His father must have heard. Dr. Fender turned his head and looked in Leo’s direction, catching his son’s eye before Leo could duck back out of sight again.

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen that look on his father’s face. Sadness he’d seen. Almost daily. But his father’s anger was usually kept buried deep.

The last thing Leo heard was, “I think you should leave.”

Number One was waiting for them when they arrived, standing dutifully at the back of the hangar by the row of deactivated mining bots. Her armor sparkled as she beckoned them to follow her, informing them that Crayt was waiting for them in the workshop.

“We are ready to test,” she said in her ever-polite voice.

Leo wondered if the robot always used we, just like the Aykari engineers who built her. Not long ago Leo would have looked at a mechanical like Number One and marveled at her seamless plating, delicate fingers, smooth gait, and silent operation. But now he knew she was just another mass-produced bundle of bolts straight from the factory, designed to follow the orders of her master without fail. Which meant she was nothing like Skits, who only followed orders when she darn well felt like it. Or when the robot she was crushing on agreed to come along.

“Ready to test?” Kat questioned, setting her stolen rifle near the ramp and exchanging it for one of Boo’s mistranslated rolls. “Didn’t he say it could take days? Or weeks?”

“You forget . . . he’s a genius,” Baz said with a grin. “I’d think you would have learned to recognize our kind by now.”

Kat pointed to Baz’s feet. “Your shoes are untied.”

“They’re Jordans, Kat. Besides, this way they’re easier to get on and off.” He tapped his skull. “Always one step ahead.”

“Until you trip and fall flat on your face,” Boo said. Leo snorted.

Baz muttered something about a mutiny and bent down to tie his shoes.

When they entered the workshop, a circular room with a metal worktable and walls lined with shelves, Crayt clapped his hands once. That small gesture was a veritable explosion of excitement for an Aykari.

“You have returned,” he said. “And just in time. I believe we might have something here.”

Leo scanned the workshop table, littered with spare parts, electrical components, vials of chemicals, and all manner of tools he didn’t recognize—even after all those hours helping Tex, the Edirin engineer, tinker with the Beagle’s engines. Then again, tightening the leaking gasket on a coolant injector and building a counter to a planet-destroying bomb from scratch probably required slightly different skill sets. The one thing Leo did recognize immediately was the core of ventasium sitting in the center of the table.

“You might not want to get too close,” Crayt warned. “Though I suppose it matters little. If this fails, and detonates, a few feet will make no difference.”

“Great,” Baz said, taking a big step back and pulling Kat alongside him. “I thought the goal was to keep things from blowing up.”