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its integrity. If she kept dealing it setbacks, it would only take that much longer to repair her. She needed to discipline herself—not to push through the pain, but to sit still for it.
    As still as Arianrhod, still drifting—and dying—in her tank. It would be better this way. It would be better stillif Tristen thought she had died in the acceleration, when he came to find out.
    “I have contact with Tristen on the bridge,” Benedick said in as much of a greeting as she was likely to get.
    She stepped forward, armor clicking on the deck, the bones of her left foot crunching with every stride. She paused at her brother’s elbow, craning her neck back to examine his profile. Dull black hair framed a long, square face, making it seem longer. His eyes didn’t flicker from the display tank; if he had not spoken, if he were not Benedick, and Exalt, and more aware than any man she knew, she would only have known that he recognized her presence because he had spoken.
    “Perceval?” she asked.
    His lips compressed. “Grieving.”
    “She’s young,” Caitlin said. “She’ll do her duty as it needs doing.”
    Still he would not turn and look at her, though she knew his symbiont showed him everything that crossed her face. “I know she will,” he said. And then, reluctantly: “One of us could go to her.”
    The pang under Caitlin’s breastbone took her breath away. He might not look at her, but she could study him. Her fingers twitched, and she wasn’t sure if the suppressed desire was to tug his sleeve or strike him. “Tristen is with her. He’ll suffice.”
    “He’s not—” Now he looked, head snapping around as if he had been resisting the motion with all his might, and his strength had finally failed him.
    “No,” she said. “You’re her father. But you are here, and these are lifeboat rules. Do the work under your hand, Ben.”
    Another man—especially another Conn—would have said something cruel in reply. But Benedick only pressed his mouth thin and, without dropping his gaze, nodded once.
    She understood. It was the decision he had already accepted as inevitable and steeled himself for, but he had wished for her to make it. As he had over time made similar unpleasant choices for her. When they had still been a team.
    Caitlin also would not look down. She was still considering what to say next, whether to disengage from the conversation or to press him to the next level of honesty, when her half-attended feed from Arianrhod’s pod forced itself to the center of her attention—by failing like a snapped thread.

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the strength of any soul
    I will make your offspring as unto the dust of the Cosmos, so that if anyone could count the dust, then your offspring could be counted.
—G ENESIS 13:16, New Evolutionist Bible
      Caitlin’s eyes went wide; Benedick began moving. Even as she turned for the door, her armor rattling, he placed a hand on the console between them and vaulted it. His feet struck the deck where hers had been only an instant before, the old instincts of teamwork unaffected.
    Caitlin crouched. The armor assisted her leap, but Benedick heard her grunt of pain. The sympathetic twinge lay beyond the ice, so he observed it rather than feeling it, for which he was grateful.
    Caitlin gripped the edge of the broken hatchway and swung herself through. Benedick followed. His legs were healing, and he was much taller than Caitlin. With the support of his armor, he leaped, caught the lip of the hatch, and arced into microgravity on the heels of the Chief Engineer.
    She was already sailing across the cluttered Heaven. Benedick kicked off, gliding in pursuit, hesitant to use his attitude jets for a boost until necessary. He reached the far wall a few meters behind her, copying her elegantswing into the corridor. The thump of her boots against the decking rang sharply. On foot, he could catch her.
    He pulled up abreast and between breaths panted, “Why are we running?”
    “I lost the feed from