“You would’ve liked her,” Misato said. “She was a survivor, just like you, always spoke her mind. A bit uptight, maybe, but I prefer the word ‘precise.’” Chuckling, she did an impression of a stilted Norwegian accent. “Whenever the drinks came out, she would say, ‘This is a science vessel, Iwasa, not a party barge.’ She had a strong gut, listened to her intuition. Hated Piero. They didn’t get along from the jump, and now I realize she had some . . . some suspicions, deep ones, and we were fools to dismiss her.”

Flinching, Rosalyn put the woman’s arm back down and leaned in to get closer to Tuva’s face again. It was partially to keep Misato from seeing her expression, or her reddening cheeks. She had always shied away from that word. Survivor. Running away from her entire life didn’t feel like surviving, it felt like hiding.

“I’m no survivor,” Rosalyn murmured.

Misato dropped it. “Did I miss anything?”

Rosalyn was about to pull her head away from the corpse when she glanced downward from that angle, noticing a slight distension in Tuva’s midsection. As if lightly pushing on a balloon, Rosalyn palpated the stomach, a thin stream of air releasing from the mouth. A small indicator in the bottom-right corner of her AR display flashed, then became brighter, then enlarged itself so that it could not possibly be missed.

A warning.

“Cyanide gas.” Rosalyn said it almost as a question.

“All bodies produce that,” Misato began saying, but Rosalyn shook her head hard, running her eyes over the AR warning again and again.

“Not in this quantity, no way,” Rosalyn told her. “That wouldn’t make sense. Look at the body. I mean, I know she’s Scandinavian and all that, but she shouldn’t be this pale. Even in death, that color is unnatural.”

“You think she was poisoned.” Misato drew back from the body, putting both hands on her head before turning in a circle. “Where would Piero find a form of cyanide on the Brigantine?” She began arguing with herself, rapidly, pacing. “Tuva was bright. She would have smelled it, she would have . . .”

Rosalyn let her talk through the possibilities, only catching snippets of her rapid theorizing. Rosalyn retreated to what they absolutely knew, which wasn’t much, but evidence always trumped conjecture. She interrupted Misato, who spun to face her, eyes glowing only faintly blue, as if the Foxfire had somewhat retreated.

“Brain tumor,” Rosalyn blurted out. “You said everyone thought it was a brain tumor. Why?”

“Tuva suffered from debilitating headaches, shakes . . .” Misato explained, giving the dead woman a forlorn frown. “They worsened just before she died.”