Two or three days. They had ten days before Unification Day. The ceremonies were taking place on Carissi Station, a space habitat in orbit around Thea, and it would take seventy-two hours on a shuttle to get there from Iskat.

They could still make it in time. Jainan didn’t want to think about the consequences if neither of the treaty representatives turned up to the ceremonies.

“Yes,” he said. Kiem looked at him. After a moment, Jainan said, “Was there something else?”

“Uh.” Kiem cleared his throat. “It’s just. I’m not sure if that meant ‘Yes, that sounds good,’ or ‘Yes, I suppose we could ignore the glaring holes in that plan.’”

Despite the coat and overjacket, Jainan felt suddenly vulnerable. “Pardon?”

Kiem seemed to find the toggles of his wrist cuffs very interesting. “You say yes like that a lot,” he said, not looking at him. “I. Uh. I think I might be missing some cues.”

He thinks I’m lying to him, was Jainan’s first, panicked thought, but he clamped down on it. Kiem said what he meant, he knew that. But what he meant was bad enough.

“Sorry,” Kiem added. “I’m kind of slow about some stuff.”

Jainan couldn’t even make himself say anything to contradict that, though it wasn’t true: Kiem being too astute was how they had ended up here. “I think—”

It was unexpectedly hard to continue. Jainan took a deep breath and said,

“Should we really move?”

Some part of him was still waiting for Kiem to blow up at him. But Kiem scratched the back of his head. “Normally I’d say no, but we’re in the signal dead zone. And if it wasn’t an accident … well, we’re sitting ducks, here.”

Jainan had known Kiem would take the challenge calmly. He knew that, and his irritating subconscious had still not let him believe it. What was wrong with him? He had an odd moment where he felt he could see that part of him, dispassionately, like some kind of cowering animal behind glass. He hated it.

Kiem looked at him expectantly. Jainan realized he was looking for an opinion—Jainan’s opinion. “Then let’s move,” he said. It was easier to sound decisive than he thought it would be. “No point waiting to run out of food. The

sooner the better.”

“Right!” Kiem said, shouldering the backpack before Jainan had a chance to question why he was the one carrying it. “We can’t die, anyway, we have to be at the press conference that kicks off the whole Unification Day circus. If we froze out here the Emperor would dig up our bodies in two big icicles and prop them up on the podiums.” Jainan choked. Kiem was unrepentantly cheerful.

“Let’s get down to the valley floor. I’ll go first. Might be easier to follow my tracks when it’s deep.”