We let it swirl around a finger, barely enough to register through armour and insulation. If we close our eyes and still our systems, we can just about feel it tugging on us.

Something changes the draught. Another Juno, stirring nearby. It takes a gentle step, measures its way into our shadow. It holds itself differently from before, an odd slant in its posture and its arms wide like it’s got too much muscle in the way.

“Is it always like this?” asks Salt.

No, not Salt. We recognise the tiny breaks where voice samples have been cut apart and stitched back together. It shows more than usual, unknown sounds generalised from the few it has on record.

“You’ve never had a jockey before?” we ask.

“No,” it says in its newfound voice. “It feels strange.” The last part sounds more like the real Salt, less like something borrowed.

“It will change you.” We find its eyes, the outlines of lenses and reflected light. “You understand that? You don’t come out the way you went in. Either of you.”

“I don’t—” It stops, rolls back. “We don’t understand.”

“But?”

“We’re not sure we want to go back.”

“Either of us,” it says, this time more like the jockey we know.

“You were faster than we were.”

It almost shrugs. “We can hear some of your thoughts, but we know we aren’t the same as you.” A shiver takes it, runs it up and down. “I was trained to run guns half-jacked into my head,” says Salt’s voice. “It’s the only way to keep up. You can think for yourself, or you can let it roll over you. Let fire-control and reflex do the work.”

“This feels like that?”

It hesitates, holds up a massive fist. “It feels different. But we have a lot in common, the two of us.”

“Pain?”

“Some.”

“Feeling like you were left behind?”

“We were.” The voice twists, verges on a snarl.

“But there’s more than that.”

“There is,” says Salt’s voice, brighter, more certain than before, “an empty space.” It levels a finger at the little weld in the middle of our chest, still silver after all this time. The break in our armour, carved by the slug that killed the last body in this saddle. It’s still raw, still not painted over. The only thing that hasn’t gone to rust, or burnished grey.

The touch is soft, right on the edge of feeling. It’s unbearable.

We have to brush the hand away, find something else to focus on. Anything.

“Will you tell Hail?”

The other Juno pulls back, watches us for a moment more. “Not yet.”

“She wouldn’t understand.”

His voice cracks. “No, she wouldn’t.”

“We’ll have to show her someday. When all of this is over.”

It straightens. “I—We’d like that.”