There was still the question of the nightmares, too. She still didn’t know what could be causing them—what could be causing all the catastrophes that had struck the ship since they’d arrived. But things were a little clearer, now. Maybe it was all a coincidence. Maybe it was the stress of the whole culture, of keeping all these secrets, of knowing there was something hidden down in the belly of the ship. That could affect a person, couldn’t it? Enough to drive them to a breakdown, to parasomnia? Holt’s obsession—or guilt—could have led him down to the utility rooms. The root of his anxieties, she thought. The epicenter of all the fears and hopes on the ship.

She closed her eyes. No. She was still missing something—there were still things afoot aboard the Deucalion. In the shadows. The hard, reptilian part of her brain told her so, and she had learned to trust that intuition.

But at least her view of things had sharpened, even a little. At least she had a fuller picture of what was going on. She lay back and imagined the Deucalion drifting silently through the boundless inkwell of space. Their native sun would be nothing more than a distant white needlepoint in the black alien fabric they’d woven themselves into. They were farther away from the hub of human life than anyone had ever gone. Wick had only shrugged when she’d asked if they were alone. But who would follow them, all the way out here? Who would venture to the icy outer rings of another galaxy, just to find some anomaly—even one as novel as this?

It was paranoia, she thought. On the part of ISF. They were too used to secretiveness, to walling themselves up from within. To protecting their vulnerabilities from the outside. Park would know. It took one to know one.

She sighed. Glenn had told her something once, when she was young. She’d asked him if he ever kept secrets from her.

“Yes,” he’d answered calmly. When she gave him an accusing look, he’d added, “Only when it’s good for you.”

“How do you know when it’s good for me?” she’d demanded.

He’d smiled and allowed her to take his cool, tough hand, letting her wring it as a kind of mock-punishment. “There are some things you don’t need to know,” Glenn said. “Things that could worry you, or frighten you.”

“But it’s good to be frightened, sometimes,” Park had answered, wise even then.

Glenn shook his head, still smiling. “I don’t understand.”

“Fear is what keeps us alive,” she told him. “I have to know what I’m afraid of to avoid it. Fear is what keeps me away from dangerous things.”

“That is why I am with you,” Glenn had answered patiently. “I will keep you away from what you should fear.”