Belatedly she remembered the small case containing the replacements Vishal had printed for her. She dug it out from the blankets and carefully placed each transparent lens onto the corresponding eye.

She blinked and felt a sense of comfort as the familiar HUD of her overlays popped up. There now. She was a fully functioning person again.

Resisting the urge to check the news, Kira left the airlock, pulled herself along the walls until she reached the center of the Wallfish, and then started up the main shaft.

The ship was still so quiet, empty, and dark, it felt abandoned. If not for the sound of the life-support fans, it might have been a derelict drifting alone through space for gods knew how long. Kira felt like a scavenger moving through halls that had once been inhabited by others … or like an explorer opening a centuries-old mausoleum.

Her thoughts returned to the city on Nidus and their dire findings there. She growled and shook her head, annoyed. Her imagination was getting the better of her.

As she reached the level below the Control deck, the thrust alert sounded. Taking heed, Kira planted her feet on the floor, and a proper sense of weight pressed her down—there was again a down!—as the Wallfish’s fusion drive roared back to life.

She sighed with relief, welcoming the burn.

The surrounding lightstrips flickered and changed from red to the bluish-white glow of ship-day. The light was almost painfully bright after so long spent in the somber dark. Kira shielded her face until her eyes adjusted.

Falconi and the rest of the crew were just emerging from cryo when Kira arrived at the ship’s storm shelter. Dropping to all fours on the deck, Sparrow dry-heaved like a cat with a hairball.

“God, I hate long runs,” the woman said, and wiped her mouth.

“Good, you’re up,” said Kira.

Falconi grunted. “If you can call it that.” He looked as green as Sparrow, and like all the crew, he had bruised circles under his eyes. Kira didn’t envy them the side effects of such an extended cryo sleep.

Sparrow hacked again and then staggered to her feet and joined Falconi, Nielsen, and Hwa-jung as they retrieved clothes from their lockers. Vishal took longer to get going. Once he did, he went around handing out the little blue pills Kira knew so well. They helped with the nausea, as well as replenishing some of the body’s lost nutrients.

Vishal offered one of the pills to her as well, but she declined.

“What’s the shape of things?” Falconi asked, pulling on his boots.

“Not sure yet,” said Kira.

Then Gregorovich’s voice broke in on them with a laughing, teasing tone. “Greetings, my lovelies. Welcome back to the land of the living. Yes, oh yes. We’ve survived the great journey across the void. Once again we have defied the dark and lived to tell the tale.” And he laughed until the ship rang with the sound of his voice.