Twenty-three days since arrival.

The Ether generator is taking shape, a big ringed shell set a safe distance from the hull, cradled in wiring. Their crew's three spinners are busy all the time making more cabling.

Except somehow it's too quiet. The older crew are a little snooty about Drekhs, and that's fine—but Yaraskis can't even find one of them to be snooty at her.

Paskir is still missing. She and Karrho hunted for him up and down the station for hours.

Nobody suggests going back down to the surface. They'd be killed outright. Their big plan—a hidden warren where nobody will ever bother them again—has to work.

Yaraskis sticks to the smaller, dimly lit corridors now, where only the Drekhs fit. She doesn't like the big, open ones with their flat, bright lights, reverberating acoustics, and the feeling that something is always watching her.

Karrho stays at his work. Yaraskis, ignoring her own, explores the station instead, hunting for their missing crewmates. She makes a tally as she goes, checking every corner of the station, and keeping an ear out for the barely audible whine of a charged scattercape.

A full third of the crew are… gone.

She hears a muted shriek, something under the flickering buzz of a dying light. Then the scrape of metal on metal. She hunches her shoulders deeper into her cloak against the feeling of being followed.

The scraping sound stalks her even through her shortcuts. She turns to look back. Still nothing.

She can't find Paskir. She can't find anyone. There's nothing to do but give up.

Yaraskis heads back to Karrho's workshop.

It's empty. Silent as a dead warren.

Karrho is gone.