Misato seemed quite at home in the captain’s chair and quickly followed his instructions, though it was doubtful she needed them. Rosalyn watched him approach and lightly adjusted one of the loose toggles on his helmet seal.

“Are you nervous?” she asked softly.

“Don’t leave my side,” he said by way of answer. “I’m serious, Roz.”

He knew something. She read it in his face, in the way his jaw ground and ground; his eyes, even transformed by the Foxfire, were distant and distracted. And if he knew something, then that meant it had to do with his malady.

“The samples,” Rosalyn whispered as the air lock doors hissed and shrieked. The Brigantine rocked. “You can sense them, can’t you? They’re close.”

Edison’s eyes flashed at her. He looked on the verge of tears. “It’s more than that. A lot more.”

They waited together side by side at the doors, then he stepped out first, into the pressurizing antechamber and then through the round open portal to the platform. Rosalyn heard her boot land on the flat like a clap of thunder. She could have heard dust settle if she tried. It was silent, completely abandoned, ships left docked and empty, no sign of any workers or crew. Edison gazed around, twisting to look up at the higher docking bays and toward the central flight control tower with its huge, rectangular bay windows.

He stopped at the end of the short ramp leading from the ship to the docking flat, then turned right, finding the mobile terminal assigned to this bay. On a normal shift, a Servitor or human worker would be there to assign them to a specific customs line, double-check the crew manifest and confirm how long the ship intended to stay. When everything checked out, the crew would be allowed to leave the ship unattended.

But there was nobody. Edison leaned down to inspect the terminal.

“Well, it’s functional,” she heard him say as she stopped at the end of the ramp.

“But?”

They both jumped and reached for each other as an earsplitting blast came from the intercom. It was an emergency tone from the flight tower, a swath of orange light traveling across the flat in time with the jarring horn.

“Reactor breach detected, evacuation in process, please proceed to emergency pod bays on levels 1-B and 1-C. Do not run. Use caution when engaging elevators and shuttles.”

The automated voice sounded far, far too calm, given the circumstances.

“Reactor breach?” Rosalyn repeated when the air around them was again leaden and dead. “That’s not a failure, right? It could even just mean some hardware malfunction. Maybe that’s why everyone is gone, they evacuated already.”

Edison hunched over the mobile terminal and sighed. “I know I teased you for being a reformed pessimist, but the reactor breach is the least of our problems.”