“I don’t think so,” he said. “I think you’re—”

She coughed.

“Just fine,” he finished.

Rosalyn’s hands went still, and he couldn’t help but wonder what she would be like out of the bulky suit. Tall, of course, that was obvious, and slender. But it was impossible to get the real make of a person when they were three inches deep in coated plastic. She cleared her throat, shifting, no longer keen to glance his way after that last comment. From where he sat, he could swear her cheeks had turned pink.

“Wait.” Her entire body went rigid, her hands stopping along the bottom of the trunk. She picked at something there, then gasped. “A false bottom. I suppose Tuva wasn’t totally against secrets, mm?”

“What is it?” Edison couldn’t help but jump to his feet.

“Just . . . a worker’s badge. It’s been printed, extruded, like a copy.” Rosalyn held it up for him to see. It was flat, about eight inches by five, with a photo, reflective scanning tag and company branding. The badge had been tucked into a clear plastic sleeve and attached to a black lanyard. “Danny Russo? His Merchantia file says Piero Endrizzi. Christ. Which one do you think is real?”

Edison joined her near the trunk, waiting until she offered the badge to take it.

“ISS?” He turned the thing over, but the badge didn’t seem like anything special. “Incorporated Shipping Solutions. They’re partnered with Merchantia now; they handle all of our biohazard and dangerous materials. Maybe it’s just his old job.”

“Then why the different name?” Rosalyn asked. “Look at the issuing date. That thing is current. ISS . . . Why does that sound so bloody familiar?” Standing, she snatched the badge back, pulling it up close to her visor for a look. Rosalyn pulled the badge out of its transparent sleeve, and a tiny slip of paper, no larger than her pinky nail, fell out. Crouching, she picked up the folded paper and carefully opened it up. It had been squashed into an accordion, but once she flattened it, she could see tiny, handwritten print.

“Anything interesting?” Edison asked, squinting over her shoulder.

“Numbers,” she said. “Coordinates, maybe?”

She used her VIT monitor to scan the numbers. “I can’t do a networked search, but I can at least run these against the downloaded MSC data on my VIT.”

It didn’t take long for a match to appear. They weren’t coordinates at all, but dates.

“These are launches,” Rosalyn breathed. “They’re all in the MSC database, which means they’re all our launches. Science vessel launches. For the Quant-7, and . . . that was Alexia Courtney’s gig, and Reevey’s command . . . These are the recent code blues. Entire ships that went dark under suspicious circumstances, and every single one of them left campus before Piero joined the Brigantine.”

Edison whistled. “That doesn’t sound good.”