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Dahl said.
    “Next time, remember to more closely examine the relationship between the peptide bonds,” Q’eeng said, and punched his fingers at the tablet. “You’ll find the solution to your problem is staring you right in the face.” He turned the tablet toward Dahl. The rotating molecule had stopped rotating and several of its bonds were now highlighted in blinking red. Nothing had otherwise changed with the molecule.
    “That’s amazing, sir,” Dahl said. “I don’t know how we missed it.”
    “Yes, well,” Q’eeng said, and then tapped at the screen again. The data flew off Dahl’s tablet and onto Q’eeng’s workstation. “Fortunately we may have just enough time to get this improved solution to the matter synthesizer to save Kerensky.” Q’eeng jabbed the tablet back at Dahl. “Thank you, Ensign, that will be all.”
    Dahl opened his mouth, intending to say something more. Q’eeng looked up at him, quizzically. Then the image of Trin popped into Dahl’s brain.
    Show up, do your job, get out of there. It’s the smartest thing you can do.
    So Dahl nodded and got out of there.
    Finn caught up with him outside the bridge a moment later. “Well, that was a complete waste of my time,” Finn said. “I like that.”
    “There’s something seriously wrong with this ship,” Dahl said.
    “Trust me, there isn’t a damn thing wrong with this ship,” Finn said. “This is your first posting. You lack perspective. Take it from an old pro. This is as good as it gets.”
    “I’m not sure you’re a reliable—” Dahl said, and then stopped as a hairy wraith appeared before him and Finn. The wraith glared at them both and then jabbed a finger into Dahl’s chest.
    “You,” the wraith said, jabbing the finger deeper. “You just got lucky in there. You don’t know how lucky you were. Listen to me, Dahl. Stay off the bridge. Avoid the Narrative. The next time you’re going to get sucked in for sure. And then it’s all over for you.” The wraith glanced over to Finn. “You too, goldbrick. You’re fodder for sure.”
    “Who are you and what medications aren’t you taking?” Finn said.
    The wraith sneered at Finn. “Don’t think I’m going to warn either of you again,” he said. “Listen to me or don’t. But if you don’t, you’ll be dead. And then where will you be? Dead, that’s where. It’s up to you now.” The wraith stomped off and took an abrupt turn into a cargo tunnel.
    “What the hell was that?” Finn asked. “A yeti?”
    Dahl looked back at Finn but didn’t answer. He ran down the corridor and slapped open the access panel to the cargo tunnel.
    The corridor was empty.
    Finn came up behind Dahl. “Remind me what you were saying about this place,” he said.
    “There’s something seriously wrong with this ship,” Dahl repeated.
    “Yeah,” Finn said. “I think you might be right.”

CHAPTER FOUR
     
    “Come on! We’re almost to the shuttles!” yelled Lieutenant Kerensky, and Dahl had one giggling, mad second to reflect on how good Kerensky looked for having been such a recent plague victim. Then he, like Hester and everyone else on the away team, sprinted crazily down the space station corridor, trying to outrun the mechanized death behind them.
    The space station was not a Universal Union station; it was an independent commercial station that may or may not have been strictly legally licensed but that nonetheless sent out on the hyperwave an open, repeating distress signal, with a second, encoded signal hidden within it. The Intrepid responded to the first, sending two shuttles with away teams to the station. It had decoded the hidden signal while the away teams were there.
    It said, Stay away—the machines are out of control.
    Dahl’s away team had figured out that one before the message was decoded, when one of the machines sliced Crewman Lopez into mulch. The distant screams in the halls suggested that the second away team was in the painful process of