“Where is it? How do we get there?” Zahra asked.

“Slowly,” Malachi said. “All the interior doors and interlevel access points were locked down during the medical quarantine. It could take hours.”

Sometimes, in quiet moments, I could still hear the calm computerized voice advising people to shelter in place. Await medical help. Remain calm. It had been futile from the start. The virus had spread too far and too fast before anybody even knew it was aboard.

“It doesn’t have to,” I said.

Headlamps swung to look at me.

“What?” Malachi said. “What are you talking about?”

“I can get you there faster.”

“We can’t trust him,” Panya said.

Baqir said, “Jas? What are you doing?”

“Explain,” Zahra said.

I said, “You don’t have to get through every level between here and there. You just have to get to the agricultural labs. They’re connected across the bottom three levels, and their internal security is a different system.”

“You don’t even know where we’re going,” Henke said.

“The entrance to the computer core is on Level 4,” I said. “Starboard side. I lived here for eight years.”

“How do you know you can get through that way?” Zahra asked.

Malachi answered before I could: “They were his father’s labs.”

No, I thought, with a pang of grief, they had been so much more than labs. They were my father’s pride and joy, his warm and welcoming gardens, sanctuaries of greenery and life. He had fought for every square meter of green space as House of Wisdom was being built because, he had always said, the crew will need food and air, but they will need beauty, too, and peace, and the quiet of a cool dewy dawn.

I did not want to see what had become of my father’s passion and brilliance, but it would get us closer to where I wanted to be. To where I could leave our captors behind. Radio for help and get Baqir and Xiomara and Ariana off this ship. I didn’t know Xiomara and Ariana well, only those small pieces of information exchanged during stilted cocktail parties as our fellowships began. Xiomara was a biomedical engineer working on long-term human stasis. Ariana was an artist already somewhat famous for high-profile protest art; she had introduced herself to Baqir by telling him that she sympathized so much with the plight of the North American refugees and asking if he wanted to hear about her planned exhibition for the Second Council. That was all I knew of them. Whether they would stay calm or panic, follow my lead or obey our captors, trust me or take their own risks, I had no idea. I only knew I had to get them off this ship.

“I know the way,” I insisted.

“Why would you help us?” Zahra asked.

“I’m not helping you,” I said, with absolute truth. “I just don’t want to die here.”