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breath. “It’s a risk. Letting him in is a big risk, but not letting him in might be as well.”
    “He can’t just tell you on links?” Talia asked. Her cheeks were flushed. She knew Flint had told her not to talk, but she was disobeying him.
    Only she wasn’t doing so with information about Zagrando, which Flint appreciated. And she asked a good question.
    “He said he was coming in hot,” Flint said. “That means he’s being pursued, and there’s a chance whoever is pursuing him is monitoring his communications.”
    “So they know he contacted you,” Talia said, with a touch of fear in her voice.
    “Possibly,” Flint said.
    DeRicci was still staring at Flint. As his gaze met hers, she inclined her head slightly.
    “Do you want me to contact Space Traffic?” she asked.
    “No,” Flint said. “Let me do it. If you contact them, the contact becomes official, and they’ll want to know why we’re letting in some unidentified man on an unidentified ship. If something goes wrong, you’ll get blamed.”
    She gave him a sad smile. “I’m already getting blamed for a lot of things, Miles.”
    “You don’t need this too,” he said. “Besides, I don’t want a record of this request.”
    DeRicci’s smile widened into a real smile. “You’re sneaky, Miles.”
    He smiled in return.
    Then her smile faded. “If you were going to be that sneaky, you didn’t have to tell me. You could have just done it.”
    “I considered it,” he said. “I just want you to approve—or maybe to know—that I’m going to recommend that this ship arrive at the port. We expect a third attack. This might be the beginning of it.”
    “Oh, no,” Talia said around her thumb. Flint reached over and removed her hand from her mouth. Her thumb was bleeding near the cuticle.
    DeRicci looked at Talia’s hand, then at Flint’s face. DeRicci’s expression became calm, even though Flint could tell from her body language that she wasn’t calm at all.
    “Letting this man in might also be a way to prevent the third attack,” DeRicci said, more for Talia’s benefit than for Flint’s. “You wouldn’t come to me if you thought this was going to go badly. You think this man can help us.”
    “If he is who he says he is,” Flint said. “He contacted me using an old method and he’s said the right things so far.”
    Talia clasped her hands together. Now she was biting her lower lip. Flint couldn’t look at her any longer.
    “But you’re still worried,” DeRicci said.
    He had to be honest. “I have no idea why this man was listed as dead. If he is dead, then he could have been tortured before he died, and given up all kinds of information.”
    Flint tried not to think about that, even as he said it. Because if Zagrando was dead, and they (whoever they were) had information on Flint, then they also knew about Talia.
    Talia brought her hand to her mouth, then seemed to rethink the motion and lowered her hand again.
    “But,” Flint said, “I’m clinging to the idea that someone wouldn’t contact me over something important unless I was the only contact they had on the Moon. You wouldn’t let him in with this flimsy information without my vouching for him, right?”
    The right was also for Talia’s benefit.
    “Right,” DeRicci said. “Do what you have to.”
    “Is this smart?” Talia asked.
    To Flint’s surprise, DeRicci smiled. “I don’t know,” she said. “But we have to take risks at some point. Or we’re just going to sit here and wait for the next attack. I’m tired of doing that. I want to take action, even if it is not the wisest plan.”
    Flint didn’t find that reassuring. But he wasn’t going to argue with DeRicci. In that kitchen, Flint had already come to the conclusion that he wanted this man who called himself Zagrando to arrive on the Moon.
    Flint wasn’t going to argue with DeRicci’s reasons for agreeing to it. Even if she was showing signs of fraying around the edges.
    So was everyone