Orshan hadn’t owned any remnants in a couple of decades, not since the ones they’d excavated and used in the first architect experiments. The Resolution didn’t like individual planets to have them; Orshan had surrendered them as part of the deal that had kept the whole sector in the galactic protection treaty. That also explained the size of the fleet and the expensive scanning ships. Remnants were dangerous in the wrong hands.

“Why do we think they’re in there?” Commander Vinys continued. “Well, the currents have shifted over the past few years, and we might find a few things we’ve lost. We’re hoping to get at this.”

The screen changed again. This time it was a schematic of a space station: a small installation, with a handful of modules circling eternally around a central hub. It was an old type, ordinary and unremarkable.

Surit’s throat went dry.

He recognized that station. The silhouette was burned in his memory from the time he’d spent obsessing over old newslogs. It was the research laboratory where they’d made the original architects. They hadn’t stopped there: just a couple of years later, during the reader rebellion, that laboratory had made the war machines that mass-produced architects, modifying the brains of tens of thousands of soldiers.

That was the laboratory his mother—his architect mother—had tried to seize. She’d wanted a power base. Lights knew what she’d have done to Orshan if she’d succeeded.

Instead she’d blown up her own ship, destroyed half the station, and taken hundreds of lives with her.

Surit didn’t hear the rest of the briefing. He sat motionless as the commander droned on about trajectories and drifting paths into chaotic space.

That explained why he was here. Someone had known about Surit’s parentage and wanted to give him a chance to repair some of the damage. Or someone with a sense of irony had thought it was funny.

Or maybe not. Maybe this was the Guidances making a very intricate joke.

The commander had reverted to a flat screen with a schematic of spatial paths. “There are no recent maps,” he said. “The far side of the zone is Archer territory. The governor there doubts our ability to retrieve the remnants safely”—he sounded contemptuous—“and so we’ll be keeping well away from her station and the space around it. This fleet brings together some of the best pilots in the sector. I know you’ll manage.”

“Question, sir.” A wristband chimed, and one of the pilots leaned forward, a glossy and well-groomed lieutenant with an accent from the rich merchant cities of Orshan Two. “Aren’t we carrying some unacknowledged risks? Isn’t one of our officers Marit Yeni’s child?”

Surit stiffened. Eyes were watching him from all around the room.

They had known.