CARIAD REMAINED ABOARD the Mistral during the quiet shift. Addleson allocated her one of the spare cabins. The ship contained enough to accommodate all the Guardians. Cariad wasn’t sure why, as the androids probably didn’t have any requirement for sleep or privacy. Perhaps the berths had been added in order to maintain the deception of the Guardians’ humanity, or because their creators had thought there might be a need to transport Nova Fortuna colonists somewhere. The cabin Cariad slept in seemed unused. The fact added weight to her suspicion that no Guardian had ever slept in it, though it was also possible that the ship’s invisible nanobot sanitation kept it pristine.
The next day, Cariad went to the Mistral’s shuttle bay. The starship carried two shuttles and each held forty passenger
