I walked out into Medical. The view of the control area was still active, with Arada seated in a station chair and Thiago now standing next to her. They were cycling through engine status data on ART’s alien-remnant-augmented wormhole trip, occasionally making little horrified noises.

Overse was in Medical now, with the implant we had removed from Eletra on a sterile work surface. She was examining it using an imaging field. The magnified scans of the individual parts floated in it, rotating. Eletra was sitting up on a gurney near Overse, peering uncertainly at what she was doing with the implant.

Overse pulled out of her feed to look over at us inquiringly. “Is, uh, everyone ready to talk now?”

“Not exactly.” Ratthi sounded concerned, which was totally unfair.

I said, “Arada, this transport did not come to this system in answer to a distress call.”

Thiago turned around to watch me suspiciously. Arada pushed back her station chair. Someone had brought her some supplies from the emergency kit, because the burn on her cheek had been treated. “SecUnit, I think we have a working arrangement with Perihelion for now. Unless this is something that could endanger us, are you sure you want to … confront it just at the moment?”

I said, “I am absolutely sure.”

Ratthi threw his hands in the air and went over to sit next to Overse.

With a “let’s get this over with” expression, Overse asked, “SecUnit, how do you know there wasn’t a distress call?”

I said, “This is a teaching and research vessel. The student quarters and classroom compartments aren’t in use, and the lab module was inactive, and there was no cargo module attached. So what was it doing when it got this distress call?”

All the humans looked up at the ceiling.

ART said, And this is your idea of being helpful.

I said, “This is my idea of the opposite of being helpful. I am here against my will and you are going to regret that.”

Arada pressed both hands to her face. “Maybe you should go back in the bathroom and think about this a little more.”

“I’m done thinking,” I said.

ART said, That’s obvious.

I know, I walked into that one, which oddly enough, did not make me any less mad. I said, “You came here for a reason, and it wasn’t a distress call. What was it?”

On the side of the room to my right, this was going on:

(Eletra whispered to Overse and Ratthi, “Why are you letting your SecUnit … do this?”

Overse’s jaw tightened. She said, “It’s not our SecUnit, it’s—”

Ratthi squeezed her wrist and gave her what I recognized as a “don’t trust the corporates” look. He told Eletra, “It’s normally very responsible.”)

Thiago was eyeing me through the conference image, frowning. He said, “It is a good question.”

(Of course, none of the sensible humans are supporting me now, it has to be the one who never agrees with me when I’m not being an idiot.) I said to ART, “Why were you here? What do you really do? Deep space research, teaching humans, cargo hauling, none of those are reasons to be here, in the system where corporates were trying to salvage a dead colony.”