“Ow.” One of the women spoke suddenly, but I did not know which one it was until she moved one gloved hand to touch her opposite arm. It was the short woman, the one who had called the desert a wasteland. She pressed her fingers into her forearm.

“Are you hurt?” the other woman asked.

“No. It just feels weird.”

“Weird how?”

“It’s feels like . . .” The first woman shook her head. “I don’t know. Just weird.”

“Did you hurt yourself?” Nassar said. “When you tore your suit?”

“It sealed over.” The woman plucked at the tight material of the space suit. “It was only a tiny puncture. But I think there’s something in here.”

The other woman reached for her hand. “So take your glove off—”

“Get away from her.” Bhattacharya’s voice was stern and sharp, so unlike the soft tone he had been using before.

“But she’s hurt—Jas, what the fuck?”

Bhattacharya grabbed his friend by the arm and pulled him away from the women, shoving him backward toward the far end of the room. The friend flailed and grasped, stopping his momentum only when he caught the back of a chair. Bhattacharya took hold of the other woman next and pushed her away as well.

Henke swung his weapon back and forth, aiming for one, then the other. “For fuck’s sake, I told you to stay still!”

The woman slapped at Bhattacharya’s hands, but she only managed to spin herself around so that she was grasping for something to hold. “Stop that! What are you doing? I’m just trying to help Ariana.”

“Stay away from her,” Bhattacharya said.

“I really think there’s something in my suit,” the short woman—Ariana—said. She began to slap and tug at her own arm, twisting around and around as she grew more frantic. The suit was pressurized and taut; she couldn’t get a handle on the slick fabric. “There’s something in there! What the fuck? Help me get it out!”

“Henke, Dag. Restrain her,” I said. They approached the woman with their weapons drawn. “Malachi, keep an eye on the others.”

He hesitated, then rose from his chair, fumbling his gun from its holster.

“Ari, calm down so we can help you,” the other woman said. She was trying to push away from Bhattacharya, but he held tight to her wrist. “Jas, let me go. We have to help her.”

“We can’t,” Bhattacharya said. “She’s infected.”

There was a short silence, no longer than the space between one heartbeat and the next.

“What? How is that possible?” Malachi said, his voice rising sharply with alarm.

“She tore her suit,” Bhattacharya said. “That’s how it got in.”

“It was only a pinprick,” Panya said doubtfully.

“He’s lying,” Henke declared. “He’s trying to bullshit us again. The virus is airborne.”

“We don’t know for sure how it spreads,” Malachi said.