Chapter 11 - BETWEEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Ilyan

Radian looked best when nobody was standing around it.

With the bay mostly dark and the maintenance crews gone for the night cycle, there was nothing nearby to make the Frame ordinary. The pale armor caught what little light came from the gantries and seemed almost colorless in places, somewhere between white and old ivory, while the structure beneath it disappeared into graphite and black. New plates from Hekate sat among older ones without quite matching. The replacement armor across the chest had none of the scratches the rest had collected, and the repaired section around the right forearm projector was cleaner than everything surrounding it. The three narrow sensors in the head were dark. I preferred them that way. When they were lit, Radian looked alert. With them black, I could almost pretend it was only a machine.

Vesper occupied the neighboring cradle, and seeing them together made the difference between them impossible to miss. Vesper was all dark armor and hard lines, its rebuilt leg already marked from the escape from Hekate, one hip plate removed while somebody worked underneath. Even shut down, it looked like it had been caught between movements. Radian was smoother. Quieter. Nothing on it looked unnecessary, and that bothered me because most military equipment was full of compromises you could find if you knew where to look. Radian had compromises too. It had to. I just hadn't learned where they were yet.

Topper climbed onto the next rung above my hand and waited for me.

"You know I can climb faster without you doing that."

He looked down at me, then up at the cockpit.

"You are blocking the ladder."

Topper moved exactly one step.

"Thank you."

He had been with me long enough to know when I was being sarcastic and apparently long enough not to care. One of his rear legs still clicked whenever he put weight on it, the same damage Talia had given him years ago when she decided the best way to test a wellness companion's impact resistance was to throw it across my bedroom. Dad had eventually fixed enough of the joint to keep him mobile. Talia had argued that the experiment proved the shell worked.

The maintenance tag stretched across Radian's open cockpit.

PROPULSION DISCONNECTED. WEAPONS ISOLATED. CATAPULT LINK REMOVED.

Below it, Niko had written:

IF YOU SOMEHOW LAUNCH IT, I'M QUITTING.

Mara had added beneath that:

NO, YOU AREN'T.

And somebody else had squeezed in at the bottom:

CAN I HAVE HIS JOB?

Mara's answer was one word.

NO.

I smiled despite myself and climbed inside.

Topper came after me, managing the cockpit rim with more dignity than he had the first time. He settled on the shelf beside the secondary display, folded his legs beneath himself and watched me sit down.

The seat moved.

It was subtle enough that if I had not been waiting for it, I might have missed it. The base shifted under me, the pedals changed position, the controls slid inward, and the support behind my shoulders adjusted until everything sat where Radian remembered I wanted it. I hadn't touched anything yet.

I kept my hands in my lap.

Topper leaned forward and looked at the controls, then at me.

"I know."

He settled again.

"I'm not launching."

Topper did not answer.

"You could at least pretend you believe me."

He blinked once.

"Great. Glad we talked."

The cockpit stayed in maintenance mode. No external camera feed wrapped around the seat. No stars. No targeting system. No weapons. Just the dim diagnostic display in front of me and the ordinary metal of the cockpit around it. I had chosen that deliberately. The full camera system made Radian disappear around me, and I did not want that tonight.

I opened the flight log from Caelum.

For about twelve seconds, I forgot why I had come.

"Oh, that's embarrassing."

The recorded Radian cleared Black Star's bay too fast, rolled farther than I had intended, corrected hard in the opposite direction and then corrected the correction. I remembered the launch as violent and confusing. Apparently it had also been ugly.

Topper watched the display.

"Don't."

He tilted his head.

"You weren't there."

That was not entirely true. Topper had been on Black Star. Just not in Radian.

I dragged the playback backward and slowed it.

The ugly flying was not what interested me.

A Federation Frame raised its rifle. My eyes shifted toward it. On the control record, my hand had barely begun to move.

Radian was already turning.

I replayed it.

The difference was tiny.

My grip tightened. The machine moved. Then the control input followed.

I opened another section. Same thing. Another. There were plenty of moments where it did not happen at all. When I panicked, Radian seemed to panic with me. When I changed my mind halfway through a maneuver, the Frame responded to both decisions and ended up wasting movement. But whenever I knew exactly what I wanted, the machine started getting there before I finished telling it how.

I had noticed it during the fight.

Not like this.

At the time I had been too busy surviving.

A simulation option sat beneath the playback controls.

REFLEX CALIBRATION — MAINTENANCE ONLY

I had stared at it before. I had never opened it.

Topper shifted closer to the screen.

"That does not count as encouragement."

He settled his chin against the shelf.

I opened it.

A simplified model of Radian appeared against a blank background.

PHYSICAL MOVEMENT DISABLED.

I checked that twice anyway.

Then another message appeared.

DO NOT USE MANUAL CONTROLS. IMAGINE RAISING THE RIGHT ARM.

I stared at it.

"This feels stupid."

Topper offered no opinion.

I imagined Radian raising its arm.

The model moved badly. The shoulder came up first, the elbow lagged, and the hand ended somewhere too close to the head.

I frowned and reset it.

This time I concentrated harder. Shoulder. Elbow. Wrist.

The result was worse.

I leaned back. "That's backwards."

Topper looked at me.

"I'm not asking you."

He looked back at the screen.

I reset the test again and stopped thinking about Radian.

Instead I imagined somebody throwing me a gravball.

The hand came up cleanly.

I sat forward.

"Again."

Low pass.

Radian reached.

High left.

The torso turned and the opposite arm crossed the body.

I forgot to be careful.

Someone closing on me from behind. Protect the ball. Turn. Keep my body between them and it.

The model shifted with me.

Not perfectly. Not like a person. But the intention carried through the whole movement without me planning which part of Radian should do what.

I laughed.

Topper lifted his head.

"That was cool."

He continued watching.

I tried a fake. Radian's shoulder committed one way before the hips took it somewhere else. I tried to picture a quick pass after the turn and the simulation moved again, smoother this time.

For a minute or two I stopped thinking about Perrin.

That surprised me more than anything Radian did.

I was just sitting inside an impossible machine, doing something I did not understand, and the part of me that had always loved impossible machines came back before I could tell it not to.

Then a new option appeared at the edge of the screen.

SOMA FEEDBACK AVAILABLE.

Everything inside me tightened.

I did not touch it.

"No."

The prompt remained.

I reached out to close it.

It vanished before my finger reached the display.

My hand stopped in the air.

Topper looked up at me.

"I didn't do that."

The screen had already returned to the REFLEX simulation.

"I wanted it gone."

Topper climbed closer and settled against my forearm.

That was all.

I sat there with him pressed against me and listened to the quiet mechanical hum coming through the cockpit. Nothing changed. No sensation moved through me. No phantom arm. No missing sensor. No feeling that the machine had suddenly reached back.

I still got out.

On the way up, my knee hit the lower console.

"Damn it."

Topper scrambled to keep his footing.

A voice from the hatch said, "Very graceful."

I twisted around.

Niko was leaning against the open cockpit with a cup in his hand.

"How long have you been there?"

"Long enough."

"That means nothing."

"It means I don't know because I was half asleep when I walked in."

"You watched."

"You were playing gravball with Radian. I got curious."

"It was calibration."

"Looked like you lost possession twice."

"The opponent was imaginary."

"That should have helped."

I picked up Topper and climbed onto the gantry. Niko stepped aside.

"You put the simulation there."

"I did."

"So technically I was using Radian correctly."

"You came down here alone."

"With Topper."

Niko looked at the frog tucked against my side.

Topper looked back.

"I'm sure he was a tremendous safety officer."

"He stopped me from launching."

"Radian is physically disconnected from the ship."

"See? Excellent work."

Niko took a drink and looked past me into the cockpit. "What did you find?"

That was one thing I liked about him. Once something became technically interesting, he stopped wasting time pretending he wasn't interested.

"REFLEX works better when I stop thinking about the controls."

He lowered the cup.

"I thought it was just reacting early to my hands. It does that too, but the simulation was awful if I thought about the actual movement. When I pictured catching something, it worked."

"What did you use?"

"Gravball."

Niko smiled. "Of course you did."

"What's wrong with gravball?"

"Nothing. Show me."

We went back inside.

Niko stood behind the seat while I ran the first test. I deliberately thought through the movement.

Radian's arm came up awkwardly.

Then I reset it, imagined a pass coming in high and watched the model catch it.

Niko leaned forward.

"Again."

I did another.

He watched more closely this time. "Try something you haven't already practiced."

"In real life?"

"In the simulation."

"That sounds less impressive."

"It also sounds less expensive."

I thought about taking a pass while someone closed from the right, stepping through the space before they could cut me off.

Radian shifted.

Not as clean as before, but still better than when I thought about the controls.

Niko reached past me and opened a diagnostic overlay. Lines and indicators filled the screen.

I gave him a look.

"Right. Sorry."

He closed most of them.

"Simple version," he said. "REFLEX watches what you do before you consciously finish doing it. Eyes, grip, posture, muscle tension. Pilots start movements before they realize they've committed to them. The system is trying to catch those beginnings."

"That part I understand."

"The interesting part is how little you're fighting it. The test pilots knew Frames too well."

I turned toward him. "That sounds ridiculous."

"It does, but think about it. They'd spent years learning exactly how much input gave them exactly how much response. Radian starts helping, so they correct for the help. Then the system corrects for the correction. They end up arguing with it."

"And I don't know enough to argue."

"You know enough to be dangerous."

"That is not comforting."

"I wasn't trying to comfort you."

Niko looked back at the model. "You think in outcomes. You wanted to catch something. You didn't care which actuator moved first or how the Frame distributed the motion. You knew where you wanted to end up and let Radian handle part of getting there."

"So being inexperienced helps."

"In this particular situation, yes."

"That's unfair."

"Most useful things are."

I glanced toward the SOMA tab.

Niko noticed.

"That came up?"

"After the simulation stabilized."

"You didn't open it."

"No."

"Good."

"It closed before I touched the screen."

He looked at me.

"I reached for it. I wanted it gone. It disappeared."

Niko's expression changed, but not dramatically. He leaned over the display, checked the log and scrolled through something I couldn't see.

"Well?"

"REFLEX registered the reach."

"That isn't what I asked."

"No. It isn't."

"You don't know."

"I don't know whether the system interpreted your movement or whether something else in the Concord layer closed it first."

"So you don't know."

"No."

I appreciated that more than a long explanation.

I looked back at the SOMA label. "Tell me what it actually does without using the manual."

Niko groaned. "The manual isn't that bad."

"It uses the phrase 'bidirectional somatic integration' like normal people say that."

"Fine. Imagine your hand goes numb."

"Okay."

"You can still look at it and know where it is, but you stop trusting it the same way because your brain isn't getting what it expects. SOMA is trying to teach your brain that Radian is something it should expect information from."

"So if the left arm gets damaged…"

"You know before you check a status display."

"Like feeling it."

"Eventually."

I touched my chest without thinking.

Niko saw.

"When Perrin cut Radian, I knew it happened before the display changed."

He put his cup down.

"It wasn't pain exactly. Not normal pain. I knew my body was fine. But something felt wrong here." I moved my hand slightly. "And when the left sensor went out, everything on that side felt empty for a while after I got back."

"How long is a while?"

"A few hours."

Niko stared at me.

"What?"

"You never told Tomas."

"I had a concussion. He was already checking me for everything else."

"You should still tell him."

"I'm telling you."

"I am not the doctor."

"You're the one who understands Radian."

"That is becoming a generous description."

I smiled despite myself.

Niko leaned back against the cockpit wall. "The earlier pilots had problems with SOMA. Headaches. Nausea. One had a seizure during an early test. Another got out and spent half a day feeling like his left arm was still the Frame's."

I stared at him. "He recovered?"

"Yes."

"You should start with that."

"I thought you wanted the explanation."

"I would like to know people survived the explanation."

"He recovered completely."

"Good."

Niko rubbed at one eye. "None of them adapted the way you did. That doesn't mean what happened to you was safe. It means it was different."

"Why?"

"If I knew, we would not be standing here having this conversation."

I looked through the open hatch at Radian's shoulder.

The maintenance light slid across the pale armor as somebody moved equipment farther down the bay.

"I'm not flying it."

Niko nodded. "Okay."

I waited.

He picked his cup back up.

"That's it?"

"What do you want me to say?"

"I don't know. Lucien wants a pilot."

"Lucien wants a functional carrier, forty more pilots, ten times our current ammunition and probably a week where nobody shoots at us. He doesn't get everything he wants."

"You want me in it."

"I want data."

"That sounds much better."

"It's honest. I also don't want to scrape you out of the cockpit because somebody decided curiosity counts as consent."

I looked at him.

Niko shrugged. "You said no. That part isn't complicated."

I thought about that for a second. "Radian is complicated."

"Radian is a nightmare."

"You sound happy about that."

"I'm a mechanic."

"That doesn't explain it."

"It explains most of it."

Topper climbed from my lap onto the edge of the cockpit and stared at Niko's cup.

Niko moved it away. "No."

Topper leaned farther.

"He doesn't even drink coffee."

"He looks interested."

"He tries to steal anything I don't want him touching."

"Where would he learn behavior like that?"

I looked at Niko.

He smiled.

I picked Topper up and left.

By the time I reached the habitation deck, Black Star was starting to wake.

I knew that now.

I knew Oren usually crossed Junction Four early with coffee in one hand and something borrowed from another department under the other arm. I knew Celene opened the smaller mess first because feeding our crew in the main galley made everyone look lonely. I knew Garrick's footsteps from the way his boots struck the deck. I knew one maintenance cart squealed whenever it turned left because Mara had refused to replace a bearing that, in her words, "still turns left."

A week ago, the ship had been corridors.

Now there were places where people usually were.

I stopped at my cabin to change.

I still had not unpacked everything. Some clothes remained in the bag from Caelum. The walls were bare. I had never decided to make the room look like anything.

It had changed anyway.

Topper's charger stayed beside the bed because there was no point putting it away every morning. My notebooks had spread across the desk. Three tools from engineering sat beside them. Talia's gravball token had been living near the lamp for days. My residency jacket was over the back of the chair, and the drawer under the desk only opened properly if I lifted it slightly before pulling.

I changed shirts, tossed the old one toward the bag and missed.

Topper walked over to inspect it.

"Leave it."

He stepped onto the shirt and sat.

"You are extremely helpful."

His head lowered.

I reached down to move him and noticed the family photograph beside the bed.

It had slipped partly beneath one of my notebooks.

I pulled it free.

Mom, Dad, Talia and me at a gravball match two years earlier.

I looked at it for a few seconds.

Then I set it back down and went to breakfast.

The other four were already there.

That had started happening often enough that nobody needed to save seats anymore. Rafi sat with his chair turned slightly sideways while Anya dealt cards between them. Naomi had moved close enough to Jun that she could read his medical slate without having to pretend she wasn't. Jun was eating with one hand and scrolling with the other.

Rafi slapped down a card. "Done."

Anya stared at it. "No."

"What do you mean, no?"

"I mean you changed the rule."

"I didn't change anything."

"You told me yesterday that a split ends the round."

"Most of the time."

"You never said 'most of the time.'"

"You didn't ask."

"I had never played before."

"That sounds like an unfortunate knowledge gap."

Anya looked up as I sat down. "He owes me twenty-seven credits and has started rewriting the game instead of paying."

"Twenty-two."

"Twenty-seven."

"You counted one round twice."

"No, you lost twice in one round."

"That shouldn't be possible."

"You designed the rules."

Rafi opened his mouth.

Stopped.

Looked at the cards.

"I'm going to review that later."

Anya smiled. "Of course you are."

I reached for breakfast. "Why do you keep playing with her?"

Rafi glanced at Anya.

Anya glanced back.

He took a second too long to answer. "Because I'm going to win."

"Eventually," Anya added.

"Exactly."

"That wasn't support."

"It sounded supportive."

Naomi looked at me over her cup.

I raised my eyebrows.

Rafi saw both of us. "Stop."

"We didn't say anything."

"That's why I don't trust it."

Jun smiled without looking up from his slate.

Rafi pointed at him. "You too."

"I haven't done anything."

"You're smiling."

"That isn't a crime."

"Not yet."

Topper emerged from beside my chair.

Rafi forgot the entire conversation.

"Topper."

The frog stopped.

"You remember him?"

"How could I forget him?"

"You saw him twice."

"He's green, robotic and damaged. He stands out."

Topper walked over.

Rafi held out both hands, and Topper climbed into them without hesitation.

I stared. "Excuse me?"

Rafi looked delighted. "He likes me."

"He has never climbed into my hands like that."

"You pick him up whenever he's doing something you don't like."

"He's mine."

Topper turned toward me.

"That sounded worse out loud."

Rafi put him on the table.

Anya leaned closer. "Is that the leg Talia broke?"

"Yes."

Naomi looked at me. "I still don't understand that story."

"There isn't much to understand. Talia wanted to know whether Topper's shell could survive impact."

Jun lowered his slate. "So she threw him."

"Yes."

"How old was she?"

"Sixteen."

Rafi nodded. "That tracks."

"No, it doesn't," Naomi said.

"It tracks for Talia."

"You met her once."

"She threatened me within six minutes. I feel like I got the important parts."

I took Topper from him before he could start involving the frog in the card game. "Mom asked whether Talia was going to pay for the repair. Dad wanted to know what failed first. Talia said she had generated useful data."

Anya laughed. "Did your parents accept that?"

"No. Dad accidentally encouraged her by asking what angle she used."

Jun smiled. "And your mother?"

"Asked Dad which child he wanted sleeping in the workshop that night."

Naomi laughed into her cup.

Rafi looked at Anya while she was laughing.

Not at the cards.

Anya noticed after a second.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"You're staring."

"I'm not staring."

"You were."

"I was thinking."

"About my face?"

Rafi looked down. "The cards are also in that direction."

"That is a terrible answer."

"I know."

Anya tried not to smile.

Failed.

I looked at Naomi.

She had already seen it.

Rafi caught us again. "Seriously."

"I'm eating."

"Your face is doing something."

"My face exists."

"Unfortunately."

Jun laughed.

Rafi turned toward him. "Why is everybody against me today?"

"Maybe you're the common factor."

"That was cruel."

"It was statistically reasonable."

"Anya is infecting you."

Anya looked pleased.

Jun finally looked at me properly. "You're tired."

"I slept."

"That wasn't the question."

"Enough."

Rafi leaned back. "That means no."

"It means enough."

Naomi asked, "Where were you?"

I considered making something up and decided I did not have the energy.

"Bay Three."

Rafi's expression changed first. "Radian?"

"Yeah."

"You got inside?"

"Yeah."

"Did Lucien ask you?"

"No. Nobody asked me."

Anya stopped dealing. "Then why?"

"I wanted to understand something."

I explained the simulation.

Not all of it. I kept the SOMA prompt to myself for now because I did not yet know whether there was anything to explain. But the gravball test came out easily once I started talking about it.

"When I tried to think through the movement, it was awful. Then I stopped thinking about Radian's arm and just pictured catching a pass. It moved almost perfectly."

Naomi frowned. "Why?"

"Niko thinks I'm not fighting the system the way trained pilots do."

Rafi looked unconvinced. "Because you don't know what you're doing."

"That was my interpretation too."

Anya tapped the edge of the deck against the table. "That can't be the whole reason."

"No. Niko says it isn't. He just doesn't know the other part."

"What does Radian actually read?"

"Not thoughts. At least not like that. Eyes, muscles, grip. All the things you start doing before you consciously finish deciding."

Jun leaned forward slightly. "Like reflex."

"Basically. Except it can start helping before the control input is complete."

Rafi looked at me. "And you enjoyed this."

I knew exactly what he meant.

"Yeah."

He glanced down at the table.

I let him think for a second before saying, "You can just say it."

"I don't know if I should."

"When has that ever stopped you?"

"That's fair." He put his cards down. "I don't like hearing you sound excited about Radian."

Anya looked at him, but she did not interrupt.

Rafi continued. "I know it wasn't moving. I know you were doing a simulator. I'm not saying you should never go near it again. I just remember what you looked like after Caelum, and now you're smiling while you talk about the same machine."

"I can like the machine and hate what happened."

"I know that."

"You don't sound like you do."

He rubbed his thumb across one card. "I'm trying."

That took some of the fight out of me.

I tore a piece from my bread and looked down at it. "I spent two days trying to convince myself I hated Radian. I don't. I hate that I killed Perrin in it. I hate how it felt afterward. I hate Lucien asking me to use it. But Radian itself…" I searched for the right words and shrugged. "It's the most interesting Frame I've ever seen. Pretending otherwise isn't going to help me."

Rafi watched me.

"I'm not launching it," I added. "I told Niko that too."

"Okay."

"Okay?"

"Yeah. I still don't like it. I also know you're going to keep poking at things until you understand them, and apparently locking you in your room is frowned upon."

"Good. We're making progress."

Anya reached over and pulled the card from his fingers. "You're bending this."

"I was thinking."

"You can think without destroying things."

"Evidence?"

She flattened the card against the table. "My entire life."

Rafi smiled at her. "You think a lot?"

"More than you."

"That was easy."

The conversation moved on.

That was what I liked about talking to them now. Nobody needed every subject resolved. Jun asked whether the simulation had caused any of the weird sensations I described after the battle. I told him no. Naomi asked whether the system might work with someone who had never piloted anything. Anya wondered if Federation researchers had intentionally designed Radian for inexperienced pilots or simply failed into it. Rafi insisted he should be allowed to try the simulator because he was "basically a natural athlete," which everyone rejected immediately.

Celene passed our table and noticed Topper sitting beside Rafi's cards.

"Off."

Rafi looked up. "He's clean."

Celene just looked at him.

Rafi picked Topper up and put him on the floor.

"She scares me," he said when she was gone.

"She feeds you," Jun said.

"Those things can overlap."

Naomi stole a piece of Jun's breakfast while he returned to his slate.

He noticed halfway through.

"You could ask."

"You weren't eating it."

"I was."

"You've been reading for five minutes."

"I can read and eat."

"You weren't doing the second one."

Jun looked at the plate, then back at her. "Were you watching me?"

"I was sitting beside you."

"That isn't an answer."

Naomi smiled and took another piece.

Jun pushed the plate toward her. "Just take it."

"I only wanted that."

"You just took two."

"The first one was to test whether you'd notice."

"And the second?"

"I liked the first."

Jun stared at her for a moment and then laughed.

Naomi looked far too pleased with herself.

Rafi leaned toward me.

I kicked his ankle before he could whisper anything.

"Ow."

Anya looked up. "What happened?"

"He kicked me."

"You probably deserved it."

"You don't even know why."

"I have enough background information."

Rafi stared at her. "You know, you're terrifying when you stop pretending to care about due process."

"I care deeply about good procedure."

"And good procedure is?"

"The procedure where I win."

Rafi laughed loudly enough to draw another look from Celene.

The mess doors opened.

Kaia walked in.

Tomas had told her to rest. I knew because Tomas had said it loudly enough for three decks to hear. Kaia had apparently interpreted that as permission to do anything she wanted as long as she wasn't technically flying Vesper. She wore loose black trousers and a sleeveless shirt, with medical wrap visible near one side of her ribs. Her hair looked like she had gone to sleep angry and woken up halfway through the same argument.

She lowered herself into the empty chair beside Rafi.

Carefully.

I noticed.

She caught me.

"Don't."

"I didn't say anything."

"You were going to."

"I was deciding."

"Decide no."

Topper walked out from beneath the table.

Kaia stopped.

Topper stopped too.

They stared at each other.

"What is that?"

Rafi immediately said, "Topper."

"That is obviously a name."

"He's Ilyan's."

I sighed. "Please don't make that sound weird."

Kaia looked at me. "Why do you have a robot frog?"

"He's been around forever."

Topper stepped closer to her.

Kaia watched him. "What happened to his leg?"

"Talia."

"What did she do?"

"Threw him."

Kaia looked up.

"She wanted to test the shell."

A smile spread slowly across Kaia's face. "I like your sister."

"You've never met her."

"She understands research."

"She broke him."

Topper bumped his head lightly against Kaia's shin.

Kaia looked down.

He did it again.

"What does that mean?"

"He either likes you or wants you to move."

"How do I know which?"

"You don't."

"That's a terrible design."

Topper sat against her boot.

Kaia looked almost betrayed.

Rafi grinned. "He likes you."

"Traitor."

Topper stayed where he was.

Kaia eventually reached down and scratched one finger across the top of his shell. "Fine. He can live."

"Generous."

"Don't push it."

She noticed the cards.

"What are you playing?"

Anya said, "Do not let Rafi explain."

Rafi said at the same time, "Ignore her."

Kaia looked between them. "How hard can it be?"

Twenty minutes later she had lost four credits, accused Rafi of inventing three rules, accused Anya of using "psychological warfare disguised as arithmetic," and tried to convince Jun to settle an argument he had not been listening to.

Jun looked up from his slate. "I don't know what happened."

"She cheated."

"I counted," Anya said.

Kaia pointed at her. "Exactly."

"That is still not cheating."

"It feels like cheating."

"Your feelings are irrelevant to the rules."

"Whose side are you on?" Kaia asked Jun.

"I didn't know there were sides."

"There are always sides."

Jun returned to his slate. "Then I'm neutral."

"Coward."

Rafi laughed. "I told you."

"No, you didn't. You changed the rules twice."

"I clarified them."

"You should go into politics."

Rafi's smile vanished. "That was cruel."

Kaia grinned.

For a while, nothing important happened.

I liked that.

The six of us argued about cards while Topper wandered beneath the table and Celene threatened to stop serving breakfast if Rafi kept leaving dishes everywhere. Black Star still had entire decks nobody used, hangars meant for Frames we did not have and corridors that could stay empty for hours. Around our table, none of that mattered.

Eventually Kaia checked the time.

"Orison tomorrow."

The conversation did not stop so much as lose momentum.

Anya stacked the cards.

Naomi glanced down at her cup.

Rafi looked at Kaia. "Lucien still doing it?"

"Letting you leave? Yes."

"Has he arranged everything?"

"There's a neutral transit office. Once you're off Black Star, they handle the calls, transportation, whatever you decide. If you want the Federation, they contact the Federation. If you want your families first, you do that."

Anya asked, "Who runs the office?"

"I don't know."

"You don't know?"

"I trust Lucien to have checked."

"That sentence contains the part I'm concerned about."

Kaia laughed. "Then ask him. He'll probably show you enough paperwork to ruin your afternoon."

Naomi had been watching Kaia instead of the cards. "What if we tell the Federation everything?"

Kaia looked at her. "Then you tell them everything."

"About Nexus too."

"Yes."

"About you."

"Yes."

Rafi frowned. "You're okay with that?"

"No."

He seemed surprised.

Kaia leaned back carefully. "I'd prefer Federal Security never learn my name. I'd also prefer they never learn where Vesper is maintained, where Nexus gets fuel or who supplies us with food. But you were taken. Lucien doesn't get to say you're free to leave and then hand you a list of things you're forbidden to talk about."

Anya studied her. "They could arrest you because of what we tell them."

"They already want to arrest me."

"That isn't the same thing."

"No. It isn't." Kaia was quiet for a second. "I'm not asking you to lie anyway."

Naomi turned the cup between her hands. "What would you do?"

"If I were you?"

"Yes."

Kaia thought about it.

"I'd probably go home."

Rafi blinked. "You?"

"Why does everybody keep saying it like that?"

"You're Nexus."

"I'm also capable of imagining being kidnapped."

"You think we were kidnapped."

"I know you were kidnapped. We can argue about why Lucien did it and whether he thought he had another choice. The word doesn't change because we didn't kill you afterward."

That sat with us for a moment.

Anya asked, "Then you want us to go."

"No."

Kaia answered so quickly that even she seemed to notice.

She sighed and rubbed her forehead. "I knew this would be annoying."

Naomi smiled faintly. "You could explain."

"I like having you here. Rafi fills every room whether anybody asks him to or not. Daven has complained about Naomi six times since Hekate, which is funny. Tomas actually likes Jun, and Tomas barely likes oxygen. Anya catches Oren moving inventory around whenever he wants to make our supplies look better."

Oren, sitting two tables away, called, "That is called accounting."

Kaia raised her voice. "That is called lying with columns."

Oren lifted one finger without looking up.

Anya laughed.

Kaia looked at me last.

Rafi immediately leaned forward.

I pointed at him. "Don't."

"I haven't done anything."

"You're preparing."

Kaia smiled. "Ilyan is useful."

"Thank you."

"And annoying."

"There it is."

"He argues with everything. He argues with Mara, which nobody should do unless they enjoy pain. He argues with Niko. He argues with a frog. Yesterday he argued with a door because it opened too slowly."

"It did."

Rafi was already smiling.

Kaia continued, "And apparently he's figured out something new about Radian before breakfast, so now Niko is going to be unbearable all day."

"You make me sound terrible."

"I said useful first."

"You really leaned into the second part."

"Because it's more fun."

Anya looked at Kaia. "So you would miss us."

Kaia glanced around the table.

"Yeah."

No speech.

No careful qualification.

Just that.

Rafi's smile softened.

Kaia continued, "Which is why I'm not going to be there when Lucien talks to you later. You already know what I want. You don't need me sitting beside you while you decide."

Rafi frowned. "You think you'd pressure us?"

"I think people pressure each other without meaning to all the time."

That sounded like something she had learned the hard way.

Anya looked down at the cards.

Kaia pushed herself up. "Anyway, I'm going to go violate medical orders somewhere Tomas can't see me."

Topper stood and followed her two steps.

She noticed.

"No."

Topper followed another step.

"Absolutely not."

I laughed. "He likes you."

"I don't want him."

Topper sat beside her foot.

Kaia looked at me.

I lifted both hands.

"He has free will."

"That's an irresponsible feature."

She bent, picked him up awkwardly and brought him back to me.

Topper did not resist.

Kaia set him in my lap. "Control your frog."

"He's not a pet."

Topper curled against my stomach.

Kaia looked at him, then at me.

"Sure."

She left.

Rafi waited until the doors closed.

I looked at him.

He raised both hands. "I'm behaving."

Anya said, "She likes you."

I stared at her.

Rafi folded over the table laughing.

Naomi hid her smile behind her cup.

Jun abruptly became fascinated by his medical slate.

"She said I'm annoying."

Anya nodded. "Yes."

"That's the evidence?"

"No."

"What is?"

"The rest of the conversation."

"There was no rest of the conversation."

Rafi looked up, still laughing. "You're a genius until the problem is about you."

"I hate all of you."

Naomi smiled. "You say that a lot for someone who keeps sitting with us."

"I got here last."

"Still here."

I ignored her.

The conversation about Orison came back later, but nobody turned it into a meeting. It drifted in between everything else.

Anya had already thought about home more than the rest of us.

"My parents can get me off Orison almost immediately," she said while shuffling the cards. "My father will probably have transportation arranged before I finish telling him where I am."

Rafi looked impressed. "Must be convenient."

"Sometimes. The problem is everything after that. He'll call the ministry, somebody will call Federal Security, lawyers will appear, and everyone will explain that I don't need to worry because they'll handle it."

Naomi asked, "Wouldn't that be good?"

"A week ago, I would have said yes."

"And now?"

Anya looked down at her hands. "Now I'm not sure I want people deciding what I'm allowed to know before I even understand what happened."

Rafi studied her. "You always sounded like you liked people knowing what they were doing."

"I like competent people."

"That's not the same thing?"

"Not remotely."

He smiled.

Naomi turned toward Jun. "You're calling home."

"Yes."

No hesitation.

"My mother will have convinced herself I'm dead at least five times by now. I'm calling the moment they let us."

"What about after?"

Jun thought about it. "I don't know. I expected to leave."

"You've been in medical every day."

"I like it."

Naomi smiled. "I know."

Jun looked at her. "How?"

"You talk about it constantly."

"I do not."

"You told me for twenty minutes yesterday why Tomas hates automatic wound sealants."

"They're overused."

"You're doing it now."

Jun stopped.

Naomi laughed.

He looked down, embarrassed. "Fine. I like working with him."

"You're good at it too."

"I'm learning."

"That isn't what I said."

Jun glanced at her.

She held his eyes.

He smiled slowly. "Thanks."

Rafi looked at me.

I shook my head.

He nodded solemnly.

For once, neither of us said anything.

Rafi's answer was exactly what I expected.

"I'm not leaving if everybody else stays."

Anya sighed. "That is not a plan."

"It is my plan."

"It depends entirely on other people."

"Yes."

"What if Naomi leaves and Jun stays?"

"I'll figure it out."

"Based on what?"

"How I feel."

Anya looked genuinely offended.

Rafi started laughing. "You hate that."

"You have a brain. Use it."

"I do."

"Waiting until the last possible moment and then doing whatever feels right is not using it."

"It has worked surprisingly well so far."

"You were kidnapped."

"Not because of my decision-making."

"You were in the restricted corridor."

"That was Ilyan."

I looked up. "Leave me out of your bad argument."

"You opened the door."

"You followed me."

"I was supporting a friend."

"You barely knew me."

"See? Instinct."

Anya rubbed her forehead.

Rafi smiled. "I don't want to go home tomorrow and spend the next month wondering where all of you went. That's it. Maybe I leave later. Maybe everybody leaves together. Maybe I call my family and my mother somehow reaches through the comm and drags me home herself. I don't know. I just don't want to disappear because somebody finally opened a door."

Anya stopped arguing.

"That," she said, "was almost a real plan."

"Thank you."

"Almost."

"I'll take it."

Naomi looked at me.

I had hoped she wouldn't.

"Your turn."

"I don't have a turn."

"You've commented on everybody else."

"That doesn't obligate me to anything."

Rafi leaned back. "Coward."

"You literally just built your future around vibes."

"And I owned it."

I looked at the table.

"Yeah. I want to go home."

Nobody looked surprised.

Naomi asked, "Then why don't you sound decided?"

"Because I'm not."

Rafi waited.

I tried not to turn the answer into something cleaner than it was.

"I want to call my parents. I want to talk to Talia. I want to know what they've been told and whether they're okay. I just don't know if I want to step off Black Star and immediately let somebody else decide what happens next."

Anya nodded slowly.

I continued. "I also want to know what Radian is doing. Not because I want to fly it. Before you start." I looked at Rafi.

He lifted his hands.

"But Niko doesn't know why it reacts to me differently. I definitely don't know. If Federal Security picks me up tomorrow, they'll ask me everything about Radian and probably tell me nothing."

"That's likely," Anya admitted.

"Exactly."

Naomi asked, "Is that enough reason to stay?"

"I don't know. Maybe I'll get to Orison, call home and decide I'm done with all of this."

Rafi said, "You'd last three days before breaking into a laboratory."

"That's insulting."

"Four?"

"Still insulting."

"Five?"

"Stop negotiating."

Jun smiled.

I looked down at my breakfast. "I just want the choice to still be mine after I talk to them."

Nobody said anything clever after that.

I appreciated it.

Celene eventually reclaimed our dishes and threatened to start charging Rafi rent for the amount of time he spent at the table. Jun left for medical. Naomi went with him because she wanted to ask Tomas something about Hekate's emergency clinics. Rafi followed Anya toward fabrication even though he had spent all morning insisting he needed to report somewhere else.

I watched them leave.

Topper climbed onto the empty chair beside me.

"Do not start."

He rested his chin on the table.

"Exactly."

The day passed without alarms.

That was still rare enough to notice.

I spent most of it in engineering with Mara and Niko, tracking a reporting fault through one of the replacement regulators from Hekate. The component worked. It simply kept telling Black Star it did not. Mara called it "a very expensive liar." Niko said that made it qualified for government work. Mara threw a glove at him and missed. I found the translation problem between the replacement controller and Black Star's older management system, which started another argument over whether I had fixed the regulator or only convinced the ship to stop complaining about it.

Later I wandered through the Frame bay.

Kaia was there.

Of course she was.

Vesper stood open around the left hip while Eli worked from a platform beside it. Fresh scoring from the Hekate breakout ran across the dark armor. One shoulder plate had been removed, revealing gunmetal structure beneath, and the repaired leg no longer looked remotely new. Vesper wore damage differently from Radian. Radian's repaired sections looked like interruptions in something carefully designed. On Vesper, every new mark seemed to belong there almost immediately, another piece of history welded into the machine.

Eli looked down when he heard me. "Tell Tomas she's been here almost an hour."

Kaia looked up at him. "Do that and I'm dropping you off the platform."

"You can barely reach the ladder without making that face."

"What face?"

"The one where your ribs hurt."

"My ribs are fine."

Eli looked at me. "See?"

"I'm not getting involved."

Kaia smiled. "Smart."

I leaned against the railing and looked at the exposed hip assembly. "The Hekate replacement held."

"Mostly."

"You already damaged it."

"I used it."

"That isn't the same thing."

"It is if you're a pilot."

Eli called down, "It is not if you're the person repairing it."

Kaia looked up. "Nobody asked engineering."

"You are literally standing in the maintenance bay."

"Technicality."

I laughed.

Kaia turned toward me. "You're in a better mood."

"I'm always in a good mood."

Eli made a choking noise from the platform.

I looked up. "Do you need help?"

"No. I inhaled disbelief."

Kaia smiled. "You were in Radian this morning."

I stared at her.

"This ship is terrible."

"What?"

"Privacy."

"Oh. We don't have that."

"Niko told you?"

"Niko told Mara. Mara yelled something across engineering. Eli heard it. Eli told me."

Eli leaned over the platform. "To be fair, I thought she already knew."

"I didn't."

"Then I improved communication."

Kaia ignored him. "You fly?"

"No."

She nodded once.

Nothing else.

That tiny lack of reaction meant more than somebody congratulating me for refusing.

"I ran a simulator."

"And?"

"It was interesting."

She smiled. "There you are."

"What does that mean?"

"You keep trying to make yourself hate it."

"I don't hate Radian."

"Now you don't."

"I never did."

"You spent three days looking at Bay Three like you wanted to set it on fire."

"That was different."

"How?"

I looked at Vesper.

Kaia waited.

"I thought if I liked anything about Radian, that meant something about what happened."

She understood immediately.

I could tell because she did not answer right away.

Eli had gone quiet too, though he kept working.

Kaia leaned back against the railing beside me. "You're allowed to like the machine."

"I know."

"You say that like somebody had to tell you."

"Apparently."

She looked up at Vesper. "I love Vesper."

I glanced at her.

She shrugged carefully. "That doesn't mean I love every reason I ever got inside it."

That was probably as close as Kaia got to explaining herself without being forced.

I looked at the dark machine above us. "Vesper is really cool."

She looked offended. "Really cool?"

"What do you want?"

"Something less embarrassing."

"It's terrifying. Happy?"

"Better."

Eli called down, "She likes compliments."

"Eli."

"I'm working."

"You can work silently."

"I actually can't. It's medical."

Kaia sighed.

I stayed a while.

Not because anything happened. Eli worked. Kaia argued with him. I asked a few questions about the replacement regulator controlling the new thruster hardware, and Kaia explained what she disliked about the first Hekate option without turning it into a lecture. She talked about how Vesper felt entering a turn, where the response lagged, why the stronger replacement part had been wrong for the way she fought. It was strange hearing somebody describe a Frame like that—not numbers first, but behavior. She knew Vesper the way I knew how a gravball should leave my fingers on a pass.

I wondered if that was what Niko meant.

I left before the thought got too comfortable.

By evening, everybody ended up in my cabin.

I never understood how.

Rafi arrived first claiming he had left his cards there. He found them in his own jacket after three minutes. Anya appeared because Rafi had her stylus. Rafi insisted he had borrowed it. Anya asked when she had agreed. Rafi changed the subject. Naomi came looking for Anya, and Jun arrived shortly after because Naomi had left her cup in medical.

Ten minutes later, Rafi was on the floor beside the bed, Anya had taken the desk chair, Naomi sat near the foot of the mattress, Jun leaned against the wall and Topper wandered between everyone's shoes like the entire gathering had been arranged for him.

"This is too many people."

Rafi looked around. "There are five of us."

"Exactly."

"You were one of five before we came in."

"That isn't how counting works."

"It is if you count the room's population."

Anya looked at him. "Please never become responsible for statistics."

"I'm excellent with numbers."

"You owe me twenty-seven credits."

"That number is contested."

"It's recorded."

"By an interested party."

Jun noticed one of Mara's tools on my desk. "Is that yours?"

"Temporarily."

Anya looked at me. "Meaning?"

"Mara knows I have it."

Rafi pointed at her. "See? Borrowing."

"That actually qualifies."

Rafi looked triumphant. "I won."

"You were not involved."

"Victory doesn't care."

Topper hopped onto the bed beside Naomi.

She scratched the top of his shell while talking to Jun, and he settled against her leg.

"You know," she said, "he's much less annoying when Ilyan isn't arguing with him."

"I'm right here."

"That's why I said it."

Topper seemed content.

Traitor.

Naomi reached for something beside the lamp and picked up the family photograph.

I started to stop her.

Then didn't.

"This is Talia?"

"Yeah."

Rafi immediately leaned over from the floor. "Let me see."

"You've met her."

"I haven't seen little Ilyan."

"I was twelve."

"That's little Ilyan."

Naomi looked at the picture. "Your mom looks like you."

"My dad says that."

Anya leaned sideways from the desk. "You have your father's expression."

"What expression?"

"That one."

I stared at her.

She pointed. "Exactly."

"That explains nothing."

"He looks like he's heard someone say something wrong and is deciding whether correcting them is worth becoming annoying."

Rafi started laughing.

Jun looked from the photo to me.

Naomi did the same.

"I hate this room."

Rafi wiped at his eyes. "You do look like him."

"I look like Mom."

"You look like both."

"That is generally how families work."

"See? That expression."

I took the photograph from Naomi and looked at it.

We were at a gravball match. Dad had arrived halfway through the first quarter because a test ran late. Mom had spent most of the beginning checking messages until Talia grabbed her wrist unit and refused to give it back.

I told them.

Jun smiled. "What did your mom do?"

"Told her to return it."

"Did she?"

"No. Talia threatened to throw it into the seats below us."

Rafi nodded approvingly. "I really like her."

"Everybody likes her until she starts touching their stuff."

Anya asked, "Did she throw it?"

"No. Mom told her she'd pay for it."

"And Talia?"

"Said she was sixteen and unemployed."

Naomi laughed.

"Dad tried to help," I continued. "He asked Mom whether it technically counted as theft if the person taking it was her daughter and had every intention of giving it back."

Jun already knew where this was going. "She liked that?"

"No. Then Dad spent ten minutes defending a question he admitted he shouldn't have asked. Talia gave the wrist unit back because she got bored."

"Your father sounds dangerous," Anya said.

"He's very good at making arguments nobody needed."

Rafi looked at me. "So you really do take after him."

I threw the nearest pillow.

Rafi ducked.

The pillow hit Anya.

Everybody stopped.

Anya slowly picked it up.

Rafi pointed at me. "He did it."

"I know."

She threw it at me.

I caught it.

Rafi immediately grabbed another.

"No."

Too late.

For the next several minutes the room became stupid.

Rafi got hit twice. Naomi accused Jun of using her as cover. Jun insisted he had moved behind the bed because Rafi threw badly. Anya discovered that she had frighteningly accurate aim from the desk chair and became much too pleased with it. Topper retreated under the desk until we stopped.

Eventually everybody ran out of pillows.

My blanket had been dragged halfway off the bed.

One of my notebooks was on the floor.

Rafi's cards were everywhere.

"Great," I said. "Now you're cleaning."

Rafi lay flat on the floor. "I'm injured."

"You got hit with a pillow."

"Emotionally."

Anya picked cards out from under the chair. "Your emotional injuries seem extremely selective."

"They're severe."

"You're still helping."

Rafi sat up.

Naomi had picked up the photo again after it nearly got knocked off the shelf.

She placed it farther back beside the lamp.

Upright.

I noticed.

I did not move it.

Nobody said anything about it.

That was better.

Once the room stopped being a battlefield, Rafi started another card game. Naomi ended up stretched across the foot of the bed while Jun sat against the wall beside her. Anya kept the desk because she claimed the surface improved concentration. Rafi sat wherever there was space.

Topper eventually crawled onto my pillow, turned in a tight circle and settled against the wall.

He used to sleep there sometimes when I was younger.

Seeing him do it now felt strangely familiar.

Orison came up again.

Not the decision.

The colony itself.

Rafi wanted to know if the gravball courts were any good.

Anya had already downloaded the public transit map.

"You downloaded the entire map?"

"It's not large."

"That isn't what I asked."

"I like knowing where I am."

Rafi pointed at the screen. "Where are the courts?"

"I don't know."

"Then what was the point?"

"The map is not organized around your interests."

"It should be."

Naomi had found the information she wanted. "They have three agricultural districts built into the inner ring."

Rafi groaned. "Please don't make us tour farms."

"They're not farms."

"They grow food."

"That does not make every environmental system a farm."

"What's the difference?"

Naomi sat up.

Jun laughed immediately. "You shouldn't have asked."

She looked at him. "You're encouraging him."

"I'm protecting myself."

For the next five minutes Naomi explained the difference between managed ecological space, agriculture and life-support infrastructure while Rafi deliberately misunderstood each new distinction. Jun listened to her with a smile that had very little to do with the information.

I noticed Anya watching Rafi too.

Everybody was becoming obvious except the people involved.

Jun eventually asked whether Orison had hospitals that accepted temporary volunteers.

Naomi stared at him. "You're planning to spend our first day in a medical ward."

"I asked a question."

"You absolutely are."

"I might visit."

"For six hours."

"I don't know."

"You haven't had an actual day off since Hekate."

Jun smiled. "Then come get me if I stay too long."

Naomi went quiet.

Not dramatically.

Just long enough.

"Fine," she said. "I will."

Rafi's eyes went wide.

I saw it coming and threw a sock at him.

He caught it.

Anya looked at the sock. "Why was that on your desk?"

"It was clean."

"That does not answer the question."

"It's my desk."

Rafi pointed at me. "Your desk."

I looked at him.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"You said it like it meant something."

"I said two words."

"You have a tone."

"I'm throwing another sock."

"I surrender."

Nobody turned it into anything.

The room had just become somewhere we sat.

That was all.

Later, Anya asked whether the neutral office on Orison guaranteed private communication with family. Jun assumed it did. Anya said assumptions were why rules existed. Rafi offered to distract the staff while she stole the regulations.

"I'm not stealing regulations."

"You broke into a restricted corridor with us."

"That was your fault."

"It was Ilyan's fault."

"I opened a door."

"You opened several doors."

"I was curious."

Rafi grinned. "Exactly."

Anya looked at the date on her slate.

Then stopped.

"Caelum was less than two weeks ago."

Everybody went quiet.

I checked.

She was right.

Rafi looked genuinely offended. "No."

"Yes."

"That's disgusting."

Naomi laughed. "Why?"

"I've known all of you for less than two weeks."

"You knew us before Caelum."

"Not like this."

He looked around the room.

Nobody joked for a moment.

Then Jun said, "You've known me long enough to steal my food."

"That was Naomi."

"She stole my food."

Naomi pointed at him. "You gave it to me."

"After you stole it."

"That sounds like retroactive permission."

Anya laughed. "That is not how permission works."

Rafi leaned back against the bed. "See? We're basically family already. Everybody steals."

"Do not ever say that to Federal Security," I said.

He smiled. "Good advice."

By the time they finally left, Rafi had forgotten one card under my bed, Anya had recovered her stylus, Naomi had forgotten her cup beside the lamp and Jun had borrowed one of my engineering books because we had gotten into an argument about whether medical exoskeleton feedback and Frame control systems had anything useful in common.

The door closed.

The room went quiet.

I sat on the bed.

It looked lived in.

Not decorated. Not finished. Nothing dramatic had changed. My bag was still under the desk, half packed. My residency jacket still hung from the chair. Rafi's card stuck out from beneath the bed. Naomi's cup sat beside the lamp. One of the pillows had fallen to the floor.

The photograph stayed upright.

Topper climbed out from where he had curled near the wall, walked across the pillow and pressed against my side.

I rested one hand over the top of his shell.

"Long day."

He settled.

"Helpful as always."

His eyes dimmed.

I reached for Talia's gravball token.

DON'T CRASH.

I flipped it.

OR IF YOU DO MAKE IT LOOK COOL.

I smiled despite myself.

Orison was close now.

Tomorrow I could call Mom.

Dad.

Talia.

Maybe I would step off Black Star and go home.

Maybe I would call them and stay one more day.

I did not know.

For once, I decided I could live with not knowing until morning.

Topper shifted closer.

Somewhere below us, Radian waited in Bay Three.

Somewhere farther down the same ship, Rafi was probably discovering he had left another card behind. Anya was probably correcting something he said. Jun was probably reading the engineering book instead of sleeping. Naomi's cup was still beside my lamp.

I turned off the light.

The room went dark around things that had not been there a week ago.

I didn't think about what that meant.

I just went to sleep.