Leo definitely didn’t like the sound of that.

“And when you say small chance . . . ,” Baz pressed, “what, specifically, are we talking here? Like this small?” He pinched his fingers together to indicate how small he was comfortable with; his fingers were touching.

“I venture three percent. Five at the most,” Crayt said after a pause.

Baz shook his head. “No offense, but this isn’t really how I pictured myself going out.”

“And how was that, again?” Kat wondered.

“I don’t know. Godfather-style, maybe?” Baz answered. “Heart attack in my backyard, eating oranges and playing with my grandkids. Not out in the middle of nowhere, nuked by some Aykarian mad scientist who has nothing to lose.”

“I have just as much to lose as you do, Captain,” Crayt said. “But in anything worth doing there is the potential for failure. And for sacrifice.”

“Yeah . . . see . . . not the same,” Baz said. “Failure I’m used to. Failure you can walk away from. Vaporized? That sounds pretty not-walk-away-fromable to me.”

“I realize there are risks. But think if we do nothing,” Crayt countered. “What are the odds the Djarik use their new weapon to much more devastating effect? And on your own home planet, I should add. That makes this a risk worth taking, does it not?”

Leo nodded. Crayt turned back to the device, ready to test it, but Baz held up his hands.

“I see what you’re saying. I do. What I’m saying is those of us who want to find out what this tiny contraption of yours does firsthand can stick around here and watch. And those of us who like the idea of dying of old age can take the Icarus into low orbit and wait fifteen minutes to see if you’re wrong. You seem like a smart guy—you know, relative to your kind—but past experience with that kind proves that we have two different ways of looking at the galaxy: one that sees people like me as expendable and the other that doesn’t. So if it’s all the same to you, I’d rather not stand here and jeopardize my crew while y—”

The captain of the Icarus didn’t get to finish his thought, however, because the button was already pressed.

Leo stood beside the workbench, his hands on top of Crayt’s device, having darted across the room to activate it. He watched, along with everyone else, as the core of ventasium suffused with a kind of grayish haze like a thin veil of smoke. He held his breath, waiting for the reaction, the 3-to-5 percent, waiting to see if the trick would fail. But instead of being vaporized, the luminescent blue aura of the ventasium quickly faded, leaving only a hunk of rather boring-looking gray rock. The kind you might build a cistern out of.

The core didn’t explode.

Baz, on the other hand . . .

“What the hell, Leo!” Baz glared at him. “Are you trying to kill us?”