The ride back was not clean. Time broke around him in hard, unstable flashes. Sky. Darkness. A plain of ice. A violent blur of green-black storm over a sea. Light so bright it erased shape. Then towers of some age too quick to read, gone before his eyes could hold them. The machine bucked under him. Each jolt drove pain through his side and shook his lungs until he coughed helplessly over the rail.

He kept one hand on the brake, one on the frame, speaking to the machine through gritted teeth as if old habit could steady old metal.

Elias spoke through gritted teeth, one hand on the brake and one on the frame. "Hold. Hold together. Not far now. Not now."

The return marker drifted once, snapped back, drifted again. Elias corrected with small movements, terrified of overdriving the linkage and sending the machine skidding past the target. The chamber he wanted existed now in his mind with perfect detail: white walls, red bars, Mara's face, the smell of hot wiring and smoke. He aimed at that memory as if aiming could matter.

The machine hit reentry hard.

The archive chamber smashed back around him in red-lit fragments that took a second to lock into sense. The platform lurched. Elias slammed the brake and nearly pitched forward off the saddle. His boots hit the floor badly. Pain dropped him to one knee.

The machine behind him gave a harsh grinding whine, then settled into a rough, uneven hum.

Mara caught his shoulder as he lurched and said, "Elias."