“I don’t know,” Park said. Then she shook her head and said, “Aren’t you more concerned about what he saw?”

“What, about the kiss? Sagara’s not the type to gossip—”

“The suit,” Park said in a hard, flat voice. “He must have seen it—nothing escapes his notice. You don’t think he won’t wonder why we had it just lying around?”

Fulbreech didn’t say anything for a moment. Finally he said: “The shuttle has exo-armor suits of its own—in case its inhabitants need to go out to make repairs to the exterior. None of them would fit you, but he doesn’t need to know that. He’d think the one on the bench was one of those.”

“He wouldn’t wonder what we were doing with a suit in the first place, whether it came from the pod or not?”

Another pause. Then: “He didn’t see.”

Suddenly the little pod felt too dark, too small, like a cave she had gone into and couldn’t find her way out of. Park felt as if the air had turned hot and close, leaving her short of breath. She said abruptly, “I have to go.”

She spun around and left before Fulbreech could stop her.

—

Keller was not in their shared office when Park returned, but Jimex was. He had formed a special attachment to her, as androids were wont to do when it came to Park, so he was always finding some excuse or another to be around her. When Park came into the room, the android was busily wiping down the couch that she had been intent on flinging herself down on—so she gritted her teeth and moved to the chair at her workstation instead. When she put her head down on her desk, Jimex looked up and said, “You are experiencing gastric distress?”

“God,” Park said, muffled. “No.”

Her thoughts were whirring. As she had suspected, disaster had struck; this was what happened when you planned surprises. She didn’t know what was worse: that Sagara had caught them illicitly hovering over stolen contraband, plotting to leave the ship, or that he now thought that she—one of the ship’s psychologists—was engaged in some torrid romantic affair. He’d be reporting it back to ISF Corvus, surely, just as she was tasked with reporting the same things back about other people. And Fulbreech, fool that he was, had—

Had—

“I’ve spoken to the other synthetics,” Jimex said. “Megex was not told by any party to put medicine in your food. But you may have left it unattended when you sanitized your hands.”

“Yes,” Park said. She had already thought of this.

Jimex paused for a moment. “Ellenex will prepare medication for you. She says it will nullify the effects of emesis tabs if they are administered without your consent.” At Park’s look, he added, “She will be discreet.”