And what happens if someone gets taken by surprise out there and you don't have the readings in here to know they're in trouble? Scanlon doesn't ask aloud. Just another cut corner.

Clarke pans, finds a pair of alphanumeric icons. "Alice and Ken." Another red hot-spot slides into view in the upper left corner of the display.

No, wait a minute; she turned thermal off...

"Hey," Scanlon says, "that's a deadman switch—"

No audio alarm. Why isn't there an alarm— His eyes dart across the half-familiar console. Where is it, where—shit—

The alarm's been disabled.

"Look!" Scanlon points at the display. "Can't you—"

Clarke looks up at him, almost lazily. She doesn't seem to understand.

He jabs his thumb down. "Somebody just died out there!"

She looks at the screen, slowly shakes her head. "No—"

"You stupid bitch, you cut off the alarm!"

He hits a control icon. The station starts howling. Scanlon jumps back, startled, bumps the bulkhead. Clarke watches him, frowning slightly.

"What's wrong with you?" He reaches out and grabs her by the shoulders. "Do something! Call Lubin, call—" The alarm is deafening. He shakes her, hard, pulls her up out of the chair—

And remembers, too late: you don't touch Lenie Clarke.

Something happens in her face. It almost crumples, right there in front of him. Lenie Clarke the ice queen is suddenly nowhere to be seen. In her place there's only a beaten, blind little kid, body shaking, mouth moving in the same pattern over and over, he can't hear over the alarm but her lips shape the words, I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry—

All in the few scant seconds before she crystallizes.

She seems to harden against the sound, against Scanlon's assault. Her face goes completely blank. She rises out of the chair, centimeters taller than she should be. One hand comes up, grabs Yves Scanlon by the throat. Pushes.

He staggers backwards into the lounge, flailing. The table appears to one side; he reaches out, steadies himself.

Suddenly, Beebe falls silent again.

Scanlon takes a deep breath. Another vampire has appeared in his peripheral vision, standing impassively at the mouth of the corridor; he ignores it. Directly ahead, Lenie Clarke is sitting down again in Communications, her back turned. Scanlon steps forward.

"It's Karl," she says before he can speak.

It takes a moment to register: Acton.

"But— that was months ago," Scanlon says. "You lost him."

"We lost him." She breathes, slowly. "He went down a smoker. It erupted."

"I'm sorry," Scanlon says. "I— didn't know."

"Yeah." Her voice is tight with controlled indifference. "He's too far down to— we can't get him back. Too dangerous." She turns to face him, impossibly calm. "Deadman switch still works, though. It'll keep screaming until the battery runs down." She shrugs. "So we keep the alarm off."

"I don't blame you," Scanlon says softly.

"Imagine," Clarke tells him, "how much your approval comforts me."