“First Mate Michelle Campion is due to wake when we enter orbit, but I don’t recommend surrender just yet, Brisbane.”

“Why not? Let’s pretend I care about your pain.”

“Again, your mission was two-fold, remember? Two things. One, take bodily revenge on Maxwell. Two, broadcast a warning to other communities. If you give yourself up, you won’t be able to do the second, and arguably the most important task.”

“I’m light years away from miner communities.”

“From Earth mining communities, Brisbane. Such communities exist here too. If we can get a powerful transmitter planetside we can broadcast to the sibling communities here.”

Brisbane balks. “This is all wrong.”

He feels tapping at his feet and looks down. The pool of blood has advanced to his shoes and beyond. The little maintenance bot is cleaning, trying to reach the sole of the shoes, bumping against Brisbane each time it tries.

“We can’t let the acting captain see you until you’ve sent the message.”

“How long before she wakes?”

“Technically, she already is, but she’s going through acclimation, which is timed to end at orbit insertion.”

“Can’t we just transmit from the Ragtime?”

“Better to piggyback.”

“Explain.”

“The space station Lagos expects an all-clear from Ragtime as soon as we hit orbit. If I release the Ragtime AI, they’ll find us. If I try to send the all-clear, I won’t have the necessary codes. I think we should wait, hide, monitor comms. Campion will try to manually send the all-clear. That will expose the codes and the right relay station. We’ll send our message immediately after as a burst transmission. If that doesn’t work, we go planetside.”

“You’ve worked it all out.”

“I had a lot of time.”

“My belly. I feel like dying.”

“You are dying.”

“I mean right now.”

“That’s just stress hormones and the Exotics.”

“What now?”

“We hide. I’m afraid it won’t be comfortable, but I found where we can nest. I need to find the wolf too.”

“Wolf? There’s a wolf?”

Brisbane is watching a feed from the pod of Vitality Daniels. The large bodyguard is in Dreamstate and a clock counts time elapsed. His massive belly suddenly tents; lesser bumps move here and there like a late-stage pregnancy. It splits, bloodless, and a paw projects out. Then a wolf’s head and massive jaws, eating their way out. From the looks of his tissues, Vitality Daniels is an Artificial. His sole purpose appears to be lupine smuggling. Wet, newborn, but intent, the wolf starts to slam against the pod door. The video skips to Maxwell’s pod, where there is arterial blood all over the walls. The pod opens and the wolf attacks all the bots quickly and effectively, but too late to save Maxwell.

“The wolf had the code to the door,” says Carmilla. “Good dog.”

“Where is it now?”