2024 SF, fourth and probably last of its series. Fergus settled down
as a beach bum in the back end of nowhere to try to hide from the many
people who don't have his wellbeing in mind, but it was only a matter
of time until someone tracked him down.
"You've been held in indenture on Aurora, and now you're with us. An
Enclave would explain your paleness."
"Hey," Fergus protested. "I am tan. This is the most tan I've ever
been in my whole life."
Belos shook his head. "I am genuinely sad for you," he said,
sounding not at all so.
The story is interestingly episodic—not picaresque like The Scavenger
Door when the plot tokens had to be collected from different places,
but in a more connected way. The kidnapping leads to Fergus joining a
crew of space pirates; they track down some information, then get
wrecked on an uncharted world and have to survive there; while doing
that, Fergus finds out more about why the nearby space phenomenon (and
its alien defenders) are the way they are, and progresses towards
resolving that.
Last, but not least, was a short woman of medium build, medium age,
and medium tone, wearing similarly average gray clothes. The one
side of her head that was shaved also showed an implant port,
smaller and sleeker than Fendayre's, and her expression of total
neutrality made him instantly peel off the mental most dangerous
label from the first mate and assign it to her instead.
But while there's always a strong narrative drive, as before this is
really more about the people than about the plot. Everyone has a
distinctive personality, most of them are significantly more than one
note, and it's the interactions between them as they grow and change
and open up to each other which make up the real meat of this
book—with ancient alien technology providing spice for the dish.
"Well, I can't tell what any of that is," she said.
"Me either," Fergus admitted. Whatever it was, it was complex,
alien, and lacking any sort of handy labels on anything. "We could
learn more by trying to turn it on, I suppose."
"And what do you think we could learn from that?" Marche asked.
"Probably only that we shouldn't have turned it on," Fergus said.
And, just at the moment, it's particularly welcome to see people
trying to do good things for the right reasons, in a setting that has
some hope for the future.