“Not . . .” His voice was slow and weak, as if he had to force each word through a heavy screen, and they had no force left when they emerged. He rolled his head back and forth, opening his eyes as wide as he could, struggling to stay conscious. She waited for him to finish the sentence, but when he finally spoke again, it was something different. “Heron . . . here.” Another pause. “Asleep.” He turned his head toward her, but his eyes were dazed and unfocused. “Find . . . it.”

“Find ‘it’?” she asked. “Find what?” She shook him, whispering urgently in his ear, but nothing roused him. He’s asleep—he told me he was asleep. And apparently Heron’s here somewhere. Kira willed herself to use the link, to detect some sign of Heron’s data anywhere in the air around her. She’d never been able to use it at will; only in combat could she actually rely on it, when her adrenaline seemed to amplify its effect. But my adrenaline’s high now, she thought. This thing with Samm has me scared to death, and I’m not detecting anything. Are the combat pheromones simply stronger—or am I just designed to detect the combat pheromones and nothing else?

She checked Samm again, his pulse and his breathing. They were normal. Now that he’d stopped fighting and settled into sleep, his body functions seemed to have normalized. She stood up, trying to figure out what she should do next—should she stay until he woke? Should she leave him here and keep going? The latter seemed like the only viable option, but she didn’t like it—what if something happened to him while she was gone? She dragged him over to the wall and propped him up on his side, his back to the wall and his front held up by a pair of desktop computer towers she pulled from nearby cubicles. He was sleeping so soundly she worried that if he threw up or drooled he’d be too inert to react, and would choke to death. This would at least keep him safe from that.

It’s almost like he’s been sedated, thought Kira. But why would someone do that to him—and how could they have done it? Did Calix slip him a drug? Why drug him and leave? She shook her head. I can ask him more when he wakes up. Right now I’m here, at the end of our search, and I don’t know how long we have before they come looking for us. And if we leave now, Samm is right, there’s no guarantee we’ll have another chance to find what we came for. I have to find the records.