Uzoma and Ashok went over Callie’s route with her about six times, and loaded a crude but efficient map into her helmet display, then tried to go over it again, until she told them to stop, she got it, she understood. They all walked across a covered catwalk, through the silent hangar space full of lethal black spheroids bristling with spikes and fins, all of them filled with silver brain-spiders. Like hideous egg sacs, waiting to burst. Callie shuddered at the thought.

They opened a hangar door and established communication with the ship. Things on the Raven were fine. Ibn was asleep, and Robin was drinking all the coffee, the latter against doctor’s orders. Shall came over in the canoe with spare environment suits and they got Sebastien bundled up safely. They brought the bio-drone as close as they could to the hangar door and transferred the incubators as gently as possible, Shall taking great care to load them into the canoe. Once everything was stowed and shipshape, Callie hugged Elena, said her farewells, and stood before the hangar door as the last of them climbed inside the transport.

Shall squatted on top of the canoe, clinging with magnetic feet, and spoke to her on a private channel. “I don’t like this. Something could go wrong. I should come with you.”

“You wouldn’t fit in the hole I have to crawl through, and anyway, you’re in a valuable piece of machinery. I don’t want you getting blown up. Go away.”

“Callie–”

She turned her back on the hangar and headed toward the interior of the station, surrounded by the ships that would soon tear the whole place apart. “Be ready to pick me up in forty-five minutes.”

“I wish I could be there to keep you safe.”

“I keep myself safe. Don’t worry, I’m not going to die.”

Thirty-seven minutes later, Callie thought, I am going to die.

Chapter Thirty