Nielsen had been staring at the deck while they talked, her face turned inward. Now, she said in a low tone, “We should help. We have to.”

“And why is that?” Falconi asked. His tone wasn’t mocking; it was a serious question.

“Do tell us, Ms. Audrey,” Vishal said kindly. He was, Kira noted, using her first name now.

Nielsen pressed her lips together, as if fighting back her emotions. “We have a moral obligation.”

Falconi’s eyebrows climbed toward his hairline. “A moral obligation? Those are some awfully high-minded words.” A hint of his usual sharp-edged style began to creep back in.

“To the League. To humanity in general.” Nielsen pointed back at the airlock. “To the Jellies.”

Sparrow made an incredulous noise. “Those fuckers?”

“Even them. I don’t care if they’re aliens. No one should be forced to live a certain way just because someone messed with your DNA before you were born. No one.”

“That doesn’t mean we’re under any obligation to get ourselves killed for them.”

“No,” said Nielsen, “but it doesn’t mean we should ignore them either.”

Falconi picked at the butt of his gun. “Let’s be clear. Sparrow’s right: we’re under no obligations. None of us are. We don’t have to do anything Tschetter or the Knot of Minds says.”

“No obligations but those dictated by the bounds of common decency,” said Vishal. He stared at his feet, and when he spoke again, his voice sounded far away. “I like to sleep at night and not have bad dreams, Captain.”

“I like to be able to sleep, and it helps to be alive for that,” Falconi retorted. He sighed, and Kira saw a shift in his expression, as if he’d reached a decision of his own. “Hwa-jung, thaw out Gregorovich. We can’t have this conversation without him.”

The machine boss opened her mouth as if to object and then closed it with an audible slap of her lips and grunted. Her gaze zoned out as she focused on her overlays.

“Captain,” said Kira. “You spoke with Gregorovich before we left. You know what he’s like. What’s the point?”

“He’s part of the crew,” said Falconi. “And he wasn’t completely out of it. You said so yourself. He could still follow what you were saying. Even if he’s half out of his mind, we still have to try. His life is on the line too. Besides, we’d try if it were any one of us down in sickbay.”

He wasn’t wrong. “Alright. How long will it take to wake him up?” Kira asked.

“Ten, fifteen minutes,” said Falconi. He went to the pressure door, opened it, and said to Tschetter and the Jellies waiting on the other side, “We’re going to be about a quarter hour. Have to get our ship mind out of cryo.”

The delay obviously displeased Tschetter, but she just said, “Do what you have to. We’ll be waiting.”

Falconi gave her a loose salute and pulled the door closed.

3.

The next ten minutes passed in silent anticipation. Kira could see the others thinking hard about everything Tschetter and Lphet had told them. So was she, for that matter. If Falconi agreed with the plan—regardless of what Gregorovich said—there was more than a small chance that they would end up stuck on one of the Jelly vessels without a ship of their own and at the mercy of the travel decisions of the Knot of Minds. It wasn’t an appealing prospect. But then, neither was the destruction of the Seventh Fleet, a continuation of the human–Jelly war, and the nightmares overrunning both their races.