Someone had to do it. She shivered and ran a hand over her head. The smoothness of it still surprised her.

“Someone,” she whispered. She closed her eyes, overcome by a sudden sense of Alan’s closeness. For a moment, it felt as if she could smell him.…

Kira knew what he would do. What he would want her to do. She sniffed and wiped away tears. Curiosity had driven both of them to the stars, but in the process of satisfying their curiosity, they’d had to assume a certain responsibility. More so for her than him—xenobiology was a riskier profession than geology—but regardless, the fact remained: for those who ventured into the unknown, there was a duty to protect those left behind, those who lived their lives in familiar bounds.

A line from the Entropists echoed in her mind: Meaning comes from purpose.… And Kira knew then what her purpose was. It was to use her understanding of the Jellies’ language to broker peace between their species. Or, failing that, to help the League win the war.

But on her own terms. If she went to Ruslan, the League would just throw her back into quarantine, and that wouldn’t do anyone good (least of all herself). No, she needed to be out in the field, not stuck in a lab getting scrutinized like a microbe on a petri dish. She needed to be where she could interact with the Jellies’ computers and extract what data she could. Better still would be to speak with a Jelly, but Kira doubted that would be possible in any safe way. At least, not yet. If she could get her hands on a transmitter in one of their ships, that might change.

She’d decided. In the morning, she would talk with Falconi about diverting to a port closer than Ruslan. Somewhere that might have salvaged Jelly tech she could examine or where—if circumstances played out in her favor—she might be able to hitch a ride to a disabled Jelly ship. Falconi would take some convincing, but Kira felt hopeful she could persuade him. No reasonable person could ignore the importance of what she had to say, and while hard-edged, Falconi seemed reasonable enough.

She closed her eyes, feeling a new sense of determination. Even if it was a mistake, she was going to do her damnedest to stop the Jellies.

Maybe then she could save her family and atone for her sins on Adra.

CHAPTER III

ASSUMPTIONS

1.

When the lights brightened in the cargo hold, Kira found herself covered with a fine layer of dust everywhere but her face. Since she had eaten, she’d expected as much. Fortunately, her blanket covered most of the mess, and she managed to brush off the powder without Inarë or anyone else noticing.

She activated her overlays and checked on the activities of the Jelly ships. It was grim stuff. The two Jellies by Karelin were still harassing cargo haulers in the area, and there were unsubstantiated reports that the aliens had landed forces at the small settlement on that planet. Meanwhile, the Jellies in the asteroid belt had destroyed half a dozen ore processors before executing a high-speed flyby of Chelomey. They’d strafed the hab-ring, shooting out most of the station’s defenses, and then continued on toward another set of mining installations.