared at the being. How could a dead child return to life? Against all probability the Weirdling had said. Almeter shivered. Was the old Strombekker Station joke for real? Had the Collectors somehow altered the fabric of reality? Rob Billitty at work on a cosmic scale?

Almeter asked, "When did Deena arrive among you?"

The Weirdling replied in a faraway voice: "Two of your year's ago. Shortly before the others began to arrive."

"Others?" Almeter asked. The dai-slate on his wrist sent a galvanic tingle across his skin. Someone really wanted him! Angrily he snapped the dai-slate open and demanded: "What the hell is it?"

A long pause and then: "This is Fossinger. I may need your help."

Almeter glanced back at Boggs. He held Deena tightly in his big arms. Soft smiles and tears of joy touched both their faces.

"Hello?" a voice called from the dai-slate.

Almeter peered down into the device. Fossinger was the B-Trick supervisor. Almeter's head whirled. Automatically he asked: "What's the problem?"

"I need you're A-Trick crew back."

"What for?"

"Lots of ships coming in. My team will need help tonight."

"Ships?"

"Yeah, ships. Over a dozen. And they're all Weirdlings. Look for yourself."

The dai-slate's screen jumped and Almeter saw a dozen blips with the alien icons attached. He blinked three times and then said: "Can you link me to long range gravitic and emissions scans?"

"Sure. Why?" Fossinger replied.

"Do it now!" Almeter yelled.

"Okay, okay. Keep your ... Jesu Cristo!"

On the screen the dozen Weirdling vessels became hundreds. When the gravitic scan updated, the background became a fog of thousands of alien vessels. Almeter turned his head slowly toward the Weirdling.

"We return the others to you," the mist being said. "All of your missing will now be home."

Almeter nodded with a reverence he had not felt in decades.

"Almeter! Almeter!" the voice on the dai-slate demanded.

Almeter looked toward Boggs and little Deena. He smiled softly at the happy scene.

"Almeter! Can you explain this?" the voice from the dai-slate demanded.

"Go ask Rob Billitty," he replied.