“Zoe?”

“Go away, Freya.” She rolled over and pulled the covers up higher over her head.

Freya dropped down the ladder and stood at the end of the bed. “Ah. I figured you might have come down with it at last. Sorry.”

“If I were strong enough I’d explain to you just exactly how sorry you should be.”

“I hadn’t intended to make everyone sick! I thought my cooking did that well enough.” Freya smiled but Zoe just groaned.

“You mention food and I will decorate your boots.”

“Ain't wearing any,” Freya said, looking down at her bare feet. “Can’t quite seem to be able to get them on at the moment. Simon says it’ll wear off, but for now I am shoeless.”

“Can’t you just be Freya-less and go away?” Zoe asked from the depths of the fug she had created.

“I brought you a clean bucket.”

“Fine. Take the full one and go.”

“I’m feeling better, thank you for asking, though Mal’s sick now too.”

“Good.”

“He’s acting like he’s dying, saying he was wrong in not agreeing to shoot me. Says he wants me to be better’n him and shoot him instead.”

“Go ahead. As long as you do it quiet like.”

Freya grinned. “Could smother him, of course. Pretty much like you’re doing. Are you gonna come out?”

“No. I intend staying right here.”

“How long for?”

“What year is it?”

Freya laughed. “Okay, I’ll leave you in peace. Just call if you need anything.” She picked up the used bucket with some distaste and carried it carefully back up the ladder.

“She okay?” Hank asked in the corridor, his face still pale but his demeanour nonchalantly sympathetic.

“Why, were you planning on being a ministering angel?”

“Thought I might pay her back. Do you know what she did to me?” He looked disgusted. “A bed bath. She insisted on giving me a bed bath.”

“And that’s so bad … how? Zoe, in your bunk, you naked … I mean, you had to have been naked for that, right?”

“No. She said she was going to do it the traditional way. Freya, have you ever had an ice-cold soaking sponge thrust down the