“You’re going to stay on the ship with Drake and Janice, well out of range of the station’s tractor beams, or whatever the hell they are. I hope. Me and Elena and Ashok will take the canoe over. If we find survivors, we’ll send them, and you can take care of them, right?” She knew if he had people to take care of, he’d come out of himself a bit, and put the despair aside. He was, as he said, a pragmatist.

“You should take Shall, too,” Stephen said. “The range should be short enough, he’ll be able to operate with full functionality, remotely operating from the White Raven.”

“I–” She stopped. “You’re right. I don’t want to take him, but that’s a stupid reason not to. If there are things on that station that can hijack human brains, it’s smart to have a member of the team who doesn’t even have one.”

“In addition to Ashok, you mean?” Stephen chuckled. “All right. Assuming we all survive, we’ll be back in our solar system not long after the festival is scheduled to begin. That gives me something to look forward to.” He waved his hand in front of his face. “In the meantime, I’ll just meditate and hope for people with grievous injuries to arrive and take my mind off the emptiness of existence.” He sighed. “I could really use a congregation though.”

“Maybe I should join your faith.”

“You’re too uptight. The naked cuddle communion would be a hard limit for you, I think.”

“Ha. I am a little selective about my naked cuddle partners.”

“That’s why I have so much more fun than you do, Callie.”

Callie went up to the cockpit. “Drake? Janice?”

“Drake is sleeping,” Janice said. “I’m on watch. Not that there’s much to watch. Murder planet turned graveyard planet. Do you believe the stuff the little tentacle-turd said?”

“I don’t know what to believe. Doesn’t change the mission. Not at this point. If, by some miracle, we survive this rescue attempt, then we can worry about everything else.”

“Huh. Almost makes you hope we’ll die so we don’t have to worry about all that stuff, huh? Fate-of-the-galaxy type things.”

“You like to talk a cynical game, Janice, but we both know you’re a survivor.”

“Who even knows if we can die? We never even get sick, after what the Liars did to us. I don’t know so much, though. Existence still has a few pleasures for me. How long before we take off here?”