When they were out of earshot, Tennal grabbed Surit by the front of his uniform jacket and shoved him against the wall. Surit didn’t resist. Tennal hissed, “Did you forget it was fake?”

Surit took a quick, sharp breath and finally met his eyes. “No.”

“We aren’t synced!” Tennal said, punctuating the point with a shake of Surit’s uniform jacket. He might as well have tried to move a rock. “Stop looking like you’ve murdered someone!”

“Governor Oma was right, though,” Surit said quietly. “I should have blown the whistle. I was afraid. I should have refused the order in the first place.” His lips twisted in a struggle Tennal wasn’t privy to. “Nothing I’ve done has been right.”

“Because we agreed you wouldn’t refuse it!” Tennal said incredulously. “Remember that?”

“It doesn’t matter now anyway, does it,” Surit said reasonably. He wasn’t looking at Tennal anymore. He was looking at the bloody floor. This was the first time Tennal had seen Surit humble and he found he hated it. It was absolutely unbearable. “The governor will set it right. You’ll escape. I’m glad.”

“Are you finished, sir?” one of the escorting rankers called, hovering just out of earshot of the hushed, furious exchange. Tennal automatically stopped, waiting for Surit to deal with the distraction. “Only, the governor says to go back in for a briefing when you’re ready, and we’re supposed to take him back—”

Tennal realized sir wasn’t Surit this time. It was him.

He let go of Surit. “Yes,” he said. “Take him back to wherever you’re keeping him. I’m done.”

CHAPTER 16

They kept Surit on the Fractal Note. The ship was an empty husk attached to the station docks, its corridors silent, its rankers all disembarked and reassigned. The bridge and all ship systems were under the control of a small handful of Archer soldiers. The living quarters were prisons for its ex-officers.

Surit barely noticed he was a prisoner. He had spent longer detained on ship under the previous commander. He was in his original quarters: the tiny room felt empty without Tennal sprawled across the other bed complaining. Surit had noticed that at first. Then he had been summoned to the governor’s office and told exactly how unethical his own conduct had been, while a distant, elegant version of Tennal hovered by her shoulder in an officer’s green uniform, his profile like a hawk, and disowned Surit. That was probably as it should be. Surit had stopped thinking about Tennal after that.

He hadn’t slept since his meeting with Governor Oma yesterday. Instead he sat at the room’s cramped desk, staring at the collection of old newslog articles that he had carried on his wristband for years. His articles about Marit.