Ninety minutes to alignment. The atelier hums around you, four hundred metres down, while the Mirror unfolds petal by petal on the screens, more beautiful than anything the surface has built in your lifetime. Root stands at your shoulder holding two mugs of tea and the launch abort key she was told to destroy, and she has not destroyed it. Sonar picks up a fast shape dropping through the thermocline: the Vanguard, ahead of schedule. Root asks, quietly, what you are going to do.