The inherent jitteriness of home was gone. Fortress Maxime was exposed to an equal amount of the five true Elements. It was weird learning that Earth, Fire, Water, Lightning and Wind were not considered elements among the Diaspora. Instead, of being exposed to five elements and prefering two his whole life, Lowell had one constant element for his whole life: Arcana. The element of magic, explosions, possibilities (physical rather than imaginative), kinetics and so on.

  The amount of Arcana he was exposed to now was a hundredfold less, which was why he didn't feel that jitteriness. He was avidly reading about the other elements: Holy, Logos, Jester and Musea, when he ran into Kate at the library.

  From her he learned there was a regular flotilla of the Holy diaspora that went around and took on emmigrants from the Holy worlds. Teaching them that they had been exposed to dangerous levels of Holy elemental radiation, and they didn't actually have any insight into the true creation or divine being, but that it was caused by the elemental exposures they had suffered.

  He had been interested in her story, of becoming disillusioned when the denomination she believed in completely broke into three denominations that started arguing, disagreeing and then warring with each other. She was also the muscle of their group.

  Kate had combined the traditional ideas of holy knights on her homeworld with advanced tech armor and a lightning-hammer (he called it that at least). She didn't have a horse, but her armor and weapon made her an imposing presence.

  Lowell himself still wore his robes depicting blue flames criss-crossed with silver lightning bolts. He'd added a modern pair of computing goggles, it had an advanced crystal processor, zoomable optics and protected his eyes.

  How Kate ever learned to reprogram Crystal Processors, he wasn't sure, but it was helpful. She had been part of the diaspora for ten years already, while he was only six months in.

  They were waiting in the lobby of the Maxime's security division headquarters. Waiting for a job. For their first job, he and Kate had tracked down a thief stealing the station's Jester supply, but they both agreed they needed a third partner.

  Maybe choosing the Jester thief was a bad idea.

  Keith was, of course, a Jester world survivor. Cramming a whole planet full of parodyists and comics and jesters sounded awful to Lowell. Keith explained that no one would tell a joke until they knew it was completely perfect. Jokes were these perfect little things, but capers were where it was at, so half of his planet had skills in thievery and heists, that sort of thing.

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  Lowell kinda thought Keith wanted to go back to his world, but the heat was just too much.

  They could have added a Logos or Musean exile to the group, but in the first case, they would never get anything done, and in the second case, most Museans weren't fast moving or combat rated, and it was best if there wasn't any artwork or poetry of their job on the galactinet.

  Keith wore a black, tight-fitting outfit, a ridiculous toolbelt, which Lowell wasn't sure was for the job, or for comedic effect. And a hat, a ridiculous massive hat that Keith said was part of "Western Parody" style. Neither Kate or Lowell had any idea what he was talking about.

  Kate was taller than both of them. While Keith was mumbling the words of some joke he was working on, Kate was sitting on the floor, reassembling her crystal processor again. She had supplemented a basic processor with additional advanced processing cores that could do analytics or generative work. She was always talking about communication limitations between the two coprocessors and the main core. She wore a large backpack just to carry the whole crystal monstrosity around, but it meant she could be our backup sensor specialist and do more analysis and detective work. If she would stop reassembling the processor every five minutes.

  He had been an avid tinkerer with his magic when he was younger, so he somewhat understood, but this was the waiting room for the station security, perhaps not the time or place.

  Finally the old codger took us up to his office. It was a small office for a big position, Lowell thought. They had to drag the two chairs in from the hallway, after he opened his door. There was enough room for a small desk and a little bookshelf. He had three physical books, and then a pile of paperwork to fill out the shelf.

  "When I said add a third, I didn't have a comedian in mind," the Director said. He was bald, but it was like his forehead had hostile intent when he stared at us over the desk. "If you laugh once during this meeting, I'm calling this off."

  Was he joking? Lowell didn't know. No one was laughing.

  "What's the job," he asked.

  "There's a rumor. Normally there's a thousand of them and we don't give a crap, but when there's a rumor about this, you have to pay attention," the director said. He took one of the three books off the shelf. Lowell saw that it was Elemental Radiation: Material Safety Data Sheets.

  He placed it, unopened on his desk.

  "Holy Arcana," Kate guessed.

  Combining the exposiveness of his own home planet with the divisiveness and religious crusades and jihads common to Holy worlds, that was a bad combination. But he had a sinking feeling. He had just been reading that very book. It wasn't really a cover to cover reading experience.

  "Worse."

  Keith looked towards the director, and answered, "Arcana Jester."

  "Bingo. Listed as an Acute threat in this book. One of only two banned combinations. If this planet hybrid is real, all of the exile fleets will have to join forces to pull people off that planet. I just want you to chase down the rumor-monger first. Find out what he knows. If it's fake, track down the source until you find out who made it up. If it's real, find the planet and raise the red flag."

  Kate asked, "Our pay?"

  "I'm sending an email after you nuts leave with the details on everything. Half now, half in escrow."

  Lowell asked, "What ship?"

  "I guess having a Jester exile who can fly Corvette 116s is good after all. If you lose the ship, the escrow's gone. It's still Maxime property. Return it when you can. Anyway, Virgo Sector, Logos Muse is the station name."