When the Trail Ranger was an hour out from Nkya’s base camp, the stewards started serving dinner. The gourmet food packets were microwaved, but they still tasted pretty good to me. I chose seared scallops on mint-pea risotto for a starter, followed by minute steak and fries with red wine sauce. The wine was a three-year-old Chablis. Not bad. I finished with lemon crème brûlée drizzled in raspberry sauce. I ate mostly in silence; everyone else was running through the files, consuming every piece of data we had on the derelict ship. It wasn’t enough to draw any definitive conclusions. I know. I’d been trying to work out what had happened for ten days.

“Have you identified any of the humans on board?” Callum finally asked as he finished off his salted almond truffle tart.

“No,” Yuri told him tersely. “We can’t do that.”

“Can’t, or won’t? An identity check is one of the easiest search requests to load into solnet. Nobody can hide in our society, right, Alik?”

The FBI agent gave him a soft smile. “It’s difficult,” he conceded. “Government keeps an eye on people.”

“For their own good,” Callum sneered.

“How many terrorist attacks have there been in the last fifty years? The last seventy-five, even?”

“Not many,” Callum agreed grudgingly.

“Your infamous preemptive rendition,” Eldlund said sharply. “Arrest people because a G8Turing thinks they might do something based on behavior and interests. What sort of justice is that?”

Alik shrugged. “What can I say? Pattern recognition works. And FYI, every National Security removal warrant has to be signed off by three independent judges. Nobody gets exiled without a fair hearing.”

“That must make your citizens feel so much safer. What is it every authoritarian government says? If you’ve done nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear.”

“Hey, you want them to be free to immigrate to Akitha or one of the Delta Pavonis habitats, pal?”

“That’s not a justification, that’s a threat.”

Alik’s stiff mouth managed to crank out a self-righteous smile, and he poured himself a shot from the vintage bourbon bottle he’d brought in his luggage.

“Why haven’t you tried to identify them?” Callum asked. His gaze had never left Yuri.

“The same reason there is no solnet out here, and that Alpha Defense insisted we keep a very secure separation distance between portal and ship. Security.”

“Man! You’re still fucking doing it, aren’t you? Still claiming everything you do is the right way, the only way. Anyone who says or thinks different isn’t just wrong, they’re evil with it.”

“Because this happens to be the right way. Try thinking about this—because that’s what you’re actually supposed to be here for, to produce an impartial informed opinion. Though fuck knows why Emilja and Jaru sent you.”

“Because I’m actually capable of having a rational thought, not just paranoid ones.”