“I don’t know what you think I can do about it,” she said, her voice muffled and mechanical in the respirator. She had found the multi-tool and snapped it open, climbing back up on her chair to work on the connector again. “Can’t unpluck a chicken.”

“You can’t turn shit into sunshine, but we can hope they don’t notice the signal,” he said.

Rosalyn froze, her huge eyes turning on him. “Where did you learn that saying?”

“I don’t know, just . . . somewhere. Why?” Now that he thought about it, he couldn’t remember saying it until very recently. Maybe it had bled over from one of the other crew members.

Her gaze drifted away from him and she shrugged, but something was clearly wrong. “It’s nothing. Never mind.”

Nodding, he leaned against the door frame, stroking his chin thoughtfully again. She had a stronger build than he expected, the tight thermal tee under the environmental suit showing an athlete’s body, muscled shoulders tapering down to a narrow waist. A swimmer’s frame, maybe. The bubbled visor of the helmet had distorted her face, and while the respirator covered her mouth and chin, he was surprised by how delicately defined her nose and brow were. Her voice and posture screamed prep school, maybe even one with a GATE endowment. She had the lightly accented, almost British voice of someone educated abroad and at incredible expense. It contrasted hilariously, nicely, with her now-unkempt, half-jumpsuited appearance, like a trustee turned junker.

“Maybe we could just beam out some Unpronounceable Sound. That would keep everyone away,” Edison teased.

“Don’t be cute,” she muttered.

“Okay, no cute. How about curious?” Edison asked. “What’s this project of yours?”

“I need a place to eat and bathe, so Misato gave me some ideas for rigging up a kind of decontamination chamber. The diffuser spits out oregano and melaleuca oil to kill off any rogue spores. I’ll have to put my suit on before I leave, of course, but it’s something.” Rosalyn trailed off and looked at him again, one hand landing on her cocked hip. “Thank you again, by the way, for the filters.”

“You’re welcome,” Edison replied. “I’ll, um, I’ll try to find more. Just . . . thought I oughtta hurry. Listen, I know you probably want me to get lost so you can sleep, but I think we should talk.”

“That sounds ominous,” she said, jumping down from the chair. Closing up the multi-tool, she slipped it into her cargo pants and grabbed a food pouch from the kitchenette counter. The room only became mistier as the hose system she had finagled kicked in, one of the open tubes hissing softly as it released some kind of gas.

Rosalyn pulled the respirator down and ripped open the food pouch, squirting it efficiently into her mouth. Sweet potato. He hated the stuff but it got the job done.