She rose and tested the door for the umpteenth time. Sagara had somehow gotten the Deucalion’s ailing computer to give him the only security pass that could override the ship’s locks—probably in the same way he had gotten the lights working again. In a way she ought to feel safer: no one could open the door but him, and if he wasn’t currently intent on murdering her, that probably meant she was safe.

But Sagara was only one man. What if the stranger ambushed him, killed him while he was unawares? Then he could pick off the rest of them at his leisure, one by one . . .

Park shook herself. But why kill them at all? If he’d managed to stow away on the ship for all this time, undetected, would he really choose now to go on a destructive rampage and murder everybody? Or had he only been after Wick specifically? If so, why? How could the stranger benefit from taking out the commander of their mission? Was it something to do with Eos? Or was it something personal—a grudge borne a year and a handful of parsecs into the next galaxy?

Her thoughts were awhirl. There were too many unknowns, too many variables in the equation that were still unaccounted for. What did any of this have to do with the nightmares, if anything? How were the ISF or the Fold involved?

She suddenly remembered something Wick had said. She had asked him why Hunter and Boone were necessary, if this was a planet with no inhabitants. At the time Wick had only shrugged and said, You never know.

But what if ISF had known? What if they had anticipated some enemy, some outside threat, and simply hadn’t told her?

What if the man had come from outside?

A part of her shook her head at herself. How could he have gotten in without anyone knowing? It was always such a process, opening any one of the ship’s doors . . . and surely METIS would have alerted them . . .

But was it any less likely than the idea that a full-grown man had somehow survived on the ship for nearly a year without being noticed, stealing food and sleeping somewhere the humans and androids couldn’t have found him? And METIS had been malfunctioning. As had the androids—oh, God, had they gotten rid of Reimi so it’d be easier for him to board the ship undetected? Didn’t that mean someone had to be on the inside, helping him?