“He had a right to be paranoid.” I can’t help it; I touch the smooth skin behind my left ear, remembering the way Orion had scratched his skin in the video. What did it take for him to dig deeper into his skin, to rip the wires from his own flesh? I glance at the wi-com encircling my wrist and swallow back bile at the thought of how it was those wires, dripping in gore and blood, and . . . ew.

“It’s weird, though.” I pause, thinking. “All the rest of the videos have been on that mem card thing. This one was already loaded on a floppy, sitting in the armory. None of the other ones had text. And none of the other ones were that old. That video was made just before Orion faked his own death. Maybe someone, I don’t know, messed with it.”

“Maybe. Maybe not.” Elder frowns at the video. “Look, I get that Orion made these vids for you, and you feel like you have to solve his frexing riddle. But we’re going to have to figure out how to live on this ship without whatever stupid message he left for us.” He runs his fingers through his hair. He usually does this when he’s thinking, but there’s anger in the way he does it now, as if he’s only doing it to stop himself from punching something. “We have serious problems to deal with—and this was just a frexing waste of time. The engine isn’t going to fix itself. Orion’s just distracting us from the real problems.”

I bite my lip. Orion didn’t leave a message for us; he left it for me. And it was something about getting off the ship, I know it. The key to fixing the engine, the reason for the delay—something. Something important.

Besides. How much longer can we go on like this?

“Hold on,” Elder growls, and then turns away from me, jabbing his wi-com button on the side of his neck with such force that it looks like it hurts. He speaks in a low voice for a moment, then shouts, “What?!”

“What is it?” I ask softly, putting my hand on his arm.

Elder jerks away from me. “What?” he says again into the wi-com. “I’ll be right there.” He presses the button behind his ear again and glances at me before taking off down the hallway toward the elevators. “I’ve got to go,” he says.

“Why? What’s wrong?” I have to jog to catch up. “Elder, what’s wrong?”

“Bartie’s causing more trouble.” Elder slams his fist into the elevator call button. “I can’t waste my time with this anymore,” he says.

“It’s not a waste,” I say softly.