“Rivers, really?” Tennal said. “It was always the ocean for us. Sun heats up the harbor wall until you could fry an egg.”

“Frogs in the water,” Surit said. “Wriggling where you step.”

“No,” Tennal said.

“I’ll take you,” Surit said recklessly.

“You have to exterminate the frogs first,” Tennal said, “but I’ll hold you to that.” Surit drew a sharp breath. It felt like something had just clamped itself around his rib cage. He couldn’t say anything, though, because Tennal leaned forward with the intent twitch of a bird spotting prey. “There they are.”

Surit spotted the figures a second later. Three of them: Birimi, heavyset and dressed less colorfully than last time he’d seen them, and a pair of Retrieval Two rankers who had just escorted the ex-governor out of prison and were now trying to fade into the crowd and pretend they were here coincidentally. A dockworker came out and checked the emergency pass Surit had issued Birimi. She nodded and gestured them to follow her.

Birimi looked around, peered at the windows of the concourse above, and raised their hand in a gesture of thanks.

They disappeared through the dock gates. Nobody shouted. Nobody ran after them.

“That’s that, then,” Tennal said brightly. He finished Surit’s tea.

Surit made one last visual sweep of the concourse, unable to believe it had gone off this smoothly, and switched his attention to Tennal. Tennal was doing a reasonably good job of pretending at insouciance, but his foot was tapping compulsively. And he’d sought Surit out here instead of waiting for Surit to come back to his office.

“What did you want to tell me?” Surit said.

“How did you—” Tennal said, then broke off and laughed. It wasn’t a particularly happy laugh. “All right, yes. Half an hour ago, someone sent me this.”

He threw a small screen from his wristband onto the table, shielded for privacy. Staring back from it, wreathed in encryption watermarks, was Tennal’s face.

Surit leaned over. It was a Resolution-issued pass. He’d never seen one before. With something like this, Tennal wouldn’t need Governor Oma’s permission to get through the link. The border guards would just wave him through.

“Is it real?” Surit said.

“I have no bloody clue,” Tennal said. “It came out of the blue from our very dear ex-politician.” His eyes flicked up to the bustling concourse where Birimi had just disappeared. “They couldn’t spring themself from an Archer cell, could they? But they’re a politician. They do obviously have friends.”

“If it doesn’t work…”

“Yes, I know,” Tennal said impatiently, “if it’s fake and I get found out, they’ll deliver me to Oma tied up on a platter. At that point I imagine Oma will stop being nice.” He paused. “I have to try it, though.”