She wished she could, but she had her hands full with the Wadi. The thing had gone bonkers on her, trying everything it could to get away. It practically swam through her hands, pushing forward with uncommon strength. Molly had to keep her arms in motion, reaching forward over and over as if climbing a rope while the Wadi slid ever forward. It was like trying to create an infinitely long tunnel, one section at a time, but the damn thing was running faster than she could keep up.

“Hold still,” she hissed at it, but for once it didn’t seem to heed her voice. A loud bang rang out, breaking her concentration. Molly looked up, expecting the sheriff to be on the floor, but the deputy had just slammed a metal shutter down over one of the windows. He crossed to the other one while both guns maintained their vigilance on one another.

“I always scratched my head over your transfer,” the sheriff said. “Couldn’t reckon why someone’d leave a cushy spot at immigrations for all the political nonsense this job comes with. That shuttle that went up this morning, it’s tied up in this somehow, isn’t it?”

“You’ve got three seconds to put on those handcuffs, old man.”

“You think I’m scared of that gun? That’s my gun. You think I’m scared of death? You think that’s why I sit in here and read the funnies?”

“Three.”

“Son, you don’t know half of what I seen in my day. Or why it depresses me to see what’s come of this place.”

“Two. I mean it, sir. I will shoot you.” The other shutter lowered with a bang, startling Molly even as she watched it happen and had anticipated the noise.

“Ain’t my stomach that’s weak, boy, it’s my heart. It done broke long before you came around. That bullet can’t stop what ain’t there.”

“I’m sorry,” the deputy said. He pulled up his gun as the sheriff lowered his own. “One—” he said, looking away.

“NO!” Molly yelled. She leaned against the bars and pressed both arms through them as far as they would go. A shot rang out, and so did a Wadi. The latter aimed true, even as the former went wide, the deputy startled by Molly’s voice, or perhaps by the flash of movement heading his way, or maybe even some internal weakness.

The next scream came from the deputy as a shimmering blur wrapped itself around his neck. Only . . . the Wadi didn’t seem intent on making herself at home there. Unless, of course, making a home required some grisly form of burrowing.

“Drenards in hyperspace,” the prisoner said. “What the flank is that?”