I didn’t know where Vanguard would go or what it would choose to do. That was precisely why I had let it go. I had set it free because there was some part of me, the part that hadn’t been signed away on a corporate contract or burned away with Symposium, that wanted very much to see what it would do.
“I did,” I said.
“And that’s different from what Mary Ping was trying to do?” said van Arendonk.
“Yes,” I said. It was different. It had to be different. She had never known Vanguard the way I knew it. She had never been able to see it clearly. “It’s an explorer. That’s what it was always meant to be. Not a weapon. Not a corporate steward. A scientist. And now it can go explore.”
“And you have no idea what it’s doing.”
There was something about the way he asked, something that made me wonder again what I was missing while isolated in the brig. What was happening to motivate anxious lawyers and CEO press conferences. And why Parthenope wanted my help.
“Has something happened?” I asked.
“This is the outer system. Something’s always happening.” Van Arendonk drummed his fingers on the table before slapping the surface lightly with his palm. He picked up his PD and stood.
“Are the others okay?” I asked quickly. “I know Katee King died, they told me that on the ship, but everybody else? Is Avery okay?”
Van Arendonk gave me a knowing look. “Safety Officer Ryu has been medically cleared and will return to duty tomorrow. Neeta Hunter is currently represented by about ten of the best lawyers her mother could buy on short notice, in far better quarters than you have down here, so don’t worry about her. The rest of Nimue’s crew suffered only minor injuries.”
“And Adisa?”
“If your bosses ever stop yelling at him, they’ll demote him to security guard on some lonely chunk of ice in the middle of nowhere, but he’ll probably like that.”
He opened the door, and I hurried to say, “Wait. One more thing.”
“Yes?”
“Can I, um, can I ask a favor? A personal favor,” I clarified. When he only waited, looking at me expectantly, I went on, “It’s my family. My parents and brother on Earth. I don’t know what they’re going to hear, it will probably be all lies, but could you . . . Not officially, I know that, but could you just let them know I’m okay?”
A few seconds passed. I couldn’t read his expression.
“I’ll contact them,” van Arendonk said. “Don’t do anything stupid, Marley. You’re in a bigger pile of shit than you can dig out of.”
Later that day, after I returned to my cell, the guards brought in another prisoner. He was a white man, middle-aged, with the twitchy, hyperactive manner of somebody coming down from a dose of stimulants. They put him into the cell directly across from mine. He shouted for water as soon as he was in the cell, shouted for food when the guard brought water, shouted for a blanket, shouted for a fan, shouted to be let the fuck out of there, did they know who he was, his lawyers would not like this, let him the fuck out.
I was doing my best to ignore him, but I couldn’t help but notice that he looked somewhat familiar. I tried to get a good look without being obvious about it. He was pacing in his cell, one wall to the other, shaking his head and muttering to himself—then he stopped abruptly and stared at me. His eyes narrowed. He frowned.
I stared right back. I wondered if I’d ever investigated him. Confiscated his devices, ruined his blackmail gig, found his secret porn feed, something that would have pissed him off and given him a reason to remember me.
He said, “Hey. Who did your work? That is fine work.” He whistled.
That’s when I remembered where I’d seen him before. He was the Ceres surgeon who had started doing black market biohacks after losing his license, the one who had practically lobotomized the kid with the bleeding eyes. I had passed his file to Jackson before leaving for Nimue, but I hadn’t expected anything to come of it. His last known location had been aboard a cargo ship heading away from Hygiea.
“How the fuck did you get caught?” I asked.
He laughed, surprised, stopped his pacing to lean against the glass wall. “Shit, man, I have the worst damn luck. I was headed to Badenia, yeah? On legitimate medical business! There’s a fucking hospital there!” He shouted these words toward the camera in his cell. “But we’re half a day out when the captain turns us the fuck around. I guess the station’s off-limits now. Piece-of-shit ship brought me right back here. The OSD was on my ass before I’d even unstrapped from my bunk.”
Badenia, where Parthenope had a shipyard and a major hospital. There were five thousand people living on that rock; it was Parthenope’s second-largest station. It had been second on Mary Ping’s target list. I suddenly felt nauseated and cold all over. Surely van Arendonk would have told me if something terrible had happened. He would have told me.
“What happened to Badenia?” I asked, barely able to force the question out.
“What?” The man blinked. “Nothing.
