“Are they doing what they think is right, or are they doing what they think Adam would want? Do you really think they’re the same thing?”

“They’re only thinking of the mission.”

“Why the fuck are you defending them? After what they just did? They tried to kill you.”

I stared at Malachi, stunned by his manner as much as by his words. In profile, half-illuminated by the light from the control panel, his mouth was twisted into a scowl, his jaw tight, his neck rigid.

“I’m not—”

I closed my mouth. Took a breath. Let it out. I had a thousand answers, and none. They were family. We were meant to work toward a common goal, a shared future of peace and strength. I had broken that covenant with my failure—

Or they had, with their betrayal.

“I’m only—I don’t know. I need to think,” I said.

Malachi scowled at the control panel for a couple of seconds, then jabbed his finger. The maintenance shaft filled with low red light. I wondered if that awful red would ever bleed from my eyes, or if it would forever stain the rest of my life.

“We need to get out of here.” Malachi pushed away from me and moved down the ladder, past the larger rollers that would move the floor of the chamber above. Dark tunnels stretched in three directions, each lined with tubes and ducts and pipes in a tangle of junctions and bends; the fourth was blocked by a heavy steel door labeled INTRASHIP TRANSPORT. That must have been how they brought the probe into the laboratory. Wherever it led, it was closed to us now.

Malachi looked down the open passages. “There will be a hatch somewhere along here. It shouldn’t be far.”

“Malachi. Stop.” I grabbed at his foot, flinched when he kicked free. “Wait.”

“We can’t stay here.”

“I know, I know, but . . . what did you mean?”

“About what?”

“About Adam. About Panya and Dag and what they’re doing.”

He turned to look at me. “What do you want me to say? You know this isn’t right, Zahra. None of this is right. They’ve gotten everything wrong from the start.”

My heart was pounding so hard I could feel it in my throat. “We haven’t gotten everything wrong,” I said, but weakly, barely a protest. “I don’t know why you’re saying that.”

Malachi exhaled sharply. “Yes, you do. You don’t need me to explain anything. You’re perfectly capable of thinking for yourself. You don’t need Adam to tell you what to think, and you don’t need me to explain to you how fucked up it is that they’ve stuck you in this situation.”

They. Them. He should have been saying we.