My pulse had settled at an accelerated pounding. The edged whine of overstay in virtual was back. Images cascaded through my head. Virginia Vidaura, hard-eyed, hard-bodied, unattainable Envoy trainer, poised before us at induction, a dream of female competence beyond everyone’s reach. Splinters of mirth in voice and eyes that might have kindled to sensuality in a less clearly defined set of relationships. A cringingly clumsy attempt at flirtation from Jimmy de Soto once in the mess bar, slapped down with brutal disinterest. Authority wielded with an utter lack of sexual tension. My own lurid undischarged fantasies, slowly flattening under an immense respect that went in at the same bone deep level as the Envoy induction.

And then combat, the final dissipation of any romantic fumes that might have endured the training years. Vidaura’s face in a dozen different sleeves on a dozen different worlds, sharpened with pain or fury or just the intense focus of mission time. The stink of her too-long-unwashed body in a cramped shuttle on the dark side of Loyko’s moon, the slick feel of her blood on my hands one murderous night in Zihicce when she almost died.

The look on her face when the orders to crush all resistance in Neruda came through.

I’d thought those moments had taken us beyond sex. They seemed to scoop out emotional depths that made fucking seem shallow by comparison.

The last time I’d visited Vchira and seen the way Brasil leaned towards her—her Adoracion ancestry alone enough to strike sparks of desire off him—I’d felt a vague sort of superiority. Even with Yaroslav and the on-and-off long-term commitment they’d managed, I’d always believed that somehow he wasn’t getting to the core of the woman I had fought beside in more corners of the Protectorate than most people would ever see.

I adopted a quizzical look that felt like taking cover.

“You think this is a good idea?” I asked.

“No,” she said huskily. “Do you?”

“Umm. In all honesty, Virginia, I’m rapidly beginning not to care. But I’m not the one attached to Jack Soul Brasil.”

She laughed. “This isn’t something that’s going to bother Jack. This isn’t even real, Tak. And anyway, he isn’t going to know.”

I looked around the suite. “He could pop up any minute. So could any of them for that matter. I’m not much for display sex.”

“Me neither.” She got up and offered me her hand. “Come with me.”

She led me out of the suite and into the corridor. In both directions, identical doors mirrored each other across the anonymous grey carpeting and receded into a pale mist after a few dozen metres. We went, hand-in-hand, right up to the beginnings of the fade-out, feeling the faint cold that breathed out of it, and Vidaura opened the last door on the left. We slipped inside, hands already on each other.