In motion? Maybe they have found the killer. Good. Oh, that would be so good. And bad.

“On screen, Ragtime,” says Shell. She fires up her IFC display and the video appears. She broadcasts it to Salvo and Fin.

“What in the name of all the Heresies…?” says Fin.

It’s the wolf, the same one that Shell woke up to, loping down the walkway with limbs showing a slight splay in the rotational gravity, snout low, unperturbed. At least the ship and the others can see it too, meaning it is real, not a hallucination, and that it is a real problem.

“I’ve seen it before,” says Shell.

“And you didn’t think to mention a pet wolf loose on your ship?” says Fin. He sounds incredulous, and Shell can’t blame him.

“It does rather change the parameters of our work, Captain,” says Salvo.

“I thought it was just in my mind. Astronauts… spacepeople, as you call us… we don’t like to admit when our minds play tricks on us. Sometimes it means we don’t get to go into the Brink any more. Sometimes it means extensive testing. I don’t have the time for that here.”

“Captain, I disagree. This is the precise time we need to know if you’re going crazy,” says Fin.

“Well, I’m not, so it’s academic,” says Shell.

Fin shakes his head. “We don’t know that, and it isn’t academic. It means something else might be wrong with you as we speak, and you’d hide it.”

“You’re working yourself up to another apology, repatriator.”

“And you’re working yourself up to more dead passengers. I don’t want to be dead. Don’t endanger us, Captain.”

“Can I just point out that we have a wolf on board and we have to capture it?” says Salvo.

“Do you think it savaged the passengers?” asks Shell.

“Negative. No bite marks, no shredding, no tearing. Just cutting,” says Salvo. “The robots did the cutting. But we need to isolate the wolf so that it does not interfere with the search for the body p— the missing people.”

“Fine. Let’s go get the wolf,” says Shell.

“That sounds like a good idea. Where are your weapons?” asks Fin.

Shell blinks. “Weapons?”

The cowboys brought weapons, of course – something that would never have occurred to Shell. There is no conflict in spacecrafts; at least, not among crew. There’s a lot of tension, sometimes sexual, and being alone in space, especially when the Earth is no longer visible outside the cupola, brings its own stresses.

Space wants to kill you always, Shell. Never forget that.