Joe lifted himself to his feet, went over and touched the wet surface of the first of the water cylinders reverently. He walked on down the line, patting each of the huge tanks till he had reached the last.
His arms reached up, his hands gripped the top of the cylinder and the sinewy muscles in his back and arms lifted himself to the top of it. Then he slid down from the top into the wedge shaped space between the circumference of the tank and the bulwark of the wall.
This was sanctuary, Joe thought. Like a cave in the forest when the wolf-pack keened out their howls for your blood. Only different. For it was your friends who wanted to kill you.
In the darkness, Joe's teeth gleamed in a quick smile.
Then Joe fell asleep.
Arden was weary when he met John Bairn coming down from his time of duty in the pilot cubicle.
"He's gone," Arden said. "Just as if he had stepped out into space. Now we're worse off than ever."
Bairn nodded, said: "I get it. If he's on this ship, he'll have to come in for food; we won't know what he's touched. Maybe one of the more susceptible among us with a scratch may touch something he had and won't know. The infected one will pass like the touch of death among us."
Arden said: "Everything we know he might have touched has been destroyed or disinfected, but there may have been something we missed. Damn him!" Arden's voice was flat, hopeless.