The size of the Hierophant continued to astound Kira. She felt as if she were inside a space station or an underground base rather than a ship. There was a solidness to the Hierophant, a sense of mass that she had never experienced on a mobile vessel, not even the Extenuating Circumstances.
Over their shared line, she heard Falconi say, *Pretty good shooting back there, Doc.*
*Thank you, yes.*
A thud on the other side of a shell door that she’d just barricaded made Kira and the others flinch. The pieces of the shell twitched as they struggled to open, and the door bulged outward as something pushed from the other side. But the strips of bulkhead Kira had secured over the shell held, and whatever was trying to enter the corridor failed.
She drove forward until she felt a wall blocking her way and the passage split into two different directions. Kira allowed the Soft Blade to divide and spread outward until it sealed off both passages. The barrage of incoming fire—physical and energy attacks both—continued, although the majority of it came from the left-hand branch.
As the Soft Blade flowed into place, it exposed the surface of the bulkhead that had stopped their forward drive.
A panel set within the wall glittered as if with a field of stars: pinpoints of shifting light of all different colors.
[[Itari here: The Reticulum!]] The Jelly crawled forward, nearscent of relief and determination emanating from its limbs. [[Itari here: Keep watch for me, Idealis.]] Then the Jelly pressed a tentacle against the illuminated panel. To Kira’s astonishment, the tentacle melded with the wall, sinking inward until it was nearly hidden.
*Is that it?* Falconi asked, settling next to her.
“Yes.” But Kira’s attention was elsewhere; the impacts hammering against the xeno’s barriers were growing stronger. She hurried to reinforce them by ripping additional material from the walls, but she could tell she wouldn’t be able to hold off the Jellies much longer.
A sharp pang of not-pain shot through the tendrils extended into the left-hand passage; the xeno’s way of letting her know it had been damaged. She gasped, and Vishal said, *What is it, Ms. Kira?*
“I…” Another pang, stronger than before. Kira winced, her eyes watering, and shook her head. A spike of blue-hot flame was cutting through the outer layers of her shield—a blazing, sunlike heat that melted and withered her second flesh. The Soft Blade could protect her from many things, but even it would fail beneath the bite of a thermal lance. The Jellies had remembered their old lessons on how to fight the Idealis.
“They’re giving me some … difficulty.” [[Kira here: Hurry if you can, Itari.]]
A wave of colors raced across the Jelly’s skin. Then Itari pulled its tentacle away from the wall. Strands of mucus dripped from the suckers on the alien’s arm. [[Itari here: Ctein is four nsarro ahead of us, and fourteen decks down.]]
[[Kira here: How far is a nsarro?]]
[[Itari here: The distance one can swim in seven pulses.]]
From the Seed’s memories, Kira had a feeling that a pulse wasn’t very long, although she couldn’t put an exact time to it.
An explosion shook the deck underneath them. *Kira,* said Falconi, sounding nervous. Hwa-jung’s drones hovered over his shoulders, bright searchlights glowing beneath their manipulators.
“Everyone hold on!” said Kira. “We’re going down. Fourteen decks.”
She sent black rods shooting back and forth across the latticework cage she’d created, placing them between the people she was protecting. Once Falconi and the others had a secure grip on the beams, Kira dug into the deck with the xeno, letting her thousands of tiny, finger-like fibers rip through the flooring, rip through the pipes and circuitry and strange, pulsing organs that separated one level of the ship from another.
It was a risky thing to do; if she hit a pressurized line, the explosion could kill them all. The Soft Blade knew the danger, though, and she felt confident it would avoid any lethal pieces of equipment.
Within seconds, she’d torn open a hole big enough to encompass their group. Beneath them, blue shadows shifted amid a shimmer of rising motes, bright as embers.
Then Kira released the Seed’s hold upon the walls and the shield, and dropped herself and her charges into the blue dusk.
5.
A whirl of motes blinded Kira for a moment.
They cleared, and she saw a long, low room, scalloped with shallow beds awash with water. The walls were nearly black, and the floor too. Oval orbs the size of a person’s head glowed with soft radiance above altar-like niches set in regular intervals along the bulkheads.
Within the sloshing water, dark shapes skittered, small and insectile. They fled before the harsh searchlights Hwa-jung’s drones cast over them, seeking safety in shadows.
Hatching pools, was Kira’s first thought, but she couldn’t imagine why the Jellies would bother with such a thing on a spaceship of all places. They had other technology for reproduction. The Nest of Transference, for one.
Clear slabs several centimeters thick slammed shut over the pools, sealing them off, and without so much as a whiff of warning from the Hierophant’s nearscent, all sense of weight vanished.
*Ah, shit!* said Falconi. He flailed for a moment and then used the thrusters in his exo to steady himself. Behind him, the others clung to the rods Kira had created out of the Seed.
Normally the shift to zero-g would have upset Kira’s stomach. But this time it didn’t. Her stomach felt the same as before, not dropping or clutching as if she were about to fall to her death. Instead, she felt a new sense of freedom. For the first time, weightlessness was enjoyable (or would have been if not for the circumstances). It was like flying, as if in a dream. Or nightmare.
Zero-g had given Kira trouble her whole life. The only reason she could imagine for that to change now was the Soft Blade. Whatever the case, she was grateful for the relief.
[[Itari here: Without gravity, the shoals of Ctein will be free to swim at us from every direction, Idealis.]]
“Right,” Kira growled, more to herself than anyone else. She again reached out with the xeno and ripped another hole in the decking. With the material she removed, she built a small, dense shield under their feet; for all she knew, a battalion of Jellies might be waiting for them below.
Then with grasping tendrils, she pulled herself and the others through to the next floor.
This time they found themselves in a vast and vaulting space, still blue, but adorned with streaks of red and orange no wider than her thumb. A confluence of hexagonal pillars rose like a tree from floor to ceiling, and around the trunk, tangled nests hung softly swaying from cables that shone as pewter. Throughout, a nearscent of intense concentration pervaded.
Whatever the purpose of the room, Kira didn’t recognize it. Yet, she couldn’t help but pause for the briefest of moments to appreciate the grandeur, the baroque beauty, the sheer alienness of the room.
She resumed digging and tore a hole through the third deck, allowing them access to a smallish corridor with only a few doors along its way. Ten-some meters ahead of them, the passageway ended at a circular opening that led to yet another shadowed room.
Just as she started ripping up the next floor, now-familiar nearscent intruded: [[Itari here: This way, Idealis.]] And the Jelly darted around her and scuttled off toward the opening.
Kira swore, repositioned the shield, and hurried after, dragging the crew with her. She felt like a sailing ship with sailors hanging off the rigging, ready to repel hostile boarders.