1:10

Aaah, Kaliff says, like it explains everything.

There, you’ve had your story.

But so little detail! I’m hungry for more. These scraps will not nourish me.

Then you’ll have to starve, you tell him, your nerves still jangling. Tell me what that stuff was.

He pouts. Okay, he says. They were sirens.

SRNS. Self-replicating nanobot swarms. They were big trouble once upon a time, before you were born. You didn’t think there were any left. Evidently you were wrong. You’ve been wrong about a lot of stuff lately. Maybe you should use it as a learning experience.

Maybe not.

Kaliff claps you on the shoulder and grins.

Never mind, he says. There’ll be more loot. No way of knowing if you’ve tracked one of those things in, but I trust you.

He’s being too nice. You’ll have to watch him. It’s exhausting being so paranoid, but it’s more exhausting being dead.

Get yourself settled back in, he says. We’ve got a long journey ahead of us.

You’ve got a long journey ahead of you. You don’t feel like talking to Kaliff, who continues to be friendly and charming to the point that you tell him to stop fucking smiling, because it’s putting you on edge.

Hey, hey, hey, he says. Hey now. Hey.

You eat, you sleep, you pick the skin around your fingers. You eventually consent to a game of cards. You lose all your money and one of…