“Zagreus has one canyon where humans can breathe, a toxic shithole that’s poisoning them,” she shouted. “That’s not a world, it’s a freak site. Even if you send us back, we’ve got the recording of their conditions to blow this whole obscenity out of the water. It’s already downloaded into a cache vault. Right, Callum?”

“That’s your threat?” Yuri said contemptuously. “Okay, send it. Go right ahead. Send it to every news service in the solar system, every political commentator, every justice department. What do you think is going to happen?”

She glared at him, her facial muscles flexing.

“There’ll be referendums in the democracies demanding we bring them back?” he asked in a pitying tone. “Is that it? There’ll be international campaigns, million-person protest marches? Is that what you’re counting on? That. Will. Not. Happen. What court are you going to take this to? You think it’s just one country that exiles these people? One company? One continent? Some of those psychotic bastards are actually lucky they get sent there. Ten years ago, their own government would have simply executed them.”

“That’s not an excuse,” she cried. “Escaping state-sponsored murder doesn’t make this right.”

“By your standards. Sadly, the rest of us can’t afford them. Not anymore.”

Raina looked down at Callum. “Chief? We have to go public. Please.”

“This is only the beginning,” Yuri said to Callum. “You’re smart enough to get that, right? That one settlement is an experiment, to see if the most belligerent, dumb, ideological assholes the human race has ever misbegotten can survive on an alien world. And—hallelujah—it worked. They’ll go public with it eventually, the unknown, unaccountable people who made this happen, whether you force them to or not. And when they do, that’s when the real political pressure will kick in. A planet of no return, a wonderfully safe four light-years away, where every vicious criminal can be sent, and has to work all day long to grow their own food. We wipe our hands of them forever: public conscience clean, crime rates down. How do you think that vote will go, huh?”

“You bastard,” Raina said.

“Why aren’t we already on our way back there?” Callum asked. “What’s actually happening here?”

“Ms. Keates was right. For all of you, Zagreus is now a death sentence. They’re not going to wait and listen while you explain nicely that I’m the bad guy. They’ll rip you to pieces the instant you drop through—probably eat you, too, given some of the ones we exiled there. I’ve seen the files.”

“So what’s the deal?”

“Very simple. You’re all through as far as Connexion is concerned—besides which, you’re officially dead, anyway. So you shut the fuck up and go away to live your lives wherever you want. I’m authorized to say that if you leave us alone, we leave you alone. Our screwup got Savi dumped on Zagreus; the explosion must have wrecked her grains so we couldn’t track her digitally. But that’s it. I got you this one concession, authorized by Ainsley Zangari himself, because of who the two of you are. And now you’re right out of credit. This is a onetime, take-it-or-leave-it offer.”