Surit stopped. Tennal had done it on purpose. He had meant to draw the other officers’ attention. For a moment he saw the exchange as Tennal had clearly seen it: as a game where all the words were weapons. Part of Surit wanted to say he hadn’t needed help, but that wasn’t true. Instead, he said, “Oh. I see. Thank you.”

Surprise crossed Tennal’s face, quickly covered by something else. “Well,” Tennal said. “Keep up your end of the deal, then. Sir.” The sir was tacked hastily onto the end as the commander gestured them both over.

The commander stood with someone Surit recognized as one of the fleet’s new pilots: this one had the rank tabs of a full wing leader and a grave, square-jawed face. There was something about him that suggested a funeral director. The commander was already speaking, with a short gesture toward Tennal; Surit caught the tail end. “… the fleet’s reader and the architect who’s synced him.”

Surit saluted. “You wanted to see us, sir?”

The wing leader ignored Surit and looked down at Tennal somberly. “Is he a pilot?” he asked. “The readers I worked with before had pilot training.”

“I can fold a paper dart,” Tennal said.

“Agent Fifty-Six,” Surit said desperately.

He had a sudden fear that Tennal was going to act as if Surit had written him again, but Tennal only put on a moderately contrite look and saluted. This salute was better, as if he’d been watching Surit to copy him. “I don’t have pilot training, sir.”

“Yes, I can see,” the wing leader said, frowning further as he looked Tennal over. Surit followed his line of thought easily: Tennal didn’t have the build of a soldier who had gone through even a week of boot camp. It was obvious he wasn’t meant to be in the army—because he shouldn’t be in the army; Surit found he still had room to be angry about that—and that meant he would be of limited help to the pilots. He wouldn’t know the vocabulary to tell them what he saw with his reader senses. The wing leader seemed to come to the same conclusion. “I can’t make use of him until he has some of the basics.”

The commander gave a short nod. “Lieutenant Yeni, you have a retrieval unit, don’t you? When are they docking?”

“Around now, sir,” Surit said. “They should be on the final approach.” He was counting down in his head, Three and a half minutes until scheduled docking, but he’d learned that level of detail worried people.