And ignoring it nearly worked, until his door opened without warning and Tennal stumbled in, flooding the room with light. Tennal looked as wild-eyed as Surit felt. “It’s like I’ve lost my hand,” he said, holding the doorframe like it might anchor him. “No, worse than that, it’s like my hand dropped off and wandered to the other side of the ship. Is this the sync? This is the pits!”

Surit made an incoherent noise and put the pillow back over his face. The awful feeling of separation had stopped. He felt—not whole, but closer to it. And he was so tired. “Go to sleep.”

“Get lost in a fucking swamp,” Tennal said, without heat, and fell into the bunk across from Surit.

They fell asleep feet apart from each other. As Surit drifted off, he was aware of two sets of lungs rising and falling in perfect unison. And he dreamed of drifting through stars and nebulae and spinning galaxies, though he had never had that dream before.

The next day, they didn’t talk about any of that.

The Note arrowed toward Orshan Central, but not on the straightest route. Instead they curved around the edges of chaotic space, not near enough for the disturbed space to be dangerous but enough to confuse anyone else’s scanning equipment. Tennal attached himself to the pilot console alongside Istara.

Surit was busy from the moment he woke up. Half the crew members were on jobs they’d never done before. Half of them weren’t even sure going back to Orshan Central was the right thing to do. Surit explained, listened, ordered, cajoled. And always in the back of his head, a wash of salt water, Tennal’s acerbic awareness. Surit found himself watching people’s eyes more than usual, playing to what they wanted, what they feared. He hadn’t even known that was an option. It felt like he was constantly coming out with things that weren’t quite him and weren’t quite Tennal but somewhere in between.

The news bulletins continued to play. Tennal’s cheerful, unwitting clips popped up in propaganda rolls about every half hour.

“If I have to see that smug prat on screen one more time,” Tennal said conversationally, “I’m going to set our comms receiver on fire.”

You didn’t know, Surit said. Too late, he realized he was still watching the screen, and his mouth hadn’t moved. The words had gone straight to Tennal’s brain. Surit winced and forced himself to say what he meant out loud. “You didn’t know. That matters.” That was better. He could hear himself say it, like they were still two separate people.

Tennal rubbed his eyes and looked back down at the pilot’s console.