Liona Kix, head of Kix Construction, smiled at her board members. “So, in conclusion, Amy, you are in charge. My estate has already been settled, and I am out of here.” She ran her hand over the fuzzy surface of her nearly bald head. Her fingers shook, and exhaustion was with her every day lately. She had barely enough time to take care of things.

Amy Melford, attorney and now CEO of the company, asked, “You are serious? You are leaving?”

“Yeah. The last round of treatment couldn’t push the cancer back. Heading up and out is my chance at survival, so I am taking it.”

Jack Trust frowned. “Most cancers can be cured nowadays. What makes yours different?”

“Well, it had a firm hold before the ambassador and the new equipment landed, and it is in my entire body. It is aggressive as fuck, and I only have a few months left. If this doesn’t work, I get to die in space, which is pretty cool.”

She used her canes carefully and got to her feet. “Now, if you will excuse me, my ride is here.”

Liona walked to the elevator, the last bit of her estate scattered and her earthly legal matters settled. She got in the elevator and exhaled slowly. She was exhausted beyond description. Her body was killing her. The ambassador’s wife and Terran Avatar had offered her a chance to negotiate for the life and wellbeing of a bunch of frozen refugees that needed a world to live on. There was an old being living there who had absolute rights to the entire world, but he wasn’t feeling chatty or cooperative. Liona was being sent to change that.

She was really hoping that the more advanced treatments made available off-world would help. Minerva was confident that they could. The Earth representative had sought her out, bringing up the old application that she had signed for the Volunteer Project. To Liona’s shock, her application had been brought up again because she matched certain criteria. Even cancer didn’t change the fact that she was the person for the job.

The bell chimed, and doors opened. Liona stepped out using her canes. She nodded to the security guards and slowly made her way to the door. James moved quickly and opened the door for her, smiling. “Have a good day, Ms. Kix.” She smiled and thanked him as she moved her protesting body toward the woman who stood out on the sidewalk. Minerva was waiting next to the vehicle when Liona left her office building.

“Ready to go, Liona?”

Liona nodded. “Now or never. You sure you are good to be next to me? The last radiation treatment was a doozy.”

“I am fine with it. My husband is radioactive.”

“Sentences I am guessing I need to get used to.”

Minerva helped her onto the comfortable seat of the SUV, stowed her canes, and then got around to sit next to Liona for their drive to the spaceport, where a shuttle would take her to the lunar base for her treatment, and from there, she would be put under full medical treatment for the duration of her travel to the world they needed her to negotiate for. The images of the style of life support made her grin. Those poor bastards were going to have to stare at her naked, shrivelled body for months.

Minerva kept her entertained while chatting to her, and then she let something slip that Liona hadn’t heard before.

“So, when you have been reset, you should feel just as good as you did in your early twenties.” Minerva smiled.

“Reset?”

“Yeah, we find some unaffected DNA, and we reset your body to its health and wellbeing from your twenties then alterations are made to keep you from being affected by the same illnesses again.”

“How did I miss that the first time we spoke?”

“You were recovering from a treatment. You were vomiting as I talked.” She smiled. “Your body will be whole, it will be changed, and there will be some new genes in the mix that will keep you stable and healthy. But you will live a long and interesting life.”

“I have had interesting moments, as I am sure you have.”

Minerva laughed. “Yeah, you could say that. My daughter will be helping you with your medications, and my mate will be transporting you to your new home.”

“You don’t mind him missing?”

Minerva chuckled “You aren’t going alone, and he is doing this as an assist to a friend of ours. She needs humans out in space, so he is taking some of those who applied for the volunteer program years ago. You might not have been able to go then, but you can now. Things changed.”

“I am glad for it. Your contact gave me a flicker of hope a day after I got the news that my treatment wasn’t working.”

“My timing wasn’t for your benefit; it was for mine. The request for assistance came through, and I hit my files hard. Your file came up, and your status was identified later. It meant that I had to do the hard sell.”

“Letting me live? That isn’t a hard sell; it’s a rope. I can either hang myself with it or start climbing. I have always been a climber.”

“And you have a thick file for negotiations, so you will know how to make sure that everyone gets what they need so that things can move forward.”

“Do aliens negotiate like we do?”

Minerva laughed. “Oh, sweetie, when you are out there, you are the alien. They are just looking for and trying to keep their own home, respectively.”

“What do I do after I complete this negotiation?”

“That is up to you. You can work and earn enough to travel the star systems, or you can call me, and I can arrange another assignment.”