Rix ships do not have pilots. They steer themselves, and the lithe, middleweight ship AIs are regarded by their commandos with deep respect, as martyr-handmaids who have sacrificed union with the scintillating vastness of compound minds to raise and carry their servants in the barren emptiness between planetary archipelagos, cool-voiced noble mothers. So m"ra was never a pilot.

But she had an interest in the art of it, trajectories and navigation and gravity adjustments, and she was allowed to observe when she was not occupied with other training, the subtleties of it explained to her beyond the math and mechanics they were all expected to absorb. They do not all drop together; they are not all in close enough range to risk broadcasting, despite the incompatibility of Rix and Imperial primary systems. But m"ra knows the foibles of the drop pods, and she knows her sister's instincts and needs.

She seduces the hair off someone before leaving the byzantine tower she landed in, literally: she likes the look of the girl's hair, dark and thick, and likes the way she walks, a half-floating sway, the looseness of recreational blood toxicity and sharp little bounce of thrill-seeking. M"ra provides, presses her up against a wall, growls and purrs in her throat while moderating the clicks and buzzes to the subaudible range, twists a hand in that luscious hair. A little vibraknife from the girl's own pocket hums a fraction of a millimeter from her skin as m"ra undulates and croons, promises delicately not to bleed her, reassuring and teasing in the same breath. Her heart hums. By the time she does it, the girl is begging to be shorn, along with anything else m"ra wants. The girl shakes apart without ever seeing her face, licks m"ra's fingers clean while her other hand returns the knife to its pocket and tucks the gathered hair away. A trophy, she says, a token to remember you by forever. A good memory from a wild youth, if her planet survives the coming reckoning: romantics are the same in every star system.

She when the gel is set, thirty-two floors below, she spreads the wig over her scalp, shakes her new locks playfully. Then she steals someone's magcar and begins a fierce, meticulously winding course through Home's madcap travel lanes. Her sense of direction is perfect, of course, once she adjusts to the constant monoorientation of planetary gravity. She finds Mal nearly as quickly as she'd hoped, and considers it a personal victory. Perhaps a good omen. She slides up and pops the door of the sleek transport, catches Mal's eye with a tiny grin of her own.