On the radio Pangong was calling for me and for Homestead. Orbital Control was hysterical, to put it mildly. On the navigation display I could see Providence Station, its evacuation vessels, the icebreakers moving too slowly into position. They would arrive in time to salvage what they could, no sooner. My head was throbbing and my shoulders ached. I looked for the emergency beacon of the evacuation suit on the screen. It was far from the ship, already left behind.

“. . . you hear us?”

A new voice came over the radio, quiet, wavering, but with an urgency that caught my attention.

“Can you hear us? Zahra?”

I sat forward quickly, my head spinning. I knew that voice. “Anwar!”

“Zahra!” My brother leaned toward the camera, peering at me through Orvar’s blood. He was not alone. Nadra was behind him, her eyes wide with fear, and there were seven or eight others on the bridge as well. A couple of small children, two older women, and a few young men near the door. “Zahra, the ships are going to crash, and we don’t know how to stop it. We can’t change course. We can’t change anything. Adam shot all the people who knew how to fly the ship.” There were tears in Anwar’s eyes and a catch in his throat, and I wanted more than anything to reach across space and take him in my arms. “Everybody’s scared and the guards have guns and they won’t tell us anything—”

“Anwar, listen to me. Nadra. Listen.”

“But we—”

“Listen to me,” I said, pleading. “You can still get away. There are evacuation suits on Homestead. Look for the evac airlock close to the bridge. You can—”

One of the men near the door stumbled backward with a shout of surprise, and the other lurched to catch him. The muzzle of a weapon appeared through the open doorway, then an arm, then the growl of a familiar voice telling them to move out of the way. One of the kids started crying. Nadra pulled Anwar away from the radio, and there was Adam.

My breath caught—how deeply those instincts sink into us, quivering fear in the face of familiar rage, that skittish animalistic cower—but the sensations, rather than growing, sank away, like water vanishing into parched soil. He could not hurt me now. He looked around, wild-eyed, until he saw me on their screen. He strode over to the console and slammed his hands into the panel as he leaned down.

“Do you think this changes anything?” he shouted, his voice thundering. His eyes were bloodshot, his hair unkempt, his face contorted with anger. There were sweat stains at his armpits and bloodstains on his sleeves. “Do you think you are accomplishing anything? You will not snatch our final victory from us.”