Some people might take that away to decrypt in private, but Tennal just tapped his wristband to release his personal key. The message resolved into text. “Let me guess,” Tennal said. “Archer Station misses me desperately and wants us to come back. All is forgiven.”

Basavi frowned over the short line of numbers the message revealed. “No,” she said. “This isn’t from the station. I don’t know what it is. Coordinates? The headers say it’s been sent to Orshan as well.”

“Well, this is a great time for a mystery!” Tennal said. He shoved it at Istara. “You’re the best navigator we’ve got, Lights pity us. Figure out where those coordinates are, and what under Guidance they mean.”

“Yeah, okay, once we’re not being shot at,” Istara said. They glanced at Surit. “Sir, what’s our path?”

“We’ll cut close to chaotic space,” Surit said, “just until we’re sure we’re not being followed. Then we’ll work out where to go from there.”

Newsburst after newsburst hit the screens. The crew had stopped looking up from their jobs for most of them, but Surit couldn’t look away. Archer Station’s transmissions were cleverly patched-together publicity reels. Seeing Tennal’s face in them was a punch to the stomach.

Surit was always aware of where Tennal was now. In the hours since launch, while Surit had frantically schemed with Basavi to assign jobs, check ship parts, pull fuel reserves and get everyone rations and beds, he had felt Tennal sitting motionlessly in the chair he’d first fallen into, staring blankly across the bridge.

Surit couldn’t stand it. He didn’t know what to do. In desperation he weakened his mental wall; he cracked opened the door in his mind.

The storm that was Tennal had not abated. It came roaring at the door, and Surit braced.

In the real, physical world, Tennal looked up at him sharply. “I’m all right,” Tennal said. “I am. Really. I know you don’t—”

It was too late. Surit felt Tennal’s despair like his own, a fast-flowing current through the crack in his mind, swirling in agitated pools. Surit’s heart hurt, and he couldn’t separate it from what he knew was himself, because he hurt for Tennal just as much as it hurt, right now, to be Tennal.

“Tennal—” Surit said.

Tennal rubbed a hand over his eyes in something between uneasiness and an awful relief that Surit had let down more of his walls. “I’ll help,” he said. “I’m being useful. I’ll help.” He took a deep breath, trying to pull himself together. “You’re worried about how close we are to chaotic space. You could use me with the pilots.”