Wednesday stared at her. “It sends an irrevocable go code? How did you figure out how to do that?”

Steffi sighed. “How did I get the keys in the first place?” She shook her head. “You shouldn’t have gone to that embassy reception, kid. You could have been hurt.”

Rachel cleared her throat. “Hoechst was certain Svengali was the assassin. And she had his paymaster’s records.”

“What made you think Sven worked alone?” Steffi winked at Wednesday, a horribly knowing look that made her try to burrow into her chair to avoid it. She felt unclean.

“You set off that bomb—”

“No, that was someone else,” Steffi said thoughtfully. “One of Hoechst’s little surprises. I think she was trying to kill me. I just nailed a couple of others in the comfort of their own diplomatic residences. And relieved them of certain items from their personal safes, by way of insurance.” She held up the tablet: “Which brings me to the subject at hand.” She looked at Wednesday. “Can either of you give me a good reason not to transmit the irrevocable go code?”

Wednesday licked her lips. “They killed my parents and brother. They destroyed my home, in case you hadn’t noticed. They did — things — to Frank. And you want me to tell you not to kill ’em all?”

Steffi looked amused. “Out of the mouths of babes,” she called in the direction of the mike. “What’s your offer, Rachel?”

“Let me get back to you in a minute.” Rachel sounded very tense. “You’re not helping, Wednesday: remember, only one of the R-bombs is heading for a Re-Mastered world. The rest are still running on New Dresden. Think about that before you open your mouth again.”

“I’ll give you five minutes to talk to your boss,” said Steffi. “You might consider my pecuniary motives while you’re at it.” Then she flicked a switch on the console next to her and raised an eyebrow at Wednesday. “Do you really want me to kill everyone on two planets?” she asked.

“I’m not sure.” Wednesday looked out of the picture window pensively. A huge whorl of violet-red gas, spokes of blue running radially through it, drifted across a black velvet backdrop iced with the unblinking pinpricks of a million stars. Frank is alive, she thought. Hoechst is dead, though. Will they prosecute me? I could claim self-defense against hijackers. The celestial smoke ring swung slowly past outside, a brilliant graveyard marker that would last a million years or more. And Frank hates them, too. But then she thought about New Dresden and the people she’d passed through like a ghost that had outlived the destruction of her planet. Jostling kids in a perfectly ordinary city. Blue skies and tall buildings. “I think I’m too insignificant to make that kind of decision,” she said slowly. “I don’t know who could.” She shivered as a thought struck her. “I’m glad the murderer’s dead. But to blame everyone behind them, their whole civilization…”

She stopped as she saw a shadow of a frown cross Steffi’s face, and forced herself to shrug, miming disinterest. Suddenly her heart was pounding and her palms sweating. She slowly stood up and, when Steffi said nothing, walked toward one side of the window. As she did so, she waited for the solar nebula to vanish from the view, leaving nothing but a scattering of stars across the blackness. Then she twisted a control tab in one jacket pocket. It stiffened around her, waistband tightening and sealing against her pressure leggings under the lacy trousers. Black against a black background, she thought, taking deep breaths. She ran a hand through her hair and surreptitiously popped the seal that held her hood closed inside the collar of her jacket. Then she turned to face Steffi. “What do you want?” she asked as casually as she could manage.

Steffi chuckled, a deeply ugly sound. “I want about, oh, 50 million in bearer bonds, a yacht with independent jump capability, and some hostages to see me out of the immediate vicinity — oh, and that bitch’s head on a trophy plaque. Along with the guy who killed Sven. He won’t be coming back. What the hell did you think, kid? We were in this for the good of our souls?” She sat up. “You still listening in, Rachel?”

Martin replied. “She’s trying to find someone to talk to on Earth,” he said diffidently. “They’ve got to authenticate her before she can tell them what the situation is—”

“Bullshit!” Steffi snorted. “I’ll give you one hour, no more. At the end of an hour, if you aren’t making the right noises, you can kiss Dresden and Newpeace goodbye. If the answer’s yes, I’ll tell you who to deposit the bonds with and we can discuss the next step, namely transport. The TALIGENT terminal stays with me — it’s a causal channel, you know it’ll decohere at the first jump, but until then you’ll know where I am.” She looked thoughtful. “As a first step, though, you can bring me Hoechst’s head, and the head of the scumbag who killed Sven. Not attached to their bodies. I know that doesn’t sound like your idea of fun, but I want to be sure they’re dead.”

Wednesday stared at her in disgust. Is this what it comes down to? she wondered. Is this what you get if you stop worrying you might be a monster? She glanced behind her at the window, nervously. I thought I knew you. Then over at the side of the room. Comms, reactivate, she told her implant.

BING. Wednesday, please respond? It was Rachel. I’m listening. Who is Steffi, really?

The reply took a few seconds to come. Wednesday leaned against the wall beside the window, experimenting with the fabric texturing controls at the back of her jacket, seeing just how sticky she could make it go without losing its structural integrity. There was some setting called “gecko’s feet” that seemed pretty strong …

Near as I can tell, she’s an alias for Miranda Katachurian. Citizen, Novy Kurdistan, last seen eleven years ago with a criminal record as long as your arm. Wanted for questioning in connection with armed robbery charges, then vanished.

“Steffi,” Wednesday asked hesitantly, “what did you do it for?”

BING. Wednesday? Are you all right? Do you need help? Frank.

“For?” Steffi looked puzzled for a moment. Then her expression cleared. “We did it for the money, kid.”

L8R: LUV U, she replied to Frank, then glanced at Rachel’s last message as she answered Steffi.

“And you’re, uh, going to send the irrevocable go code to the R-bombers if you don’t get what you want?”

Steffi grinned. “You’re learning.” Wednesday nodded, hastily composing a final reply.

“And doesn’t it strike you that there’s something wrong about that?”

“Why should it?” Steffi stared at her. “The universe doesn’t owe me a living, and you can’t eat ideals, kid. It’s time you grew up and got over your history.”

Case closed, sent Wednesday. “I guess you’re right,” she said, leaning back against the wall as hard as she could and dialing the stickiness up to max. Then she brought up her right hand and threw underhand at Steffi. “Here, catch!” With her left hand she yanked hard on her collar, pulling the hood up and over her head and triggering the jacket’s blowout reflex. Then she waited to die.

The noise was so loud that it felt like a punch in the stomach and a slap on the ears, leaving her head ringing. A fraction of a second later there was a second noise, a gigantic whoosh, like a dinosaur sneezing. Leviathan tried to tear her from the wall with his tentacles; she could feel her arms and legs flailing in the tornado gale. Something hit her so hard she tried to scream, sending a white-hot nail of pain up her right ankle. Her ears hurt with a deep dull ache that made her want to stick knife blades into them to scratch out the source of the pain. Then the noise began to die away as the station’s pressure baffles slammed shut around the rupture, her helmet seal secured itself and inflated in a blast of canned air from the jacket vesicles, and her vision began to clear.