There was another silence, presumably as he levered himself up and out of his own bunk. Then he whispered, “And take her where?”

“Back to the bunk,” Park said, voicing the thought even as she conceived it. “Before someone finds her here.”

“Don’t you think we should tell the others? Why are we bundling her back to your room?”

“Because they’ll freeze her, or shoot her, or take her away, like the others. But if we keep doing that, we can’t determine what’s causing the phenomenon. We’ll never be able to understand it that way. I need time to speak to Hunter, observe her. See if the event repeats. Once I get my data, then—”

She faltered. Fulbreech said, “Then what?”

Park shook her head, rocking back on her heels. “Then, I don’t know,” she finished grimly. “I’ll figure it out. But for now we can’t let someone like Boone catch her here and—kill her, or something. Will you help me?”

Fulbreech, to his credit, didn’t argue any further. “Yes,” he said without hesitation. “I’ll be there in a moment.”

The wait was agonizing. Park was finally able to stand at her full height without swaying; she got up and paced, looking around helplessly at the complex panels in the walls, the consoles with their fierce and glittering lights. She said to the watching androids, trying to squelch the ember of fear in her stomach: “And you’re sure she didn’t change anything in here?”

“Yes,” Dianex said. She was Reimi’s former assistant and generally responsible for the upkeep of METIS and the ship. “We would know. She touched the controls here and there, but she didn’t actually use them.”

“It was as if she didn’t remember how,” Jimex added sagely.

That was interesting. During somnambular states it was typical for victims to be able to perform activities that were familiar to them in waking states—even if it was something as mundane as flipping on a light switch. But it sounded like Hunter hadn’t done even that. Had she not been sleepwalking, then, after all? Or was she simply not familiar enough with the bridge to remember it, even in sleep?

“And you didn’t tell anybody else about her being here?”

“No,” the androids said in unison.

“I told them,” Jimex added, almost proud, “that the best solution would involve you. Now they see.”

All of the androids nodded.

“I don’t know about all that,” Park began, more than a little dismayed, but before she could continue, the door whooshed open, revealing a tousle-headed and harried-looking Fulbreech. And, close on his heels, came—Natalya, wild-eyed, thin-nostriled.