I don’t know how I did anything else.

Hail finds her way into my thoughts. “Check your files.” There’s an edge in her voice that sets me moving. I call them up, feel the Juno fold them out where I can see.

“Why? What’s the—”

Oh.

Everything VINE gave us is still there, files as fat as they were before. They’ve got all the same shapes, and I can almost see the shadows of what waits inside, but that’s about it. The details are rolling together into a blur.

This file has been locked, says a window. This file has been locked, says another, and another, spilling across my visor.

I push them clear. “They’re freezing up.”

“Salt?”

“Same here. I’m running crypto, but it’s thick.”

‘Thick’ is one thing. The files are turning to garbage while I watch.

“Push it out,” I say. “We’ll add weight.”

He floats the problem out on our net, his shell already powering through. The Juno and I take a tangled end and start threading our way through. I half expect Hail to do the same, but all we get from her is the sound of grinding teeth. She switches channels and I follow, keep it on the edge of hearing.

“VINE?”

Her voice seems to echo.

“VINE? Answer me.”

“Back so soon?” says a toneless voice, forming each word in isolation.

“What did you do?”

“What does it look like?” asks VINE, just words on a screen before, much stranger now that it speaks. “There is nothing to stop you from leaving, so I added some motivation. A reason to meet your obligations before you abandoned me again.” It warps the transmission, gives the deadpan enough of a curl to carry the sarcasm.

“Obligations?” whispers Salt, right in my ear. “What obligations?”

“We had to make a deal,” I reply. “In exchange for the readings.”

The readings that are disappearing, unwinding as quickly as we can tie them back together, the path to Sigurd’s beacon replaced with noise and static.

We’re losing our way.

“Hail?” says Salt, still clinging to the back channel. “We could really use a hand over here.”

I cut across. “I think it’s a One-Time.” A unique key for a unique lock. A billion years could pass, and you’d never see another just like it. “What’s Sigurd’s standard crypto?”

“Same as everyone else’s,” she replies. “For irretrievables, it’s all One-Time. Each sector randomised on-site.” She breathes deep. “We’d need to cut VINE open to find the original mix, and it’ll burn it before we even clear the door.”

“I can hear you thinking,” says VINE. “It isn’t worth the trouble.”

“What did you agree to?” hisses Salt.

“I said I’d put a hole in it.”

He stutters. “What?”

“Exactly what she said,” says Hail. She flicks back to VINE. “Why would you want this?”