“Ariana,” Xiomara said quietly. “Can you hear me?”

After another brief, agonizing silence, Ariana spoke. But it was not an answer. It was a rapid-fire stream of words in another language.

Xiomara blinked in surprise. “What? What did she say? What language is that?”

Ariana spoke again. Her tone was flat, the words without inflection, but there was something recognizable in what she was saying. It was like the words of a familiar song spoken without their tune, inviting the mind to fall into the rhythm but jarring the ear by resisting.

“Ari, I don’t understand,” Xiomara said, pleading. She extended a hand toward Ariana, withdrew it again, trembling with fear. “What are you saying? Can’t you understand me?”

“It sounds like some dialect of Chinese,” Baqir said. “But it’s atonal. It’s all wrong.”

My chest was tight, and blood thrummed in my ears. “It’s Archaic Chinese,” I said.

“The fuck? Ariana doesn’t speak Archaic Chinese. She can only barely hold a conversation in modern Chinese.”

But I was certain now. “It’s the message from Mournful Evening Song.”

I had listened to those words more times than I could count. The Earth our ancestors left behind was dying. The woman who sent her voice across light-years aboard UC33-X had spoken with an accent nobody recognized, in an oddly stiff dialect not spoken on Earth for hundreds of years. Soon we will sink our roots into the soil of a new world. Retrieving that data and restoring that long-traveled greeting would have been Dr. Gregory Lago’s legacy, if not for the virus. We have nothing but hope in our hearts.

“Ari? What’s going on? Why are you saying that?” Xiomara reached out again, jerked her hand back abruptly when Ariana stared at her outstretched fingers. “Sorry. Sorry. Can’t you just say something? Can’t you—”

Ariana spun around—one hand on the window, one foot braced against the base—and lunged. She moved so fast Xiomara had no time to react. Fingers splayed, hand outstretched, Ariana reached for her face, caught the collar of her suit instead. She pulled Xiomara closer—Baqir pushed by me—Xiomara screamed and flailed, striking at Ariana, but it didn’t have any effect. Ariana didn’t loosen her hold. She was pulling Xiomara toward her, fingers curled into claws and whipping toward her face, and I couldn’t move, I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t think anything except, again again it’s happening again, and in seconds Xiomara would be infected, she would be writhing and panicking and tearing at her own skin—

There was a loud snap. Ariana jerked and, for an instant, froze. She began to tremble with powerful, full-body convulsions that seized every muscle.