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"Fine."

The answer came so quickly that I almost missed it.

"Fine?"

"Yes."

"You're not going to argue?"

"Do you want me to?"

"No."

"Then we're doing well."

I narrowed my eyes.

He ignored it. "I do need one more thing."

There it was.

I knew fine had been suspicious.

"What?"

"Hard limits."

My pulse ticked up.

Through the wall, Alex's voice rose in mock outrage about something, then dropped away again. In here, the quiet pressed closer.

Corian's expression didn't change, but his voice did. Less commander now. Still precise, but quieter.

"I don't need everything you can do. You've already told me how you want me to use you operationally, and I'll respect that. I need to know what you can't do, because if something goes wrong in there I don't want to ask you for something impossible while somebody's dying."

The tension eased slightly.

That was a sensible question.

Which made it harder.

I looked down at my hands.

"What can't I do physically?"

"Anything relevant."

The answer should have been easy.

It wasn't.

Because the truth was I didn't know.

There were things I had never attempted. Things I'd been prevented from testing and things I had prevented other people from testing because at some point the question had stopped being what I was capable of and became whether capability gave anyone the right to demand it.

"I don't know what the absolute limit is."

Corian stayed quiet.