I stood panting with my hands on my knees while he dithered, hardly out of breath.

Deprived of anything more satisfying than the energy tablets I’d been sucking on for the past two days, my stomach had knotted itself into a tight, angry fist. I felt old, tired and haggard, but still determined to stay alive.

“You know,” I said between breaths, “they wanted to shoot me after the war.”

Adam looked at me but didn’t comment. I hadn’t really been speaking to him.

“Even though we won, and even though what I did probably saved lives in the long run, they wanted to shoot me. Luckily, I had friends in high places, friends with the influence and means to help me disappear.”

A sudden sadness crowded in on me. If I had been discovered, if our pursuers knew I was the Butcher of Pelapatarn, it could only mean I had been betrayed by one of those former colleagues. The officers of my flagship, the Righteous Fury, had painstakingly obliterated all the physical and digital evidence of my disappearance. My face, height and fingerprints had been altered, and even sections of my DNA had been changed to prevent identification. The only way I could possibly have been traced would have been if one of my friends had chosen to testify as to my whereabouts.

“They got me out because, no matter the outcry following the burning of the jungles, they knew I’d done the right thing.” I rubbed my face with both hands. The skin felt waxy and loose. “They fought alongside me. They understood that if a soldier has seen a way to save lives by ending a conflict, they have an ethical obligation to do so.”

I looked over at Adam. He was fiddling with his sleeve. Even though I’d been talking to myself more than I’d been addressing him, his lack of attention still irritated me.

“What are you doing?”

He glanced up. “These suits have short-range emergency radios.” He saw the look of alarm on my face and held up a hand. “Don’t worry, I’m not transmitting. I’m not an idiot.”

I let out a breath. “You won’t get much down here, anyway,” I said. “Radio works via line of sight, and those canyon walls are a pretty big obstacle.”

“I thought I might hear something from the crawlers. Or, if something passed overhead, like a ship in orbit, I might pick it up.”

“Have you had any luck with that?”

“Not so far.” He raised his face to the white stone ceiling—its ribbed surface formed from the underside of the steps we’d trodden on our last circuit of the spiral. “Of course, that could just be because we’re too far underground.”