“Thanks for looking at it,” the salvager added, wheeling back toward the flight screen and staring at it blankly, one gloved knuckle tucked under her visor. “You can keep looking through the code if you want. Maybe there’s something juicy hidden in there.”

“Or here,” Misato ventured, pointing to her forehead. “He was part of the cluster. There are . . . vestiges of Rayan left in there. I’ve seen it. Maybe if I go deep, I can find Piero, too.”

That drew Rosalyn’s attention. “If you think you can handle it. I mean, I’m sorry, that sounded really condescending, but isn’t that dangerous? Isn’t that playing right into the Foxfire’s hands?”

“I’ve practiced quite a lot,” Misato told her with a wink. “This old girl still has a few tricks up her sleeve.”

38

The starboard observation deck remained in complete disarray. When the ship ran smoothly, before Foxfire swept through it and the crew, Edison had found the area somewhat peaceful. A band of thick windows wound around the entire middle, and one could sit for hours and hours, just staring at the stars, marveling that they were right there, close enough to touch. The motorized cleaning drone worked alongside him, sweeping broken bins, benches and bits of signage into a pile. Edison worked on the dirty floor, the bottom of the wet mop stained with blackish blood. A web of blue filaments arched over them, a twinkling canopy as bright as the stars through the window.

It wasn’t peace, exactly, but he found pleasure in the work. He captained the Brigantine, disastrous as it was, but this small act of cleaning and ordering seemed right.

Other things felt right, too, but he wouldn’t let his mind touch those things yet. His mind wasn’t a safe place.

The canopy above him lit up, brighter, and he closed his eyes. He felt her there, Mother, behind him, before she ever spoke, the ghostly presence prickling the hairs at his nape. Glancing over one shoulder, Edison found his mother, Diana, watching him, though she appeared covered in a fine, shimmering blue dust.

“Is she good for you? Is she good to you?”

Edison remembered that conversation well. Candace, his ex-wife, was never up to Diana’s standards. She didn’t have a job, and preferred staying home with her child. To a woman that had dedicated her entire life to dangerous terrestrial and extraterrestrial missions for the Global Alliance, stay-at-home mom just didn’t cut it.

“Yes, ma’am.”