Three said calmly, “Ve’s right. Whatever value anyone puts on my life … if Mosala becomes the Keystone, we all die anyway. If you’re trying to save her, you’ve got nothing to trade – because whatever you threaten, it’s forfeit either way.”

I glanced up toward the deck; I could still hear them arguing. But if they had enough faith in their cosmology to kill Mosala – and to trash their own lives and become self-righteous fugitives, hiding out in rural Mongolia or Turkistan without so much as a share of the media rights … the threat of one more death was not going to dent their conviction.

I said, “I think your work is in urgent need of peer review.”

I handed Kuwale the gun, then took off my shirt and tied it around the top of vis leg. I’d stopped bleeding, myself; the ruptured sealant tissue was oozing a colorless balm of antibiotics and coagulants.

I returned to the utilities panel and plugged myself in again. Independent of the main computer, the emergency system couldn’t be shut down; I repeated the mayday, then fired the flares. I heard three loud hisses of expanding gas – and then a merciless actinic glare began to spread down the far wall, displacing the soft dawn light. The brown patina of algal stains had never been clearer – but it lost its camouflage value completely: the edges of another recessed compartment appeared, the gap around the protective cover starkly etched in black. I looked inside; there were two large buttons, just as I’d suspected – and an emergency air supply as well. On close inspection, the faintest hint of a cryptic logo – incomprehensible across all languages and cultures – showed through the stains on the compartment’s door.

The conversation above had fallen silent. I was just hoping they wouldn’t panic, and rush us.

Three seemed tempted to say something disparaging, but he kept his mouth shut. He eyed Kuwale nervously; maybe he’d decided that ve was the real fanatic who wanted the unraveling , and I’d merely been duped into helping ver.

The flare rose toward the zenith, its light filling the hold. I said, “I don’t understand. How do you get to the point where you’re ready to kill an innocent woman – just because some computer tells you she can bring on Armageddon?” Three mimed indifference in the presence of fools. I said, “So you found a theory that could swallow any TOE. A system that could out-explain any kind of physics. But don’t kid yourself: it’s not science. You might as well have stumbled on some way to add up the gematria numbers of ‘Mosala’ to get 666.”

Three said mildly, “Ask Kuwale if it’s all cabalistic gibberish. Ask ver about Kinshasa in ’43.”

“What?”

“That’s just … apocryphal bullshit.” Kuwale was drenched in sweat, and showing signs of going into shock. I took the gun, and ve went to sit against the wall.