In that instant, she had to recover and leap back. If she caught him by surprise, she’d have enough time to twist out of his reach. Dash full-bore for the hatch. Once through, she’d sprint down the hall as fast as her legs could carry her.

Not that she’d ever outrun Cinque. She just needed to buy enough time to let the poison work.

“Magnificent stars, don’t you think?” she asked, dropping into the trained nonchalance her mentors over the years had cultivated for moments like this. “So very different than we knew at home.”

“They are indeed,” Cinque told her, his shoulders slouching, as if he were starting to relax.

She eased her hand deeper into the fabric, slipped them around the knife’s handle. The knife was designed specifically for her, and her fingers and thumb conformed to the short grip.

The beat of her heart was now like a hammer against her sternum. She’d killed before. But never like this. Never when the ramifications had been so great, the stakes so high.

The worst part was not knowing.

What if she struck? Killed Cinque, only for Abibi to announce that they had arrived safely? That Capella was in the ship’s scope, and Donovan lay but a few days’ transit away?

If she did, the repercussions would be overwhelming. Chad Grunnel and Bartolome Radcek would know it was an assassination and that she’d acted from fear. Abibi would have her arrested, tried for murder under ship’s law. Being in Capella III’s orbit, there would be no reason to fight for control of the ship’s resources. No survival of the fittest in the vain hope that somehow, in the coming decades, some miracle would allow them to escape.

Falise had read the logs from Freelander as well as the testimony given by Captain Miguel Galluzzi. Uncle Miko had ensured that they were in her briefing materials for the trip. That was one side of the nightmare. If she assassinated Cinque too soon, there would be another.

Wait? Or kill now?

“Who will we eat first?” Cinque asked reasonably, as if he, too, were following that path of logic. “I think we should toss the marines into the hydroponic vat to start with. For one thing, I don’t want them wandering around in full armor down on D Deck, thinking up mischief. Not to mention that they’re all pictures of health. Lot of vitamins, proteins, and fats in those bodies. Perfect to charge the hydroponics, don’t you think?”

Her grip on the knife secure, she half turned—all the better to rip the blade free—and glanced up at him. “A bit premature, aren’t you? Abibi hasn’t even announced that we’re lost, and you’re murdering the marines?”

His gleaming black eyes, even more inscrutable in the observation blister’s half-light, fixed on her. “I assume you’re familiar with the history. I know the kind of captain Abibi is. She’ll act immediately to save her crew. Just like Gem Orten did on Freelander.” He paused. “Do you think that’s why she hasn’t made the announcement yet? Even as we stand here, she’s locked the hatches to the Transportee Deck? Evacuating the air? Suffocating them before they can organize and try and storm the ship?”