Coreni had decided to treat it as hours.
By the time the first sun cleared the horizon she had a shape of it — not a plan, not yet, but the skeleton of one. She would need to move her father. Not to the lab, not to any address connected to his name. She knew a woman in the eastern district who owed her a favor large enough that she'd never called it in, had been saving it for something that mattered. This mattered. She would contact Draka — not to explain, but to arrange coverage at the outlet so her absence didn't immediately flag. She would —
Her comm unit sounded.
She looked at it. Unknown designation. Which meant either a government line or someone who didn't want to be traced, and at this hour, in this context, the distinction didn't matter much.
She answered it.
The voice on the other end was Kra-May's.
She had never spoken to him directly. She knew his voice from the way Edi-Veen described him — measured, deliberate, the voice of someone who chose every word with the care of someone who understood that words had weight. It was exactly that.
"They moved last night," he said. "I am sorry. I could not get word to you sooner."
The room went very still around her.
"My father," she said.
"His laboratory. Three hours ago. They took everything — the research, the data pads, the physical samples. And they took him." A pause, brief and precise. "He is alive. They want the research interpreted, which means they need him functional. You have a window. It will not be wide."
"Where?"
"A government holding facility in the northern district. I can get you a designation but not an access point. That is beyond what I can provide from where I am."
"I understand. Thank you."
"Edi-Veen will know what to do," Kra-May said. And then, quietly, in a register that was not quite professional: "Your mother would have been proud of you. I knew her, briefly. She was extraordinary."
The line closed before she could answer.
She sat with the comm unit in her hand and looked at nothing for a moment. One moment, which was all she was going to allow herself.
Then she stood up.
Edi-Veen was already on his feet.
He had heard. She didn't know whether it was the call itself or something in the quality of the silence after it, but he was standing when she came out of the bedroom and his face had the particular focused stillness of someone who had already begun calculating.
"Kra-May," she said.
"Yes."
"They took my father."
"I know." He crossed to her in three steps, not touching her, just close. Presence rather than contact. "I felt it when Kra-May made the call. His mind was —" He stopped. "He was concerned. He does not concern easily."
"He said you'd know what to do."
"I do." He said it without hesitation, which was the most reassuring thing anyone had said to her in three days. "But Coreni — your father is alive and they will keep him that way while they need him. If we move on the facility before the Collective's plan is activated we risk everything. All of it. Every Fraluma on every world who is waiting for what you carry."
She looked at him. "You're telling me we can't go after him."
"I am telling you that going after him now is what they want. They took him to make you move. To make you visible." His voice was careful and direct and entirely without cruelty. "The best way to protect your father is to get to the Barrens. If the cure is synthesized — if the Fraluma are free — the Chancellor loses his leverage. Over the Fraluma. Over you. Over him."
"And if we don't get there in time?"
He held her gaze. "I know what I am asking you to accept. I am not asking you to pretend it is easy."
