“He isn’t,” Boone said. “I’ve been down here all night. I would know.” Then, casting a glance at Jimex, who looked at Boone as impassively as if he were a stranger, he said again: “You can’t be down here. I’m serious.”

“You’ve been down here all night?” Park repeated. “Shouldn’t you be helping Sagara and Wick?”

“I am helping.”

“Do they know you’ve been down here?” She looked at the door behind him; strained to hear any sound behind it. What was Boone doing, hanging around? Was he sneaking some supplies from the maintenance closets? Did he have another cache of guns hidden away somewhere? Or—more sinisterly—she had the brief idea that Holt was behind the door, that Park would hear his muffled screams and open the door to find him trussed up like a holiday bird. Boone saw her looking at the door and said, “Goodbye, Park.”

Just then they both heard footsteps from down the hall. Boone called in reinforcements, thought Park, turning. To shuffle her off. He really meant to keep her away. She felt her hands loosening, the way she’d seen martial artists sliding into stances before combat. Ridiculous, she thought. Boone has his gun. No use in putting up a fight.

But it wasn’t Hunter, Boone’s second, or even Wick or Sagara. Park squinted at the thin, swaying form that was drawing closer to them through the gloom. A man. Tall. Not Fulbreech or Wan Xu. Who was it?

“It is Dr. Eric Holt,” Jimex declared, as tonelessly as if he were announcing the time.

Holt, Park thought, with a prickle of recognition. He really had been down here, after all. Or was he meeting secretly with Boone?

“Where have you been, Holt?” Boone asked then, with a tone of warning.

Holt didn’t answer. He strode closer, his movements jerky and mechanical, and when his face came into the partial light Park saw that his eyes were fixed mindlessly ahead. There was a strange glaze to them; his blue irises seemed glassy, almost milky—as if he had gone blind. His face was devoid of affect.

“Holt!” Boone barked again. “Stay where you are.”

“Escape,” Holt said, in a strange, flat, dry voice. “Escape and exit. Is this it?”

“You’re looking for the escape pod?” Park asked, turning so that she was perpendicular to the two of them; she watched both out of her peripheries like a referee at a fight. Why the escape pod? she was wondering. Did Holt mean to leave the ship for good? Or was he expecting to make some illicit rendezvous there, too?

Holt didn’t look at her. “I’ve been given my orders,” he said dully. “Soon we’ll be free. Is this it?”

Boone looked at Park, uneasy. “What’s going on?” he demanded—as if Park had orchestrated the whole affair. “What’s he doing?”