“I see,” Park said. She kicked her blanket off; it tangled around her feet like hairy rope. A cold white moonlight, muffled eerily by the biodome, fell into the room and against her bed like a surgical glove. When she looked out the window again, Park noticed a pair of seagulls wheeling in the sky outside, beyond the dome’s wall, looking in. Dipping occasionally to ruffle each other’s feathers. Calling to each other. Birds in love, she thought. Nothing that concerned her.

“Well,” Park said, “try to imagine the very worst thing you worry about. That’s something close to fear.”

“The very worst thing,” Glenn repeated.

Park turned away from her window to look at him. “What is it?” she asked.

He opened his eyes then, despite her order not to. His eyes were as green and chatoyant as a cat’s in the gloom. “I’m afraid of what will happen when I’m gone,” he told her soberly. A sad whirring sound came from his head.

“Why?” Park asked him, surprised.

“Because you’ll be afraid,” Glenn told her, his face solemn. “And you’ll be alone.”

—

After the assault on Holt, the first thing Sagara proposed was suspending all of Park’s patient sessions, effective immediately.

Park bristled. They were holding a meeting in the ship’s solarium, a room that bathed crewmembers in supplemental vitamin D and artificial sunlight. It was the only room both big enough and private enough to hold all of the meeting’s attendants, which consisted of Wick, Sagara, Boone, and Park. It was also so blazingly bright in the room that Park had to squint, which she was sure lent more hostility to her stare. She didn’t know if that gave her an advantage or not.

“The entire reason I’m here is to look after the crewmembers’ health,” she said, looking at Sagara, who in turn looked unimpressed. “With Keller frozen, I’m the only one who can monitor their mental states. If you don’t allow me to do that, then you’re wasting every penny the ISF spent in getting me here.”

“If we don’t stop this phenomenon from spreading,” Sagara retorted, “then everyone on this ship might die.”

There was a tense little silence at that. Boone, who was slouching with his arms crossed by the door, scoffed and looked away. He hadn’t met Park’s eye since they’d wheeled Holt’s charred body into the medical bay.

“It’s the safest option,” Sagara continued finally, his voice calm. But he glared at Park; she had the distinct feeling that he blamed her for everything that was happening. “Don’t you understand that? We don’t have any idea how this affliction spreads—”