It’s a lie, but Hail doesn’t say anything more. She watches me.

I swallow and wave her away. “I’m okay. I’ve got it.”

She raises an eyebrow, but in the end, she leaves me to stand on my own two feet.

“I don’t understand,” says Lear. “Any of it. How does this change anything?”

Hail sets herself between us and the window. “Everything on this side of the Transition Point is part of an accelerated frame of reference. At this altitude, every second you spend is longer by a little less than a third of what it would be. If you fly deeper in, towards the outstations, it gets heavier. Fly back out to the Boundary, and it gets lighter.”

Lear cocks his head. “Longer than what?”

“Longer than a second at 1 gee.”

“NorCol doesn’t touch our sentences,” says Salt, “but it doesn’t have to.”

Hail nods. “You’re buying time. Twenty-four hours here is thirty and change at Old Earth standard. Ten years gets you a good return on whatever you’d have to spend in a cell somewhere else, assuming you live that long.”

“Some nasty flying out there,” says Salt, leaning for a look over the edge.

“You have no idea,” says Hail. “On this side of the Transition Point, there are four competitor machines for every one of ours.” She points upwind at something we can’t see. “Hasei has a dreadnought called the Orphan Source.” She does a moment’s calculation in her head, marks something else, this time up and to the left. “Sigurd has the Demiurge.” Now to the right. “Two Locust carriers hold near Rorschach: the Pacal and Aeryn Sun. Not as big as the dreads, but sharp enough.” One last time, down below. “Esper Kinetic has a converted seedship called the Immemorial.” She crosses her arms. “Horizon is the biggest by a long way, but don’t make the mistake of thinking NorCol is alone out here.”

“Where’s the Authority?” This from Salt, doing his own calculations.

“Outside, with a capital O. Other side of the Transition Point, where it’s sane.” Hail jerks a thumb over her shoulder. “It’s mad out here. They tried their luck after Sigurd made the first transition, but their losses weren’t sustainable. The companies have a better tolerance for it.”

“For what?”

She shrugs. “Grinding each other to a paste. Flying headlong into monster storms.”

“What could they possibly want out there?” asks Lear. “What? Don’t look at me like that—there has to be something of value. That’s the way these things work.”

“Stepping stones.”

We turn to watch Hail again. She lines us up and marks something we can see. A little dark spot against the glow, and a thin strip of shadow out behind it.

“See that?”

We do.

The clouds shift around it, but it doesn’t seem to move.

“Is that a rock?” asks Lear.