Park woke with a gurgling gasp, gulping for air as if she were surfacing after a long period underwater. To her choking panic, she realized she couldn’t move her limbs: only her neck was able to move, lolling around on her rag doll of a body. It felt as if someone had disconnected her brain from the rest of her, pulling some vital wire; for a brief moment she wondered if she’d fallen somehow and been paralyzed.

Then she took in her surroundings, dark as they were. After a while grainy features began to sharpen into a clearer picture. Drawn curtain, sterile walls. Herself nestled in a diagnostic pod, with an observation shield up on all sides. She was in the medical bay.

They must have given me sedatives, Park thought. Heavy ones. She could feel the cold, clammy sheen of sweat on her brow, but couldn’t lift her arm to brush it away. Maybe I was thrashing in my sleep.

Then a splash of horror, caustic and chilly. Maybe I was sleepwalking, like Hunter. Like Holt.

God, she thought, wanting to scream. It really is spreading—!

Then the sedatives rushed in again, quieting her nerves, drawing a gray veil over her brain and affect. No, Park told herself. She’d gone down into the belly of the ship of her own volition. She’d been wide awake when she saw the stranger in the canteen. And she hadn’t had a nightmare. She’d dreamt of Glenn, and—and other things. But those had been real memories. Real thoughts. Not . . . whatever was going around.

She nearly laughed at herself. It was wrong to think of it as a disease, a defect. But it felt as if this ship they were trapped on was a rotting corpse; a bloated, beached thing washed up on an alien shore. Slowly decaying from within. Of course the only thing they could find inside was darkness—and strange, unknown maladies.

She could hear the sounds of an android moving around beyond the curtained darkness of her room. Ellenex, she thought. Park was shivering; she thought to call the medical unit in, but she was afraid of what Ellenex would tell her. Of what might have happened when she was asleep. What they planned to do with her. Sagara had been with her when she’d lost consciousness, she remembered. Surely he thought she was insane, after that display. It was almost a surprise that she’d woken up at all—that he hadn’t already consigned her to the freezer.

She lay back against the stiff foam pillow they’d provided: an unexpected luxury. Not Chanur’s doing. Then who had brought her here? She remembered voices from down the hall, right after Sagara caught her from falling. Who had come looking for them? Had they taken her away from Sagara? Away from danger?

Or had they put her in it?

And what about the stranger? Had anyone found him?