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I hold out my hand. “Give me the case.”
She clutches it closer. “Absolutely not.”
“I will sit beside it.”
“You say that like it’s reassuring.”
“I will sit beside you and it.”
She studies me through narrowed eyes. “That is slightly more reassuring and much more annoying.”
“Good.”
Anita looks as though she intends to argue for another full minute, but exhaustion betrays her. Her eyelids lower, and the anger in her face flickers under grief. When she finally hands me the case, she does it slowly, as if giving up one piece of herself.
“If anything happens to that data,” she murmurs, “I will haunt you with peer review.”
“I accept the risk.”
She leans back against the warm stone, folding one arm beneath her head. “Do not look smug about being useful.”
“I am not smug.”
“You have internal smugness.”
“That accusation has returned without evidence.”
“It has vibes.”
Brakk speaks from across the chamber without looking up from his field kit. “She is right. You do have internal smugness.”
I give him a flat look. “Repair your cutter.”
Brakk grins tiredly. “See? Smug.”
Anita’s mouth curves faintly, but the expression fades as sleep takes hold. She turns slightly toward the archive case, as if even unconscious she refuses to let it leave her world entirely. Her breathing steadies after several minutes. Dust darkens her cheek. Dried blood that is not hers stains one cuff. Her curls have come loose around her face in a tangle that catches the faint silver glow from the case seams.
I should watch the exits.
I do watch the exits.
I also watch her.
The anger comes quickly, and it is directed at myself. I have survived war, command, betrayal, and faith curdled into atrocity. I have trained my body to endure pain and my mind to compartmentalize fear. Yet I sit in a buried chamber beneath a rogue world, staring at a sleeping human scholar because the sight of her breathing steadies something in me I did not know had begun to break.
The bond is not subtle.
It pulls attention toward her with the persistence of gravity. It marks the angle of her hand, the bruise along her temple, the tremor that still occasionally moves through her fingers. It insists that her survival is central. It speaks in instinct, hunger, fear, and certainty.
But beneath that imposed awareness, something else grows.
Something quieter.
I admire her.
That realization unsettles me more than desire. Desire can be managed. Desire has rules, outlets, disciplines, failures. Admiration is more dangerous because it invites trust. Anita’s recklessness frustrates me, but it is not empty stupidity. She risks herself because truth matters to her with religious intensity, though she would spit fire at anyone who called it religion. She keeps moving despite grief. She jokes when frightened. She questions sacred claims because she refuses to let awe become surrender.
Anita stirs.
