The smoker manages a couple of feeble bursts and subsides completely.

Acton drifts closer. "You know, when they first sent me down here I thought this place would be a real shithole. I figured I'd just knuckle down and do my time and get out. But it's not like that. You know what I mean, Lenie?"

I know. But she doesn't answer.

"I thought so," he says, as though she has. "It's really kind of...well, beautiful, in a way. Even the monsters, once you get to know 'em. We're all beautiful."

He seems almost gentle.

Clarke dredges her memory for some sort of defense. "You couldn't have known," she says. "Way too many variables. It's not computable. Nothing down here's computable."

An alien creature looks down at her and shrugs. "Computable? Probably not. But knowable..."

There's no time for this, Clarke tells herself. I've got to get to work.

"...that's something else again," Acton says.

* * *

She never figured him for a bookworm. Still, there he is again, plugged into the library. Stray light from the eyephones leaks across his cheeks.

He seems to be spending a lot of time in there these days. Almost as much time as he spends outside.

Clarke glances down at the flatscreen as she wanders past. It's dark.

"Chemistry," Brander says from across the lounge.

She looks at him.

Brander jerks his thumb at the oblivious Acton. "That's what he's into. Weird shit. Boring as hell."

That's what Ballard was into, just before... Clarke fingers a spare headset from the next terminal.

"Ooh, you're walking a fine line there," Brander remarks. "Mr. Acton doesn't like people reading over his shoulder."

Then Mr. Acton will be in privacy mode and I won't be able to. She sits down and slips the headset on. Acton has not invoked privacy; Clarke taps into his line without any trouble. The eyephone lasers etch text and formulae across her retinas. Serotonin. Acetylcholine. Neuropeptide moderation. Brander's right: it's really boring.

Someone's touching her.

She does not yank the headset off. She removes it calmly. She doesn't even flinch, this time. She will not give him the satisfaction.

Acton has turned in his chair to face her, headset dangling around his neck. His hand is on her knee.

"Glad to see we have common interests," he says quietly. "Not that surprising, though. We do share a certain ... chemistry..."

"That's true." She stares back, safe behind her eyecaps. "Too bad I'm allergic to shitheads."

He smiles. "Of course, it would never work. The ages are all wrong." He stands up, returns the headset to its hook.

"I'm not nearly old enough to be your father."

He crosses the lounge and climbs downstairs.

"What an asshole," Brander remarks.

"He's more of a prick than Fischer ever was. I'm surprised you're not picking fights with him all the time."

Brander shrugs. "Different dynamic. Acton's just an asshole. Fischer was a fucking pervert."