Virid Hessh instructs the mechself indwelt-ship to relocate them from the shipbroker's sales office to a small commercial spaceport, oversees the short flight, and then pokes her head into the aft compartment. "A moment of your time, Song Aloft," she says.
Ion Twelve Horizon is seated at the table, silent and still; the Spider in the White Steel Palace, once aboard the ship, had climbed into her bunk and pulled the blanket over her face.
Inside one of the ship's airlocks, inner door closed for privacy, Virid Hessh says, "That went badly, Song Aloft. That went very badly. If you expect to have even a chance, it's necessary to work together, and I cannot work if behind my shoulders the two of you are weirdly competing to see who can kill for the other, who can die for the other, who can get molested in a supply closet by a mall cop for the other. I need to trust you."
"I know," Ion Twelve Horizon says.
"Do you?" Virid Hessh says, not unkindly. "I am going out. I will be long enough for you to talk to her. And then I will be back, and if either of you see fit to likewise take a long walk, I will entertain any conversations people wish to have with me in those absences. And then we will wait for the data, and decide what comes next."
She cycles out of the ship, drawing her jacket's collar tight against the wind on the wide-open landing field.
Ion Twelve Horizon goes back into the aft compartment, and stares for a while at the unmoving shape in the bunk. She makes a tiny movement, twice, as if to raise a hand and place it on a blanket-covered shoulder; does not do so.
"Please," she says eventually.
Heavy Snow sits up, with terrible resignation.
"You must not put yourself in danger for me," Ion Twelve Horizon says.
Heavy Snow looks at her. "We are all in danger for you. It is necessary, for you to steal back your life."
"There was a plan," Ion Twelve Horizon says.
"I took a risk for the plan."
"You mustn't."
"Virid Hessh also took a risk for the plan."
Ion Twelve Horizon is silent.
"Risks are necessary," Heavy Snow says.
"Yes." Ion Twelve Horizon folds one arm across herself, as if she is cradling a stomach ache, and folds the other across just beneath it. "There are plans, and there are risks in the plans. It is not necessary for you to be in danger."
"Ink-Coloured Mouse," says Heavy Snow. "There are three of us. We are all part of the plan. We are all in danger."
Ion Twelve Horizon is already standing very straight, as she always does, but nonetheless, minutely, she gathers herself. "Then you are not necessary to the plan," she says, and turns and walks into the cockpit.
Virid Hessh pokes her head into the cockpit on her return. "That girl has never been part of any military," she observes. "Why does she even have an infantry mask?"
Ion Twelve Horizon, arms tight around herself, staring into a display full of data, takes a second to reply. "What," she says.
"I passed the Spider on my way back in—"
Ion Twelve Horizon pushes past Virid Hessh in frantic motion, into the aft compartment where the baby snores, tears open the locker containing the Spider in the White Steel Palace's meagre effects. It is entirely emptied.
Virid Hessh begins to say something. Ion Twelve Horizon clenches one painful hand tight into her own hair, shoves as much of the other fist into her mouth as she can fit, and screams into it at the top of her lungs.
Some time later, she sits numbly in the cockpit, her rudely awoken and reluctantly placated baby snuffling against her. Virid Hessh leans against the consoles, pinching the bridge of her nose exhaustedly.
"The local systems are infected with something," she says. "Something military grade, I should think. I try to query for any sight or log of her, and instead it uses data generators to insert her everywhere I look. She appears on every camera, she in within range of every location sensor, she has been logged by every barrier and checkpoint that can log passers-by."
"I didn't mean that," Ion Twelve Horizon says, on the sibilant cusp of audibility, staring straight ahead.
"Ships have already left port," Virid Hessh says. "If she can tamper with passenger manifests, which I assume she can, she could be on any one of them. Or any one that leaves from now. Or she could stay, and we won't find her here, either. You know we can't wait for her, Song Aloft? A security investigation when they notice the system infection is going to put scrutiny on unusual visitors, and we become suspicious the instant there's anything to suspect."
"How long can we wait," Ion Twelve Horizon says. "Please."
"Yafa Song Aloft," Virid Hessh says softly, "you know we need to leave."
"If she comes back—"
"She will think what you already made her think."
After a silence, Ion Twelve Horizon stands. "Mechself," she says, "perform deepnavigation for Virid Hessh, please. She will tell you our destination," and she shuffles out of the cockpit as if wearing a huge weight.
