All the differences between the Ministers and humans were things that made them better suited for interstellar travel. The longer lives. The smaller bodies—better for the confined spaces of a starship. Even the dual circulatory systems—I’d seen that one personally, with Indigo. He’d lasted much longer in the vacuum than me, and had adapted quickly to our return to regular atmospheric heat and pressure.

I’d thought them aliens, come from some other planet. Or the wrath of an angry god, like the Chosen said.

“They’re human,” I said.

I didn’t know how humans could do what the Ministers had done. I’d been on Kystrom when it had fallen and I had seen what they’d done. But if the Ministers were humans, altered to be improved for life in space, that meant they had human DNA.

“Humans have genetically modified crops for millions of years,” Lantern-Eyes said. “We turned maize into its most useful form, but corn isn’t human. You can buy bottles of human cells at convenience stores to use on wounds, but sim-skin isn’t human. It doesn’t matter what they’re made of. They’re monsters. And if they want that data, they might want to make more Ministers. As if the Ministers we have already aren’t enough.”

I hesitated. “Make more? Can’t they…”

Lantern-Eyes gave me a look that dared me to finish the sentence.

It wasn’t like I was gonna just not ask. “Can’t they, uh, make more Ministers in the… usual way?”

“I haven’t asked one,” Lantern-Eyes said.

“Right,” I said. “Of course not—”

“Intelligence reports suggest not. They seem to reproduce solely by cloning. But intelligence reports also say that the Ministers are capable of cloning their own anyway, so why they want the original Philosopher Stone data, I can’t say.” The lieutenant exhaled, a little too edged to be called a sigh. “But I know Ministers. Whatever they want that data for, it will be bad for humanity. So I’m going to find it first.”

“We will,” I agreed, already thinking of ways to hide the data on my person where the lieutenant and her Republican reinforcements wouldn’t think to look.

“How could you even find this ship without knowing anything about what’s aboard?” Lantern-Eyes asked.

“I had a burst of good fortune,” I said, lifting the tablet again; I flicked away from Mara Zhu’s haunted expression to open the next text document and look at it like I was reading it. “Or really bad fortune. I heard the SOS. You know the SOS.”

“It would’ve been difficult to pick up that SOS. Almost impossible, if you weren’t already looking in this area for something.”

“Well,” I said, “the Ministers noticed it.”

“The Ministers have been looking for this ship for hundreds of years. They had a general idea of where it had gone, and they were looking,” Lieutenant Lantern-Eyes said. “Why were you looking here?”

“Just my usual run of luck,” I said.

“Kystrom was conquered by the Ministers a decade ago,” she said.

Realization struck me hard with disbelief. “Do you think I’m a Minister spy?”