Kira frowned as she concentrated on her memories from the Jelly ship, trying to push them through her arm, toward Akawe. Show him, she thought, insistent. Tell him.… Please. She did her best to convey a sense of urgency to the Soft Blade, to make it understand why this was so important.

“Anything?” she said, her voice tight with strain.

“Nothing.”

Kira gritted her teeth, put aside any concern for the captain’s safety, and imagined her mind pouring through her arm and into Akawe’s, like an unstoppable torrent of water. She exerted every gram of mental energy she had, and just when she reached her limit and was about to give up—just then, a wire seemed to snap in her head, and she felt another space, another presence touching herself.

It was not so different from joining the direct feed of two sets of implants, only more chaotic.

Akawe stiffened, and his mouth fell open. “Oh,” he said.

Again, Kira impressed her desire on the Soft Blade. Show him. She reviewed her memories of the ship, including as much detail as she could, and when she finished, the captain said, “Again. Slower.”

As Kira did, sudden bursts of images interrupted her thoughts: A set of stars. The Highmost standing dark against the swirling shine. A pair of crossed arms. The Staff of Blue, the fearsome Staff of Blue.…

“Enough,” Akawe gasped.

Kira relaxed her grip on the neural link, and the connection between them vanished.

The captain sagged backwards against the wall. The lines on his face made him appear almost normal. He fed the data cord back into his forearm and sealed the access panel.

“Well?” said Kira.

“That was certainly something.” Akawe pulled down his sleeve, buttoned the cuff. Then he picked up his cup and took a long drink. He made a face. “Goddamn. I love my coffee, Navárez. But it’s never tasted right since I got stuck in this construct.”

“Is that so.”

“Indeed it is. Losing your body isn’t like getting a paper cut, no sir. It happened to me, oh, fourteen years ago now. Back during a nasty little skirmish with the Ponder Union at the Ceres shipyards. You know why they call it the Ponder Union?”

“No,” said Kira, struggling to suppress her impatience. Had the Soft Blade knocked something loose inside his brain?

Akawe smiled. “Because they sit around all day not working. Pondering the inner workings of bureaucracy and how best to twist it to their advantage. Things got pretty heated between the union and the shipyard during contract negotiations, so my unit was sent in to settle things down. Soothe the savage beast. Oil on troubled waters. Peacekeeping mission, my ass. We ended up facing off with a crowd of protesters. I knew they meant trouble, but they were civilians, you see? If we’d been in a combat zone, I wouldn’t have hesitated. Post overwatch, deploy drones, secure the perimeter, force the crowd to disperse. The whole nine yards. But I didn’t because I was trying to avoid escalating the situation. There were kids there, for crying out loud.”