Her mind was a vast blankness. The numb, unfeeling chill had fallen over her heart again; it was beating so fast that it felt like a hummingbird’s wing, hardly there. Her chest was an empty cavity. She dove through a trio of crewmembers, sending them scattering. One of them—Fulbreech—shouted, “Park! What’s wrong?”

She didn’t answer; instead tumbled and somersaulted madly through the air. Artificial gravity dragged at her legs. She wasn’t going anywhere fast—she needed a kick-off point, something to give her momentum. She looked like an idiot, she knew. But she didn’t care. Nothing mattered more now than getting help for Holt. And Jimex, whom she’d left alone down there. To hell with secrets, she thought. And to hell with Boone.

She burst through the doors of the medical ward. Chanur looked up, with languid impatience. She hadn’t bothered to answer any of Park’s missives over the inlay system. Park blurted, “Boone shot Holt with an EL gun. Down in Deck C—the utility rooms. He needs help.”

“I’ll call Wick,” Chanur said. She turned away and began speaking to someone over the neural network.

What? Park thought. No—Holt needs help now. She looked around frantically for Elly Ma’s ward: she thought to seize one of the four androids on guard duty there, drag them down to Deck C with her and force them to tend to Holt. She shoved her way past Chanur—who half-turned, protesting, “You can’t go in there!”—and rushed into the nearest room.

But it wasn’t Elly Ma’s room. It was one of the cryogenic chambers. Reimi’s room, she thought. She knew it the second the pneumatic door opened, sending a rush of freezing air slamming into her eyes. The dampness on her face crusted over instantly; for a moment she thought her eyelashes had turned to ice and broken off. Chanur was calling someone else behind her. Park thought she heard Boone’s name. It didn’t matter. She just needed to find one of the androids and go.

Then she stopped. The cryogenic tank in the middle of the room looked the same as any other: a dark, oblong, upright pod, like a sleek black closet with a window in it. But the person in the tank wasn’t Reimi—wasn’t the young, lithe form floating in oblivion, as Park had expected. It was someone older, more shriveled, wedged into the black sleeping suit with gray tubes and filaments gathered around her face like ashy kelp. Her face was bent into an expression of frightened sadness.

Dr. Keller.

Chanur slammed open the door. “Wick is on his way,” she said. “Come out of there so I can attend to Holt.”