“They’ll kill us if you send us back,” Alana said in a shaky voice.

“So you need to behave then, don’t you? Because Poi Li is pissed with you at a level even I find scary.”

“You can’t do this,” Callum said; he was still on his knees, holding Savi’s hand. He looked up at Yuri, beseeching. “They’re people. You can’t treat them like this; it’s inhuman!”

“No,” Yuri said, suddenly angry. “What they do—what they have done—goes way beyond simple criminal acts. They seek to destroy anything they dislike, no matter that it is enacted legally, or how many people are dependent on it. They smash and ruin others’ endeavors freely, and feel nothing. That is what cannot stand, not anymore. For once I agree with Ainsley and his ultra-rich political collaborators. Your friend Akkar and his allies have been judged, and found guilty. Tough, that judgment didn’t come after million-wattdollar-fee lawyers defended them in public courts, followed by ten years of taxpayer-funded appeals; tough, that we don’t spend hundreds of thousands a year keeping them in prison. But judged they have been, and far more leniently than they judge you or I. And even now, we give them a second chance.”

Raina’s hand shot out, pointing at the inert threader. “That planet is not a second chance. That is a death sentence.”

“Because of what they are,” Yuri sneered. “They have been given an entire world of their own. We provide the means to survive, even to thrive if they learn the basic lessons of society and cooperate rather than fight each other like savages. So I’m really, really sorry if Zagreus isn’t a five-star hotel with room service, but we can’t afford the luxury of tolerating them anymore. This is the humane solution.”

“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.