Tennal did know the way. He no longer had to even look at Surit to know where he was as they hurried to the Fractal Note’s bridge; he knew where he was with his eyes closed. There was a quiet sigh of static in Tennal’s ear as someone patched him into a closed group channel, and Basavi’s voice came into his ear.

She was briefing Surit. “—ships fighting even up to the docking struts, sir. Station traffic control is basically defunct, and it’s chaos out there. We won’t be stopped, but we could be shot at if we identify as the wrong side. We might get past Archer ships with our current keys, but the route we need is held by that Cavalry fleet right now. And I don’t know if they’ll believe we’re Cavalry, sir. All the keys we have are Archer.”

Tennal stared blankly ahead as they traced the familiar route up the corridors of the Fractal Note where he’d used to pace behind Surit’s shoulder.

“I might be able to help with that,” Tennal said.

Surit gave him a sidelong glance, because apparently you couldn’t turn off Surit’s habit of concern even when he was in your brain. “You’re in shock,” Surit said. “You should sit down.”

“Let me be useful,” Tennal said. “Lights know that would be new.”

Three minutes and forty seconds later, they got their first challenge. The call sign was Cavalry. The fight had arrived in their path.

“Identify?”

Tennal took the comm on visual. He had refrained from doing this out of duty, then done it out of spite, and now it just hurt. He said, “My name is Tennalhin Halkana. I am the nephew of the legislator. Let us pass.”

PART FOUR

CHAPTER 25

The Fractal Note shot from the fighting around Archer Link Station into deep space like a bird escaping a hunter. In the past few weeks, Surit had served on the Note, pretended to sync on it, fought for it, and been imprisoned on it. He had never thought he would be in command of it.

It was a good thing Surit was trained not to panic because otherwise his consciousness would be a smear on the floor of the nearest hull.

If normal syncing was like this, then Surit would eat an entire stockroom of parade hats. The regulators gave the impression that architects guided their pilot readers only when necessary, in a controlled and disciplined way. This wasn’t that. This was like Surit’s mind had been a neat and orderly house and he had flung open the door and let in the ocean.

Surit was prepared to believe this kind of sync did not happen with readers who weren’t Tennal.