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partitions at Ayo. Ayo was a Feral volunteer and he’d only brought him up from Newperth a week ago. The man was not even thirty. Too young to die. He had a girl down south, waiting for him, hoping to see him again. Ayo lay on the wide bed, eyes closed, his partly emaciated body covered in swirls of red rash. Next to him, a monitoring machine kept track of his vitals. One of the young lab assistants, Henry, was in there, reading to him, dressed from head to toe in protective shielding. Henry sensed Pip at the glass. He must have seen something in his eyes, because he powered down the book and jerked his chin at him in acknowledgement and left the cubicle.
    “Get me a transfuser,” Pip said, without turning around.
    “You gave over half a litre yesterday to send south,” Cassie protested, “and you’ve been on that stupid bag this morning. You’re too dehydrated.”
    “Then hydrate me and get me a transfuser.”
    “It doesn’t sound sensible,” Raina said.
    “Who asked you?” Pip shot her a look that shut her up, but Cassie wasn’t about to back down.
    “Seriously, Pip, don’t be so stupid. You’ll run yourself dry and we need your blood for more tests. You can’t save them all, not like this, you–”
    “Cassie,” Lakisha interrupted, “get what he needs.”
    “I–”
    “Now,” Lakisha said. “The rehydrators are in the store cupboard with the steriles.”
    “I know where they are.” Cassie shoved her chair back and went to a set of cupboards against the wall. She approached Pip with a self injector and transfuser. “Push up your sleeve.” Her face was hard as Pip offered his left shoulder. She deftly swabbed it then pressed the injector against his skin sending the rehydration fluid into his veins. “Give it a minute before you use this.” She slapped the transfuser into his palm.
    “Would you rather see him die?” Pip said.
    “How can you ask that? It’s just …” She shook her head. “This is not the way to save everyone, you can’t spread your blood across the whole planet.”
    “Watch me.” He went into the quarantine room and waited in the space between the two doors for the air to purify before he went to Ayo’s bedside. No shielding necessary for him, the immunity man, he thought sourly.
    He sat in the chair Henry had been in and took a minute to set up the transfuser, taking Ayo’s hot fragile arm and gently inserting the needle before attaching the other end to his own. Then he watched as the bright healthy red of his blood carrying the MalX immunity slipped from his veins to the other man’s. He thought of Rosie as he did it. How he had healed her in the same way, and her dad and aunt. She would never have said a word against him doing it, not like Cassie. But she wasn’t here, was she?
    He closed his eyes and leaned back, head spinning. He hadn’t waited long enough for the rehydrator to kick in, but he couldn’t seem to care because that hollow feeling had come back. It hit him like this sometimes, out of nowhere like a punch to the gut. Rosie had left, telling Cassie and Dalton but without a word to him. It was a fact and it hurt too much. It made a hole in his world that wouldn’t fill, no matter how many lives he saved. If anything, he had to find her, and get her back, if only for her to tell him why. He’d be okay with it, whatever her reason. Maybe. It was the not knowing that was the killer.

    Later, well after dark, he sought out Budjardin standing guard outside Pont’s villa. He’d already left a note for Cassie. She’d be pissed, but with the failure of the last vaccine testing he had no choice. Besides, it gave him an excuse for his other priority.
    Budjardin nodded at him as he approached. A short tilt of the head. “You looking for Inja?”
    “Yeah. He be here soon?”
    The warrior glanced up at the cloud dark night sky. “’Bout ten minutes, I reckon. I called him soon as I saw you cure that fella. Figured on your course.”
    They waited