Then fire. Heat and flame—Natalya had doused them in alcohol and lit a plasma torch! Park scrambled backwards, out of the way, but the synthetics were unharmed, merely confused as fire licked up their bodies. Jimex’s reddened shirt was being devoured by golden light. Fulbreech lunged past her, shouting, holding a fire extinguisher: Park caught his stray thought as he dove past. If the fire took the bridge, there was no hope left. They would all crash into Eos and die.

Sagara was running forward too, Boone nowhere in sight, the synthetics all clamoring, rushing to the stations that would activate METIS’s dousing protocols. But in the commotion, Park saw Natalya staggering to her feet. She watched as the surveyor ran out of the bridge.

Unbidden, a fierce, stormlike energy leapt through Park, as if a solar wind had kicked up howling in her body; she found herself surging to her feet and staggering after the surveyor. I’ll kill you, she thought—but the thought was absurd, far-off, as if it had been thought by someone else in another life. The METIS part of her screamed in outrage as it felt the fire, sensed the damage to its own system. You’re the cause of all of this: all this betrayal, all this destruction. Fire, blood—all because of you. I’ll end you.

Jimex was coming after her, the flames on him now snuffed out, and Taban; Jimex had a gun in his hand, but he seemed loath to risk damaging the ship any further. The Deucalion was still tilting wildly; it was in freefall again, and Park could not hold it upright, could not concentrate on it while she was running after Natalya. Taban shouted something at Natalya about surrendering. She ignored him, rushing off down the hall without a glance back; Park tore after her and thought again, I’ll find you. There’s nowhere on this ship you can hide from me. Her head was buzzing; she was swarming with anger, aching with it—it rushed to the top of her throat like bile.

Doors flew open as Natalya fled past them; pipes let out sudden hisses of steam, and metal screamed in protest. The depths of the ship seemed to Park like the dark-gleaming arteries of an enormous mechanical heart. It was if an army of ghosts was pursuing the surveyor, possessing things around her, causing them to revolt—or as if the ship itself was coming alive. Had Taban been wrong? Park wondered. Was this the end of the season, the final culmination of the unity rain? Or was it all her? Her and METIS’s rage?