Gin blanched. “She wouldn’t do that.”

“You think? She doesn’t know whether we’re still human or if we’ve been taken over. And by this point, I don’t think she cares. Remember what she said earlier? I’d rather see all of you die than let one of those beasts into my station. She’s going to make good on that threat.”

“Oh, hell,” Gin said.

Suriya’s whole body started shaking. For a brief, hopeful second, Maren thought she might be having a fit, but then she realised the commander was laughing.

Maren squeezed her eyes closed, trying to think. “If we stay here and do nothing, we’ll cook. We go out to try and stop her, and the Cymics will hear and come after us.”

“And even if we do stop her, all it does is buy us a couple extra days.” Gin slumped back, her face drawn, as she pulled a grey tasselled pillow to her chest. “We’re not going to get rescued. We’re not making it off this station.”

“We’ve—we’ve got to try.” Maren shook her head. “There’s still a chance someone will come.”

Gin pressed her forehead into the pillow. “Don’t, Maren. The odds are far too slim.” She sighed, the sound muffled by her cushion. “If it was just a choice between death and death, I’d say yeah, let’s try for those three extra days. But Maren, I’m scared. I don’t want to become… like Mark. Or Holly. I don’t want them stealing my body.”

Maren swallowed. “I don’t, either.”

Suriya finished typing then swivelled away from the bench with a happy clap. Maren remembered how Mark had moved when Holly had infected him. He’d twitched, jerked, and finally fallen still, only to stand up again, his body no longer his own. The idea of having her skin taken by one of the Cymic Parasites was unbearable.

“What do we do, then?” Maren asked. “Wait for the gamma rays?”

“It’s the lesser of two evils for me.” Gin raised her head. Fresh tear tracts sparkled on her cheeks, but she looked surprisingly calm. “If I have to go some way, I could do a lot worse than a quick, hot death.”

Maren nodded slowly then turned to the man behind her. “Saul?”

“I agree with Gin,” he said. “But what about you?”

She thought on it for a moment, chewing the problem over but unable to find a solution that didn’t result in death. It felt insane to watch and do nothing as her boss put a timer on her life, but Gin was right; the horror of being consumed in a gamma ray was less terrible than the horror of becoming a Cymic or dying of dehydration.

“Okay,” she said. “We stay.”

The red screen above them clicked from one hour twelve to one hour eleven. Gin’s hand found Maren’s shoulders and squeezed, then Gin stood up. “If it’s okay with you guys, I think I’d like to be by myself for a bit.”

“That’s fine,” Maren said. She and Gin shared a smile, then Gin returned to the lounge in the corner of the room, where she lay down, wrapped the throw blankets around herself, and stared at the ceiling.