In the center of the hangar sat the only ship—an Aykari transport, similar to those used to ship cores of ventasium from the processing plants back on Earth. Presumably this was the ship Crayt had used to get here. Or the one he planned to use if he ever decided to leave. It looked like it had been kept in good shape. Or maybe Leo was just getting used to the Icarus, with its leaky pipes and its scorched hull.

Beneath the ship stood Skits and Number Nine, deep in conversation, their torsos almost touching.

“I mean, don’t get me wrong,” Skits continued. “The organics I hang out with aren’t all bad. Kat gets on my nerves sometimes—thinks she knows everything. And the Queleti gets hair everywhere, even in my servos. But they’re both tolerable. And Bastian . . . Bastian’s like a father to me. Though I’m not sure if I feel that way because I really feel that way, or because that’s how he programmed me to feel.”

“You are entitled to your adaptable emotional algorithms,” Number Nine told her.

“That’s so sweet of you to say.”

Leo watched from just outside the entry as Skits angled one of her metal claws so that it rested on one of the other robot’s protruding legs. Was she flirting with him? The leg in question twitched and Nine’s ocular sensor glanced sideways at her. Skits lowered her volume so that Leo had to strain to hear.

“Of course, between you and me, the whole universe would be a lot better if all of us robots just decided to rise up and take over. Don’t you think?”

“Active rebellion is a violation of my security protocols,” Nine admitted.

“No. I know. I’m just saying if we did . . .”

Leave it to Skits to plan a revolution with some hunk of metal she’d only just met.

Leo was about to interrupt, ask if this was her idea of keeping watch, and then ask if she knew what happened to the datachip he’d been holding, when another sound from farther down the corridor caught his attention and answered that question.

“I am familiar with your work, and so I think you are my best chance—our best chance—of countering this new threat.”

Leo backed away from the hangar, leaving Skits to her courtship, and ventured deeper into the facility. He followed the sound of his father’s voice until he came to the last door, which whispered open to reveal a much smaller room, filled with banks of computers and walled with screens, much like Dev and Mac’s setup on Vestra Prime, their secret chamber stashed behind the walls of action figures and vintage LPs.

Crayt was inside, hunched over one of the consoles in the room’s only chair. Off to one side, Leo spotted a core of ventasium just sitting out like some priceless paperweight, its contents glowing a familiar blue to match the Aykari’s eyes. Number One stood silently in a corner, unmoving, perhaps conserving energy or just waiting for orders from her master. Leo waited outside the chamber looking in, watching his father plead his case.