Clarke looked at him. How can you say that? she wondered. How can you just act as though there's nothing wrong? Don't you know you're dying?

But of course he probably didn't. If Phocoena couldn't cure him, at least it wasn't letting him suffer: it kept his fluids up, gagged internal alarms, soothed nerves when they burned with fever or nausea. And it wasn't just ßehemoth's ravages that the medbed would have swept under the rug. Ricketts's whole life must have been an ongoing litany of low-level discomfort, chronic infections, parasite loads, old injuries badly healed. All those baseline aches and pains would be gone too, as far as this boy could tell. He probably felt better than he had in years. He probably thought his weakness would pass, that he was actually getting better.

The only way he'd know otherwise would be if Lenie Clarke told him the truth.

She turned from the cycler and climbed forward into the cockpit. Systems telltales winked and wriggled under the dark crystal of the pilot's dash. There was something vaguely off about those readouts, something Clarke couldn't quite—

"It's so clean in here," Ricketts said.

He wasn't in VR. He wasn't playing games.

He'd hacked into nav.

She straightened so fast her head cracked against the overhead viewport. "What are you doing in there? That's not—"

"There's no wildlife at all," he went on, amazed. "Not even, like, a worm, far as I can tell. And everything's so, so..." he fell silent, groping for the word.

She was back at his cage. Ricketts lay staring at Phocoena's pristine datascape, emaciated, anesthetized, lost in wonder.

"Whole," he said at last.

She reached out. The membrane tugged gently at her fingertips, webbed her fingers, stretched back along her forearm. She briefly touched his shoulder. His head rolled in her direction, not so much an act of will as of gravity.

"How are you doing that?" she asked.

"Doing...? Oh. Saccadal keyboard. You know. Eye movements." He smiled weakly. "Easier'n the handpad."

"No, I mean, how did you get into Phocoena?"

"Wasn't I supposed to?" He pushed the eyephones up on a forehead beaded with sweat and stared, frowning. He seemed to be having trouble focusing on her. "You said I could use the onboard."

"I meant games."

"Oh," Ricketts said. "I don't really...you know, I didn't..."

"It's okay," she told him.

"I was just looking around. Didn't rewrite anything. It's not like there was security or, you know." Then added, a moment later, "Hardly any."

Clarke shook her head. Ken would kill me if he knew I'd let this kid in. He'd at least kick my ass for not putting a few passwords in place.

Something scratched at the back of her mind, something Ricketts had just said. You said I could use the onboard. I was just looking around. I didn't rewrite any—

"Wait a second," she said, "Are you saying you could rewrite the nav code if you wanted to?"