“It’s seven hundred twelve miles,” said Afa, “more if you can’t fly, which you can’t. I can’t go that far—I have to stay here with my records.”

Kira shot another look at Samm. “But we need you, Afa. We can’t do this without you.”

“I can’t go,” said Afa.

“We don’t need him,” said Heron, speaking loud enough that Afa could hear her—allowing herself to be overheard on purpose, it seemed to Kira. “Data centers run on electricity, obviously, so we’ll have to reactivate the auxiliary generator, which won’t run for very long. That will be hard enough. Then we’ll have to find which servers have the ParaGen files, which ParaGen server has the Trust files, and which Trust files have the information we need, all while navigating the single most powerful security protocols that old-world money could buy.”

“I already know all that,” said Afa. “I could find it, easy.”

Heron smiled.

“So come help us,” said Kira.

“I can’t leave my records.”

“I can do it just fine on my own,” said Heron, grinning maliciously, trying to challenge Afa’s expertise. “We don’t need him.”

“You’ll never do it,” said Afa.

“Once we find the right files,” said Heron, “we’ll have to decode the data and download it to a portable screen, all before our generator dies, and we’ll probably only get one shot at it. It’s going to be a pretty amazing feat—getting a computer file out of a ruined building from a long-lost civilization. It’ll be like hacking the Giza pyramids.”

The door opened slightly wider, and Heron nodded triumphantly.

“You know the wilderness,” said Afa. “You’re scouts, Kira said so. You don’t know computers.”

“I know enough.”

The door opened even wider. “Do you know how to crack a Nostromo-7 firewall?” said Afa, and Kira noticed the difference in his voice—he was waking up, mentally, enlivened by the idea. Kira had thought Heron was trying to goad him into coming, challenging him by claiming to be better, but really she was geeking him out. She was presenting him a challenge so interesting, and so firmly in his area of expertise, he couldn’t help but get excited about it. Kira had done the same with Marcus, more than once, in their medical research.

Samm shook his head, speaking softly. “I don’t like this. It’s not safe to take him.”

“It’s not safe to leave him, either,” said Kira. “Dr. Morgan’s looking for me, too, right? Can you say for sure she’s not going to find this radio station eventually? She’s not going to go easy on the mentally damaged man she finds here.”