The door hisses open, and Caine steps in to find Jupiter seated on the small bed of her personal chambers aboard the Aegis cruiser. She glances up from the sheave resting on her lap as he speaks.
"Vladie is awake."
"That's good, I suppose."
"He keeps complaining." Jupiter snorts a tight little laugh.
"Him I could have sent back to Earth." She sighs and glances out the view port into the starlit black. "I don't mean that. But I wish he wasn't here."
"We could transfer him to the Abrasax light cruiser. Stinger should have some ideas how to keep him in line."
"That doesn't seem fair, to my mother. Can you really do that?"
"Captain Tsing could send him in a shuttle."
"Best idea I've heard all day," she replies brightly. "He will get in less trouble there. Speaking of trouble," and she raises the sheave for Cain's viewing, "from that Empress that kidnapped Stinger. She's suing me for damages to her house. Can you believe that?"
"Yes," he says shortly. Jupiter glances up, then just shakes her head and sets the sheave aside, motioning to the foot of her bed where a large, dark chest rested with its lid propped open.
"I guess these things are tougher than they look," she says referring to the stack of sheaves glittering from within the chest. "Gemma was able to have most of them back together. She doesn't know if the data is OK, though." Jupiter stares at the chest and pauses thoughtfully. "The archives. What's in them?
"I've never been there. I've heard they store the ledgers of Entitleds. Millions of years of them." Jupiter looks at him with a fresh excitement.
"Are they on Orous?"
"Of course."
"And I the law demands I go back there." Caine shakes his head with a scowl and growls out his next words.
"It's a perfect place for another trap. Captain Tsing has to know that."
"Everyone expects me to go to the Hall of Aegis. So," she says rising, and places a light kiss on Caine's questioning lips, "that is the last place we will go."