To hell with that. Tennal had no desire to be an architect. He swung his legs off the edge of the bed in the empty med bay, stopped to catch his breath, and thought, Fuck you in particular, Surit Yeni.

There was no answer. Surit was gone.

He didn’t have to wonder why Surit had done it. Tennal had lived in Surit’s mind for eight days. Surit had known there was no future in the rapidly worsening sync, even before Oma’s compulsion. Trust Surit to weigh up the most utilitarian outcome and decide he would be the sacrifice. Tennal was going to find him and then murder Surit himself.

If he could find him. Tennal’s limbs weighed him down like lead and his head felt like someone was drilling an auger into it. But he’d started out a prisoner and now had his own ship and, technically, his own shitty side in their burgeoning civil war, so theoretically anything was possible.

Anything is possible. The words in his head felt hollow, like someone repeating an empty catechism.

He put a standard signal out to whoever was listening to messages from his wristband: request attention. The ship must be on its way to the lab. He should know what was going on. It was hard to care, but he was technically part of the ship’s command. He had responsibilities.

Tennal stared at the ceiling. The void called to him from beyond it, no longer inviting but a great threatening storm. He thought about how the universe was mostly nothing but humans made up stories about the things that were there and pretended they were more important than the crushing weight of the nothing.

Lights, Surit would hate him thinking like that. Zin would too. Everyone Tennal loved was worse off for knowing him. He was a hole in the hull, a bug in the software.

Shit, he thought, as he heard the exact phrasing that had just gone through his head. Was I—

The thought was so nagging that he had to sit up and think it. Am I in love?

Every other thought drained out of his head—they were dull anyway; with a sudden jolt, he recognized them as things he’d thought thousands of times before. How boring to have the same thoughts about how you were a stain on the universe for the thousandth time. He was tired of it. Tennal was sick of being sick of himself.

He had to get up, to stand and walk across the room and be restless at this new thought, like electricity through his muscles. Am I—

He put on his wristband: attention, emergency.