“What the hell do you need her for?”  Ezra crossed his arms.  “She’s done enough for everyone already.  No one’s got any right to demand anything of her now.”  Even if it’s you.  Even if you gave up your freedom so she could escape—she’s more than paid you back for that with everything she’s done here.

Grant took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly.  “I know.  I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t necessary.”

“What the hell is so necessary that you’d ask a hurt and sick woman to…to…”  Ezra’s voice trailed away and his eyes narrowed.  “What the hell is this all about, Commander?”

“I need her to go and retrieve something for me.  Something for all of us.”  Grant’s lips thinned.  “It has to do with the database from Mimir.”

Ezra swallowed bile.  “What about it?”

“There’s something on Catullus III that relates to it,” Grant said.  “I—we—need her to go and get it.”  He glanced sidelong at Ezra and probably didn’t like the look he was getting, because he rushed on.  “It’s a simple, safe run.  Take the bank deposit key, go to Catullus III, and take the contents of the deposit box and bring it back here.  Easy.”

“But you’re asking for Alana,” Ezra said, his voice flat and his stomach unsettled.  “There has to be more to it than just that if you want her.”

“Adam can’t spare anyone,” Grant said.  “So I thought of Alana.”

“Right,” Ezra said, staring out at the trees that lined the trail from his cottage down toward the beach.  Of course he’d think of Alana.  Probably because he knew she wouldn’t say no if he asked her, because she wouldn’t.  As much as she says she’s free and unfettered and can live her own life now, if Lindsay or Grant asked her to do something, to be somewhere, she’d do it and be there in a heartbeat.  There isn’t any question in that—no doubt.  His lips thinned.  “She can’t handle that right now,” he said quietly, half to himself.  “She can’t do it.  It’ll be weeks before she could even think about it.”

“It could have a grave impact on our survival, Dr. Grace.”

He shot Grant a withering look.  “Everything these days seems to have a grave impact on our survival, Commander.  Trust me, I know—that’s why I came up with the crazy scheme to rescue you and your wife.  That was a matter of our survival, too.”

Grant sighed softly and shook his head.  “We need her to do this, Doctor.  I need her to do this because I can’t do it myself.”

Ezra shook his head.  “I don’t see anyone or anything stopping you, Commander.  Who’s going to tell you that you’re not allowed to go to Catullus III?”

“I’m persona non grata in Icarus Munitions territory,” Grant said.  “I can’t go.  I’ll end up arrested and they’d be right to do it.”

How the hell does a commander in Mimir’s armed forces end up persona non grata to one of the few congloms willing to supply the Psychean Guard is the armaments they needed for their military forces?  “What?”

The older man heaved a heavy sigh and shook his head slowly.  “It’s a long, sordid story.  The short version is that I was a pacifist when I was a teenager—something that my father didn’t have the heart to quash until I started to get into trouble.  However, I was the kind of pacifist that decided that blowing up munitions depots and making threats of violence against suppliers was a really smart idea.  Dad managed to cover it up, but it wasn’t easy and Icarus Munitions never forgot about it.”

“So I’m guessing you’re not the one who hid anything there.”

Grant choked on a laugh.  “No.  My gut says that was Adam’s bright idea, since he’s always maintained very positive relations with them.  I could be wrong.  It could have been Freder or Daci.”

Ezra took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly.  “I don’t understand all of you,” he said, almost without meaning to.  “I don’t understand how you all knew to take apart that database and hide it all over the galaxy and hide keys to access it—to find it—all over the place, too.  How did you see all of it coming?”

“Rachel saw it coming,” Grant said simply.  “She saw the patterns before any of us did, though I guess maybe Freder and Adam saw, too.  We made some decisions.  We reacted when the bombs started to fall.”  His eyes drifted closed for a moment.  “Understand, Dr. Grace, that we were all in positions where we could take action but when the moment came, by the time we recognized it, it was almost too late.”

“Is that why you and America stayed and the others got away?”

Grant sighed, staring at the sky.  “Frederick tried to come back.  I told him to get the hell off Mimir and stay away—he was our best hope at justice.  It’s a shame we never got it.”  He exhaled through his teeth and shook his head.  “We sent Rachel away with Lindsay and Adam.  Aidan managed to get away first, paved the way for everyone else.  By rights, maybe he should have stayed.  Maybe he would have been able to slide under their radar and lead resistance for longer.

“In the end, all it did was buy us time, but it was enough time.  We salvaged what we could.  The Commonwealth and the congloms never knew.  Everyone else who’s ever known is dead.  It’s just us.”

“And now all of us you’ve told here,” Ezra said quietly.

Grant nodded slowly.  “And the fewer here who know, the safer everyone is—at least until it’s too late to stop us from assembling the database again.”

Ezra exhaled.  I must be out of my mind.  “I can’t let you ask Alana to do this.”

“You said that already.”

“I know.  I’m just saying it again.”  He looked at the older man in the dim.  “I’ll go instead.”

She’s going to kill me, but what other choice is there?  None, that’s it.

“Just tell me where to go,” Ezra said, “who to see, what to do, and I’ll do it.  Just leave her alone.”

Grant stared at him for a moment.  “Done.”