It isn't often that Ari sees this level of decay, the kind that results from long abandonment. Most colonies are new, relatively speaking, and those that fail do so hard, and quickly. She smells blood. She walks cautiously, alert, as if anticipating a threat. Well-trained spacer that she is, her precautions even extend to looking upwards. The people who died here didn't die recently, but the deaths were sudden, she surmises. The little piles of bleached-white bone are unnerving. Whose life is this? Who could live in such a place?

She soon has her answer. Palamedes Sextus, the Master Warden. Ari Tayrey peers through the door, standing beside the auburn-haired woman. She listens to Palamedes, and the sickly-looking young woman on the couch. Ari hasn't the context to make sense of it. When what started?

Eight is perilously young to let anything start, even by Tradeline standards, especially if it carries risk of death. She resolves to ask him about it, someday. Not today. Today she has to deal with him as he is. Ari tries to step forward, into the room, but some invisible force rebuffs her. She takes two quick steps back, her hand reaching towards her gun. She glances towards the woman in black, as if seeking some explanation.