Another pause as they all processed it: the very deep pit they’d suddenly found themselves in. When Wick didn’t offer any other solutions, Park added, forgetting whom she was talking to—“You realize that this means that one-third of our crew is out of commission, don’t you? Reimi, Holt, Ma, Keller—you’re not concerned about this pattern forming?”

“It’s not necessarily a pattern,” Wick told her, shaking his head. “Just misfortune. Possibly. Things like this happen on missions of this nature. It’s why we come equipped with the cryogenic pods in the first place: because we know incidents like this might occur.”

Bullshit, Park wanted to say—but they all knew she lacked the experience to truly refute him. Sagara said, “Let’s assume that Reimi doesn’t play into it; that, as an outlier, she was truly sick. We have no evidence to indicate she suffered from any nightmares.”

“A dangerous assumption,” Park muttered.

He ignored her. “But even if that’s true, that means all of this started when we landed on the planet. And it leaves three other crewmembers who exhibited the same symptoms and behaviors—before engaging in self-destructive acts.”

“I wouldn’t say that going down to the utility rooms was inherently self-destructive,” Park interrupted. “Holt couldn’t have known that Boone would attack him like that. No one could.”

Sagara responded to her provocation with a frown. “I am agreeing with you, Park,” he said in a gritty voice, distinctly as if he were mentally adding the words you imbecile after it. “I would also say that three makes a pattern. I’m loath to dismiss this as coincidence.”

Before she could feel embarrassed—or worse, grateful—Wick made a humming sound and ran his fingers over his graying mustache. “Then I suppose we need to investigate what caused the pattern,” he said heavily, as if giving in to something he had been trying to avoid. He sighed. “And we need to see if there are ways of identifying the affected. Fast.”

Park looked between them both. “And how exactly do you propose to do that?”

Wick and Sagara exchanged looks, Sagara glaring as if Wick had let something slip. “That’s not your concern,” the security officer said finally, in a hard voice that brooked no argument. Park, refusing to let him see that he was annoying her, said, “And prevention? Aside from your little investigation, which I assume will take a while, how will we minimize the risk of this happening again? Do we put everyone in quarantine? Freeze them all?”

Wick shook his head. “We can’t stop operations now,” he said. “We’re at a crucial point in our mission. If we put a halt to any of it, we’re in danger of failing.”