I could take Miki over the way I’d originally planned, except its interactions with Abene and the others were incredibly complicated. I didn’t think I could fake my way through that; my augmented human security consultant act had been hard enough to develop, and I wasn’t trying to fool people who knew me. Or who I was pretending to be. Or whatever.

Trying not to sound nervous and/or enraged, I said, Miki, remember you said you wouldn’t tell Don Abene about me.

I won’t, Rin. Miki was so calm and complacent, my performance reliability dropped by 2 percent. I promised.

I managed to seethe silently. But part of Miki’s coded behavior must include going to Don Abene when it had questions. I was going to need to make sure I answered its questions as thoroughly as possible; obviously “I don’t know” wasn’t going to cut it.

Hirune was asking Abene, “What do you think of our security team so far?”

Abene said, “I’m pleased, actually. They don’t seem to know much about terraforming facilities, but that shouldn’t matter.”

It might, I thought. But SecUnit education modules were crap and all I knew about terraforming was what I had managed to absorb while completely not caring about it, so maybe I wasn’t the best authority.

Through Miki’s eyes, I saw Hirune glance at the other two, who were talking about calibrating something. She lowered her voice. “I suppose. With only two of them, they’re not going to be much help against raiders.”

Abene snorted. “If there are raiders, we’re pulling out and heading back for the transit station immediately.”

By the time you see them, it’s too late for that.

My reaction must have gotten into the feed, because Miki asked anxiously, You’ll keep them safe, Rin?

Yes, Miki, I told it, because that was my story and I was sticking to it.

Chapter Four

Chapter Four

IN MIKI’S FEED I had access to a scan of the terraforming facility, superimposed with a schematic from the original specs. Yeah, I think I knew where to look for the evidence I wanted.

Through Miki’s camera I saw the visual approaching on the shuttle’s display. We had passed the tractor array already, still operating at optimal capacity according to the automated reports it was sending to the station.

The facility was a huge platform in the upper atmosphere, far larger than the station, larger than a full-sized transit ring. Most of that space was for the pods that contained the enormous engines that would actually control the terraforming process. There was no visual of the planet itself; the facility hung in a layer of perpetual storm. Swirling, towering clouds, filled with electrical discharges, obscured any view of the surface.