selection of rags and a battered metal box, from which she extracted a tube and a roll of bandages that looked relatively clean.
Kas expected to be a little more squeamish—cuts and bruises on Sentinel were handled by autodocs, painlessly and efficiently—but it felt like all capacity for fear had been drained out of her by the shock of the fight. She watched with near-clinical detachment as Zhi blotted up the blood from the long cut on her forearm, sprayed blue foam from the tube over the wound, and then wrapped the whole thing in bandages. The foam must have had a numbing agent, because the pain started to fade quickly.
“Can you check my arm?” Zhi said. “Doesn’t feel deep.”
Kas nodded. Zhi tried to pull her sleeve away from the wound, then shrugged out of her overshirt entirely and tossed the bloody thing away in a wad. Kas wiped carefully at the blood and found a long, ragged tear in Zhi’s skin, but no puncture.
“That’s all right, then,” Zhi said with visible relief. “Just spray it a little and wrap it up.”
Kas did as she was told, feeling like a bot. Zhi flexed her arm, satisfied, then caught Kas’s hand.
“You’re freezing, yeah?”
Kas found herself nodding, teeth clenched.
“Tell you what. Get out of that nasty shirt, and I’ll get you a blanket. I can turn my back if you need, yeah?”
Modesty was another thing that the draining adrenaline had taken with it. Kas pulled off the top of her vomit-spattered coverall, and Zhi settled a slightly stale-smelling but wonderfully thick blanket around her shoulders. Kas pulled it tight around herself, protectively, and sat staring at nothing while Zhi did something in the corner.
“Here,” the girl said sometime later. “Drink.”
Presented with a tin cup of hot liquid, Kas drank. The stuff was slightly bitter but not unpleasantly so, with a faint tinge of mint. It cut through the taste of bile that still coated her tongue, and she let the first mouthful dribble onto the monocrete beside her, then drank more.
Something about it seemed to spark her mind back to life, like a processor finishing its boot cycle. Kas sat up straighter, inhaling the aroma of the stuff, and gave a little sigh. Zhi, sipping from her own cup, sat across from her.
“What is this stuff?” Kas said.
Zhi looked puzzled. “Tea, yeah?”
“This isn’t tea,” Kas said. They drank plenty of tea on Sentinel. “It tastes nothing like tea.”
“Dunno. It comes out of a box labeled ‘tea.’”
Zhi shrugged, and Kas gave a weak chuckle. There was a long pause.
“You all right?” Zhi said quietly.
“I think so,” Kas said. “I’m not . . . used to this sort of thing.”
“I ’ent exactly used to it either,” Zhi said.
“But you’ve done it before.” Kas gripped her cup tightly. “Killed people.”
“Yeah,” Zhi said quietly. “Sometimes.”
“I’m . . .” Kas shook her head and forced her fingers to relax. “Thank you. You saved my life, I think.”
“’Ent sure who saved who, really.” Zhi scratched the back of her neck. “Let’s say it was a big-an’-nasty mess and call it even, yeah?”
“Even,” Kas agreed, remembering the way her hand shook when she gave Zhi the countdown. “Okay. What happens now?”
“Did they really kill Solomon?” Zhi said.
Kas had, shamefully, almost forgotten about that. She gave a quick nod. Zhi’s face went tight.
“Did he . . . was it bad?”
Kas wondered if she should lie. Instead she gave another small nod.
“Slagging bastards,” Zhi muttered. “He was just . . . fuck. He didn’t deserve any of this. Much less . . .”
“I’m sorry,” Kas said. “I only knew him a little bit, but he seemed like . . . a good person.”
“If he hadn’t helped me, he’d still be alive,” Zhi said.
“He wanted you to make this work,” Kas said. “I know that much.”
“Yeah.” Zhi blew out a breath. “Okay. I don’t think those bastards sent a runner back after they found me, which means there ’ent going to be anybody coming after them yet. I’ll give it a while, then check the hangar. If there ’ent no goons waiting, then plan’s the same as before. Finish up Alpha Zero, take him up to the fight tomorrow, win.”
“If the House is after you,” Kas said, “if they’re willing to do . . . all this, then won’t they kill you tomorrow once they realize who you are?”
“They ’ent likely to want to with all you off-worlders watching,” Zhi said. “Bad for business, yeah? And I’ll have Alpha Zero. They’re welcome to