“It doesn’t matter what we planned,” I said firmly. “How long until they get here?”

Malachi answered, “Nearest ship I’m reading on this side is one-fifty-two—”

“Did you see that?” Boudicca said sharply.

“No,” Malachi said. “See what?” A few seconds of silence. “What did you see?”

“There was a ship there,” Boudicca said. “Are you blind?”

“What’s going on?” I demanded.

“The nearest ship I can see,” Malachi said, his voice slow with doubt, “is a Burro class transport in the MEO-3 shipping zone. Cargo on its way to Providence Station. I doubt it has the fuel to burn up to this orbit, and even if it does it will take ten or twelve hours. Next closest is Homestead, and that’s a full one-twenty degrees westward.”

“There’s another one out there,” Boudicca said. “It’s been hidden.”

“What do you mean ‘hidden’?” Nico said. His voice rose at the end of the question, squeaking with alarm. “Can ships do that?”

“What I saw—look.” Boudicca took a breath, audible over the comm. “We’ve only got basic navigation here. Our active scanning is for collision avoidance only. For anything farther out, we rely on Orbital Control tracking to locate other ships, and that means we rely on what they’re transmitting to us.”

I didn’t understand until Malachi said, “You think they’re hiding something from us?”

“I think they can hide ships from everybody, when they want to,” Boudicca said. “I saw a blip on orbital tracking that—it wasn’t there, then it was, and it’s not there now. Like it’s not supposed to be in the position data broadcast, but for a microsecond it slipped through.”

“It’s possible,” Dag put in. “And it is something they would do.”

“Liars and deceivers,” Panya murmured.

“I don’t know,” Malachi said.

“Don’t be so fucking naive,” Henke snapped.

“I’m not. I just don’t see it,” Malachi said, but his tone was defensive now, wavering in a way I had always hated. He gave in too easily when he wasn’t sure of himself. “It’s not in the record. Are you sure? How can you be sure?”

“They could have altered the record,” Boudicca said, with exaggerated patience. “The position computer takes input from Orbital Control. That’s how the tracking system works. You didn’t tamper with the tracking system, did you?”

“I didn’t touch it,” Malachi said. “They would have noticed.”

“Why would it show at all, if they’re hiding it?” I asked.