“I don’t know. Something you can put in your file about me. Something that screams of repression. Maybe you think I wet the bed or suck my thumb.”

“You’re very self-centered,” Park told him stiffly. “You seem to think I spend a lot of time thinking about you.”

“Don’t you?”

“No.”

Fulbreech smiled. Then his face turned grave. “Will Holt be all right?”

She shook her head. “He’s in a medically induced coma. Chanur said that he ultimately should recover, but he might have some facial tics.”

Surreptitiously she waited for his response: disgust at Boone, alarm at the situation. But Fulbreech only said, sucking the air between his teeth: “Why’d they shoot him?”

Park looked at him closely. Now was the time to find out how much he really knew. “It was down in the utility rooms,” she said. “Holt was . . . sleepwalking. In a trance. He tried to go through a door down there, and Boone shot him to prevent him from getting through.”

Fulbreech was shaking his head. “Idiot,” he breathed to himself. “No point to that.”

The back of Park’s neck prickled. “What do you mean?”

He caught her watching him, hesitated, then shook his head again. “It’s nothing. Look—Boone is crazy, we all know that. He’s an ass at the best of times, a tyrant at the worst. It sounds like he got trigger-happy. He’s probably used to throwing his weight around on Mars.”

“It’s not that simple,” Park insisted, frowning. “He’s hiding something down there. And it’s important enough that he would try to kill Holt to avoid compromising it.” She met his eye. “Don’t you think?”

Fulbreech paused for the briefest moment, and in that moment a dozen micro-expressions flashed over his face. Fear, uncertainty, guilt, doubt. That alone told Park what she needed to know. He knew what was down there. Maybe they all did—except her.

“Fulbreech,” she heard herself say. “What’s in the utility rooms?”

He averted his gaze. “Nothing, Park,” he murmured. “Really, nothing.”

Liar! Park felt as if he had struck her, slapped her open-palmed across the face. She felt the sudden urge to get away from him. “I’m going down there,” she announced, turning back to the door.

Fulbreech looked alarmed. “Wait,” he said, putting a hand out. “Park—what if Boone catches you down there? What if he does the same thing to you as he did to Holt?”

She looked back at him over her shoulder, almost sneering. “Why would he, if there really is nothing down there?”

Fulbreech stared at her. Finally he said unhappily: “There are things you don’t need to know, Park. Things you shouldn’t know. But it’s for your own good. Your own protection.”

“Is that how you justify it?” she demanded. “You’re hiding things from me—lying to me—so you can protect me?”