JAS’S CABIN WALLS SEEMED to close around her after she returned from stowing away on the shuttle. The few hours’ freedom had been a welcome break from confinement, despite the deeply worrying revelation that the master of the Galathea was now compromised.
Both Loba and Margret had been acting as if they were in a kind of trance. There was no doubt in Jas’s mind that something was within the artificial structures on K. 67092d, something neither she nor the defense units had spotted in all the LIVs they’d conducted. What they’d missed was still a mystery, but as far as she was concerned, her initial suspicions had been vindicated. The problem was, she was the only person aboard who understood that at least two crew members had been infected by an alien organism, and that the rest of them we
