“Come on, L’Eesh. It’s business, just as you said. You know what happened. These palettes extract their energy from the vacuum sea—”

“Leaving some kind of deficit in their wake, into which I flew. Yes? And so we both die here.” He forced a laugh. “Ironic, don’t you think? In the end we’ve cooperated to kill each other. Just like the inhabitants of these desolate moons.”

But now my mind raced. “Not necessarily.”

“What?”

“Suppose I head up to the midpoint of the bridge and burn my way through the wall. Pohp ought to see me and come in for me. I’d surely be enough out of the vacuum field for the Spline to approach safely.”

“What about the quarantine ships?”

“They must primarily patrol the moons’ low orbits. Perhaps I’d be far enough from the surface of either moon to leave them asleep.”

He thought it over. “It would take days to get there. But it might work. You have something of your mother’s pragmatism, little Raida. I guess you win.”

“Maybe we both win.”

There was silence. Then he said coldly, “Must I beg?”

“Make me an offer.”

He sighed. “There has been a sighting of a school of Spline. Wild Spline.”

I was startled. “Wild?”

“These Spline are still spacegoing. But certain of their behavioral traits have reverted to an ancestral state. They believe they swim in their primordial ocean … ”

I breathed, “Nobody has ever hunted a Spline.”

“It would be glorious. Like the old days. Hily would be proud.” It was as if I could hear his smile.

I was content with the deal. It was enough that I’d beaten him; I didn’t need to destroy him.

Not yet. Not until I know who killed my mother.

We argued percentages, all the way down toward the light.