Craig had signed very few contracts in his life thus far. Contracts were for business, and indentured servants to the Company had no place signing contracts or pursuing business interests. So, it was quite a unique experience standing before the Shift Foreman and signing a contract that stipulated he was agreeing to take part in the Dominion Ultrimax Contest as a member of The Pious Path of the Penniless Penitents.

  “How much more blood?” he asked, pressing his pricked finger against the scroll where Grelic indicated.

  “Only a little more,” he said. “You have no coin to offer, so blood will have to suffice.” He leaned forward, winking. “But that will doubtless change now that you have accepted the offer.”

  It took another half hour and more blood than Craig was comfortable losing before the deal was done and everything was signed. Craig had been officially released from the Company and now worked under a seasonal contract with the Dominion Ultrimax Contest and directly under the stewardship of the Mammon System.

  “Congratulations, fellow follower of the Path,” Grelic said with a broad grin.

  The Foreman grunted, placing his stamp on the paperwork and then shoving it across the desk to Grelic and dismissing them both with a casual wave of his hobgoblin hand. Grelic put an arm around Craig’s shoulder and led him out onto the landing pad and into a waiting translocation craft with the Dominion Ultrimax symbol painted on its side in faded gold paint.

  The ship was far from pristine, with peeling paint here and there, scorch marks all over the underside of the hull, and various antennae bent at odd angles or ripped off entirely. Nonetheless, to Craig, it was the most wondrous sight he had ever laid eyes on, not just because this was the first craft of its kind that he had ever been this close to and the first he was going to step inside, but because it signified the profound change he was stepping into.

  A sleek metal door opened out, breaking in two parts that glided effortlessly to either side as a small set of stairs was automatically lowered to ground level. Craig followed Grelic up the stairs and into the main cabin, a spacious area with dozens of upright chairs arrayed in perfectly straight lines for the first few rows and the rest being little more than stand-up compartments with a small, coin-operated viewing screen and a metal backrest.

  It all seemed utterly magical to Craig, both because he had never seen such pristine surfaces before—free from the dark soot and grime that covered the mining world—and because he and Grelic were apparently the only two passengers to be boarding. There were windows on either side of the cabin as well as two long glass sections in the roof that showed the starry heavens above—or which he imagined would show the stars once they were out of the grimy atmosphere of the mining planet.

  The next few minutes passed in a blur, with Grelic leading him into the main cabin of the transport vehicle and securing his seatbelt by paying the required five Belch Bucks. The seatbelt cinched around Craig’s body, pinning him in place as Grelic sat down next to him and paid the price for his own restraints. A creature unlike anything Craig had ever seen before came drifting out into the cabin.

  The figure was feminine in appearance, though he was only guessing at that based on the feminine features of the mask the creature wore. Porcelain white with only a mouth and nose featured, the eyeless mask seemed to have been carved out of a single piece of stone or wood, but it also managed to convey animation and life despite its inanimate nature. The creature behind that mask wore a dark crimson robe that shimmered with what looked like diamonds running up and down its length.

  Instead of legs, she boasted cloth-like strands of constantly moving tentacles that evinced their own bioluminescence, glowing blue, green, and pink beneath the robe. Its arms were less ethereal, cast in perfect white like her mask and ending in crimson gloves of the same hue as the rest of the creature’s outfit. When she spoke, the mysterious figure’s voice entered Craig’s mind, softly caressing with deep, resonant tones.

  “Welcome to Beta4Hal7, a local system translocation craft owned by the Tongsly Belch Corporation and licensed for use within the Artemis system. This craft is currently scheduled to join with the Dominion Ultrimax core fleet in approximately thirty-eight hours, at which point you will disembark and be ushered into one of the arc ships destined for this season’s new location—a backwater planet known locally as Earth.”

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  Craig turned to Grelic, eyes wide as he pointed towards the creature.

  “What is she?”

  Grelic looked over at the other goblin, grinning. “A Void Shepherd. You’ll find them all throughout the Dominion. They’re a nomadic race of space dwellers that specialize in managing local and interstellar space travel.”

  “Void Shepherd,” Craig repeated.

  “They govern the vast majority of spacefaring vehicles used by the Tongsly Belch Corporation and associated with the Dominion Ultrimax Competition.”

  “For the duration of the flight, a variety of entertainment programming will be made available for a small fee,” the Void Shepherd continued, “and a modest range of foods and drinks are also available for purchase. If you should feel any distress during the flight, please depress the alert button located on your armrest, and we will attend to your needs as efficiently as possible. Thank you again for choosing to fly with us. Even though you have no other option, we appreciate your business.”

  The figure turned smoothly and drifted out of the cabin with a regal grace that Craig found utterly intoxicating. After she left, it felt like the cabin was a little colder, a little less vivid. He looked left and right, confirming that he and Grelic were the only two passengers on the flight. Craig turned to the other goblin.

  “Why did you come to me?” he asked. “Of all the souls on this world, why did you choose me to approach?”

  Grelic laughed at that.

  “I didn’t. I came to recruit a single soul to the Path for this season. That was my job, and after attempting to speak with a hundred and twelve individuals, I finally came to you. You weren’t so much chosen as you were willing, but don’t let that make you feel any less special.”

  “Just one person? You came all this way to this vast planet just for one person?”

  “I did.”

  “But…why? It hardly seems worth it.”

  The other goblin shrugged. “It’s all down to budget allocation. We have a certain amount we’re supposed to use and only a relatively small number of recruits we need to sign up. We were also under some criticism for only drawing contestants from the core Dominion worlds, so it was decided that one of us should travel to the Outer Band and pluck at least one recruit out of obscurity so that we could meet our quota and squash any criticisms of favoritism towards the core worlds.”

  His expression soured as he looked straight ahead, eyes hardening.

  “As luck would have it, I was chosen to travel to the Outer Band and select that single recruit. And now that we’re done, we can head back to civilization, and I can pass the baton over to you.”

  “Pass the baton? Wait, you’re not heading to the game yourself?”

  Grelic turned to face the other goblin, chuckling. “Belch no! The moment your indoctrination is complete, I’m done! My contract is up, and I’m free to pursue…anything else.”

  Craig frowned, the sinking sensation that he had just made a terrible mistake tightening in his gut.

  “No, I’m not going back to the game,” Grelic went on. “Because I’ve done my time. I’ve gone to too many orgies, sampled too many contraband substances, and partied far too hard. I’ve also sat through countless sermons and handed out pamphlets to hundreds of contestants and NPCs alike, and I’ve had enough near misses to know that the Dominion Ultrimax Contest is a young goblin’s game.”

  He slapped both hands on his belly, grinning widely.

  “Now, it’s time for me to enjoy the fruits of my labor.”

  The ship shuddered slightly before slowly beginning to ascend. Craig gripped his armrest with straining muscles as the craft hovered above the ground for a few seconds, shifting so that its nose tilted skyward.

  “Relax,” Grelic said with a smile. “It will all be over soon. Give it another week, and this will all be commonplace to you.”

  Craig tried to do as Grelic suggested, but the thought of hurtling through the air in a tin can was more than a little unnerving, particularly given the speed at which the clouds in the windows above seemed to be moving past. The sensation of unnerving dislocation Craig experienced was heightened a moment later as the craft accelerated and broke free of the layers of smog and cloud that he had lived under for his entire life. The spaceship broke into space, and Craig stared in wonder at the yawning black expanse stretching out beyond the window above him.

  Reality came into sharp focus, and the fever dream he had been living these past few hours was replaced by a vivid sense of reality. He had really done it. He’d left the planet of his birth, left behind his family and the only life he’d ever known in the hope that this absurd jaunt to the Dominion Ultrimax Contest would pay off. It was a risk, but Craig felt a thrill of expectation at the prospect of what might lay ahead.

  Whatever trials he faced, whatever tribulations he experienced in the coming weeks and months, they would at least be new.

  “While we travel,” Grelic said as the craft exited the gravitational pull of the planet below and leveled off, shifting into cruising speed, “I will begin your induction.”

  He turned to Craig, who was still staring upward into the star-filled space beyond the cabin windows.

  “Let’s begin with a central tenet of the Path, a handy mantra that will guide you in what lies ahead. Mammon is murder!”