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Sharifi’s internals announced. Numbers spun down, counting out the units of a massive data transfer.

Her eyes on the numbers, Sharifi didn’t see Voyt step toward her. But Li saw him. And she saw the charged and primed Viper in his hand.

The next thing she knew, Sharifi was picking herself up off the ground and pulling a gun out of her coverall pocket. “You’re too late, Voyt. It’s already done.”

“Not until Bella walks out of here,” Voyt said. “Not until you walk out of here.”

He stepped toward her.

Sharifi flipped the safety off her gun. Her aim wavered and she was trembling with adrenaline, but she was still acting like a woman who meant business.

“I’ll shoot you if I have to, Voyt, but I’d rather deal. What’s your price?”

“My price?” Voyt laughed. “I’m a soldier, not a whore.”

“There’s a difference?”

He took another step toward her.

She pulled the trigger. Sparks arced from the rock floor a few centimeters from his right foot.

He stopped. Not scared exactly; he was Li’s kind, and it would have taken more than a stray bullet from a civilian’s hand to really frighten him. But he was at least wary.

“Take his gun,” Sharifi told Bella.

Bella stepped up to Voyt and wrapped her hand over the Viper’s blocky barrel. He let her take it from him. He even smiled when she took it—a smile that raised Li’s hackles.

“Good girl,” Sharifi said. “Now give it to me.”

We have a problem, Cohen said.

Christ, not now!

A realtime problem. Someone just fired a surface-to-air missile from the planet. Li felt the shock of the news pulling her out of Sharifi, jerking her out of step with Sharifi’s dream memory. They’re aiming at the orbital relay.

Cohen didn’t voice the next thought, but she caught it anyway: Maybe Korchow had made his move early.

What do we do? she asked.

But she knew the answer before she asked the question. The missile would hit the relay in a matter of minutes whether they did anything or not, and if the relay went down when it hit, then so would Cohen’s link with the outside world. And any hope of getting Sharifi’s information—or Cohen himself—out of the mine would go with it.

They had to get out before that happened.

“What’s Haas paying you?” Sharifi asked. “I can top it.”

Voyt laughed again. “No one’s paying me shit. You may have caught me dipping into the till, but that’s not treason, and I’m not a traitor. And speaking of payments, what’s Korchow offering besides Haas’s little piece of bought-and-paid-for hospitality?”

“Shut your mouth, Voyt!”

“That got to you, huh? Don’t like the idea that you’re selling state secrets in exchange for used merchandise?”

Sharifi glanced at Bella. She stood frozen between them, her face a pale blur in the lamplight.

“I’m not selling them,” Sharifi said. “Knowledge doesn’t belong to anyone. Life doesn’t belong to anyone.”

“Save your justifications for someone who gives a shit.”

Bella made her move so fast that it caught even Li by surprise. In one smooth gesture, she had her arm around Sharifi’s neck and the Viper against her temple. “Drop the gun,” she said.

Sharifi tried to turn and stare at her, but Bella just tightened her hold on her neck and jabbed her with the Viper’s sharp prongs. Sharifi dropped the gun. It skittered across the slate floor of the cavern and fetched up under a correction channel monitor.

“Get the gun, Jan,” Bella said. It took Li a heartbeat to remember that Jan was Voyt’s name. “We’ll need it if she gives us trouble.”

“Korchow?” Sharifi asked. Her voice was trembling. Her whole body was trembling.

Bella laughed.

I know that laugh, Li thought. And even as she thought it, she knew Sharifi had recognized him too.

“Haas.” Sharifi said. “I need to see Nguyen.”

“Bullshit,” Haas said.

“Can you really afford to gamble? It’s not your choice to make. Nguyen needs to know about this.”

“Oh, she’ll know about it.” Haas jerked Sharifi around and pushed her up the ladder. “Don’t you worry about that.”

Sharifi turned at the top of the ladder.