Artificial Condition (The Murderbot Diaries, #2)(32)

She winced again. “I’m sorry. I should have listened to you.”

“It wasn’t your fault.”

Her brow crinkled. “I kind of think it was.”

“It was my fault.”

“It’s both our faults then, but we won’t tell anybody,” Tapan decided, and wiggled the interface into her ear.

*

I did a quick walk-through of the areas of the ship I had used, to make sure nothing was out of place. ART’s drones had already come through, taking Tapan’s bloody clothes to be cleaned and sterilizing surfaces so any attempt to collect trace evidence would fail. Not that ART intended to be here when the investigation started. We were all leaving immediately, but ART believed in contingency plans. I started to remove the comm interface ART had given me. “You need to clean this, too.”

No, ART said. Keep it. Maybe we’ll come within range of each other again.

The MedSystem had already sterilized itself and deleted the records of my configuration change and the emergency trauma treatments to both me and Tapan. I was waiting for her when she came out of the bath facility. Drones followed her in to clean away any traces of her presence, and she said, “I’m ready.” She had stuffed her old clothes into her pack and was wearing fresh ones. She still looked a little bleary.

We walked out together and the lock sealed behind us. I had the cameras in the embarkation zone and ART was already doctoring the security recordings on its lock to erase our presence.

We met Rami, Maro, and the rest of their group at a food stand outside the embarkation zone. Rami had messaged me that they had already bought passage on a passenger transport leaving within the hour. They greeted Tapan enthusiastically, with tears and admonishments to each other not to squeeze her too hard.

I’d told them already not to talk about it in public. Rami turned and handed me a hard currency card. “Your friend Art said this was a good way to pay you.”

“Right.” I took it and tucked it in a sealable pocket.

They were all watching me now and it was a little nerve-racking. Rami said, “So, you’re going?”

I had my eye on a cargo transport heading the right direction. With luck I should be leaving within minutes of their departure. “Yes, I should hurry.”

“Can we hug you?” Maro let go of Tapan and faced me.

“Uh.” I didn’t step back, but it must have been obvious the answer was no.

Maro nodded. “Okay. This is for you.” She wrapped her arms around herself and squeezed.

I said, “I’ve got to go,” and walked away down the mall.

Fading, already disengaging from its lock, ART said in my feed, Be careful. Find your crew.

I tapped the feed in acknowledgment, because if I tried to say anything else I was going to sound stupid and emotional.

I didn’t know what I was going to do now, if I was going to go ahead with my plan or not. I had hoped finding out what had happened at Ganaka Pit would clear everything up, but maybe revelations like that only happened in the media.

Speaking of which, I needed to grab some more downloads before my next transport left. It was going to be a long trip.