The voice was right next to his ear, shrieking, still his mother’s voice but twisted and rising, higher and higher, as she closed in on him. Before it had been a tender hand and a whispered song, but now it was madness.

Baby? Baby? Listen to me. Listen to me!

He ran, scattering the other bins to the floor as he fled the room. The sealed filters were jammed under his arm, removing the temptation to scratch at them while his mother’s furious voice chased him down the corridor and to the barrier, where Rosalyn waited.

The moment he saw her, the voice cut out.

Silence. Nothing. Just the normal hum of the ship and the muffled sounds of Rosalyn puttering around in the lab. She hadn’t noticed him there, and he commanded his pulse to slow, his breath to ease . . . Their alliance was already on thin ice; the last thing he needed was for her to see him gasping and wheezing with terror.

The whole place was a mess, the ceiling panel ripped open, some kind of schematic of hers drawn on the wall in black marker, tubes, wires and hoses hanging down like so many loose guts. No, not a schematic of hers, but one belonging to the genius mind of Misato Iwasa. Just a simple airflow bypass system using a reversing valve. It was a bleed from Misato, their connection through the cluster giving him flashes of the engineer’s knowledge.

A freestanding atomizer near the kitchenette puffed out a constant stream so thick Rosalyn looked like a mad scientist in some alchemy dungeon. She had pulled one of the safety respirators from Rayan’s research lab, the straps dangling down her back, and they swung freely as she stood on a chair, trying and failing to screw together two hoses with a connector.

Glancing past her legs at the schematic, he cleared his throat and tapped lightly on the clear shield separating them.

“That would go a lot faster with a multi-tool. There should be one there,” he said, pointing to the kitchenette. He had startled her, and she wobbled on the chair, spinning too fast and nearly toppling to the floor. Rosalyn caught herself, holding tight to one of the hoses dangling out of the ceiling, then nimbly leapt down to the floor.

“Bottom drawer,” he added. “Sorry for surprising you. I’ve got the filters.”

“You knocked, thank you.” Rosalyn smiled, as if that small courtesy meant everything. “How many did you find?” Then she pointed vaguely upward as she went to the drawer he had indicated, kneeling. “Did you notice? The hail Piero sent stopped.”

“Two,” he said with a sigh, and waited until she lowered the barrier and he could shove them through quickly. Rosalyn took them immediately to the decontamination pod. “The damage is done. Even a round or two of that hail will draw attention. I don’t need to tell you what that means.”