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Or perhaps Constance had just been easy: willing and available, already connected to Ivan through Matthew Gale.

“She wouldn't even try to save you, Ivan?” Ida asked. “Turn you from your life of crime?”

“Certainly not.”

“Straight to jail, then.”

“Black and white,” said Ivan. “That's how Connie thinks.”

“And there's no possibility,” said Ida, “that Connie might allow for a little gray area if she thought it was for the best?”

“Tell me exactly what you're asking, Ida,” said Ivan.

“Would Constance,” Ida asked, “support the Mallt-y-Nos?”

Ivan laughed. It was a curious laugh, tinged—almost—with what Ida thought might be traces of suppressed hysteria.

“No, she wouldn't,” he said. “That would be against her principles.”

Trying to crack the
Annwn
was more like trying to solve a riddle than trying to hack a computer.

When Althea turned the
Annwn
's computer back on, keeping it disconnected from the rest of the
Annwn,
the computer went immediately into hysterics.

WHERE'S MY BODY WHERE'S MY BODY WHERE'S MY BODY WHERE'S MY BODY WHERE'S MY BODY WHERE'S MY—

“Shut up, calm down,” Althea muttered, but for a long time the computer would not be calmed, would not let her type, only kept up that frantic repetition, as if its simulated fear could affect Althea. She managed to silence it only when she remembered her conversation with Ivanov and typed, “Annie, shut up.”

The words ceased their scrolling. Althea's order had terminated them in midsentence.

WHO ARE YOU? asked the computer while Althea was still trying to decide what to do now that the machine's resistance had ceased so unexpectedly.

Althea hesitated, then typed, “Annie, override security measures.”

NO. The machine let the flat refusal linger before asking again, I CAN'T SEE. WHO ARE YOU?

“Matthew Gale,” Althea typed in the hope of deception.

LIAR.

Althea groaned.

That was how Domitian found her an hour or so later, still furiously in interrogation with the computer.

“How is it?” he asked.

“I need a blowtorch,” Althea said. “One of the magnesium ones. And some thermite.”

“It can't be that bad.”

Domitian
had not been arguing with a computer in English for the past hour and a half. Conversations with a computer should rightfully take place in code, and here Althea had been stuck trying to match wits with Ivanov's damn machine.

“Look,” she said. A small part of her thought that perhaps if she could express her frustrations properly to Domitian, he would bring them to Ida Stays in such a way that Ida would appreciate them. “It's got this shell,” she said, spreading out a dome with her hands as if she could shape a physical thing out of metaphor. “Whatever's inside the shell—the good stuff, the code—I can't get at, because the shell, I can't get through it.”

Domitian came to sit in the copilot's chair beside her, leaning his elbows on his knees and frowning. He looked overlarge in the cozy, well-lived feeling of the room, and Althea had a sudden strange thought that Ivanov and Gale had sat where she and Domitian were sitting now many times before and planned thefts, sabotage—perhaps they had even simply talked, like friends did.

“So it's got a firewall,” Domitian said.

Althea winced. “A wall, you can get around,” she said, feeling the metaphor slipping from her fingers and clinging grimly to it. “It's a shell. Because it's how the whole computer is reacting to me. They've changed it somehow. Gale and Ivanov programmed it somehow so that it doesn't react like a computer. It reacts like a person.”

“And what does that mean?”

“It means…it has an agenda, it doesn't give you a perfectly truthful response,” said Althea. “It means it's not logical. I can't get through.”

Domitian leaned over and peered down onto the screen Althea had been working on. “This looks like a chat.”

Althea rubbed her palms over her face. “That's because it is a chat,” she said. “The computer won't interact with me any other way, and there's no way around it. Like I said, a shell.” She dropped her hands and relented. “Okay, it's not really a person, and once I get past this shell—once I get into the heart of it—it'll be a computer again. They didn't change anything innate in the computer system itself; they just wrote a program.” A very good program, but Althea wasn't going to admit that. “It's just that I can't get past this stupid first layer.”

“Because it's not like a computer,” Domitian said. He was smiling faintly.

“What's so funny?”

He turned that faint smile on her, looking at her with some fondness, and sidestepped the question. “It's a clever idea,” he said. “Make it so that the only way to hack their computer has nothing to do with computers.”

Althea scowled at the implicit praise for Gale and Ivanov. “Don't.”

He straightened up. “I know you'll be able to do it, Althea,” he said, standing and clapping her on the shoulder on his way to the door.

“Yeah,” Althea muttered, and typed, “Let me in.”

NO, replied the machine.

She knew without looking that Domitian had paused at the door, not taking the step down into the
Annwn
's sideways hall. She knew that he was waiting for her to speak again.

Somehow, Domitian's expectations always managed to get something out of her even if she hadn't intended to give him anything at all.

“What if I can't?” she said, and typed, “Please.”

TELL ME YOUR NAME, demanded the
Annwn
.

“You will,” Domitian said. Solid, certain.

“What if I can't and I spend all this time here working on this stupid, useless piece of crap, and while I'm here, the
Ananke
gets worse and gets ruined?”

Silence. TELL ME YOUR NAME remained unanswered.

“Althea,” said Domitian, and at the tone in his voice Althea had to suppress the childhood urge to sink low in her seat, “I know that you are worried about the
Ananke
. But allowing your concern for the
Ananke
to seriously impede your attempts to investigate—”

“I'm not letting it impede anything,” said Althea over Domitian's words, but he said, “Yes, you are. I expect you to put the same amount of effort into cracking the
Annwn
as you would toward—”

“Aren't you worried about the
Ananke
?”

Domitian paused. “The state of the computer is of concern to me.”

That hadn't been what Althea had meant at all. She wanted to ask again, to ask if he was
worried
about their ship, but she was afraid that he would not understand. Wearily, one-fingered, she typed “Ivanov” in response to the computer's query.

“Miss Stays will be gone soon,” said Domitian, his voice low and his presence heavy on her back. “Until then, you must do your best to obey.”

Althea's finger hovered over the enter key, then she stopped on a thought.

She went back twice and changed “Ivanov” to “Ivan.”

“Did you hear me?”

Enter.

“Althea.”

LIAR, said the
Annwn
.

And Althea, full of frustration, typed out “True.”

She thought it wouldn't do anything at all. The
Annwn
would know that she wasn't Ivanov or Gale and would return to resistance.

But to her astonishment, the ship said, HELLO, IVAN. VERIFICATION METHODS ARE ALL CURRENTLY OFFLINE. MINIMAL ACCESS GRANTED.

“Holy shit,” said Althea.

She hardly noticed Domitian moving until he was standing right beside her. “Did you break it?” he asked.

Althea could not stop her grin. It grew slowly over her face until she thought it might break her in half. “I did. Well, sort of,” she amended. “I don't think I can get any farther in without connecting the computer back to the ship, and that's too risky, I won't do that, and I've got System regs on my side. But I got it open a crack.”

The
Annwn
waited patiently for her input, as a good computer should. She flexed her fingers and thought. “Let's see what it'll give me.”

“Access navigation logs,” she typed.

YOU DO NOT HAVE THE NECESSARY AUTHORIZATION.

“Access personal files: Ivanov, Leontios.”

YOU DO NOT HAVE THE NECESSARY AUTHORIZATION.

“Access personal files: Ivan.”

YOU DO NOT HAVE THE NECESSARY AUTHORIZATION.

“Well,” said Althea, “there goes that.”

“See if you can get the communication logs,” Domitian said.

“Access communication logs.”

YOU DO NOT HAVE THE NECESSARY AUTHORIZATION.

“What the hell can I access, then?” Althea demanded of the computer. She tried to get cute. “Display available data.”

SPECIFY, said the
Annwn
.

“Bitch,” Althea muttered.

“What would they use this for?” asked Domitian, jarring her. Althea had nearly forgotten he was there, so quickly had she zeroed in on the machine, and her first reaction was to tense up at the intrusive sound of his voice. “The computer is only offering some functionality, yes? What's the purpose of that?”

“In case something goes wrong they can still use the computer,” Althea said. “It's a contingency plan. They're well prepared; they've got lots of plans.” Or they'd had lots of plans. Gale was dead. It was an uncomfortable thought; Althea returned her attention to the machine.

If this functionality—when the computer was all but destroyed—existed, it must mean that only the most important files or programs could be accessed from it in case of emergency. Probably also the least incriminating, Althea thought. Ida Stays would not be pleased.

“Show available programs.”

NONE AVAILABLE.

Althea pressed her fingers into her eyes and breathed. This was a problem she might be able to solve; she needed the name of the variable. Gale and Ivanov would have named it something sensible, something easy to remember—they would use the computer in this state only if something had gone badly wrong.

Althea felt a little bit like Ida Stays trying to think like this. It was not a pleasant sensation. But Althea knew what she would call the variable if she were the one naming it.

She typed, “Show workspace.”

FIVE FILES AVAILABLE.

Althea grinned.

The first file was a data bomb; if let into another computer, it would erase every piece of data on board and leave the computer hollowed out and useless. It was not sophisticated enough to have wiped the mind of the
Ananke,
but it sent a chill down Althea's spine nonetheless. The second and third were both viruses designed to slip into the veins of a computer and force it to obey, poisoning it slowly to death. Althea could tell at a glance, to her disappointment, that neither was the one that had been put into the
Ananke
. The virus in the
Ananke
was insidious but random. These two were targeted and simple.

The next was a program designed to go into a System computer and affect the cameras in some way. Ivanov and Gale had used the System's facial recognition against it: the cameras would see Ivanov and Gale, and the sight of the two men would trigger a reaction in the computer that saw them. A modified version of that program must have been what the men had used to get on board the
Ananke
without the
Ananke
reporting it; when the
Ananke
recognized them, it knew not to sound the alarm.

Of course, the
Ananke
might have been programmed to react differently to seeing their faces, Althea thought. The
Ananke
could be programmed specifically to sound the alarm at the sight of either of the men. Or she could be programmed to execute some other action: erase a piece of data, detonate a bomb. Ivanov's very presence on board could still be affecting the computer, and his removal from the ship could provoke some other change.

The last of the five programs, the five programs that Gale and Ivanov considered the most important programs for them to have in case of an emergency, as far as Althea could tell, was a sequence of triggers for the detonation of a network of bombs.

“You met Constance through Mattie, of course,” said Ida.

“Now you want to talk about Mattie,” Ivan said, as if saying, “See? I know what you're doing.”

Ida wanted him to know. “How did you meet Mattie?”

Ivan's eyes were bright. He had slid somehow back into confidence. “That's a funny story, actually,” he said, and Ida wondered if it was the thought of Matthew Gale that had given him strength or the idea that he had a story to tell.

“It was a few months after I left home,” Ivan said, leaning forward with a confiding smirk that almost distracted her from the shadows beneath his eyes. “I was running out of the cash I'd taken from my account.”

Taken from his account, stolen from his mother; it was a matter of perspective. Ida kept her opinion to herself.

“I was trying out some petty little cons to keep myself afloat,” Ivan said. “Just for a little longer. When I met Mattie, I was on Mars—”

“What had you intended to do when you ran out of money?” Ida asked.

“Nothing,” said Ivan. “I didn't think about it.”

She understood. He hadn't meant to survive very long.

“I was on Mars when I met Mattie,” Ivan continued, passing on as if the question had not been significant, “hustling pool, because I liked the idea of con man tradition. Pool's easy, anyway; it's just physics. I was doing pretty well, I thought, but Mattie saw through me.”

“One con man recognizes another,” said Ida.