The old woman stroked her thumbs down the sides of the mug. She looked so tired, and the smiles and laughter seemed thinner and more fragile in hindsight.

“Is this what you were out here to study?” Rosalyn asked. “The Foxfire?”

Misato shook her head and took in a deep breath, turquoise eyes flickering a little as she sat back in her chair and crossed one leg over the other. “Oh no. Other xenobio samples? Definitely. Foxfire was never part of the mission. CDAS had intercepted some pirates with alien contraband, and Merchantia Solutions wanted us to take them and study them in various environments, zero g being one of them. It was exciting stuff, top-level stuff, so they brought me on.”

Rosalyn frowned. “Top-level stuff? That doesn’t make any sense. The dossier said you’re running a routine research vessel . . .”

With another big belly laugh, Misato finished her coffee and twirled the cup between both hands. “Yes, yes, I’m sure that’s what the dossier said. No offense, chickadee, but I don’t think a salvager has clearance to know about what we were doing out here. Not that it matters now, poke around all you like. Take pictures. Spread the word . . . if you can.”

Rosalyn made to stand up, moving slowly, cradling the food pouches in one arm as she lowered herself to the floor with her left. She flinched and made a face.

“You got quite a jostling in that engineering vent,” Misato said.

“I can feel that.” Her shoulders felt like they had been run through a blender. On the counter behind Misato someone had lined up a row of insulated drink cups, each labeled with the crew’s names. One was missing. “Speaking of poking around,” Rosalyn said slowly. “One cup missing. Can I ask what happened to Tuva?”

The old woman closed her eyes tightly, then opened them to stare into her empty mug. “She died just days before the first sign of Foxfire. A brain tumor, maybe, a seizure . . . Rayan found her asleep in her bunk, not a mark on her, just . . . gone.”

“I’m so sorry,” Rosalyn murmured. “On top of everything else that’s happened, what a nightmare.”

“She knew something,” Misato said. Her jaw hardened, and she looked up suddenly. “I don’t believe for a second it was a tumor or whatever else Piero keeps saying. He put her mug away somewhere, he can’t stand to look at anything that reminds him of her.”

“Why not?”

Rosalyn had forgotten all about the food packets in her arms, remembering what Girdy had warned her about on the launch platform. Her stomach hurt again, throbbing with intuition. This was the second time blocked clearance had come up. A mysterious death. The Foxfire itself . . . not to mention the other doomed expeditions and Reevey’s inexplicable, murderous madness.