"You weren't meant to know," Jane said.

"This is something that spans all of our known space," I said. "You can't hide something like this,"

"Of course you can," Jane said, and her tapping suddenly stopped. "The Colonial Union does it all the time. Think about how colonies communicate. They can't talk to each other directly; there's too much space between them. They have to compile their communication and send it in spaceships from one colony to another. The Colonial Union controls all ship travel in human space. All information bottlenecks into the Colonial Union. When you control communication, you can hide anything you want."

"I don't think that's really true," I said. "Sooner or later, everything leaks. Back on Earth—" Jane suddenly snorted. "What?" I asked.

"You," Jane said. " 'Back on Earth.' If any place in human space can be described as profoundly ignorant, it's Earth." She motioned her hand, encompassing the room. "How much of any of this did you know about, back on Earth? Think back. You and every other CDF recruit signed up completely ignorant of how things are out here. You didn't even know how they were going to make it possible for you to fight. The Colonial Union keeps Earth isolated, John. No communication with the rest of the human worlds. No information either way. The Colonial Union doesn't just hide the rest of the universe from Earth. It hides Earth from the rest of the universe."

"It's humanity's home," I said. "Of course the CU wants to keep its profile low."

"For fuck's sake," Jane said, genuinely irritated. "You can't possibly be so stupid as to believe that. The CU doesn't hide Earth because it has sentimental value. The CU hides Earth because it's a resource. It's a factory that spits out an endless supply of colonists and soldiers, none of whom has the smallest idea what's out here. Because it's not in the Colonial Union's interest to have them know. So they don't. You didn't. You were just as ignorant as the rest of them. So don't tell me you can't hide these things. The surprising thing isn't that the Colonial Union hid the Conclave from you. The surprising thing is that it's telling you about it at all."

Jane resumed her tapping for a moment and then slapped her hand down on the table, hard. "Fuck!" she said, and put her head in her hands and sat there, clearly furious.

"I really want to know what's going on with you right now," I said.

"It's not you," she said. "I'm not angry with you."

"That's good to hear," I said. "Although since you just called me ignorant and stupid, you can understand why I wonder if you're telling me the truth about that."

Jane reached out a hand to me. "Come here," she said. I walked over to the table. She put my hand on it.

"I want you to do something for me," she said. "I want you to hit the table as hard as you can."

"Why?" I asked.

"Please," Jane said. "Just do it."

The table was standard carbon fiber with the veneer of printed wood: cheap, durable and not easily breakable. I made my hand into a fist and brought it down hard on the table. It made a muffled thump, and my forearm ached a bit from the impact. The table rattled a bit but was otherwise fine. From the bed, Babar looked over to see what idiocy I was up to.

"Ow," I said.

"I'm about as strong as you," Jane said, tonelessly.

"I suppose," I said. I stepped away from the table, rubbing my arm. "You're in better shape than me, though. You might be a bit stronger."

"Yeah," Jane said, and from her sitting position hammered her hand down on the table. The table broke with a report like a rifle shot. Half the tabletop sheared off and spun across the room, putting a divot in the door. Babar whined and backed himself up on the bed.

I gaped at my wife, who stared impassively at what remained of the table.

"That son of a bitch Szilard," she said, invoking the name of the head of the Special Forces. "He knew what they had planned for us. Stross is one of his people. So he had to know. He knew what we would be up against. And he decided to give me a Special Forces body, whether I wanted one or not."

"How?" I asked.

"We had lunch," Jane said. "He must have put them in my food." Colonial Defense Forces bodies were upgradeable—to an extent—and the upgrades were often accomplished with injections or infusions of nanobots that would repair and improve tissues. The CDF didn't use nanobots to repair normal human bodies, but there was no technical bar to doing it—or using the nanobots to make body changes. "It had to have been a tiny amount. Just enough to get them in me, where more could grow."

A light clicked on my head. "You had a fever."

Jane nodded, still not looking at me. "The fever. And I was hungry and dehydrated the entire time."

"When did you notice this?" I asked.

"Yesterday," Jane said. "I kept bending and breaking things. I gave Zoe a hug and I had to stop because she complained I was hurting her. I tapped Savitri on the shoulder and she wanted to know why I hit her. I felt clumsy all day. And then I saw Stross," Jane almost spat the name, "and I realized what it was. I wasn't clumsy, I was changed. Changed back to what I was. I didn't tell you, because I didn't think it mattered. But since then it's been in my head. I can't get it out of there. I'm changed."

Jane looked up at me, finally. Her eyes were wet. "I don't want this," she said, fiercely. "I left it when I chose a life with Zoe and with you. It was my choice to leave it, and it hurt to leave it. To leave everyone I knew behind." She tapped the side of her head to signify the BrainPal she no longer carried. "To leave their voices behind after having them with me. To be alone like that for the first time. It hurt to learn the limits of these bodies, to learn all the things I couldn't do anymore. I but chose it. Accepted it. Tried to see the beauty of it. And for the first time in my life I knew my life was more than what was directly in front of me. I learned to see the constellations, not just the stars. My life is your life and Zoe's life. All of our lives. All of it. It made it worth everything I left."

I went to Jane and held her. "It's all right," I said.

"No, it's not," Jane said. She gave a small, bitter laugh. "I know what Szilard was thinking, you know. He thought he was helping me—helping us— by making me more than human. He just doesn't know what I know. When you make someone more than human, you make them less than human, too. I've spent all this time learning to be human. And he takes it away without a second thought."

"You're still you," I said. "That doesn't change."

"I hope you're right," Jane said. "I hope that it's enough."

"This planet smells like an armpit," Savitri said.

"Nice," I said. I was still putting on my boots when Savitri had walked up. I finally yanked them on and stood.

"Tell me I'm wrong," Savitri said. Babar roused himself and walked over to Savitri, who gave him a pat.

"It's not that you're wrong," I said. "I just thought you might have a little more awe at being on an entirely new world."

"I live in a tent and pee in a bucket," Savitri said. "And then I have to carry the bucket across the entire camp to a processing tank so we can extract the urea for fertilizer. Maybe I'd have more awe for the planet if I didn't spend a fair portion of my day hauling my own waste across it."

"Try not to pee so much," I said.

"Oh, thanks," Savitri said. "You've just sliced through the Gordian knot with that solution. No wonder you're in charge."

"The bucket thing is only temporary, anyway," I said.

"That's what you told me two weeks ago," Savitri said.

"Well, I apologize, Savitri," I said. "I should have realized that two weeks is more than enough time for an entire colony to go from founding to baroque indolence."