Rosalyn threw her arms over her head and inhaled deeply. Edison was right. It was stupid fussing over all of these clues when they were about to get back to where it all started. Even then, she had to prepare herself for the possibility that they might not learn anything at all. They would arrive and dock, and because they couldn’t communicate with the station, they would immediately be flagged as suspicious and probably escorted in. Then she would have to find some way to communicate that nobody was to come aboard. How would she even do that? Interpretive dance? After that, she had to convince the customs and quarantine agents that she wasn’t harmful, just the other two, but that they really, really with a cherry on top needed them to scan for a few specific serial numbers.

It sounded crazy to her; what would it sound like to them?

And this was why she would never get to sleep. Endless questions. Endless plans to be made. Belrose Fucking Industries.

She could not believe her father figured into it. Rosalyn had cut off contact with the man for months, true, but she still thought better of him in the big picture. Maybe he believed a scummy guy in accounting more than his own daughter, but that didn’t make him ethically questionable enough to play around with something as scary and volatile as Foxfire. She listened to his most recent message again, knowing it was no use trying to sleep, mining the little snippet of confession for whatever truth she could find.

“There are things we’ve done here, places we’ve gone, that were wrong. There’s tech we messed about with, samples we found, that we should have turned over to GATE right away. Maybe it’s better that you’re gone. Not because I don’t want you here, because I do, and not because I don’t miss you, because I do, but because it might be safer. But then, your mother tells me you’re with Merchantia now, so maybe not.”

The one time she should have responded to the damned message and this was it. Why did he have to be so infuriatingly vague? He was afraid, that much was clear, and he ought to be, if he was in some kind of shady alliance with Merchantia and ISS. And God help him if he had some connection to the Foxfire samples. Charitably, she wondered if maybe he was being threatened or extorted. Or, another charitable thought, perhaps he simply had no idea what Foxfire really was. Xenobio samples were the most precious resource around for a tech company; maybe the flashing dollar signs had blinded him to what might be at stake.

Imagine the worst thing that could happen and you’ll never be surprised.

Okay, Mom, what’s the worst imaginable reason?