She glared again into the barren little closet, refusing to believe it. There was fraud going on here, some kind of petty deceit, but her thoughts were too jumbled to clearly perceive what it was. Could she be mistaken? There was no way. “Then why was Boone standing down here in the first place?”

“I don’t know,” Fulbreech said. “You’ll have to ask him that.”

She had the absurd urge to push him, as if they were squabbling on a playground and she could win something by asserting her physical dominance where logic had failed. But instead she channeled that energy into searching the other two utility rooms. Again, there was no resistance, no lock to stand against her—and inside she found nothing but a small cleaning unit, a rolled-up mat. Some toolboxes. She went as far as sorting through each plasma cutter and rivet gun on every shelf, hoping for a hidden lever or button. Fulbreech watched in silence as she rummaged, Park growing more and more frustrated.

Finally she flung the last auto-wrench into its box and rounded on him. “You moved it,” she accused. “That’s why you came down here ahead of me. It wasn’t to keep me safe—you headed me off to hide it.”

Fulbreech’s face wasn’t smug, or gloating, or relieved. Instead he only looked sad and a little pitying. “Believe what you want,” he said, shrugging in a resigned way. “But that’s not what happened. I’m sorry, Park.”

“There was something down here,” she repeated, but even to her own ears the proclamation sounded hollow. Her feelings were a riot of confusion and alarm and righteous anger; how could this be? Where was this thing they were all hiding?

She wished she had come down alone, after all. Even if Fulbreech was orchestrating some deception against her, she couldn’t help but feel a little humiliated in front of him; and when he gave her that sympathetic look, she wanted to scream. No doubt he thought she was a little frenzied, a little unbalanced. She wanted to run away from him; the dim walls of the corridor contracted around her like a vein.

“I’m sorry,” Fulbreech said again. “You should just let it go.”

You’re lying to me! Park thought—but her shoulders slumped. No point in hurling accusations when she had no proof to back them up. And such a display of emotion would only render her more vulnerable—more discreditable—than she already was.

She began walking away from him, without looking back. Fulbreech followed, like a patient guardian following a child who had to ride out a tantrum, and after a moment he said, “You said you were born in New Diego.”

Park wasn’t in the mood to make small talk with him anymore. “What of it?”

“So that means you’re Earth-born.”

“Obviously.”

“But not conscripted.”