“Yes, come here.” Tom grew excited. “Interface with a ship, or I’ll do it and fly you over. I’ll hide you, we’ll watch out for each other, and . . . and I can tell you more about why, but I know you’ll be safe here. I know it. Then if Vengerov tries to get you at the Citadel, you’ll be gone, you’ll be out of reach. Don’t you see?” Something else clicked, too. His stomach flipped. “We can meet. I mean, we could really meet. For the first time.”

Medusa’s face softened. She leaned forward and tapped the tip of his nose in a way that made Tom feel a bit foolish. “I appreciate the offer of protection, but I think we’ve established here which one of us tends to be the damsel in distress.”

“Medusa, if you don’t get over here now, you might not have a chance later. I don’t have programs in your system to let me know if you get in trouble. I won’t even know something’s happened. I won’t know to help you.”

“I’ll have to risk it,” she said softly. “I can’t leave. I’d lose everything.”

Tom realized it: nothing he could say would change her mind. Even if she took the threat as seriously as he did, she couldn’t bring herself to trust her fate to him, and Tom could understand that. He couldn’t imagine leaving the Spire willingly, casting himself into her world. And she’d never even betrayed him, not the way he’d once struck at her.

He let out a slow breath, and felt her arms sliding around him. He pulled her gently against him, caressing her silken hair, the strands fluttering as he breathed her in.

“Yaolan, huh?” His processor translated it. “Oily orchid?”

“Shining orchid.” She pulled back and tilted her chin up to meet his eyes. “How strange. We finally know each other’s names.”

His lips curved. “This relationship is moving so fast.”

Her eyes sparkled playfully. “I know. Hyperspeed. We need more space. China and the United States aren’t far enough apart.”

“One of us has to move to Neptune, then.”

She leaned very close, then whispered, “Not me.”

Tom drew her into a kiss, and for a moment, there was nothing else in the world, just Medusa . . . Yaolan. And he never wanted to let her go.

But Tom didn’t like to fool himself, and he couldn’t passively accept doom. He pulled back from her, dread saturating his every pore, knowing there was a way he could fix this. He could save her. There was one way. Only one. He’d been willing to walk out into the snow in Antarctica for her. He was willing to do this now, even if she never forgave him for it.

“I’m sorry, Yaolan,” he whispered.

A shadow passed over her face. “Sorry?”