Mercy had sat and talked for a long time, a conversation that the others had more or less left them to have, instead preferring to go and sit with the children under the observation dome playing Snap and other card games. Freya, after assuring herself that the kids and grownups alike weren’t going to hurt themselves, at least nothing beyond paper cuts, had headed into the engine room to put her homework to the practical test, and every so often they’d hear a Chinese swear word drift down the corridor.

It made Bethie giggle and Ethan roll his eyes, looking very like his father.

Much of the conversation at the table revolved around equality, how it worked, why it worked, although one of Mercy’s questions gave Zoe pause.

“I … I need to know why you’re here.” Mercy looked around the kitchen, at the three men sitting in the rest area with the children on their laps, the flowers painted along the pipes. “You’re not even from this planet, and you won’t be staying, will you?”

“Do you want me to be honest?”

“Yes. I think it would make a nice change on Jericho.”

Zoe’s lips twitched. “I suppose it would.” She took a deep breath, knowing the conversation had stalled under the dome, as if they were waiting for her answer. “Then in honesty, you’re right, Mercy. We landed here because we needed a part, and got caught up by accident.”

“Then why did you set yourself up as a candidate?”

“Can’t it be because I see a need?”

“There is that, but it’s not an answer.”

Zoe knew she couldn’t say. Any hint of illegal activities would bring the Alliance down on them, and at the moment they were like sitting, landlocked ducks. But to lie outright, no matter the provocation … better to skirt around it. “Maybe I was being frivolous, least at first. Giving myself something to do while we waited. But that was before I saw the way things are done here on Jericho.” She suppressed a shudder at using the phrase herself. “I don’t expect to win, but maybe I can shake things up a little.”

Mercy smothered