“You have some unusual activity in the temporal lobe, both within the amygdala and the auditory cortex. We could work to neutralize those abnormal patterns, but I don’t know whether that would be treating the problem or the symptom.”

“Pretty sure it’d be the symptom. I have some…bad memories.”

“Yes, I expect you would,” he returns mildly. To my surprise he doesn’t display the same kind of morbid curiosity as the Unit Psych. “Seems a hard landing acts as a trigger. Do you know of any other events that might set off a similar reaction?”

I shake my head. “Thought I was anesthetized to it, after they made me revisit it so often on Perlas.”

“They did what?”

Frowning, I explain what my confinement was like, and by the time I’m finished, well, I don’t think I’ve ever seen Doc look so outraged. He asks me a series of questions regarding the frequency and timing of my treatments. “Barbarians,” he mutters. “Wish I’d known this earlier. It explains a few things.”

“Like what?”

He pauses. “I can’t be sure without further testing, and I’m not certain I want to subject you to it, but…Jax, I think they may have used subliminal suggestion in your dream therapy to guarantee your eventual breakdown.”

“In case the Psychs and solitary weren’t enough?” The bitterness in my own voice surprises me, and what’s more astounding, I don’t doubt it’s possible. But there’s a more pressing question on my mind now.

Doc regards me solemnly. “I think it’s critical we figure out what happened on Matins IV. They think you know something—and perhaps you do.”

“Why didn’t they just kill me?” It’s the first time I’ve asked that aloud.

“I don’t know, my dear. But I suspect it’s vital we discover that as well.”

“So you don’t think I’m crazy…or dangerous?”

“No more than anyone else,” he answers kindly, “under the right circumstances.”

I don’t know why, but that placates my fear better than anything else he could have said. Humans are capable of horrific acts, but the aftermath of Matins IV left me feeling like I deserve a special spot among monsters. And I don’t even know why. Examined intellectually, the feeling doesn’t make sense. I know we made the jump; we arrived intact and something…happened as Kai tried to put us down on planet. I just can’t remember what. But how could that be my fault?

My gaze wanders around the sterile medical exam room, white and gleaming synth. Saul’s instruments align with mathematical precision, revealing a great deal about his character. I hop down from the table and decline his offer of a sedative.

“No thanks. It won’t accomplish anything if I sack out in quarters. Once I start asking to forget, well…” I smile wryly. “I might as well have stayed on Perlas.”

“I can’t imagine you ever take the easy road,” he observes, putting away the scanner he used to check my amygdala, whatever that is. “That’s what March can’t resist, you know. That grit.”

“He acts like he can hardly stand me—”

“There are reasons.” Before I can frame the question, Doc shakes his head. “Oh no, I’ve said too much already. Get out of my med bay, you’re fine.”

“No, I’m not. But I think maybe…I will be.”

Saul gives me a knowing half smile as I turn down the hall, heading back to the hub. I can hear Dina swearing from somewhere else within the ship, and Loras seems to be analyzing a status report at the comm terminal. Well, things can’t be too bad if we’ve got systems online, right? He ignores me, a fact I find comforting. It’d be so much worse if he behaved solicitously.

I still feel somewhat shaken, but I’ve got a little distance from it. Time to compartmentalize, push it back and pretend the woman who broke down belongs to someone else, another Jax. So I square my shoulders and go in search of March.

When I find him, he’s in the cockpit, but what bothers me is…he’s doing nothing. Just slumped in the pilot’s chair, gazing at a panel whose numbers mean nothing to me. A cold chill crawls down my spine as I realize I’ve never seen that look in his eyes: a veritable wasteland, bleak and grim. In anyone else I’d call the expression despair, but I can’t reconcile that to what I know of him.

“What’s wrong?”

I’d intended to demand to know our plan of action, status of repairs, how long we might be grounded, and when we’re heading out to meet the natives. But his eyes knock all that right off my agenda. Now I just need to know why he looks like this.

“Better question is what’s right? It’d take less time to answer.” He manages a shadow of his usual saturnine smile, but I’m not buying it.

“Seriously, don’t bullshit me.”

Sighing, he sits forward in the pilot chair, tapping a figure on the display panel with an index finger. “That’s population. Something bad happened here, Jax. There’s nothing left alive above five kilos.”

For a minute I can’t even process that. The amphibians we came to visit beneath Corp radar, the genetics we intended to tap…gone? Figuring out what happened, that will be work for anthropologists down the line.

“How is that even possible?” I can’t begin to guess.

March shakes his head. “I don’t fragging know. The Mareq were tribal, barely even aware that there were other settlements within reasonable walking distance: different traditions, different dialects. Don’t know how a plague could spread, given they had almost no contact with each other. And they were a peaceful race, as far as our records indicate.”

“You think someone did this on purpose.” It’s not a question, and I know damn well that’s what put this look in his eyes.

“Nothing else makes sense,” he says, too quietly.

I think about that for a moment, and I’m surprised to see my hand hovering a few millimeters from his shoulder. Is that what I want? To comfort March? Perhaps I give myself too much credit, believing I might have the power.

It’s been over a standard month since I touched anyone else of my own volition. The last time, I was with Kai, preparing for our jump to Matins IV. Hovering there, my fingers look thin and spidery, blue veins too prominent across the back, a map of bad choices. Maybe those arteries writhe with some poison that contaminates everything I touch. So I drop my hand, and for once he doesn’t notice, still staring at the panel.

There’s something I have to ask, and a few months back, the question would never have occurred to me. But now I’m born again in speculation and paranoia. My skin crawls with it, and my mind fosters suspicion like a beloved child.

“Did Zelaco have access to Mair’s research?”

March’s head jerks up. “Possibly.”

“Let’s assume he did,” I say, carefully neutral. “Would it be within his character to provide some intelligence to the Corp for the right price?”

He sucks in a slow breath, both hands fisting on his knees. “Absolutely. He wouldn’t have revealed our base of operations; he wouldn’t have risked them striking at Lachion while he was on planet. But if he calculated our risk of failure greater than our chance at success, he certainly would’ve padded his take by selling you to the Gunnars and added another slice by offering what he knew of our agenda to the Corp.”

I feel numb.

“So we’re looking at ten dead worlds, potentially. If you can’t cull the competition, destroy their resources. March, what if they took samples? What if they know about Doc’s cross-germination idea?”

“Doubt Zelaco knew the science of it. Doc’s been very tight with that.” But he doesn’t sound hopeful.

In fact, he looks almost totally defeated, and I realize he’s paying me a compliment, letting me see him like this. Maybe it’s quid pro quo. He’s seen me at my worst, so he can offer it back. Whatever the reason, I won’t snipe at him, not now.

“Are we still going to look around on planet?”

“Might as well,” he answers. “Dina’s going to be a couple of days getting us flightworthy. We took some hull damage coming in, and the phase drive—”

“Broke down conveniently,” I finish. “Zelaco, or more to the point, someone he hired had access to the Folly while we were en route to the compound?” When he nods, I add, “At this point, I think we can assume there are gray men headed for our location.”

March offers a tight smile. “There’s a bright spot, at least.”

“Or it’s possible we’re sharing a paranoid delusion.”

“Occam’s razor,” he murmurs, shaking his head.

“Huh?”

“Just someone who lived a long time ago and died in obscurity. We need to move unless we want to become anecdotal footnotes ourselves.”

Reality as I know it is no more because I’m in complete agreement with March.

CHAPTER 20

It’s hard to imagine this planet holding the key to anything.

Through the view screen, I see the soil bubbling with algae as the rain pours down. Everything is green, but it’s unwholesome, dripping and dank. The atmosphere is borderline breathable, but we need filters to scrub out chemicals that might burn our lungs. I make no protest when Saul plugs my nostrils; that’s not the way I want to die.

Most of the time, I imagine myself passing while I’m jacked in, taking my last look at grimspace. Sometimes, mainly when I’m drunk, I see myself as an old woman, keeling over while eating smooth sweet slices of kavi and ogling handsome waiters. That death wouldn’t be hard to arrange, particularly on Venice Minor. In fact, I could probably pay someone to see to it.

“You think about that too much,” March tells me, as we’re checking our gear.

“Everyone needs a hobby.”

With a look he informs me that I’m unspeakably macabre, but I just shrug. Ship sensors indicate there’s a settlement about four kilometers away, so we’re going for a hike. The Folly doesn’t have anything like a land vehicle, just the shuttle, which won’t clear the jammed bay doors, courtesy of our crash landing. We could sit around waiting for Dina to get that fixed, but neither March nor I qualify as patient. Besides, we’ve already ascertained there’s nothing big left out there.

What could possibly go wrong?

Loras takes one look outside and declines to set foot on planet; he doesn’t bother with an excuse while Doc states gravely that if there are no living Mareq, he will only get in the way. Dina presents the best case for staying behind, as the ship needs repairs.

For a moment, I feel as if they’re throwing us together on purpose, as we’ll probably spend the night at the settlement. Even if there’s nothing dangerous left mudside, we could still fall down a hole or get sucked into the swamp. Whatever March says, I’m not walking back in the dark.

But I don’t notice any significant glances, no conspiratorial grins, so I don’t think it’s matchmaking. Seems more like they just don’t want to wander around this shit hole, and as I step off the loading ramp, I can’t blame them. I sink two centimeters into the mud, and the stink of putrid vegetation almost overwhelms me, even through the filters.