Ash watched them shake hands. He had half-expected Apex to refuse him, but whoever had been speaking to Commander Joane at the other end of that call had apparently required his presence. The particulars remained unclear. He was glad, at least, to have been taken. What they intended to do with him was another matter.
He set that thought aside and watched Captain Matthew turn to leave. The captain slowed beside him, held him with a long, wordless look, then moved on.
Ash spoke.
"Why didn't you tell them about your ships? You've already worked out I was the cause of it."
Matthew went very still. It was the first time he'd heard Ash's voice. Then he stepped back close, dropped to barely above a murmur, and spoke from the corner of his mouth in the manner of a man trying not to be observed doing precisely what he was doing.
"So my suspicions were correct. You actually did that."
He waited. Ash said nothing. Matthew exhaled through his nose.
"Right. Silent again. Wonderful."
He glanced sideways.
"To answer your question — a flaw you name aloud becomes a flaw someone else can turn against you. I'd rather they discover it after they've already paid. Seems self-evident."
He made to leave, then stopped.
"Forty-three days in your company, and I still have no idea what you actually wanted. None whatsoever. That's going to trouble me."
Then Commander Joane's voice carried across the yard.
"What are you two discussing over there?"
Matthew turned and offered her a broad, easy smile.
"Nothing, nothing, merely saying my farewells and thanking him for making me a considerably richer man! Very touching moment, truly!"
He glanced back at Ash and dropped his voice.
"Farewell, kid. I mean that sincerely — I hope never to lay eyes on you again for the remainder of my natural life, you damned, cursed little wretch."
Ash allowed himself a small smile.
"Likewise, old man."
Something moved across Matthew's face. His mouth found a smile. He turned and walked toward his ship.
"Alright boys, let's move! Repairs to make, credits to burn, and I would very much like to be somewhere that doesn't leach the feeling from my feet before the day is out! Come on, come on!"
The crew scrambled aboard. Matthew climbed into the cockpit, then leaned back out one final time, loud enough for the whole yard to hear.
"Enjoy your new workers, Commander! That one especially!"
He laughed and there was genuine feeling in it, the kind that surfaces when something heavy has finally been set down.
"That one is going to be your burden for a good long while! You have my word, and my sincerest condolences!"
The door sealed as the engines rose to pitch, loud enough that Ash felt it in his back teeth, and the ship drove itself up into the white sky.
Ash watched it go until there was nothing left to watch.
Meanwhile.
Commander Joane turned sharply to the captives and looked across them at length, in the manner of someone regarding a problem they had already solved.
"Listen carefully, because I will not repeat myself. Every one of you is a displaced citizen of Varagos. Your settlements are gone, claimed by the horrors, by raids, or by whatever sequence of poor decisions led you there. I don't particularly care which. The point is that you have nowhere to go."
She let that settle.
"The Apex Organisation does not keep captives. That is not our business. Our business is survival. And at present, you require protection and we require workers. If you find that arrangement disagreeable, the door is open. Genuinely. Walk away right now."
A cold smile.
"But ask yourself where you would actually go. Back out into the expanse? Into the cold? Into whatever has been keeping to the edges of this settlement for the past three weeks?"
She tilted her head slightly.
"Or you stay. You work until your hands give out, and then you find a way to work with hands that have given out. And if you are capable, sharp, and useful, and not an utter waste of resources, you may still be alive this time next year."
Silence across the yard.
"You are free to leave at any time. That is all. Now get to shelter and rest, because tomorrow is going to be a very long day."
The troopers began moving the captives toward the barracks. Commander Joane watched them go, then turned, almost as an afterthought, to Ash, who was still kneeling in the snow, his chains catching the floodlights.
"You two."
She pointed at the nearest troopers without looking at them.
"Take him to mining team 64. Let Paul know this one joins them tomorrow. Treat him as you would any other worker."
She walked away before anyone could respond.
***
The troopers hauled Ash to his feet and marched him toward the buildings. Snow crunched underfoot. A rust-streaked metal door opened ahead of them, and they moved down into a dim corridor that smelled of oil and cold concrete.
The first trooper exhaled.
"I'll just say it, that was genuinely harrowing out there. I was certain we were finished."
The second cut him a sideways look and spoke through his teeth.
"Why are you saying this in front of him? He's a worker now, granted, but he is clearly someone of consequence. What if he tells the commander you were out there sweating through your uniform?"
The first trooper's voice climbed half an octave.
"Would he actually do that?"
The second glanced at Ash, then back.
"How would I know? All I'm saying is — everything I heard from Captain Matthew about this boy points to exactly one conclusion."
"Which is?"
A pause.
"He's not right in the head."
Ash gritted his teeth.
'You're not right in the head.'
"Consider it," the second trooper continued, warming now. "He voluntarily confined himself to a cell aboard a smuggler's vessel. For forty-three days. Supposedly one of Flame's sons and the others are out there conducting themselves accordingly. Meanwhile this one just looks like—"
He glanced at Ash.
"—like he hasn't slept in days."
The first trooper laughed.
As the laughter faded, the lights along the corridor flickered once, then went out entirely. A beat of pure darkness. Then the emergency strips along the floor engaged, bathing everything in dim red.
"Was that meant to happen?"
The second trooper was already frowning at the ceiling.
"No. First time I've seen this."
He looked around, then back at his partner.
"You take him to his quarters. I'll locate the fault."
"Absolutely not."
"What?"
"You want to leave me alone with him. We were told explicitly that he is a tier five Ascended."
The second trooper looked at Ash. Ash looked thin and diminished, in the manner of someone who had not eaten properly in several days. The second trooper looked back.
"Tier 5.1. And look at him."
The first trooper did look. Ash raised his head slowly and fixed the man with the flattest, most exhausted stare he could produce. which, under the circumstances, was quite flat indeed.
The first trooper's throat moved.
"...Alright," he said quietly.
The second was already moving away.
"He's not going to do anything. If he'd intended to, he already would have. He's not violent, he's just..."
He trailed off, reaching for the word.
"...sad, I think."
He turned and made his way back down the corridor. The first trooper regarded Ash for a long moment, then took the chain and moved him forward.