At the thought a tickle ran through his fingers, and he lifted them. In the overhead light, they had a greenish hue. Sort of like they’d been stained with stuff from the hydroponics tank.

More than anything, though, he was lonely. All of his life had been spent with people. Either crowded into the quarters on Crew Deck, or here with Sheena, Felicity, Tomaya, and the rest of the children. When he wasn’t with them, he was with Mother and Father, or one of the adults. Being alone was space scuz. It made him half-sad, half-desperate.

If it wasn’t for the Voice, he’d have cried, kicked at the door, and screamed to be let out. Somehow, with the Voice’s calm reassurance inside him, this wasn’t so bad. As visions of drifting in water and light filled him, he could just let himself go.

Before his new hearing, he’d never have been able to discern the sound: tapping on the door pad as someone entered the code interrupted his dreamy eternity of water.

The lock clicked, and the handle turned before the door swung open.

Sheena and Felicity stood there. Both were naked, feet bare. The first thing Felix noticed was that Sheena was covered with blood spray. And he fixed on Felicity’s swollen neck, and the two red streaks just up from her collarbone. Sheena, too, had the swelling, and only the faintest hint of a red line above her right collarbone. Somehow he knew that she’d get one on her left, too.

Felicity’s eyes were vacant, and she was softly singing, “Gabarron has fallen down, fallen down.”

“Come on,” Sheena called. “The grownups are in the cafeteria trying to decide what to do.”

“I’m in trouble. I’m supposed to stay locked in here.”

“We know,” Felicity told him as she broke off from the song, her voice slightly hoarse. “But the Song says we need you. You know which monitor controls the cameras in the com center.”

“You’re all bloody,” Felix told Sheena.

She looked down, blinked, and with a shrug, started down the hall.

Felix climbed to his feet and stalked out into the hallway; he mechanically took Sheena’s hand, feeling how sweaty it was. How his own began to perspire. Felicity took his other hand, their grips wet and clammy. Just holding hands, feeling the touch, was almost electric. Sheena and Felicity had joined hands. For long moments they stood there, the three of them, holding hands and just feeling . . . good.

And then better . . . and better.

The Song was louder now that he was out of the room. He could hear it, welling up from the stairs, rising from the Underwater Bay. Could feel the presence building, sending the Song through the very walls of the Pod.

“It’s the Song,” Felicity told him. “It tells us what to do.”