How long had the Valerie Naomi thought she knew been a lie? The woman who had hugged her in the storage bay had seemed warm, and kind, but in the next breath she’d pulled the plug on five people who would have survived if she hadn’t tampered with the cryo in the first place. The woman who had risked everything to grant Naomi the abortion. If the doctor had sold her out, Valerie would have been ruined. Lost her company, been even more vilified by the media. They would have crucified her. Yet she’d still risked it. Had that been a lie?

Valerie had bandaged her cuts and bruises over the years. She hadn’t pushed her when she couldn’t speak after the fire from the trauma. How could that woman bring about the end of the world?

Naomi needed a weapon that could incapacitate but not cause permanent damage. Lebedeva had taken away the bleach. Come on, come on. There had to be something here. Something simple.

She paused, staring at the crops. The newest tomato plants were flowering nicely, but her eyes snagged on the plants to the left of them. Chillies. She’d harvested and dried plenty of them already, to add spice to their meals. Most were in the kitchen, but—

She forced herself to walk to her desk calmly, as if her heart wasn’t racing. She opened the middle drawer. It was low enough Valerie wouldn’t be able to have a clear view from the comms panel. There was a little container of relatively fresh chillies.

She put them in the back of the dehydrator for the algae when she prepped the next crop. She lay down and waited until the middle of the night, when she was reasonably sure Valerie would be asleep, before she crept back to check the chillies were dry enough. She stayed low, finding a good angle behind the glowing, purple algae tubes. She ground the chillies in a mortar and pestle she’d mostly used for cracking seeds or grinding their precious store of spices so far.

Soon, she had a few tablespoons of chilli powder. She submerged it in some rubbing alcohol usually used for cleaning beakers and algae equipment and stirred it vigorously. She resisted the urge to look furtively over her shoulder at the comms panel. She had no way of knowing if it was on or not. Either Valerie would see and suspect something and send Lebedeva to be her muscle, or she wouldn’t.