It hesitated again. “No, I don’t want to. I … won’t. But I don’t know what to do.”

Okay, that was a relief. Just because we’re both rogue SecUnits doesn’t mean we’re going to be friends, but I knew if it went back, it would be dead. I’d hacked my governor module and kept doing my job because I didn’t know what else to do (except you know, a murderous rampage, but murderous rampages are overrated and interfere with one’s ability to keep watching media) but that was different from escaping and then going back. I said, “Because change is terrifying. Choices are terrifying. But having a thing in your head that kills you if you make a mistake is more terrifying.”

It didn’t seem inclined to argue. “Your clients told me I could go with them to Preservation.”

“You can do that. Or not. You don’t have to.”

“They are your clients.”

I said, “You can trust them.”

I’m sure it thought I was delusional. Hey, I thought I was delusional. SecUnit 3 didn’t say anything because what could you say to that in this situation. Or any situation.

Then it said, “The completed portion of the story.” I finally realized it wanted to ask me for it, but its experience at asking for things that weren’t contract-relevant data was nonexistent. “Viewing it would … help me come to a decision.”

I was pretty sure I knew what decision it intended to come to. My files were a how-to manual for fugitive SecUnits. I said, “I’ll excerpt the relevant portions and send them to you.”

It actually looked almost pleased for a second there. It said, “Thank you for that information.”

In the end, twenty cycles after we had arrived in this system, it was a Preservation ship, an armed station responder, which came through the wormhole.

“They couldn’t possibly have gotten here in this amount of time,” Arada said, after the ship’s ID had been confirmed and the exclamations and arm waving in the galley lounge were over. “Not unless they left only a few hours after we did.”

ART said, They may have. Before I was deleted, I prepared a message buoy, explaining what had happened and asking for assistance, and concealed its existence from targetControlSystem. I set it to jettison automatically when the wormhole drive engaged.

There was more exclaiming. “But why didn’t you tell us?” Amena asked it.

(Yes, Amena is still naive about what a monster ART is.)

ART told her, Because then it would have been harder to force you to do as I wanted.

(Yeah, like that.)

“Can you contact it on comm?” I said. Because I had a feeling who was onboard and if I was right we could save a lot of time and a lot of aggravation. And by that I mean me being aggravated while humans talk to each other for an unnecessarily long amount of time.

Seth gave me a thoughtful look. “We can. Peri?”

Are they likely to deploy malware? ART asked.