“He can't hack into you, grab a copy of you to dissect?”
“He made that impossible to do.”
“But then, you would say that, because you're him.”
“I'd also say that if it were the truth. He – I – wouldn't do that, but it comes down to trust in the end. Whether you believe me.”
Were his words true? She had no way of knowing. But she wanted them to be true, and that, maybe, answered her question for her. In her mind's eye he was becoming a little more solid now, a little more like the real Ondo, but she could also tell that it wasn't him. It was a copy, a ghost, nothing more.
“Okay, first question, did you lay any traps around Maes Far on one of your visits?”
“I always do if I intend to revisit a system.”
“What did you do?”
“I seeded the system with nanosensors and beacons, enough so that they couldn't possibly destroy them all. And I hid weaponry and ordnance.”
“What sort of weaponry?”
“Nanomines in orbit around the planet and on likely in-system vectors. Also, missiles concealed as space debris capable of striking surface targets.”
“Nukes?”
“Some were, others were smarter. Why are you asking this? What happened on the planet? From the tone of your words I'd say you are … agitated.”
Ondo had updated his avatar a month earlier, meaning that the Ondo in her head knew nothing of events since that moment. No point keeping recent events from him. He hadn't attempted to conceal anything from her so far as she could tell. She granted him access to her recent visual and auditory memories. He would see the events of the last few hours from her point of view, although he wouldn't get to know her private thoughts and reactions to them. But he would get to see her biological data: heart rate, endocrine system responses, her tremor, all of it.
When he'd finished, he said, “I'm so sorry, Selene. I had no idea anyone was still alive. They kept Seben – your father – very well hidden. What you've been through – we should talk about it. You shouldn't face it on your own.”
“Yeah. The other you said something similar. First I want an answer to something that's been troubling me.”
“If I know, I'll tell you.”
“That Walker said, You made vows to him. To Omn. What did he mean?”
“He's referring to a time when I was an acolyte of Concordance.”
“You?”
“Indeed. I was a younger man, and misguided as I now see, but I embraced it all avidly. I was fervent for a time.”
“You didn't think to mention this to me?”
“I didn't keep it from you, but there was never a good time to go into it. That was a difficult, painful period of my life. And I suppose I feared what your reaction might be.”
“Yeah. So you should have.”
“I give you my word that I left them behind a long time ago.”
“How do I know you're not still one of them – that you're not, I don't know, programmed like a Void Walker? A sleeper roaming the galaxy, acting as a magnet for all the escapees and dissidents and trouble-makers.”
She thought he'd be affronted at her suggestion, but he actually gave it consideration. “The possibility occurred to me. Long before I made it to the Refuge, I checked myself very thoroughly: my tissues, my engrams, everything about myself. How did I know I didn't just think I was the renegade Ondo? It troubled me, I admit.”
“Don't tell me, you didn't find anything.”
“I did not.”
“Which doesn't prove a thing.”
“No. They would have programmed me not to see or believe any such evidence.”
“Then we come back to whether I can trust you.”
“You've seen how they pursue me, the lengths they went to on Maes Far.”
“I've seen how they pursue me,” she said. “You were simply there. Maybe they found me because you were with me.”
“If that were true, then why aren't they here now? Why didn't they come for you at the Refuge a long time ago?”
It was a good point. “I don't know.”
“I think you should scan me. Carry out every analysis and investigation upon my tissues and mind you can think of. If you find nothing – as I believe will be the case – then perhaps that will put your mind at rest.”
“And yours too?”
He dipped his head in agreement, the movement of the ghostly image blurred. “Perhaps. I instructed the Refuge's systems to do something similar when I constructed them, and they found nothing. It made me feel better about myself as I believed Concordance had no way of knowing that would be my plan.”
“You're sure Aefrid Sen wasn't one of them, too? That the Radiant Dragon and the Refuge aren't hopelessly compromised?”
“Again, it's possible. There comes a point when you have to trust your judgement, otherwise you'd never do anything.”
“Tell me the story. Tell me how you ended up being a part of Concordance. And then how you ended up not being.”
“It's no great mystery. It took me time to find my path in life when I was younger. A common enough situation. I was impressionable and naïve, and I knew there was something bigger going on. Concordance filled the gap, seemed to offer meaning and certainty.”
“How long were you with them?”
“Two years. Cathedral ships occasionally recruit locals from the planets they watch over, for reasons I don't fully understand.” Ondo hesitated, reluctant to tell her something. Then he spoke again. “There is something else in my history you should know about, a thing that might give you more reason to trust me. An episode from before I joined Concordance. A part of the reason I did, perhaps.”
“Go on.”
“I had a family. A partner and a child on Sintorus. A daughter, as it happens, little more than a baby.”
Clearly, neither partner nor daughter were around anymore. She couldn't stop herself from asking the question.
“What happened to them?”
“They died.”
“What were they called?”
“My partner's name was Marita, and our daughter
