I said, “It’s possible GrayCris can’t afford the payoff.” They might be desperately trying to sell off their alien remnant and strange synthetic collection before even more word got out about Milu. It was against the corporate/political entity interdicts to have alien materials, which meant GrayCris could only trade in it as long as no one knew. The bond company wouldn’t take alien remnants in payment unless they couldn’t be traced to it. There was no chance of that now. Which meant GrayCris was that much more desperate.

In the reflection I watched Pin-Lee look at me. “Is there any way we—you—can get her out without the ransom?”

I had been running possible scenarios, partly to drown out the sound of humans making stupid suggestions. (Not that I don’t like that sound; it’s sort of comforting and familiar, in an annoying way.) “It would be tricky,” I said. By tricky I meant I was getting an average of an 85 percent chance of failure and death, and it was only that low because my last diagnostic said my risk assessment module was wonky. (I know, that explains a lot about me.) “We need to find a way to make them bring her outside the main station security barrier so that I can track her location via her company implant.”

I was going to suggest a hack of their messaging systems, not that I had any idea how to get into those systems yet. Or if that would even work, since presumably a high-security prisoner transfer would need to be signed off by a human or augmented human supervisor who might ask unanswerable questions. But Pin-Lee turned to Ratthi and Gurathin and said, “We could offer them the ransom and arrange an exchange in one of these hotels.”

Ratthi nodded slowly, considering it. “But how much do they know about our finances? Will they know it’s a lie?”

Pin-Lee made an abrupt gesture. “We don’t have to show them a hard currency card.”

Gurathin leaned forward. “I can come up with a convincing feed document listing some of Preservation’s off-planet assets. They don’t need to know that those assets can’t be exchanged yet. But once we get them to bring her to the meeting—”

It wasn’t a terrible plan. It probably wasn’t even in the top ten of terrible plans. I said, “We don’t have to get them to bring her all the way to the meeting. We just need to get them to move her outside that security barrier so I can find her.”

Gurathin turned to me. “If they do, you can take her away from them, no matter how many guards?”

I was beginning to think Gurathin’s asshole expression was some congenital condition he had no control over. I said, “The more guards the better.”

He lifted his brows. “Are you going to kill them?”