None of the officers had told Tennal anything, but he’d picked up from the rankers that this was the Fractal Note, the deep-space flagship of the research fleet. It only had a skeleton crew now, but it was heading to a string of staging posts to pick up its commander and the rest of its crew. After that it would rendezvous with the rest of the research fleet in whatever part of chaotic space they planned to study.

Tennal couldn’t care less about the crew’s research mission. He’d found a schedule, and the only important thing on it was the refueling stop in nine days: the one where they were due to pick up his architect. That meant he only had nine days left of being alone in his own head. He’d vainly hoped the mental itch of the priming might wear off before he met his architect, but no such luck so far. Tennal knew what enhancers felt like, and the itch in his brain wasn’t totally different, but it hadn’t worn off after a few hours like enhancers did. It felt much, much deeper. He was stuck on a ship with his defenses down and there was nothing he could do about it.

They all expected Tennal to be cooperative. It wasn’t as if he had a choice. A shame that he’d never been cooperative in his life.

He spent the first day meandering around the poky corridors—half-familiar from occasional deep-space trips with his aunt before she’d left the army—and familiarizing himself with the people on it. His wristband kept pinging at him to report to the gymnasium for an assigned exercise program. He ignored it.

The second day, Tennal discovered the senior officers on the crew held an operational meeting every morning. He turned up early to the next one and put his feet on the table, casually acknowledging everyone who trickled in after him. Most of them were architects, none very strong; Tennal’s reader senses picked up faint flares as they came in. “Civilian adviser,” he said, when the commander’s chief of staff walked in, surrounded by a stronger glow. “The legislator arranged it. Don’t mind me.”