“It’s a glitch,” Ratthi said. He grimaced, studying the displays in his feed. “It’s wiped out all the markers on this side.”

So that was how I spent the rest of the morning, shooing humans away from hazard markers they couldn’t see, while Pin-Lee cursed a lot and tried to get the mapping scanner to work. “I’m beginning to think these missing sections are just a mapping error,” Ratthi said at one point, panting. He had walked into what they called a hot mud pit and I’d had to pull him out. We were both covered with acidic mud to the waist.

“You think?” Pin-Lee answered tiredly.

When Mensah told us to head back to the hopper, it was a relief all around.

* * *

We got back to the habitat with no problems, which felt like it was starting to become an unusual occurrence. The humans went to analyze their data, and I went to hide in the ready room, check the security feeds, and then lie in my cubicle and watch media for a while.

I’d just done another perimeter walk and checked the drones, when the feed informed me that HubSystem had updates from the satellite and there was a package for me. I have a trick where I make HubSystem think I received it and then just put it in external storage. I don’t do automated package updates anymore, now that I don’t have to. When I felt like it, presumably sometime before it was time to leave the planet, I’d go through the update and apply the parts I wanted and delete the rest.

It was a typical, boring day, in other words. If Bharadwaj wasn’t still recuperating in Medical, you could almost forget what had happened. But at the end of the day cycle, Dr. Mensah called me again and said, “I think we have a problem. We can’t contact DeltFall Group.”

* * *

I went to the crew hub where Mensah and all the others were. They had pulled up the maps and scans of where we were versus where DeltFall was, and the curve of the planet hung glittering in the air in the big display. When I got there, Mensah was saying, “I’ve checked the big hopper’s specs and we can make it there and back without a recharge.”

I had my helmet plate opaqued, so I could wince a lot without any of them knowing.

“You don’t think they’ll let us recharge at their habitat?” Arada asked, then looked around when the others stared at her. “What?” she demanded.

Overse put an arm around her and squeezed her shoulder. “If they aren’t answering our calls, they might be hurt, or their habitat is damaged,” she said. As a couple, they were always so nice to each other. The whole group had been remarkably drama-free so far, which I appreciated. The last few contracts had been like being an involuntary bystander in one of the entertainment feed’s multi-partner relationship serials except I’d hated the whole cast.