The table bit deeper into his spine and he winced, falling back against it, his elbow landing on the prayer rug he had folded there. One touch of softness, like a pleasant memory, the remembrance of a tiny joy long past and almost forgotten. The rug. The mosque. His talisman. Rayan reached for those hours upon hours in the VR Dome as a reflex, guessing it was fruitless but thinking that it mattered to fight all the same. Exhausted, run-down, he felt the temptation to surrender as it rose and crashed over him. But it was important to fight.

Fight back. That was the little tattoo on Tuva’s wrist; she had told him so, reluctantly. Fight back. He missed her, even if she never seemed to like him very much and her weird food stank up the lounge.

“What is this?” Piero had at last noticed what was fixed to the drafting table. He leaned down, his head looming over Rayan’s shoulder. Confusion. Amusement. Rayan now felt the other man’s emotions as if they were his own, and the whiplash of it was nauseating. Tiring. He was so tired of fighting, but the fighting mattered. His memories of the mosque were fading, disintegrating in front of his eyes as if burned away, one tile an ember that floated away, one window a bit of ash there and then charred beyond recognition.

She’s learning, Rayan thought. Not just learning but adapting. The biologist in him couldn’t resist asking Piero, “How did she get you in the end?”

Their eyes met, and for a brief instant the blue grew more powerful, bleeding over the white pupil. But it was just a flicker, and Piero’s lipless mouth drew down into a ragged grimace, more drooping hole than human mouth.

“You’ll soon know. Can’t you feel it? She’s so close. She’s felt even closer since the salvager came. There’s something about her . . . Mother will be stronger when the cluster has her, and we’ll have her soon.”

“Shut up about that crap for one minute,” Rayan said, irritated and angry. “We’ve all been resisting somehow. Yeah, it’s been getting harder but still . . . It felt like something I could maybe win over or, I don’t know, delay. What did it?”

The Foxfire considered him through Piero’s glittering eyes for a long moment. It was hard not to flinch away from his horrible face, but Rayan steadied himself. He wanted to know this one thing, because maybe if he knew, there was still a way to hold on. Yes, he had been ready to say goodbye, preparing for it, but if there was a chance . . . if there was a chance, however miniscule . . .

“What do you hate?”

Rayan blinked. “Hate? I d-don’t know, not much. It’s not healthy to hold grudges.”