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She is not only my enemy.

She is a warning with a voice.

I type:

I won’t bury knowledge forever.

Rolaev replies:

Then build stronger minds before you open deeper doors.

I breathe in slowly.

That, finally, feels like the true divide between us narrowed to its most painful line. She saw minds break and decided the doors must stay sealed. I saw minds break and decided we must learn how to stand before doors without shoving everyone through at once.

I type:

That is the plan.

Plans fail.

Then people stop them, revise them, argue with them, and build better ones.

You still believe in people.

Not all at once. Not unsupervised.

A pause.

Then:

Better.

Ghar makes a low sound that might be reluctant approval.

Rolaev sends one final message.

We are not finished.

I answer:

I know.

The channel vanishes.

The compad screen returns to ordinary ship status reports, as if the most dangerous woman in hiding did not just crawl through League security to deliver an ethical warning with the warmth of a knife.

For several breaths, no one speaks.

Then Sira says, “Uneasy mutual understanding.”

I close my eyes. “Please do not make it sound academically respectable.”

“It may be the only kind available.”

Ghar moves around the bench and sits beside me carefully. The motion pulls at his wounds, but he does not let it show beyond a tightening around his eyes. He takes my hand under the blanket.

“You did well,” he says.