“And?” said Kira, glancing from face to face.

“Nothing,” said Mendoza. “Clean bill of health, for Neghar, for you, for all of us.”

Kira frowned. “Wait, they tested me also?”

“You better believe it,” said Ivanova.

“Why? Do you think you’re too special to be examined?” asked Fizel. His tone set Kira’s teeth on edge.

“No, I just…” She felt weird—violated even—knowing those procedures had been performed on her while she was unconscious, even if they had been necessary to maintain proper biocontainment.

Mendoza seemed to pick up on her discomfort. He eyed her from beneath his heavy brows. “Captain Henriksen made it abundantly clear that the only reason he isn’t keeping us under lock and key is because they found nothing unusual. Neghar is the one they were really worried about, but they weren’t going to let any of us off Adrasteia until they were sure.”

“You can’t blame them,” said Kira. “I’d be doing the same in their place. Hard to be too careful in this sort of situation.”

Mendoza huffed. “I don’t blame them for that. It’s the rest of it. They put us under a strict gag order. We can’t even talk to corporate about what we found. If we do, it’s a felony and up to twenty years in prison.”

“How long is the gag order?”

His shoulders rose and fell. “Indefinite.”

There went Kira’s plans for publication, at least in the near term. “How are we supposed to explain why we’re so late returning from Adra?”

“Drive malfunction on the Fidanza resulting in unavoidable delays. You’ll find the details in your messages. Memorize them.”

“Yessir.” She scratched her arm again. She needed lotion. “Well, that’s a hassle, but it’s not that bad.”

A pained expression crossed Alan’s face. “Oh it gets worse, babe. A lot worse.”

Kira’s sense of dread returned. “Worse?”

Mendoza nodded slowly, as if his head was too heavy for his neck. “The UMC didn’t just quarantine the island.”

“Nope,” said Ivanova. “That would have been too easy.”

Fizel slammed his hand down on the counter. “Just tell her already! They quarantined the whole damn system, okay? We lost Adra. It’s gone. Poof!”

3.

Kira sat next to Alan in the mess hall, studying a live image of the Extenuating Circumstances taken from orbit and projected from the holo in front of them.

The ship must have been half a kilometer long. Stark white, with a spindly midsection, bulbous engine at one end, and a petal-like arrangement of spinning decks at the other. The habitat sections were hinged so they could lie flat against the stem of the ship when under thrust, a costly option that most vessels went without. At the nose of the Extenuating Circumstances were several ports, like shuttered eyes: missile tubes and lenses for the ship’s main laser.

A quarter of the way down the ship, a pair of identical shuttles fitted snugly against either side of the hull. The shuttles were far larger than the ones the survey team had used. Kira wouldn’t be surprised if they were equipped with Markov Drives, same as a full-sized spaceship.