Sagara made a face, but Fulbreech looked between her and Jimex with almost wonder. “You’re one of them now,” he said. It wasn’t an accusation, only an epiphany—as if he had finally uncovered a secret of Park’s that she had always hinted at, but he had always missed.

The ship purred and whirred around them. Park felt the awareness of METIS and ARGUS pressing against her like watching spirits. “Maybe I always have been,” she said.

Outside, the sky was a riot of color and light: a dance so fierce and searing that it seemed almost harmful to look at. Above, the escape pod had disappeared into a dark, ragged fissure in the sky.

Park told Sagara that Natalya had simply gotten away—that Park had not been able to catch up to her in time. He grunted and said, “She’ll die in space anyway, or go to prison. That escape pod only has a month of rations, and who is she going to call for help? The ISF? Even if she manages to land at Corvus without starving, the Security team will be waiting there to arrest her. And being charged with murder, mutiny, and conspiracy by the very entity she was trying to escape from—the one whose mission she torpedoed? They will not be kind. I’d rather eject myself into space.”

Then at least she’ll have done it herself, Park thought, and made that choice on her own. She was glad that she had not taken that away from Natalya, whatever happened. It was more complicated than not wanting blood on her hands; there was something more there, but what it was, Park could not exactly say. The METIS part of her muttered in a tiny stream of rebellion, though—and so at least Park knew that the choice had been hers alone. That the part that had spared Natalya was still her, and only her. That seemed important, somehow. She wanted to tell the synthetics about it, but didn’t know how to articulate it. Maybe they already knew.

They landed, and Park felt the settling of the ship like it was the concluding piece of a vast and complex puzzle. Fulbreech helped her to the airlock while Sagara stayed on the ship to send his own message to ISF and rest his leg. Taban watched them don their exo-armor suits with some hidden amusement. The synthetics had all reconvened again, claiming that Keller and Reimi needed three hours to complete their reawakening. They all crowded eagerly at the door, like schoolchildren waiting to go to recess. They did not line up in formation, as they used to.