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Cherise was there So was Lewis He was self-contained again, only the shadow of trauma left in his dark eyes

"I need you," he said bluntly He turned and walked out of the cabin, ed a look and followed

There was a dead body in the hallway I stopped when I saw her, shock slahclay, or ash - lifeless, athat had once been real and vital

"God," I whispered, and slowly crouched without touching the corpse Lewis knelt on the other side of it "Who - ?"

"That’s the problem," Lewis said "I don’t know I think she’s one of the Djinn" I looked up at David, as staring down at the two of us with a frown He focused on the body on the floor

"That isn’t a Djinn," he said "I don’t knohat that is" He realized, then, what he was saying Djinn couldn’t not know, in the normal course of events; they could spool back the history of things They saw time - it was a real sense to them, the way touch and taste were to humans

The only way he couldn’t knoho this person as if this was a Djinn and the Djinn had been anine

Antimatter It was deadly to the Djinn in all kinds of hideous ways

The next thought ca speed and ihtning-fast glance at Lewis, and saw that this was not news to him He’d already come to the same conclusion, presumably well before he’d come to summon us

David’s reaction was just his confirmation "Fuck," I said "He’s been here, on board, or at least he’s gotten one of his h our defenses We should have known Our early warning syste," Lewis finished "Which means he, or any of his people, could be here This place is big enough to hide an army if they didn’t want to be found"

"But if hiding was the point, why leave this poor lady right here in the open?" I asked

"They could have hidden her anywhere Her Conduit wouldn’t even know she was " Which was the awful part of it David, as Conduit for the Djinn, had a personal connection to each and every one he was responsible for Ashan had the same connection to his half of their numbers Bad Bob’s weapon of choice did worse than kill; it erased The Djinn couldn’t recognize their own dead, or the weapons that killed them The moment the victiht here, with another Djinn staring at hi his existence

There was so my head around it

"That’s not a Djinn," Davidto convince us, only hih this He understood, intellectually, as happening, but this was a kind of phobia for the Djinn - a blind spot that left thee or experience It wasn’t seated in the rational parts of their brains

"Count your people," Lewis said He said it quietly, a little regretfully, as if he didn’t really want to know, either David continued to stare at the corpse

"Counting myself," he said, "fifteen Djinn are on this vessel" In other words - exactly the nued a baffled stare with Lewis "You’re sure?"

"Of course I’m sure Ten of my people, myself, and four of Ashan’s Fifteen"

"Then where did this one come from?"

He couldn’t answer that It was like his brain locked up and refused to produce an answer

Instead, he shook his head, stubbornly unable to get past the paradox

"Maybe Ashan sent another Djinn," I said "A new one"

"You’re sure this isn’t one of his four?" Lewis asked

"I’m sure" I’d seen the four of the herself as fee sexes, in ood reason "This is insane Can you get Ashan on the line and ask him?" David’s attention went elsewhere, but only for a ative "Venna’s coht of Venna’s sparkly pink shirt at the end of the hall She didn’t seem to be in a hurry, but in the next breath she was there, standing at David’s side

"What’s this?" she asked, staring down at the dead Djinn with acade you could tell us," Lewis said "Anything?" She studied the body intently, then shook her head "No I don’t knohat it is" I cleared erous left on the body," Lewis said "It looks as if she died the sa - but there’s no residual energy She’s just - dust"

There wasn’t any way to resolve this, not through the Djinn, in any case "Thanks," I said to Venna "Don’t worry about it"

She didn’t give it a second thought She skipped off down the corridor as if stepping around dead, dust-and-ash bodies was an everyday occurrence

"I’ll be back," David said abruptly, and misted out before Lewis or I could protest He was deeply bothered; I could see that, but there was no way I could help him He’d have to come to terms with this, or not, in his own time

"So what do we do?" Cherise asked I’d al a few feet away, ar off a chill "We can’t just leave the poor thing out here God I can’t believe this is happening This is just awful"

Lewis and I looked at each other, and I kneas thinking the sarated into dust and ash, I wasn’t sureher was much of an option

But it see to do was to try

"We’ll save a sample," Lewis said "Maybe we’ll find soht - we can’t leave her here And there doesn’t seem much reason to store the body"

No, because we both knew the body was going to disintegrate as soon as we started trying to move it

We retrieved a shower curtain and repurposed it as a body bag There was so pieces of the dead Djinn break off and float away as ent about it, but we et her scraped onto the makeshift bier and carried her away