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that.
    DeRicci crossed her arms over her chest. Her shirt bagged. Her clothes were usually too tight. Talia was right: DeRicci really had let herself go.
    Flint continued, “If someone was going to try to do something to the Moon, you’d think I’d be the last person to contact. They’d reach out to you before contacting someone like me.”
    “Or the police,” DeRicci said quietly. That was when Flint knew she agreed with him.
    Talia was still frowning. She no longer had her hand over her mouth. Instead, she chewed her thumbnail.
    “We can do a complete quarantine on the vessel, right?” DeRicci asked.
    Flint looked at her, surprised. She was head of security for the Moon. She should know that.
    And then he remembered: although he had gotten his start with Space Traffic, she hadn’t. She knew how the port worked in theory, but not in practice.
    “Yes,” Flint said.
    “And,” DeRicci said, in that musing tone she often used when thinking out loud, “Space Traffic can search it for explosives before it lands.”
    “ Known explosives,” Flint said. “There are two danger points. When it enters the port from space, and when the authorities let the ship’s door open for the first time.”
    DeRicci’s mouth became a thin line. “I think I understand you, but I don’t want to assume anything here. What exactly do you think could happen at those danger points?”
    “If the ship explodes as it enters the port, particularly if it does so as it’s transitioning into the terminal, then that part of the dome will shatter. The port’s designed for accidents—some ship hitting the dome or burning on entry—but it’s not set for powerful explosions.”
    “What do you mean, ‘powerful’?” Talia asked.
    Flint looked at her. Her blue eyes were wide. He decided not to chastise her for speaking. He suspected DeRicci was wondering the same thing.
    “When I started at Space Traffic, we were all trained to worry about massive explosions. They would damage the port’s part of the dome. That was one reason Arek Soseki had argued for moving the port outside the dome, remember that?”
    He directed the last part at DeRicci. Soseki had made moving the port outside of Armstrong a pillar of his second campaign—before DeRicci had been tapped to act as Chief of Security. Soseki’s proposal had been great for a campaign that had a tinge of bigotry to it—he was implying that non-humans shouldn’t come directly into the dome, but have two points of entry: the port, and the trains to the center of the city—but everyone said that moving the port was impractical.
    It was. The port had been inside the dome for hundreds of years.
    “Massive explosions,” DeRicci repeated.
    Flint couldn’t tell if she was processing or asking him a question. He decided to treat her words as a comment, and move on. He felt the press of time here.
    “I think any explosion right now will have a terrible effect on the Moon,” he said, “even if it doesn’t damage anything but the entry to Terminal Five.”
    “Yes,” DeRicci said. “You’re right. And we can’t see if he’s carrying explosives?”
    “We can see,” Flint said, “but we don’t know all of the explosives out there. We can also shield against an explosive outside the port, and once he’s inside we can contain it. But we’re vulnerable for a short few seconds as the dome opens and the ship enters.”
    DeRicci stared at him, as if she could find the answers in Flint’s expression. He didn’t know the answer. All she was probably seeing was the conflict he was feeling.
    “And when the ship’s door opens?” DeRicci asked. “More explosions?”
    Flint shook his head. “Toxins, poisons, the stuff we usually quarantine for. Everyone will be suited up, but it could get into the system. The terminal has its own environmental system and can be isolated, but if it’s an unknown toxin—”
    “Then we’re screwed.” Apparently DeRicci knew that one. She let out a