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“Active hands to stations,” a eneral channel

“Wish to fk they’d stop doing that,” Melba said “Always ”

“Savvy, boss When they start payingfor their drills,” Soledad said, her voice pressed thin by the hand ter on this couple Unless Stanni’s got it, we got to ain”

“Copy that,” Melba said “Stanni, what are you seeing?”

The channel went silent Melba looked around the service corridor at a half kilo that could shift to accommodate any direction of thrust The only sounds were the creaking, hissing, andof the Thomas Prince The seconds stretched

“Stanni?” Soledad said, dread in her voice, and the channel crackled

“Perdón,” Stanni said “Looking at so Lost inobscene under her breath

“Sorry,” Stanni said again

“It’s okay,” Melba said “Did you check the brownout buffers?”

“Did”

“Then let’s just keepthat surprised her, the one she hadn’t seen co, was how everyone on the Cerisier was ready to put Ren’s disappearance at the foot of the Ring It was rare for people to go -haul vessel, was a closed systeo She’d assumed there would be the usual, hu, slept with the wrong person, and he’d been disposed of Thrown out an airlock,and reduced to his basic nutrients, then passed into the water or food supply It wasn’t that there were no ways to hide or dispose of a body, it was that there were so feays for it to go unnoticed Traveling between the planets had never elihly evolved primates in the same box for months on end, a certain death rate had to be expected

This tih, it was different It , vanish, as they approached the Ring It felt right The voyage itself was ill-os were supposed to happen when people drew too near the uncanny, the dangerous, the haunted The others were all on edge, and that gave her cover too If she started weeping, they’d think they understood why They’d think it was fear

Melba packed her diagnostic array back in its sleeve, stood, and headed down to the lift The internal service lifts were tiny, with hardly enough roo between decks here was like stepping into a coffin As she shifted down to the next level, she i trapped there Her e locker The one in her quarters The one filled with sealant foam and Ren She shuddered and forced her er ships in the Earth flotilla, the hoether Artists, poets, philosophers, priests Even without changing the physical structures of the ship, it gave her the feeling of being less a military vessel and more a poorly appointed, uncomfortable cruise liner Clarissa had been on yachts and luxury ships ravity well, and she could iine the thousand complaints the ship’s captain would suffer about the halls not being wide enough and the screens on the walls too low a quality It was the sort of thing she would have been concerned with, in her previous life Noas less than nothing