“I had food and water in the panniers. Meth to stay awake. The Dracul’s got Nuhanovic guidance. Main thing I worried about was keeping low enough to the water to look like a boat not a flying machine, trying not to upset the angelfire.”

“And you found me how?”

“Yeah, that’s some weird shit.” For the first time, something bloomed in her voice that wasn’t weariness and rancid rage. “I sold the bug for quick cash at Soroban wharf, I was walking back up towards Kompcho. Coming down from the meth. And it’s like I could smell you or something. Like the smell of this old family hammock we had when I was a kid. I just followed it, like I said I was coming down, running on autopilot. I saw you on the wharf, going aboard this piece-of-shit freighter. Haiduci’s Daughter.”

I nodded again, this time in sudden comprehension as large chunks of the puzzle fell into place. The dizzying, unaccustomed sense of family longing swam back over me. We were twins, after all. Close scions from the long-dead house of Eishundo.

“You stowed away, then. It was you trying to get inside that pod when the storm hit.”

She grimaced. “Yeah, creeping around on deck’s fine when the sun’s shining. Not something you want to try when there’s heavy weather coming in. I should have guessed they’d have it alarmed up the arse. Fucking webjelly oil, you’d think it was Khumalo wetware the price they get for it.”

“You stole the food out of communal storage too, second day out.”

“Hey, your ride was flying departure lights when I saw you go aboard. Left inside an hour. Didn’t exactly leave me much time to go stock up on provisions. I went a day without food before I figured you weren’t getting off at Erkezes, you were in for the long haul. I was fucking hungry.”

“You know there was a nearly a fight over that. One of your deCom colleagues wanted to brain someone for stealing it.”

“Yeah, heard them talking. Fucking burnouts.” Her voice took on a kind of automated distaste, a macro of opinion over old ground. “Kind of sad case losers get the trade a bad name.”

“So you tracked me across Newpest and the Expanse as well.”

Another humourless smile. “My home turf, Micky. And besides, that skimmer you took left a soup wake I could have followed blindfolded. Guy I hired got your ride on the radar pulling into Kem Point. I was there by nightfall, but you’d gone.”

“Yeah. So why the fuck didn’t you come knock on my cabin door while you had the chance, aboard Haiduci’s Daughter?”

She scowled. “How about because I didn’t trust you?”

“Alright.”

“Yeah, and while we’re on the subject how about I still don’t? How about you explain what the fuck you’ve done with Sylvie?”