She put up a weathered hand, silencing him. “What’s the problem? Sit down. You’re so jumpy it’s making me nervous.”

“Ha. Yeah. I’m the jittery one.” He chuckled darkly to himself and followed her and her steaming cup of coffee to the round table positioned in the middle of the kitchenette. “How many cups is that? You’re gonna take off like a rocket if you don’t cool it with the caffeine, Iwasa.”

Misato ignored him and sat down, realizing with a worrisome jolt that it didn’t hurt her back as much as it used to. Her brow furrowed as she blew idly on the steaming mug.

“What?” Edison asked, watching her closely, just like he always did. It made him a good captain, that ability to observe his crew with constant intensity.

“My back,” Misato replied with a grimace. “It should hurt more than it does.”

Edison nodded gravely. “It’s the Foxfire. You should see Piero. The salvager smashed his eye damn near in half and he’s waltzing around like nothing happened. And Rayan . . .”

She closed her eyes and sighed. That had been a terrible day. All the days were terrible now, facing the slow, inexorable conversion of her own mind and body, but there was something viscerally awful about seeing the young biologist in so much shock and pain. There was a fight, screaming, the churning, masculine adrenaline flooding the room before Piero lashed out, mocking Rayan for the voices he kept saying he heard in his head. It had been a friendly game of cards, normal, and then Rayan lost it, smashing his head into the wall over and over again, picking up a ration container to continue the job. The blood had sprayed over her hands and the cards, and then there was an odd flicker in his eyes and he slumped over, shattered.

That was just after Tuva’s death, when the Foxfire was still new in them, before anyone’s eyes were blue, before she had to put consistent effort into untangling her thoughts from those proposed by the enemy. But then Rayan hadn’t died. He should have, and very quickly, and so they had only given him something to dull the pain and send him off in comfort. But he never passed, and slowly, to their growing horror and fascination, the blue webs appeared, spidering over his white naked skull, protecting his fatal wound until the exposed bone nearly disappeared.

She shivered and held the mug close to her chest for warmth.

“I don’t like it,” she said finally.

“Piero can deal with it. He had it coming, trust me.”

Misato snorted. “That’s not what I meant. I don’t care what happens to that brute. He got us into this mess in the first place.”