“You sure it’s safe?” he asked, nodding toward the mask.

“AR display says the only foreign traces are on those filter packs you gave me, but with the respirator on I should be safe. I’m already decontaminating them. Afterward, I can crack the seal,” Rosalyn said. She ripped open another food pouch and dispatched it just as readily. “I added Foxfire’s composition to my atmospheric app; it tracks the air quality for me.”

“Smart.”

“Just practical,” she deflected, mouth still full of mush. “So what are we talking about?”

Edison inhaled deeply, forgetting that he hadn’t quite formulated his question yet. The corridor around him was dark, the crew having adjusted to the low emergency lighting to the point where it was more comfortable to exist in semidarkness. He wondered if the Foxfire was making them sensitive to the light.

I can help you see so much more, baby. Trust your mother, trust me . . .

No. He swore once under his breath and then began to hum, quickly, almost frantically, closing his eyes and filling his head with the song. Not now, not now . . . He didn’t care how nuts it looked; he needed his bulwark against the encroaching corruption.

“Don’t go haywire on me,” Rosalyn pleaded. “Should I sing, too?”

“No. I won’t,” he promised, snapping his eyes open to see her there, lovely but afraid in the fog. She had moved closer to the barrier, her knuckles white around the empty food packet in her hand. “I won’t do that ever again.”

“Ha. And don’t make promises you can’t keep.” Rosalyn tossed the packet over her shoulder. “I scrounged up a hell of a lot of food packets. Maybe I’ll just wait this out. Even mushrooms need to eat.”

“Yes,” Edison replied flatly. Coldly. “Us.”

She glanced away.

“Is that really what you want? Because that hail is going to bring more ships, which means more victims or it means we all die. I don’t think they’ll discriminate, do you?” Edison hadn’t meant for it to sound so cruel. “And besides, I thought we were starting to get along.”

Rosalyn bit her lower lip, avoiding his eyes. “Maybe. Look, about before—in engineering—I thought it was the best way to end this. Quick. Painless.”

“You don’t have to apologize. We all get it.”

That drew her head up, both of her brows rising. “I wasn’t going to apologize for being cornered, but I am sorry for what’s happening to you.”

Edison wasn’t surprised by her frankness or wounded by it; he could hardly expect her to be unfailingly sympathetic when he had nearly hurt her. And it was nice, if awkward, to talk to someone. Someone with human eyes.

“You can’t imagine what it’s like,” he told her in a hushed voice. “To have something take control of you like this. To feel this powerless.”