Goodbye, Tennal, Surit said softly, and broke every connective tissue in the sync at once.

His head thudded back against the headrest. A searing light flashed across his eyes. His hearing cut out, as if he’d stepped on a sound grenade. He had time to think: At least this will be quick.

But it wasn’t. The light drained away, and his vision slowly cleared. His heartbeat thundered in his ears, but Surit could see. He wanted to pass out. He clung to consciousness with a supreme effort of will.

The tug crawled slowly out from under the shade of the Note, into the vast emptiness. Surit’s wristband was cut off from incoming comms. Somewhere, Tennal would be furious. The bridge would be in chaos. It would take them a while to realize where Surit had gone. They couldn’t send anyone after him without losing them to the oncoming Archer ships.

Tennal could be as angry as he liked, but at least he would be free and alive.

Surit stared at the radar and imagined the great metal bulk of the Note, the scattered points of light beyond. He could feel the medic hadn’t been lying: the ordered structure that held his mind together was crumbling, but it was happening so slowly. He might be conscious for hours at this rate. Maybe days. He automatically went to call up the next thing to do on his list, but, of course, it was blank. He had nothing left to do. It felt … peaceful.

He could sleep. He hadn’t slept without a list of tasks in such a long time.

A harsh chiming woke him out of his doze. He’d drifted for hours, according to the tug’s console, but its alert system was flashing a green light: the tug had been caught in a tractor beam. The system thought its occupant was being rescued. When Surit brought up the radar, he saw the hours had brought him close enough to the Archer ships that he’d been caught.

It didn’t matter. His mind was a bundle of slowly fraying strings. They couldn’t do anything with him. Surit Yeni was no longer a lever for someone else to use.

But as he accepted the tractor beam alert—not that he could do anything about it—he felt the echo of Tennal in his mind. It wasn’t real, of course. He had no communication with Tennal, no route back to him, just the echoing husk where the presence that was Tennal had been.

And that phantom presence suggested: You’re free.

Surit wasn’t dead yet.