“That’s—”

“Furthermore, the chamber you are currently in is completely isolated from the rest of the ship. Should the xeno attempt to damage the Extenuating Circumstances as it did your base, or should it display other hostile actions, the entire pod can be jettisoned into space. Do you understand?”

Kira’s jaw clenched despite herself. “Yes.” She couldn’t blame them for the precautions. They made sense. Didn’t mean she had to like them.

“Let me be perfectly clear, Ms. Navárez. The League won’t let any of us return home—including your friends—until we have a reliable means of detection. Let me repeat that: no one on this ship will be permitted within ten light-years of a human-settled planet unless we can figure this out. The League would blow us out of the sky before they would let us land, and rightly so.”

Kira felt sorry for Marie-Élise and the others, but at least they wouldn’t be aware of the time passing. She squared her shoulders. “Okay. So what do you need from me?”

Tschetter smiled without humor. “Your willing cooperation. Do I have it?”

“Yes.”

“Excellent. Then—”

“Just one thing; I want to record a few messages for my friends and family, in case I don’t make it. Also a message for Alan’s brother, Sam. Nothing classified, but he deserves to hear from me.”

The major paused for a second, eyes darting as she read something in front of her. “That can be arranged. It may be some time before any communications are allowed, though. We’re running silent until we receive orders from Command.”

“I understand. Oh, and—”

“Ms. Navárez, we’re operating under a very tight deadline.”

Kira held up a hand. “Can you turn my implants back on? I’m going to go crazy in here without my overlays.” She nearly laughed. “I might be going crazy anyway.”

“Can’t,” said Tschetter.

Kira’s defenses shot back up. “Can’t or won’t?”

“Can’t. The xeno destroyed your implants. I’m sorry. There’s nothing left to turn back on.”

Kira groaned, feeling as if another someone had died. All her memories … She’d had her system set to automatically back up to the server at HQ at the end of each day. If the server had survived, then so had her personal archives, although everything that had happened to her since would be lost, existing only in the fragile and fallible tissues of her brain. If she had to choose, she would have rather lost an arm than her implants. With her overlays, she had a world within a world—a whole universe of content to explore, both real and invented. Without, all she was left with were her thoughts, thin and insubstantial, and the echoing darkness beyond. What’s more, her senses had been blunted; she couldn’t see UV or infrared, couldn’t feel the magnetic fields around her, couldn’t interface with machines, and worst of all, couldn’t look up whatever she didn’t know.

She was diminished. The thing had reduced her to the level of an animal, to nothing more than meat. Primitive, unenhanced meat. And in order to do that, it must have worked its way into her brain, severed the nanowire leads that joined the implants to her neurons.