And I think Nadia’s going to remember something similar when she gets enough distance on it. I think when she does that, when she finally remembers how she walked out of their database and into my head, she’s going to be able to really talk to them. And it’s going to make the link I’ve got look like Morse code on tom-toms by comparison.”

“I thought she didn’t know how to use the command software.”

“She doesn’t. Not yet. But I can teach her, Micky.”

There was a peculiar tranquillity on Sylvie Oshima’s face as she spoke. It was something I’d never seen there before, in all the time we spent together in the Uncleared and after. It reminded me of Nikolai Natsume’s face in the Renouncer monastery, before we came and spoilt it all for him sense of purpose, confirmed beyond human doubt. A belonging to what you did that I hadn’t known since Innenin, and that I didn’t expect to feel again. I felt a wry envy curl through me instead.

“Going to be a deCom sensei, Sylvie? That the plan?”

She gestured impatiently. “I’m not talking about teaching in the real world, I’m talking about her. Down in the capacity vault, I can crank up the real-time ratio so we get months out of every minute, and I can show her how to do this. It’s not like hunting the mimints, that’s not what this stuff is for. It’s only now I realise that. All the time I spent in the Uncleared, it feels like I was half-asleep by comparison with this. This, it feels like I was born for.”

“That’s the software talking, Sylvie.”

“Yeah, maybe. So what?”

I couldn’t think of any answer to that. Instead, I looked across at the grav sled where Virginia Vidaura lay in place of Sylvie. I moved closer, and it felt like something was tugging me there by a cable wired into my guts.

“She going to be okay?”

“Yeah, I think so.” Sylvie pushed herself wearily off the mooring post.

“Friend of yours, huh?”

“Er—something like that.”

“Yeah, well, that bruising on her face looks bad. Think the bone might be cracked. I stuck her in there as gently as I could, kicked the system on, but all it’s done so far is sedate her, on general principles I think. Haven’t got a diagnosis out of it yet. It’ll need re—”

“Hmm?”

I turned to prompt her and saw the grey-cased canister at the top of its arc. There was no time to get to Sylvie, no time to do anything except fling myself, tumbling over the grav sled and into the scant shadow its covered length offered. Tseng military custom—at a minimum it had to be battlefield-hardened.