Talina started forward. She placed each booted step with care, her rifle at the ready. The chime rose and fell, seemed to mock her with its slightly atonal symphony.

She approached the dome warily. The door was closed and latched as it should have been. No one left a door open on Donovan. Well, all but that bem’s ass, Weisbacher. That was another reason Talina should have shot him.

She turned the latch, heard the locking bolt retract, and swung the door open. The scent of mold and mildew caused her nose to crinkle. Stepping inside, she swept the room with the muzzle of her rifle, seeing a couple of workbenches along the dome’s curve, a couch, table, a large desk shoved against the back wall, shelving, and cabinets on the right. The left side of the room sported a table and chairs, kitchen on the back wall, a cooler that was still humming—which was good—and floor-to-ceiling cabinets. Old throw rugs covered the duraplast floor.

Nothing had changed since the last time she was here.

Talina took her time searching the room, encouraged by the lack of invertebrates. If the little creatures hadn’t managed to get in, chances were that bigger ones, like slugs and sidewinders, hadn’t either.

Entering the central hallway, she opened the bathroom door to find a two-stall shower, twin toilets, a urinal, two sinks, and mold-speckled mirrors. The once-white walls were splotched with patterns of green mold. The room had a peculiar odor that she had no hesitation about locking away again behind the closed door. Across from the bathroom, the usual storage room had cleaning supplies, garden tools, some sample bags, empty buckets, a utility tool chest, and tarps.

Finally, she opened the door to the sleeping quarters. This consisted of the back third of the dome. All the closets on the partition wall gaped empty. Five beds were aligned in a radial pattern, their heads against the dome’s curving exterior wall. A small nightstand stood by each.

The beds were just that. Mattresses on frames. No blankets or pillows.

“Maybe we should travel on to Rork Springs,” she told herself. “This place is pretty pathetic.”

Closing all the doors behind her, she walked back out to the aircar where Dek was muttering to himself, gaze dissociated. “You don’t want to make me do that, Tabo. That’s demeaning, and I won’t stoop to it. Don’t need to be a man who . . .” The words melted into an incomprehensible mumbling. Dek’s hands clenched and unclenched on his rifle’s stock.

Talina looked around, studied the clouds that formed against the implacable mountain wall in a solid bank of cumulus. Their gleaming white surfaces contrasted to the gray-cotton depths inside. Where they billowed against the rugged and vertical slopes, steamers of rain skirted the bottoms.