They descended together into the gut of the ship—down the humid, winding passageways that Park imagined were its intestines. Far off there was the faint rattling of chains, the groaning of metal as it expanded and contracted with the changes in heat. It sounded like the movements of ghosts. Park felt as if she were going underground, as if the light was receding—and it was already dim enough as it was. Her arms prickled; she felt as if she were being watched by something behind her, at the end of the corridor. She had to stop herself from turning around.

She put her hand on Jimex’s arm, briefly, to assure herself of his solidity. His presence. Jimex said, without judgment: “You are frightened.”

“No,” Park corrected. “Just—getting my bearings. I’ve never been to this part of the ship before. There was never a reason for me to come down here.”

“I am down here very often,” Jimex remarked, almost mournfully. “It’s the part of the ship that needs the most cleaning.”

“And you think Holt might be somewhere here?”

“It would be where I would hide.”

It was funny, Park thought, how she could miss the passenger areas so quickly, when just the day before she had lamented their crowdedness, their claustrophobic warmth. Deck C felt remarkably murky; the ceiling was oppressively low. More than that, the absence of life in the alien tunnels did frighten her—but she didn’t want Jimex to know that. He had to spend every day down here, alone. No wonder he was so insistent on tagging along with her afterward. Machines, too, probably hated to be lonely.

She rounded the corner with him, half-groping her way in the cold light. Jimex seemed to be leading her toward a trio of doors, stamped into a recess in the wall. She had to squint through the gloom to pick them out. They seemed as nondescript as any of the other doors on the deck, just as gray and inert and unmarked. They looked as if they might hold something as mundane as tissue paper, or dehydrated cheese.

Then she noticed that there was a figure slouching against the middle door.

“Holt?” Park called.

The figure stirred, straightening. There was a crackling green light at its hip. Boone, Park thought, with an electrifying surge of nerves. And his EL gun. She stopped several yards away.

“Park,” Boone said. His face was in deep shadow. “What are you doing down here?”

She expected more snark, bawdy threats like the night before—but his tone was flat and quiet. She surprised herself by retorting, “What are you doing down here?”

“Nothing,” Boone said, without inflection. Then: “You can’t be down here. Go back to Deck A.”

“I’m looking for Holt,” Park said. “Jimex thought he might be down here.”