She sent him an all-too-brief update—that she’d had no luck and asking if he had any other suggestions. Despite her exhaustion, she struggled to stay still. There had to be somewhere else she could look, something she could do while she waited for Evan’s next instructions. She was doing this to make sure she could trust Valerie past the warp ring and once they were on the new planet. Naomi didn’t want to doubt her. She needed to know that Valerie did plan to work with Earth once they landed, to make sure Cavendish started with peace and prosperity, like she claimed she wanted. They were on the same side, weren’t they?

Hart came to check up on Naomi just before dinner, asking how she was feeling. Hart had her own circles under her eyes. Sleep hadn’t been kind to her, either.

Naomi told her about her attempts to crack Valerie’s files. She didn’t mention Evan and that they could speak directly. She trusted Hart more than anyone else on board, but she was already risking too much.

“I’m going down in the storage bay,” Naomi said. “I need another lamp anyway. Going to have a look around.” Her neck was stiff.

Hart read between the words. “You haven’t been down there since they were defrosted, have you?”

Naomi gave a sharp jerk of her head. She’d successfully bypassed it when they’d gone down to the bridge for the jump.

“I’ve been avoiding it too. Think we all have, to be honest. I need a few things for the med bay. Let’s go down together?”

The muscles at the base of her neck loosened. “Sure.”

Their steps on the ladder of the spoke echoed until they could rappel themselves down the last section in microgravity free fall. Naomi peered into the window of the door to the storage bay, steeling herself. No one was on the bridge, the ship set to autopilot until Hixon came down to check on it in an hour or so. Naomi pushed open the door, sliding through.

It all looked much the same, save for the lack of the blue glow of the pods. Cole’s empty pod was closest to her. She still wished she could have done more, but it was on Lockwood for putting them on board in the first place. All systems were functioning smoothly since the last power surge, at least. No unexpected surprises.