That was what she wanted to learn how to do, to always be able to answer the question of what would Captain Niko do. If she could learn to do that, then maybe, just maybe she could learn how to rule an Empire in case she were ever called to do so.

But first she had to survive.

Niko did set them all to exercising over the course of time. “Making sure you stay limber,” was her explanation. “And not bored,” she added with a glance at the twins.

“Can he really activate your link again?” Atlanta asked, hoping that conversation would stave off the next bout of sit-ups. “Make all of you connect up? If it’s turned on, you don’t have any choice?”

The others were listening, since there was no way to avoid that. The tiny room had created its own form of intimacy, and while Atlanta might not be able to read the others’ thoughts, she knew their physical presences, and the way they breathed and sneezed and farted.

The jittering energy of the twins, constantly in motion even when they were trying to sit still. Milly was much the same way, nervous and twitchy. When she drowsed, Atlanta could see her eyes spasming beneath her eyelids, rolling back and forth in the dreams that she seemed to enter immediately. Gio was still except for his fingers, which drummed out an impatient, perpetual rhythm.

Skidoo kept huddled to herself, exposing as little surface as possible to the moisture-thieving air. Lassite was capable of stillness to a degree that surprised Atlanta, but prone to quiver at intervals, breaking the still pose as though unable to help the motion.

“No, there would be no choice,” Niko said. “When the technology was first created to mimic the magic that created the Holy Hive Mind, but on a larger scale, so they could use it for their fighting troops, you could shut it off. But after a while—as they discovered all the ins and outs of it, they chose to make the connection nonoptional. So I would think he can.”

“You were in each other’s heads all the time? Heard each other’s thoughts? That’s how far he could reach?” The implications of this, the raw intimacy of it, jolted Atlanta. She thought about the Tlellan’s frankness about propositioning her and wondered if that was where it came from, a knowledge of oneself as seen by others that meant you truly didn’t care. That side of things admittedly seemed tempting.

But the fire that forged that—having to witness another person, let alone persons, seeing all your flaws and pettiness and twists—that seemed too much. She would have died before she’d let someone else talk with her advisors in V-space.