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Then the crashing stops, and the panting gives way to speech: "Let’s see you co both pistol and tablet, juggling rab them It’d be funny, if you couldn’t tell fro visibly even in that too-big hazain: "Where next? What’s that? Nothing to say?"

And now, a different kind of stillness She knows that voice She’s heard it a handful of times before She eases away fro up toward the speaker

[Cut in footage, no available functioning intellica hefts the axe--the saency fire supplies cupboard where he hid, trey in his earlier strokes; life support, gravity,the Alexander to set the Hypatia free But now he’s frenzied Tubby, sweating through his filthy Hypatia uniform, he’s no athlete, but a fountain of sparks spews fro, and prepares to swing again

She steps forward "Byron!"

And then they both freeze She, no doubt because she’s just realized the monumental stupidity of what she’s done He, because of all the things he ht have expected to see, surely this is the very last For ten long seconds they stare at each other, paralyzed, waiting

He’s the one to break the silence, staring at the clear screen on her hel of thirst and she’s an oasis he desperately wants to be real

"Kady?" It’s a whisper Pleading

"It’s you," she whispers in reply Then her tone shifts by degrees to sehter: "Do you have any idea how odda it up like a trophy "I’ AIDAN out one piece at a tirara You’re crazy"

"And I’ Its self-repair syste to save the Hypatia They’ll build monuments to my name" He lifts his chin and strikes a pose "I think they should include the axe, don’t you?"

"Sure, sure" The relief is still overwhelet out of here I have a shuttle Ezra’s nearby, they can quarantine you aboard the Hypatia I thought I was never going to see you again I thought you’d be dead, or sick, by now"

"I’ve been hiding," he replies, stepping back to look the nearest server tower up and down "I can’t go yet, there’s a lot to do before we can be sure AIDAN is dead I’ve ht now it can’t see whole chunks of itself, but it’s still brilliant Give it enough time, it could think of some way to come back"

"Come to the Hypatia, we’llsoon AIDAN can revive itself if it wants, maybe it’ll even slow up the Lincoln"

"I have to kill it," he insists, cal at the wrecked and twisted metal before him

"Byron--"

"And then I have to kill you, Kady"

Silence Does not compute