“Yeah, that’d suit you, wouldn’t it, Mister fucking Serendipity.” Orr jabbed a finger in my direction. “Kill the body, cut out the life with your little knife. How many of those fucking cortical stacks are you carrying around by now? What’s that about? What are you planning to do with them all?”

“That’s not really the issue here,” I said mildly. “All I’m saying is that if Sylvie comes out of the decouple damaged, we can salvage the stack before it updates and then go back to the bunker and—”

He swayed towards me. “You’re talking about fucking killing her.”

Jadwiga pushed him back. “He’s talking about saving her, Orr.”

“And what about the copy that’s living and breathing right here and now. You want to slit her throat just because she’s brain-damaged and we’ve got a better copy backed up? Just like you’ve done with all these other people you don’t want to talk about?”

I saw Lazlo blink and look at me with newly suspicious eyes. I lifted my hands in resignation. “Okay, forget it. Do what you want, I’m just working my passage here.”

“We can’t do it anyway, Mick.” Kiyoka was wiping Sylvie’s brow again.

“If the damage was subtle, it’d take us more than a couple of minutes to spot it and then it’s too late, the damage gets updated to the stack.”

You could kill this sleeve, anyway, I didn’t say. Cut your losses, cut its throat right now and excise the stack for—

I looked back at Sylvie and bit down on the thought. Like looking at Jadwiga’s clone-related sleeve, it was a kind of mirror, a flash glimpse of self that caught me out.

Maybe Orr was right.

“One thing’s sure,” said Jadwiga sombrely. “We can’t stay out here in this state. With Sylvie down, we’re running around the Uncleared with no more survivability than a bunch of sprogs. We’ve got to get back to Drava.”

More silence, while the idea settled in.

“Can she be moved?” I asked.

Kiyoka made a face. “She’ll have to be. Jad’s right, we can’t risk staying out here. We’ve got to pull back, tomorrow morning at the latest.”

“Yeah, and we could use some cover coming in,” muttered Lazlo. “It’s better than six hundred klicks back, no telling what we’re going to run into. Jad, any chance we could dig up some friendlies en route. I know it’s a risk.”

A slow nod from Jadwiga. “But probably worth it.”

“Going to be the whole night,” said Lazlo. “You got any meth?”

“Is Mitzi Harlan straight?”

She touched Kiyoka’s shoulder again, hesitant caress turning to businesslike clap on the back, and left. With a thoughtful backward glance at me, Lazlo followed her out. Orr stood over Sylvie, arms folded.