Walters queried headquarters about just that, then stumbled over some name Rosalyn had never heard before. If it was Girdy’s decision to send the redirect, she would take it seriously. This was his mission, he had chosen the crew, so any changes to the itinerary should be made by him and him alone. Rosalyn smelled a rat again, a rat that seemed determined to keep her away from the Brigantine.

Girdy needs to know about this, she thought. If this was all a mix-up, and Girdy really was fine with the redirect, then he ought to have been involved enough to sign off on the mission change himself. Her gut told her this wasn’t his call. Her gut said, Someone doesn’t want you poking around.

“Respond, tell them to send a fuel probe. Twelve more hours twiddling his thumbs won’t kill the esteemed senator.”

The Late Nodes still crooned through the ship, but their voices dimmed as the float signal was picked up by what was left of the Brigantine’s computer. It was like a soft, plaintive hello. Or maybe help.

“See?” she said. “It’s a sign. Can you shut the music off?” Rosalyn whispered, glancing up at Walters. “I don’t want any interference.”

“Oh,” he muttered, scrambling to bring up his VIT. “My bad. Wouldn’t want any interference while you fuck off and get us fired.”

“Girdy will bail us out; he wanted me on this job. We won’t get fired.”

Before he could kill the music, the Brigantine’s systems responded. Instead of the expected, recorded rundown from the computer, the voice of an AI Servitor crackled over the speakers. It wasn’t shocking that the Brigantine would have an AI helper on board, but it was strange that it wouldn’t have shut down as soon as the dead hail went out. Efficiency. That was the Merchantia way.

“This is Servitor J-A-X Zero November, series type N . . .”

“What the fuck?” Walters murmured.

“Shhhh.”

There was a pause, and then the AI completed its introduction, launching into a string of diagnostics regarding the state of the Brigantine’s systems. It went on and on and on, a predictable list of problems that she had already found in the dossier. Then, finally, Rosalyn sighed and pressed her finger to the VIT monitor, sending a return message.

“We’re responding to a code blue,” she interrupted. The AI fell abruptly silent. “We already have your ship diagnostics. We received a dead hail from your vessel. Can you confirm?”

“Confirmed,” the AI replied succinctly.

She nodded, giving Walters a grin. A good sign. This talkative fellow had probably just failed to power down and had been puttering around the ship, waiting for them to come along. She almost felt sorry for it. Let that stalled senator stew for a while; this poor AI had been sitting there with a dead crew, alone and in the dark.