They all shook their heads.

“Yeah, thought so. It’s tough. I’ll bet none of you picture yourselves as cold-blooded killers, but you’re going to have to come to peace with that before we touch down. The Cymics in human form will look like whoever their host is—whether it’s a disabled person, a pregnant woman, or even a child. They might beg. They might cry. But you can’t show them so much as a second of mercy. As soon as they have the upper hand, they’ll kill you without a second’s hesitation.”

Elle was blanched white and shivering. Mitzi felt pity tug at her. If there was any one person not suited to this expedition, it was the girl hugging her chest and blinking back tears. Mitzi wondered how angry Central would be if she left Elle behind on the ship. Probably very. Screw them, though.

“You said there was a third form?” Franc asked after a moment. He had his long, knobbly fingers clasped.

“Yeah, we call it merged. It’s where the parasite comes halfway out of its skin. You’ve got the deadliness of the native form, but the perception and shock value of the human form. Being merged makes the Cymic slower and more clumsy than if it was completely native, but it lets it use its human skin to see and hear you, and even talk to you. I wasn’t able to find any photos of what that looked like, but I hear it’s not a pretty sight.”

The storage room fell silent again. Most of Mitzi’s crew had their eyes focussed on the ground, processing the new information, though Eoin had surreptitiously pulled his book out of his pocket. Mitzi opened her mouth to tell him to put it away but decided it wouldn’t do any good. She was aware of how quickly time was getting away on her. They would be touching down soon, and she still hadn’t told them a quarter of what she needed to. They appeared disheartened again, though, and she cast around for something positive.

“Here’s a bit of good news, at least,” Mitzi said, injecting enthusiasm into her voice. “The Cymics can only get you while you’re alive. As soon as a person dies, they’re useless to the monsters. They can’t convert anything that’s dead.”

“Yay,” Adam said bleakly.

“On top of that, if someone’s in the process of being turned—that is, they’re infected, but the parasite hasn’t yet taken them over completely—they can still be killed by destroying the human brain.”

“Excuse me, Captain,” Skye said, and Mitzi nodded for her to continue. “What are we actually going to be doing?”

“Oh, for the love of—” Mitzi pressed her face into her palms. “Central didn’t tell you what the mission was?”

They all shook their heads.

“I asked everyone I could find.” Skye twisted her hands together. “They all told me it would be explained on the trip.”

“Lovely.” Mitzi’s tone was bitter, but as she looked up at her six-person crew, she found herself surprised. “So, wait—you all agreed to a job you’re phenomenally under-qualified for, where there’s a very high chance of death, and you didn’t even know what it is?”