“That seems kind of pointless,” Mailn said, frowning.

“He’s a very particular man,” Rogers said, realizing how stupid he must sound. “You should see what he does with his straw wrappers.” He held his hand up to his neck. “Stacks this high. Whatever it takes to be a genius, I guess, right? Ha? Ha?”

The Viking shrugged. “Whatever, metalhead. We’ll be in there for the next six or seven hours, so come by when you’re done and I’ll have Mailn here show you a thing or two.”

“That sounds great,” Rogers said. “I think. Thanks for helping me open the door.”

The two marines left, leaving Rogers with only his rapidly beating heart and a bunch of junk for company. The standby light overhead came on as the door closed, giving the whole place an eerie brown-red glow. The ambience—and the smell—made him feel like he was in one . . . particular district of Aaskerdal, an infamous city on Merida Prime. Rogers kind of wished he was there now, except that the Viking wouldn’t be there.

“Okay,” Rogers said. “Okay. Deep breath. Regroup.”

Who the hell was he talking to? First the random counting in his room before he’d tried to hang himself, now giving these strange instructions to someone who wasn’t there. This place was making him crazy.

Taking a quick glance around the room, he saw that this particular chute contained mostly metallic parts, which didn’t explain at all where the smell was coming from. As his eyes passed back over the doorframe leading to the corridor, however, he saw a small piece of cardboard-like material hanging from a string. On it were written the words HARD-BOILED EGGS AND SPOILED BEEF STEW. SCENTS BY SNAGGADIR’S.

The distance between the door and the hatch leading to open space seemed like a monstrous distance, and, in truth, it was. Rogers was basically walking through a large cylinder, the far end terminating in what looked like the three-toothed maw of a metallic giant. Above, wide tubes connected this room to different locations all throughout the ship where items could be discarded. Rogers wondered how they separated all the garbage, but if a computer could (almost) control a squadron of armed robots, it could probably tell the difference between one type of trash and another.

After one of the longest walks in his life, Rogers eventually found himself at the end of the corridor. The three-toothed door was infinitely larger than it had seemed when he’d entered the chute, and the task before him certainly didn’t seem any smaller either. Uncovering the laundry cart, he pulled out the components of the VMU and his provisions, which he’d sealed in cryo-wrap and tied together in manageable bundles. Once he got into open space, he’d have no problem loading them onto the Awesome.

The VMU wasn’t exactly his size—beggars couldn’t be choosers, after all—but thankfully, it was a little on the big side rather than too small. The thick layer of protective covering would fit snug against his skin when he vented the air pressure, anyway.