"I think there's a real good chance of that, yeah." Jason shrugged. "I can't be certain, though. And the act of doing something to the drive might set off an alarm. I'll know if that happens because a light will blink here on the drive, and then I could try resetting it and silencing it. But it wouldn't take very long for the ship to spot that alarm and get a pretty good fix on where it was. It's risky."

"If we'd taken that drive to my father when you showed up at my home, he could have tried that."

"At that time I didn't know Mages could do that," Jason said.

"And we don't for certain if it would work, but it might well set off an alarm that would bring the ship quickly," Kira said. "So trying it at my home would have been very dangerous. Your ship could have been there before we could get away."

"That's right," Jason said. "Even if I had known Mages could do that, I don't think it would have been smart to try it then."

"Yeah, but now we're a lot farther from your ship, and if your idea works, those weapons couldn't be built, right?" Kira bit her lip. "I know to try this I need a place I can concentrate, without any distractions. That means a room or something. And if that alarm goes off, we need to be able to lose ourselves quickly, which means being in a city where there are a lot of places to hide and a lot of people to hide among. We'll have to try it in Ihris."

Jason nodded, looking at the grass again. "Sure."

What was bothering him? Kira had felt a surge of hope at Jason's idea. If it worked—

If it worked.

She stared at Jason. "If we destroy the data on that drive, you don't have a reason to hide anymore."

"Neither do you," Jason said. "You can go back where you're safe."

"But your mother will find you. You'll have to go back with her and…and you and I won't be together any more." Kira inhaled suddenly. "We'd probably never see each other again. Jason, you just told me that you loved me. Why did you then tell me about a way to destroy that data that would probably separate us forever?"