"Four hours," he says. "Then wake me."
"Four hours."
His eyes close. Not sleep, not yet; his breathing is too controlled, his posture too ready. But the pretence of rest, offered to a stranger who asked him to take it. A concession.
I set up Bebo's core in a sheltered niche, run the power interface, and start cataloguing salvaged components for the beacon repair. The work is familiar. Calming. My hands know what to do with circuits and wires and broken things that need fixing, even when the rest of me is running on fumes and adrenaline residue.
"Krilly." Bebo's voice, low. "He's asleep."
I glance over. Horgox's breathing has changed, deepened, the rigid control finally surrendering to exhaustion. In sleep, the hard lines of his face ease slightly. Not soft, exactly; he'll never be soft. But less fortified. The jade markings on his forearms have settled to a steady, dim glow, and the blue traceries pulse faintly with his heartbeat, monitoring systems that never switch off.
"He's been awake for over thirty hours," I say. "He wouldn't rest in the root cave. Kept watch all night while I slept."
"His cortisol levels, extrapolated from the biosignature data I can access at this range, suggest chronic sleep deprivation consistent with sustained threat conditions over an extended period."
Three months of sleeping with one eye open. Before that, a lifetime of whatever gladiator rest looked like. No wonder he sleeps like he's expecting an attack.
"Bebo, what do we know about Varkaani? Species data, anything in your files."
"Limited. Varkaani originate from beyond the Threshold Territories. Long-lived by human standards, durable, adapted for high-gravity environments. ApexCorp's bio-engineering division has a documented history of acquiring and modifying individuals from multiple species for arena combat programs. The blue circuit traceries visible on his body are consistent with ApexCorp's gladiator-grade augmentation technology." A pause. "The green markings are natural. Bioluminescent emotional communication, analogous to human facial expression. The artificial traceries do not respond to emotion because they were never designed to."
Something about that distinction makes my throat tight. His own body, speaking a language they couldn't silence, overlaid with their technology that speaks nothing at all.
"He told me forty years. In their custody."
"That is consistent with the timeline referenced in the Sector Nine security advisory, assuming current estimated Varkaani lifespan parameters."
"And the circuit traceries? Can they be removed?"
"Insufficient data. Gladiator-grade augmentation is typically integrated into the nervous system at a structural level. Removal would depend on the depth of neural integration, and I lack the medical scanning capability to assess that from here." Bebo pauses again. "You're asking because you want to fix him."
"I'm asking because—" Because his skin is his own and the traceries aren't. Because he maintained his own equipment in the arena the way I maintain Buttercup, and the parallel makes me sick. Because he caught me when he should have stayed hidden, and he braced a collapsing ship when I told him to run, and he sleeps like a soldier and teaches me moss patterns in case he doesn't make it, and I have known him for less than a day and I already want to take a plasma cutter to everything ApexCorp ever built. "Because it matters."
"Noted." Bebo's voice carries something that might be warmth, if AIs could feel warmth. "I'll add it to my research queue."
The waterfall hushes over the pool. The canyon walls cut the worst of the wind. Horgox sleeps, and I keep watch, and the jungle screams its territorial disputes into a sky that's turning the colour of a bruise.
Four to six days. That's what we've got.
My hands find the beacon components, and I start sorting viable parts from wreckage. Working the problem. Doing what I've always done: keeping broken things alive, one repair at a time.
When Horgox wakes in exactly four hours, sharp as an alarm, his eyes find me first. Not the perimeter, not the entrance, not the canyon walls. Me, cross-legged in the alcove with Bebo's core glowing softly beside me and beacon components spread across the stone.
"Anything?" he asks.
"Quiet night. Two canyon predators sniffed around the entrance but didn't commit. Bebo's been running environmental scans." I stretch, feeling every bruise and stiff muscle from the day. "Your turn to rest was well earned. You actually slept."
"I don't sleep."
"You did tonight."
He looks at me for a long moment. Whatever he's thinking stays behind his eyes, locked away with everything else he isn't ready to share.
"Get some rest," he says. "Dawn comes early, and tomorrow we start building something defensible."
"Partners?" I ask. Not sure why I need to hear it confirmed. Maybe because everything in my training says a solo courier doesn't partner with fugitives on hostile planets. Maybe because Mother Morrison would have a very specific look on her face right now.
"Partners." He says it like it costs him something, but he says it.
