I grimaced. “What for?”

Zeke shrugged, throwing up his hands in a futile gesture. “Beats me. I’m just the messenger.” He patted me on the shoulder twice companionably, and chuckled when I shrugged his hand off. “I’m sure it’s nothing bad,” he said, trying to be helpful. “I mean, there’s no way they’d fire you.”

A holo-screen blasted us with noise from an open room – “A rebellion at the Mars Penitentiary has—” – and I waited until we had passed to reply, “Nothing is certain. After all, they fired Elijah just last week.”

“No, no, no, he was on somethin’. Some new Underlevel drug or something. Came in looking like he was on the verge of death and who is going to let him stay on a job looking like that?” Zeke looked sideways at me.

I noticed the question he was about to ask and cut him off. “No, I’m not associating with Unders, and no, I am most certainly not on any drugs, Underlevel or not.”

“You can never tell with people.”

First the landing and now drugs. This was going marvelously.