“I guess it can’t wait, can it?” He blows out his cheeks, but keeps his eyes up-front. “We were hoping you could tell us. Hail and Salt were still walking after the dismount, but they aren’t saying much, and what they do say isn’t making much sense. We had to pull you out of your saddle, Rook. Completely unresponsive. Hell, there was a second there where I thought we’d have to jump-start, and the crash-crew thought so too. The last I saw, you were on a stretcher, wheeling hard for medical. What passes for medical, anyway.” He spares me a worried glance. “We got a call a little while later, full of noise. They said you’d disappeared. Disappeared. They said you’d fought your way out, and damaged one of Jerea’s volunteers in the process. We thought we’d lost you.”

“Jerea?”

“An actual professional, in all of this. Flight surgeon, running triage for Andrade.”

Christs. “I didn’t mean to.”

Another signal from the marine up front, and the sergeant hustles us back out into the open, no explanation.

I see why we had to wait. The containers are lined with improvised windows and patchwork doorways, sealed with homebrew airlocks, emergency plastek, whatever was close to hand. Scrapwork ladders rise from the deck, still sparking as knuckledragger crews cut new shelters closer to the top. All of it, crowded with refugees.

“Didn’t mean to what?” asks Folau, as we make it back to speed. “Punch a nurse?”

“I don’t remember.” I wish I did.

He almost laughs, but it comes out bitter. “Figures. Andrade sent us out looking, once we got the call, but we didn’t know where to start. We were two compartments over when the marine checkpoints called in. Some jockey had pushed her way into someone’s berth, wild-eyed and looking like death herself.”

“I didn’t mean to—” I stop. I didn’t mean to what?

The marines close rank in front of us, and put their hands out flat again.

Ahead, a line of haggard NorCol uniforms, coiling tighter as we approach. Word has got ahead of us.

Folau turns us at the next alley, his eyes glowing. “Checkpoint six? This is Folau. I’ve got the jockey with me, and coming up on your door.” There’s a pause, and a reply I can’t hear. “No, the original path is too thick. I need a hotfix.” He nods. “Thank you. We’re thirty seconds out and bringing company.”

“They’re scared of me?” The words come out ragged.

“Scared, angry, whatever you want to call it.” Folau turns us again, this time down an even narrower passage, made for runoff and condensation.

The uniformed mob tries to follow, but it slows as the walls close in, tripping over itself and tussling for space.

“The nets went down early, but not before the crews heard the stories, or worse, seen the pictures for themselves.”