I shake my head, almost set it spinning. “This isn’t Sigurd’s doing.”

Hail locks her eye on me. “Those hollows were Sigurd. If the patrol was Sigurd, maybe they were carrying it.”

“But this wasn’t theirs. It isn’t anyone’s.”

There’s a pause.

“How would you know?”

“Because I saw it, Hail.” Almost a growl, but I think I’m losing steam. “I saw the Juno being eaten away right in front of me.”

I slump back against the bed. The painkillers are wearing thin. “Nothing human moves like that.”

“But the company—” Hail crosses her arms. “The company has never found anything out there. The froth is empty. I’ve seen it all, believe me. Empty. Ruins and passages, all the dust you can imagine, but never anything like this.”

“Well”—I swallow, clear the sudden hoarseness in my throat—“maybe someone has.”

Salt crosses his arms. “Maybe Sigurd has.”

We look back at him.

He puts out a hand, weighs the question on his palm. “Well, it makes sense, doesn’t it? We found a beacon, and the markings say it belonged to the Demiurge. What if they picked something up, and brought it on board? Something infectious, like the shells.”

Hail turns on him. “What are you suggesting?”

That there’s a hollow dreadnought out there, hiding in the cloud cover.

But he doesn’t say that. He says something worse, in those level tones of his. “That they’re building up. If they wanted to mount an attack, they’d have put the numbers out. Maybe captured a few more NorCol machines until they had enough to do some damage.”

Christs. “But that wasn’t an attack,” I manage.

He smiles at me. “Two shells aren’t going to do any damage, even with something nasty in their nets.”

Hail fills it in, but she loses her edge even as she speaks. “Two shells is a scouting party.”

“What do we—?” I blink, watch a dark spot drift across my field of view. “What do we need to do?”

Salt frowns. “Hail. Look.”

She turns, matches his gaze. “Rook? Are you all right?”

I’m fine.

Don’t look at me like that.

“What do we need to do?”

She leans in, brushes the hair from my eyes, pulls my eyelid wide. I don’t know what she sees, and I’m not sure I want to. It turns her gaze cold-hard. “Find that nurse,” she mutters to Salt.

I tug at her sleeve, bring her back to me. “Hail. Tell me what we need to do.”

But she’s shaking her head already. “We aren’t doing anything. Salt and I will see what we can scratch up. You are going to get some sleep.”

I’VE LOST COUNT of how long I’ve been here.