“You’re not funny,” I told it.

Once ART secured a comm connection with the Preservation responder, I said, “This is SecUnit. Is Dr. Mensah aboard?”

There was only a four second pause. Then Mensah’s voice said, “SecUnit, I’m here.”

Amena bounced impatiently but I tapped her feed to wait. I said, “Coldstone, song, harvest.”

“Acknowledged,” Mensah said immediately, sounding relieved. “Now will someone tell me what the hell happened?”

Arada hastily took over. Seth asked me, “That was a stand down code, I take it?”

Amena made an exasperated noise. “You have a special code with second mom.”

It was actually stand down, clear, and no casualties. I just said, “Yes.” Now I’d have to change it.

Between Arada and the others on the comm, by the time the responder reached ART all the pesky questions about kidnapping and trying to blow up Preservation survey facilities had been resolved.

By this point, Thiago had convinced Seth and Iris to tell Mensah about ART’s actual mission. I think Mensah on the comm being all persuasive and reasonable had something to do with it. Plus along with the responder’s crew and a security team from the station, Pin-Lee had come with Mensah. Since ART’s crew needed someone who was good with Corporation Rim contract negotiation, the idea of an alliance with Preservation was looking better and better. Whatever, the humans worked it out while I watched Sanctuary Moon. ART watched with me for some of the episodes but the idea of Dr. Mensah coming aboard made it weirdly excited and it had its drones clean its whole interior again and was doing things like yelling at Turi to put their laundry in the recycler.

The responder pulled up to ART’s module dock, and Mensah came aboard with Pin-Lee, and there was a lot of noisy greetings and hugging and exclamations and introductions. There was a lot of talking to me, with Pin-Lee asking me if I was all right, and Mensah thanking me for trying to get Amena off the baseship. Seth, as the captain, formally introduced them both to ART. He told them, “We normally aren’t able to do this, since Perihelion’s existence as anything other than a bot pilot has to be kept secret in the Corporation Rim.”

“We understand,” Mensah said, her voice just a little dry. “We’re keeping a number of secrets from the Corporation Rim, too. I’m very glad to meet you, Perihelion.”

It’s a pleasure to have you aboard, Dr. Mensah, ART said, and actually managed to sound like it meant it.

Later, when everybody had settled down and Pin-Lee was consulting with Karime and Iris about documents to dispute Barish-Estranza’s claim on the colony, I got to talk to Dr. Mensah semi-privately. (Semi-privately because ART was impossible to avoid.) (But I was used to that.)

She came and sat down next to me in the lounge and I adjusted a drone to be able to get a view of her face. I had things I wanted to say but had no idea how, so I blurted, “Did you get the trauma treatment?”