Panya grabbed Ariana by the neck, catching her beneath the chin. Ariana twisted to the side and bit Panya’s hand, hard enough that Panya let out a surprised shout.

“Stop.” Dag’s voice was a calm rumble. “All of you. Stop.”

He had caught Xiomara again; his gun was pressed to the back of her head. Panya still had a grip on Ariana’s throat. I clung to the wall with one hand, too afraid to move away from Baqir, not daring to leave him insensible with pain. His artificial arm floated at an unnatural angle from his side. He was breathing heavily, sucking in ragged breaths and forcing them out again, every one accompanied by a faint groan.

“We have a lot of work to do,” Panya said calmly. She shoved Ariana away and aimed her gun. “Into the bridge, all of you.”

Fragment

[data corruption] supposed to be an invitation. Come to our paradise. A world humanity hasn’t ruined. Come see the beauty we’ve discovered. We were such fucking fools. The people who lived here, whoever they were, whatever they were, they were in love with beauty. You can see it in everything they did. This must have been a beautiful planet, once. But we weren’t the first to find it.

—FRAGMENT 6, MOURNFUL EVENING SONG VIA UC33-X

ZAHRA

Get them back.” I slapped at the terminal. Anwar’s screams still rang in my ears. “Get them back!”

“Zahra.” Malachi reached for my hand.

I shook him off. “We need to talk to them. We have to make them understand.”

“He won’t listen,” Malachi said. “Zahra. He’s not going to listen.”

I didn’t want him to be right. I could not have failed so badly that there was no way to fix it. Adam had flown into rages before. He had made irrational and dangerous decisions. It was our responsibility to ease the hurt, to protect him from the petty cruelties of life so that he might lead us—or so he had always claimed. The punishment for failing was swift and great. When the lashes were counted, when the banished were driven away, we told ourselves the transgressors deserved it. Only the disloyal failed to do what Adam needed them to do.

There was a hard knot in my chest, right between my lungs. I had done everything Adam asked of me. But our dream was built on a lie. Nothing Adam could do, no speech he could give, no punishment he could render, would change that.

“We have to do something,” I said. The words scraped my throat, and tears stung my eyes.

“We’ll contact SPEC,” Malachi said. There was no hesitation in his voice, not the least hint of doubt. “We’ll contact that ship that’s been waiting.”