“Then we’ll go to uninhabited space,” Boone said, with just a little less conviction than Natalya, and Park thought, We can make them doubt themselves. She and Sagara could sow enough conflict and confusion to make them see reason—or make the mutineers unsure enough that they could be thrown off guard.

“You killed Wick,” she said aloud. “You’ve orchestrated a mass conspiracy: mutiny, hacking, the freezing of at least half a dozen people. You don’t think ISF will agree to all of your demands, pretend to release your relatives, and then simply renege once you hand us over? Or board the ship by force as soon as we’re in sight of Corvus? They’ll throw you in Pandora for your crimes—or execute you, if you’re lucky.”

“They’d be too afraid that I’d kill their little specimen,” Natalya answered, her eyes shining now—not with tears, but a kind of fanatic determination. “Which I will, if I have to.”

“It won’t come to that,” Boone snapped over her. He looked at Park. “We’ll demand provisions. The transfer of our families. Then we’ll jettison the freak into the farthest sector past Cambien and take off like bats out of hell. The ISF will be too busy chasing it to worry about following us.”

“And after?” Park demanded. “How long do you think you’ll last in the darkest reaches of space?”

“It’s a big universe,” Boone said. His eyes flicked over her, then back to Sagara, as if he was nervous—and Park realized that he was not nervous about them trying something, but afraid that they would not understand his line of thinking. It seemed important to him that he justified himself—to convey to them that he was still the good guy. The hero of the story. “ISF doesn’t own it all,” he continued. “We’ll find a planet of our own. Secede. We already have a few places in mind. Anyone tries to land on it, we’ll blast ’em.”

“I suppose you’ll set yourself up with a little garden of Eden,” Sagara said sardonically. “As if it’s that easy. You need ISF’s resources to colonize a planet. Or will your families eventually merge together and populate the whole thing? Will a new pocket of the human race form from your descendants alone?”

“We have the skills to make it happen,” Boone said, defensive now. “I’ll handle defense, Natalya can find resources, Wan Xu can build the biodomes, Chanur will take care of our people—”

“And Fulbreech will make maps,” Sagara said, with brutal amusement.

Fulbreech dropped his eyes. “I’m not going,” he said faintly.

Boone wheeled on him. “What is that supposed to mean?” he demanded. “You’re in way too deep to start having second thoughts now—”

“Stop it,” Natalya gritted out. “We can talk about this later.”