Welga eased herself next to him on the bed and took his hand. “I can’t promise I’ll come back, but—short of abandoning this mission—I’ll do everything in my power to make it happen. I’ve spent my whole life looking for a way to help people. Don’t ask me to stop now, not even for you, please. If I can find and destroy the facility that’s creating the dakini, we can stop the Machinehood, and people can go back to whatever their lives were before all this.” She thought about her father, Luis, Carma. Would anyone go on as they had, now that they had seen how quickly things could go from calm to chaos? “I can help heal the world. No one’s life is worth more than that.”

“Yours is, to me.”

“Then help me. Please, cardo. Get me the contacts for the rocket club that’s doing the launch. Tell me everything you can recall about Ao Tara and Eko-Yi. The more prepared I am, the more likely I’ll succeed and come back to you.”

“Just like old times?”

“Not even remotely, but we can pretend.”

She spent the next day planning and packing. It took Welga half a day to reach the Neo-Buddhists’ rocket club and convince them to prepare for the launch in spite of the embargo.

“My friends in the government are talking to the White House,” she told them. “They’re trying to frame this as a humanitarian launch. You won’t be allowed to send any material that the station could use for electronics or biotech, but you can send people, food, and water.”

Some of the club members knew about her shield work for Platinum. She didn’t volunteer her connection with the agency. Nor did she mention that she’d be traveling alone. Connor’s fever rose and fell with each round of antibacs. She didn’t want to think about what might happen after supply ran out. He’d been right about the hospitals. She tried every one, and they had nothing to give. That almost tempted her into pulling strings with her Organica status, but the risk of telling the agency about Connor’s condition ruled it out. No matter what they could procure, he wouldn’t be fit in time for the launch.

Every twelve hours, she checked in with Olafson. Neither the emergency constellation nor the agency’s satellite radio could handle the data exchange for a full briefing on Eko-Yi. The dakini hadn’t divulged any further information. The JIA would escalate its interrogation tactics, but by the time they convinced her to talk, Welga expected to be off-world.