Chanur just shook her head and shrugged. Suddenly Park noticed that there were still people lingering in the hallway, looking into their narrow room. Conscious of the gummy soap in her hair, of her towel hanging around her body like a soggy tortilla, she nodded her goodbye to Hunter and marched past the onlookers, back to the showers. She hadn’t even had time to turn the water off; the steam was almost suffocating. She rinsed off quickly and slipped into her thermal sleeping suit. Her feet were still bare.

Shared psychosis was a possibility, she thought. In the past it had been called folie a deux. Madness of two. Two individuals with latent psychosis, living in close proximity, could mutually trigger delusions in each other—could influence each other’s delusions so that they became identical. But she’d have to establish that Holt and Ma had had extensive contact—and she found it hard to believe that two separate people with psychotic disorders had been allowed aboard the Deucalion. Even with the fast-tracked assembly. She and Keller had thoroughly vetted each crewmember, had conducted all the rigorous tests and simulations. They’d found no trace of anything like this.

Or her infrasound theory was correct. Maybe it wasn’t even the sound of the new planet’s rotation; things like this happened on Earth, too. Mountain ranges could form shapes that repetitive wind events blasted through at certain velocities, creating sound waves too low to hear. Those sound waves could subtly affect the human mind, causing the same irrational feelings of panic and terror that animals felt before earthquakes. Expeditions had gone mad because of those sound waves. People inexplicably ran out into the cold, stripping their clothes off. Clawing at invisible enemies. Dying with their eyes and tongues missing.

Or, she thought. Or Elly had simply been having a bad dream. People did scratch themselves in their sleep. It wasn’t uncommon. The similarities between the dreams could be a coincidence, or otherwise influenced by some innocent external source: a filmstream they had both watched, a book. Park could be overreacting.

She went to discuss it with Commander Wick. It was her way of paying respect; she thought he should be informed before she went to ISF. He shouldn’t have to find out about it from the higher-ups. But around the corner from his sleeping quarters, shivering despite her thermal gear, she remembered suddenly that he wouldn’t be in his bunk: he had to be out looking for Holt. She listened carefully. There were no alerts sounding, no blaring awoogas from the far-off bridge. They obviously didn’t view this as some sort of immediate danger. At least not yet.

Then she noticed that someone was talking in front of Wick’s bunk. Someone male—and angry. Park peeked around the corner and felt a little jolt in the back of her neck. Boone was standing there, gesturing and snarling at . . . Jimex?