‘I mean, maybe,’ I agree. ‘Seems that way for now, but who knows.’
Sabrina’s staring at me steadily now, trying to figure me out. She’s sizing me up in the way her world has taught her to. ‘Why are you telling me about the rovers when you’ve got a place on one?’ she asks.
I answer her question with a question. ‘Cleo told me you’re not a killer. I’m trying to figure it out – was she wrong, or do you really not know what my sister’s doing here?’
‘Look,’ she says, shaking her head. ‘I don’t care what games you corporates play with each other.’
‘I don’t think you know what the game is,’ I say quietly. This is where the risk lies, in this one moment – this is the question that everything hinges on. Cleo thinks there’s some good in Sabrina. It’s time to see if she’s right.
Sabrina doesn’t take the bait – but she doesn’t walk away either. Instead she just stares at me, so I keep going.
‘Marguerite’s not here for corporate espionage,’ I say. ‘She’s not just grabbing data from the UN servers. She’s going to remotely blow up six different settlements. Thousands of people will die, and when nobody’s left, the settlements will be declared abandoned. Then Graves will roll in and claim them.’
Sabrina’s lips part in shock, her eyes widening as she absorbs what I’ve just told her. But what shedoesn’tdo is contradict me. It’s all too easy to believe.
‘Do you really think she’s prepared to do that, andnotprepared to leave you for dead?’ I press. ‘You’re a liability.’
‘How do I know you’re telling the truth?’ she whispers.
‘Check the rovers. If two are disabled, then you know. You’ll have to trust me on her plans.’
Sabrina’s perfectly still for a moment, and she reminds me of Cleo, the way she pauses to size up her new situation, to assess, to look for the next place to leap to. She’s thinking furiously, calculating. ‘I thought this was just rich folks screwing with each other,’ she murmurs.
‘It’s not,’ I say. ‘And I think this is way past what you signed on for. I don’t think you want those deaths on your conscience any more than I do.’
Her whole body is still, her muscles rigid, her gaze fixed somewhere past me as she absorbs what I’m telling her. Weighs it up against who she believes herself to be. What she believes my sister capable of. I can only hope desperately that Cleo was right about Sabrina.
‘There’s no way to get a signal out to warn the other bases,’ I say. ‘Not without Marguerite’s cuff, and Cleo failed at getting that. But if we can get a rover close enough to the nearest base, we could broadcast a short-range message.’
Sabrina lifts her chin a little, and now she’s beginning to understand why I’m telling her all this.
‘I’m betting they’ve taken your handprint off the authorization list,’ I say. ‘But I can get inside the code and put it back, so you can get the remaining rover started.’
‘Why not just add yours?’ she asks. And then she laughs, a quick bark, lifting one hand to pinch the bridge of her nose. ‘You can’t drive it, can you?’
‘I can’t drive it,’ I agree. ‘Not on unfamiliar terrain, in the tail end of a dust storm. Today isn’t the day for me to learn. And anyway, my handprint isn’t registered anywhere in the system. It would take too long to get it in there. Yours, I just need to connect back to the rover authorization list.’
She nods slowly.
I risk a question: ‘Do you need to take a look at the rovers, confirm what I’m telling you?’
She’s quiet a long moment, and I see her run through everything again – pull up everything she knows, and see the way it clicks together.
‘No,’ she says grimly. ‘I believe you.’
‘Then I need you to go buy me a few minutes by distracting my sister while I put you back on the rover’s permission list,’ I say. ‘Tell her you saw me and I was on my way back.’
‘Sure. What then?’
‘Then a number of things have to happen in exactly the right order, or we both die here.’
She lets out a breath. ‘Talk. I’m listening.’
31.
CLEO
40 MINUTES REMAINING
