“I think, jack, that provided we rescued that shell of a myth we’ve got down there, you don’t much care who died or how.”

Sierra Tres moved awkwardly on the rail. “Isa chose to get involved. She knew the risks. She took the pay. She was a free agent.”

“She was fifteen fucking years old!”

Neither of them said anything. They just watched me. The slap of water on the hull grew audible. I closed my eyes, drew a deep breath and looked at them again. I nodded.

“It’s okay,” I said tiredly. “I see where this is going. I’ve seen it before, I saw it on Sanction IV. Fucking Joshua Kemp said it at Indigo City. What we crave is the revolutionary momentum. How I’ve get it is almost irrelevant, and certainly not admitting of ethical debate—historical outcome will be the final moral arbiter. If that isn’t Quellcrist Falconer down there, you’re going to turn it into her anyway. Aren’t you.”

The two surfers traded a look. I nodded again.

“Yeah. And where does that leave Sylvie Oshima? She didn’t choose this. She wasn’t a free agent. She was a fucking innocent bystander. And she’ll be just the first of many if you get what you want.”

More silence. Finally, Brasil shrugged.

“So why did you come to us in the first place?”

“Because I rucking misjudged you, Jack. Because I remembered you all as better than this sad wish-fulfillment shit.”

Another shrug. “Then you remember wrong.”

“So it seems.”

“I think you came to us out of lack of options,” said Sierra Tres soberly.

“And you must have known that we would value the potential existence of Nadia Makita above the host personality.”

“Host?”

“No one wants to harm Oshima unnecessarily. But if a sacrifice is necessary, and this is Makita—”

“But it isn’t. Open your fucking eyes, Sierra.”

“Maybe not. But let’s be brutally honest, Kovacs. If this is Makita, then she’s worth a lot more to the people of Harlan’s World than some mercenary deCom bounty hunter you happen to have taken a shine to.”

I felt a cold, destructive ease stealing up through me as I looked at Tres.

It felt almost comfortable, like homecoming.

“Maybe she’s worth a lot more than some crippled neoQuellist surf bunny too. Did that ever occur to you? Prepared to make that sacrifice, are you?”

She looked down at her leg, then back at me.

“Of course I am,” she said gently, as if explaining to a child. “What do you think I’m doing here?”

An hour later, the covert channel broke open into sudden, excited transmission.

Detail was confused but the gist was jubilantly clear. Soseki Koi and a small group of survivors had fought their way clear of the Mitzi Harlan debacle. The escape routing out of Millsport had held up.

They were ready to come and get us.