Xiomara shoved her away with both feet on her midsection, twisting her collar from Ariana’s grasp. Ariana turned, no longer in control of her motions, and I saw the electroshock darts of the suppression weapon gleaming in her arm.

Baqir did not lower the weapon. He turned it slightly to check the charge, aimed it again, and kept it fixed on Ariana. The trembles continued, her arms and legs twitching, her face contorting—and it was not only the spasms distorting her face, but a ripple, that swift, pulsating presence of the thing that had invaded her body, shivering through her neck, along the side of her face, weakening until there was no more movement beneath her skin. Ariana shook as small seizures rolled through her body. Her eyes were open but unseeing, her mouth clamped shut, her breath hitching loudly.

I pushed myself from the doorway to grab Xiomara and tug her away from Ariana.

“Did she break your skin?” I asked, looking her over frantically. “Did she scrape you? Did any of her blood touch you? Her spit?”

Xiomara shook her head but didn’t fight me. She sucked in a wet breath and wiped the tears from her eyes. “I don’t—I don’t think so?”

She lifted her chin, turned her head this way and that. Only her face was exposed, as she was still wearing her gloves. I did not see any marks or scrapes.

“What did you do?” Xiomara asked Baqir. “How did you even—how do you even know how to use one of those things? Is she hurt?”

Baqir looked down at the weapon in his hand. “The shock setting hurts like a fucker, but it doesn’t do any permanent damage.”

“How do you—” Xiomara stopped herself, shook her head. She pushed me away. “I’m fine. She didn’t even touch my skin, only my suit. We have to get help. She can’t hurt us right now. We have to help her.”

I was watching Ariana. The weapon should not have rendered her unconscious, but she gave no indication that she was aware of what was going on. But she wasn’t attacking anymore either.

So close to the window, with Earth to my left and the dead garden to my right, I had a moment of dizzying, disorienting vertigo, as though I was suspended for only a moment before tumbling into space, falling toward that bright and distant and impossible marble of blue and green. Could it be so simple? It didn’t seem possible. The uninfected would have tried to stun the infected during the outbreak. I had not seen it myself, nor were there records in the data Aunt Padmavati had given me, but suppression weapons were the only weapons aboard. Somebody would have tried—surely somebody would have tried. It had not been enough to stop the outbreak.