"A long time. It's hard to guess the number, but longer than you. Longer than Carata? Maybe." That one would go either way. He'd been away and then she'd been away and when they'd next been on the Station together, it was hard to say who'd come first or who'd been away longer. The frustration of that - or some echo of her own - sparks hot for a moment for it, mingled with something wild and anxious: a captive bird rattling the bars of a cage, a brief bright burst of something sharp and flinching.

"Anyway." He lapses, cedes. Like a wave breaking, the tension ekes out of him. He raises his hands and the puzzle block hologram flickers to life again. "What do you want?"