“I took the other kind of drug,” Altantsetseg said.

“Oh.”

“I didn’t feel like sleeping. And anyway, this was a solution that had been right in front of me forever.”

When Ha came out of the bathroom Altantsetseg was sitting on her bed, examining the oculus.

“Pretty fancy.”

“It’s quantum-encrypted.”

“I know what it is. I looked its specs up before allowing it to be brought here.”

“This is strange.”

“What is?”

“Hearing you talk like this.”

“Like a normal person?”

“Yeah. Like a normal person. Why do you use that crappy translator?”

“I got into the habit of it a few years ago. It keeps people at a distance. I don’t always want to have a conversation. In fact, I almost never want to have a conversation.” She set the oculus back on Ha’s bedstand. “We all have our quirks.”

It was already bright outside. A nearly cloudless day, except for a high white haze behind which the sun was a pale pearl. The light brought out every crack in the tiles of the abandoned hotel’s terrace. It took a moment for Ha’s eyes to adjust to the dimmer lighting in the security module, filled with the death-dealing instruments of Altantsetseg’s specialized world. Seeing the massive control tank filled with its green fluid, she remembered Altantsetseg’s naked, scarred body as she had been that night, dancing her rhythmic underwater commands out to the machines that destroyed those fishermen, tore their boats and bodies apart. The multi-hosed breathing apparatus she had been wearing hung from a hook on one of the brushed-steel pegboards. On a workbench was a smaller tank—not much bigger than a large home aquarium, filled with what looked like seawater.

“Do you see it?”

“The tank?”

“Inside the tank.”

“There’s nothing inside the tank.”

“Look again. Look harder.”

Was there something there? She discerned something vaguely wrong. Nothing more than the unnatural motion of some of the water. Then something thumped against the side of the tank, and Ha jumped. Altantsetseg steadied her with a clamp-like hand on her upper arm. Ha saw that Altantsetseg’s other hand was in one of those translucent-gray control gloves of hers. She twitched a thumb, and something in the tank thumped against the glass again.

“It’s an excellent cloak. I took it from another drone—one of my flyers I would use if I wanted to eavesdrop on a conversation. The flyer could be hovering six inches from your face and you wouldn’t see it—not even in the rain. The cloak works just as well in the water, with a few tweaks to its distortion simulator.”

She waved her gloved hand and a submersible appeared in the tank. It was smaller than the other two, no larger than a coconut, ovoid and dull, its surface an array of what looked like black eyes and larger depressions.