The hood would let her survive for up to an hour in space, its inner surface releasing oxygen as it decayed, but more important, it would filter out any airborne pathogens, spores, or other possibilities. It had been a long time, but she still had enemies out there.

She stretched gloves over her hands as another precaution and set a stunner in easy reach before she flipped the latches open one by one, pausing for a few seconds each time to listen intently for any stirring within. When the latches were all freed, she took the scanner up again to check the seam where the lid met the body of the crate.

Finally, standing to one side of the crate, she slipped a narrow metal shim underneath one corner and lifted, first a centimeter, then a few more. She took a long moment, waiting, before she raised it fully and looked inside.

She blinked once, then removed hood and gloves, still staring down at the contents.

4

Appearing at the kitchen doorway, Niko said, “Dabry, could you come to my office?”

By now he had peeled the eggplant and rendered it into neat, half-moon slices that were fanned on a platter in front of him. Without looking up, he said with a frown, “This is not a good time, sir.”

“Nonetheless, I insist,” she said. Her tone this time made him look up to read her face and then follow her.

Milly and the twins all exchanged puzzled looks.

“What was that all about?” Thorn asked.

“Keep chopping and don’t think about it,” Gio signed. “We got a lot to do today, kids.” He snorted to himself and eyed the fans of eggplant abandoned on the counter. “If it’s important enough for the captain to pull him away from that eggplant, then whatever it is, we’ll find out soon enough.”

Lassite sat meditating in the tiny cubicle he had chosen for his quarters. Barely big enough for him to stretch out, but it was more private space than would ever have been allowed him in his past life as a speaker for the dying. The restaurant wasn’t open yet, so he had time to collect his thoughts.

The room was full of ghosts, as though they had collected to watch him. He reached out as one glided by, and as it passed through his hand, he touched it with his mind, felt the cold suck of its presence, its energy’s turgid beat.

He heard the captain and Dabry go by in the corridor outside his closet, and the captain saying, “You know I wouldn’t have disturbed you, but…” before her voice was muffled by interposing distance.

Things were in motion. Doom hovered so close, but it always had, really.

He had never been able to find any prophecy about the captain, no word in the Holy Books or scrolls. He’d looked when he could, and asked others, wiser than he, to look as well.