After mulling over so much, Bronya felt profoundly torn. She desperately wanted to uncover the truth, yet no matter what, even if the truth turned out as she hoped—that the Stellaron was not some terrifying disaster, nor the source of planetary doom, and that these "outsiders" were merely alarmists and outright infiltrators whose arrest by her mother, the Supreme Guardian Cocolia, was entirely justified—the lives of the Underworlders still should not be this wretched.
And what if the truth wasn't like that at all? What if the one in the wrong truly, undeniably was her mother? The fallout from that would be unimaginably vast.
"Tap, tap, tap..." A steady rhythm of high heels clicking against the floor broke through Bronya's tangled thoughts. She raised her head and saw the doctor approaching.
Chapter 24