Miles is heartened by his older self's unquestioning faith in his own judgment, a weird kind of self-validation he's never been able to achieve with any certainty before. Not like this. God, this is weird, but not entirely terrible. And when they're not screaming at each other, it seems like they could work together pretty well. His grin broadens, his gaze going fond.

"Yep, that's Zam," he says brightly. "An alien bounty hunter in her world, and apparently a damned good one. But, ah, also dead, so sort of out of a job. I asked her if she'd ever thought of doing long-term contract work. It took a while to convince her, but I promised to assign her to Bel's ship." He lets out a laugh. "Can you imagine the miracle work we could pull off? Shit, just imagine Simon's reaction."