The sound of hammering woke me. Someone chemically too far gone to remember how to operate a flexdoor, reverting to Neanderthal tactics. Bang, bang, bang. I blinked eyes gone gummy with sleep and struggled upright in the lounger. Jadwiga was still stretched out opposite, still comatose by the look of it. A tiny thread of spit ran out of the corner of her mouth and dampened a patch on the lounger’s worn belacotton covering.

Across at the window, bright sunlight streamed into the room and turned the air in the kitchen space hazy with luminescence. Late morning, at least.

Shit.

Bang bang.

I stood, and pain flashed rustily up my side. Orr’s endorphins seemed to have leached out while I slept.

Bang, bang, bang.

“Fuck is that?” yelled someone from an inner room.

Jadwiga stirred on the lounger at the sound of the voice. She opened one eye, saw me standing over her and thrashed rapidly into some kind of combat guard, then relaxed a little as she remembered me.

“Door,” I said, feeling foolish.

“Yeah, yeah,” she grumbled. “I hear it. If that’s fucking Lazlo forgotten his code again, he’s looking for a boot in the crotch.”

The banging at the door had stopped, presumably at the sound of voices from within. Now it started up again. I felt a jagged twinge in the side of my head.

“Will someone fucking answer that!” It was a female voice, but not one I’d heard before. Presumably Kiyoka, awake at long last.

“Got it,” Jadwiga yelled back, stumbling across the room. Her voice dropped back to a mutter. “Did anyone go down and check in with embarkation yet? No, course not. Yeah, yeah. Coming.”