“Captain . . .” Inching forward, Rayan stared up at him with his huge eyes, lower lip trembling. “We could give her the injection while she’s out cold”—and here he glanced nervously at Piero—“if you want to keep the Foxfire away from her.”

“Bullshit. Don’t waste the syringe,” Piero said hotly. His momentum was all in his shoulders as he stalked toward the engineering hatch. It was familiar body language, the seething masculine coil of anger tightening his shoulder blades together as he came face-to-face with Edison. God, that blow to the face really had made Piero terrifying to look at.

His lip curled up and he craned his neck to see around Edison’s head. “We can use the cells in her suit for something, yeah? Let me have a go at her VIT, I bet I can crack it.”

“That’s not happening,” Edison told him sternly. He could see into the man’s face where the muscle and skull had caved in. A jagged piece of cheekbone stabbed out from the split in his skin. He was strangely odorless, as if the Foxfire had drained him of all human markers.

Piero leaned back on his heels, sweeping his eyes up and down Edison’s face before his sneer deepened. Maybe he recognized the matching posture, the planted feet, the puffed chest. “Ha. Fine. Put it to a vote, then. You Americans love your democracy. We want her VIT credentials, don’t we? So we can actually fucking get somewhere.”

“I’m no thief,” Misato said, joining Edison and extending the wall between Piero and the duct.

“Rayan?” Piero spun, his swagger returning as he jutted his hip out toward the younger man and pointed double finger guns at him. “You’re with me, I know you are. This is all a waste of time. Let’s get you back to the lab where you belong. A real lab, not this satellite bullshit. Back to campus, to life, to wine and food and pussy. You’re just too tense, we all are, nobody thinks right trapped on a little ship with three other people for this long.”

But Rayan was shaking his head midway through the speech, his eyes fixed on the tops of his shoes. “I don’t know. The campus . . . We would just make things worse.”

“Ignore him, Rayan.” Edison took one step backward, putting himself closer to Rosalyn.

“Motherfucker, don’t touch her, we haven’t voted yet.” Piero slapped a hand in Edison’s direction before closing the distance between him and Rayan. His lip curled up toward his split cheek, Piero leaned amiably on Rayan’s shoulder, dipping his head down, one roguish curl falling over his forehead. Then his eyes seemed to go unfocused, a white, glittering curtain dropping over them.