Hawes had other ideas in mind. “Enough with all the questions about eggs,” he said. “You can figure out the squishy stuff later. Right now we’ve got bigger problems.”
From then on, the conversation revolved around things Kira considered less interesting but—as she would acknowledge—were no less important. Things such as fleet placement and numbers, shipyard capabilities, travel distances between the Jelly outposts, battle plans, technological capabilities, and so forth. Itari answered most of the questions in a straightforward manner, but some subjects it evaded or outright refused to answer. Mostly questions having to do with the locations of the Jelly worlds. Understandable, Kira thought, if sometimes frustrating.
Yet, no matter what the topic, she couldn’t stop thinking about the great and mighty Ctein. The formidable Ctein. And at last, she interrupted the stream of Hawes’s questions to ask one of her own: [[Kira here: Why does Ctein refuse to join with us to fight the Corrupted?]]
[[Itari here: Because the cruel and hungry Ctein has grown bloated with age, and in its arrogance, it believes the Wranaui can defeat the Corrupted without help. The Knot of Minds believes otherwise.]]
[[Kira here: Has Ctein been a good leader?]]
[[Itari here: Ctein has been a strong leader. Because of Ctein we have rebuilt our shoals and expanded again across the stars. But many of the Wranaui are dissatisfied with the decisions Ctein has made these recent cycles, so we fight to have a new leader. It is not a big problem. Next ripple will be better.]]
Hawes made a noise of impatience, and Kira returned to asking questions for the lieutenant, and no more was said on the subject of Ctein.
They were still talking with Itari when the jump alert sounded and the Wallfish transitioned back to STL space.
“Two more to go,” said Hawes, dragging a sleeve across his forehead.
During their time in the Markov Bubble, the air in the ship had grown thick and stifling and hot enough that even Kira had begun to feel uncomfortable. She could only imagine how bad it was for the others.
They gripped the handholds in the walls while Gregorovich reoriented the Wallfish, and then off they went again, flying away many times faster than the speed of light.
The interrogation of Itari continued.
The third jump was shorter than the last—only a quarter of an hour—and the fourth one was shorter still. “Just to throw them for a real loop-de-loop,” Gregorovich said.
Then the Wallfish disengaged its Markov Drive, and they sat, seemingly motionless, in the dark depths of interstellar space, with radiators spread wide and the interior of the ship pulsing with heat.
“Gregorovich, any sign of the Jellies or the nightmares?” Kira asked.
“Not a whisper. Not a whisker,” said the ship mind.
She felt herself relax slightly. Maybe, just maybe, they had really managed to escape. “Thanks for getting us out of there in one piece,” she said.
A soft peal of laughter echoed from the speakers. “It was my neck on the line as well, O Meatbag, but yes, you are most welcome.”
“Alright,” said Hawes, “we’ll call it quits with the Jelly for now. We’ve got plenty of material. It’s going to take the spooks back home years to parse all this intel. Good job translating.”
Kira released the Soft Blade’s grip on the wall. “Of course.”
“Don’t go yet. I’m going to need you to translate for a little longer. Still have to get my men settled.”
So she stayed while Hawes summoned the Marines who didn’t have cryo tubes and, one by one, Itari cocooned them. The men were not happy with the prospect, but since there was no reasonable alternative, they had no choice but to agree.
Once the cocooned Marines were safely placed in the cargo hold, next to where Hawes and the rest of his squad would soon be lying frozen in their tubes, Kira left them and went to help the crew prepare the Wallfish for the three-month-long trip back to the League.
“Gregorovich gave me an update,” said Falconi as he descended toward her on the central ladder.
Good. That saved her from having to repeat everything Itari had said. “I feel like I have more questions than answers,” she said.
Falconi made a noncommittal noise and stopped in front of her. “You didn’t tell Hawes, did you?”
She knew what he meant. “No.”
His blue eyes fixed her in place. “You can’t avoid it forever.”
“I know, but … not yet. When we get back. I’ll tell the League then. It wouldn’t do any good now anyway.” She allowed a faint note of pleading into her voice as she spoke.
Falconi was slow to answer. “Okay. But don’t put it off any longer. One way or another, you’re going to have to face this thing.”
“I know.”
He nodded and continued down the ladder, passing so close she could smell the musk of his sweat. “Come on then. Could use your help.”
3.
As the Wallfish cooled, Kira worked alongside Falconi to secure equipment, flush lines, shut down nonessential systems, and otherwise prepare the ship for their upcoming trip. It wasn’t easy for her with only one hand, but Kira made do, using the Soft Blade to hold objects she couldn’t directly grasp.
The whole time, she kept thinking about her conversation with Itari. A number of things the Jelly had said were bothering her: words and phrases that didn’t entirely make sense. Seemingly innocuous expressions that were easy to chalk up to quirks of the Jellies’ language, but that—the more Kira focused on them—seemed to hint at greater unknowns.
And she wasn’t comfortable with unknowns of that sort. Not after learning the truth about the Maw.
When most of the big, obvious tasks were complete, Falconi sent her and Sparrow to carry water and several bags of sugar to Itari. The Jelly claimed its form could digest the simple molecules of sugar without any difficulty, although it wasn’t an ideal food long term.
Fortunately, long term wasn’t an issue. Itari would be cocooning itself once the Wallfish returned to FTL. Or so the Jelly claimed. It made Kira nervous to think of the Jelly perhaps being awake while the rest of them were in a coma-like state, oblivious to their surroundings.
They left the Jelly pouring the bags of sugar into the beak-like maw on the underside of its carapace and went then to the storm shelter near the center of the ship.
There, Kira watched with an increasing sense of loneliness as, one by one, the crew again got into their cryo tubes. (The Entropists had already retired to their cabin and the tubes contained within.)
Before closing the lid over himself, Vishal said, “Ah, Ms. Navárez, I forgot to tell you earlier: there is another pair of contacts waiting for you in sickbay. So sorry. Check the cupboard above the sink.”
“Thanks,” she said.
As in 61 Cygni, Falconi waited until the last. Holding onto a grip with one hand, he pulled off his boots with the other. “Kira.”
“Salvo.”
“Are you going to practice with the xeno on the way back, like you did before?”
She nodded. “I’m going to try. I have control, but … it’s not enough. If I’d had a better feel for the xeno, I might have been able to save Trig.”
Falconi studied her with an understanding expression. “Just be careful.”
“You know I will.”
“Since you’re going to be the only one up and around, can you do something for me?”
“Of course. What?”
He stashed the boots in the locker next to him and started peeling off his vest and shirt. “Keep an eye on the Jelly while we’re in cryo. We’re trusting it to not break out and kill us, and I’ll be honest, I don’t trust it that much.”
Kira nodded slowly. “I had the same thought. I can hang some webbing outside the airlock and hunker down there.”
“Perfect. We’ve got alarms set in case the Jelly does break out, so you should have plenty of warning.” He gave her a wry smile. “I know it won’t be that comfortable there in the entryway
, but we don’t have any better options.”
“It’s fine,” said Kira. “Don’t worry about it.”
Falconi nodded and pulled off his shirt. Then he stripped off his pants and socks, put them in the locker, and pushed himself over to the one empty cryo tube. On the way, he trailed a hand across the side of Trig’s tube, leaving a three-fingered mark in the layer of frost coating the machine.
Kira joined Falconi as he popped open the lid to his tube. Despite herself, she couldn’t help but admire the play of muscles across his back.
“You going to be okay?” he said, fixing her with a look of unexpected sympathy.
“Yeah. I’ll be fine.”
“Gregorovich will be up for a little while longer, and remember—if you need to talk, at any time, you wake me up. Seriously.”
“I will. Promise.”
Falconi hesitated, and then he put a hand on her shoulder. She covered it with her own, feeling the heat from his skin radiating into hers. He gave her a soft squeeze before letting go and pulling himself into the cryo tube.
“We’ll meet again at Sol,” he said.
She smiled, recognizing the lyrics. “In the shadow of the moon.”
“By the shine of that green Earth.… Goodnight, Kira.”
“Goodnight, Salvo. Sleep well.”
Then the lid of the cryo tube slid shut over his face, and the machine began to hum as it pumped in the chemicals that would induce hibernation.
4.
Kira carefully guided a bundle of bedding through the ship’s corridors. She’d wrapped it with several tendrils from the Soft Blade, so as to keep her hand free and keep the blankets from floating away.
When she reached the airlock, she saw Itari floating near the outer door, looking out the clear sapphire porthole at the spray of stars outside.
The Wallfish still hadn’t jumped back to FTL. Gregorovich was waiting until the ship was fully chilled. Already the temperature had dropped by a noticeable amount as the radiators did their job.
Kira secured the blankets to the deck with clips and webbing from the port cargo hold. Then she went and fetched the few supplies she would need for the long journey ahead: water, ration bars, wipes, bags to store trash, the replacement contacts Vishal had printed out, and her concertina.
When she was satisfied with her little nest, she went and opened the airlock. Anchoring herself to the frame of the open doorway, she was about to speak when the Jelly preempted her: [[Itari here: Your scent lingers, Idealis.]]
[[Kira here: What do you mean?]]
[[Itari here: The things you said earlier … Your kind and mine differ in more ways than just our flesh. I have been trying to understand, but I fear it is beyond this form.]]
She cocked her head. [[Kira here: I feel the same.]]
The Jelly blinked, pale nictitating membranes flashing across the black orbs of its eyes. [[Itari here: What is it that two-forms consider sacred, Idealis? If not the Vanished, then what?]]
The question daunted her. Now she was supposed to discuss religion and philosophy with an alien? Her classes on xenobiology had never covered that particular possibility.
She took a fortifying breath.
[[Kira here: Many things. There is no one right answer. Every two-form has to decide for themselves. It is a…]]—she struggled to find a translation for individual—[[… a choice each two-form has to make on their own. Some find the choice easier than others.]]
One of the Jelly’s tentacles rolled across its carapace. [[Itari here: What do you consider sacred, Idealis?]]
That stopped Kira. What did she consider sacred? Nothing so abstract as the concept of god or beauty or anything like that. Not numbers, as the Numenists did. Nor scientific knowledge, as the Entropists did. She briefly considered saying humanity, but that wasn’t right either. Too limited.
In the end she said, [[Kira here: Life. That is what I think is sacred. Without it, nothing else matters.]] When the Jelly didn’t immediately reply: [[What about the Wranaui? What about you? Is there anything other than the Vanished you consider sacred?]]
[[Itari here: We, the Wranaui. The Arms and our expanse into the swirl of stars. It is our birthright and our destiny and an ideal that all Wranaui are devoted to, even if we sometimes disagree on the means to accomplish our goal.]]
The answer disturbed Kira. There was too much of the zealot, the xenophobic, and the imperialistic about it for her liking. Hawes had been right; it wouldn’t be easy to live in peace with the Jellies.
Difficult doesn’t mean impossible, she reminded herself.
She changed the subject: [[Kira here: Why do you sometimes say this form when you refer to yourself? Is it because the Wranaui have so many different shapes?]]
[[Itari here: One’s form determines one’s function. If another function were needed, the form can be changed.]]
[[Kira here: How? Can you change the arrangement of your flesh just by thinking?]]
[[Itari here: Of course. If there were no thinking, why would one go to the Nest of Transference?]]
It was a term she didn’t recognize from the Soft Blade. [[Kira here: Is the Nest of Transference also a making of the Vanished?]]
[[Itari here: Yes.]]
[[Kira here: So if you want to change into your hatchling form or your rooted form, you would go to the Nest of Transference and—]]
[[Itari here: No. You misunderstand, Idealis. Those are forms of the original flesh. The Nest of Transference is used for forms that are manufactured.]]
Surprise gave her pause. [[Kira here: You mean your current form was made? In a machine?]]
[[Itari here: Yes. And if needed, I might choose another form at the Nest of Transference. Also too if this flesh were destroyed, I might select another.]]
[[Kira here: But, if your form were destroyed, you would be killed.]]
[[Itari here: How can I be killed when there is a record of my pattern at the Nest of Transference?]]
Kira frowned as she struggled to understand. Several more questions did little to clarify the matter. She couldn’t seem to get the Jelly to make a distinction between its body and its pattern, whatever that was.
[[Kira here: If your form were destroyed right now, would your pattern contain all your memories?]]
[[Itari here: No. All memories from when we left the system of the Vanished would be lost. This is why our shells always swim in sets of two or more unless the need for secrecy is great, as when we sent the Tserro to the reliquary.]]
[[Kira here: Then … the pattern is not you, is it? The pattern would be an out-of-date copy. A you from the past.]]
The Jelly’s colors grew more muted, neutral. [[Itari here: Of course the pattern would still be me. Why would it not? The passing of a few moments does not change my nature.]]
[[Kira here: What if your pattern were given a new form while your old form was still here? Would that be possible?]]
Nearscent of disgust spiked the air. [[Itari here: That would be the heresy of the Tfeir. No Wranaui from the other Arms would do such a thing.]]
[[Kira here: You disapproved of Lphet, then?]]
[[Itari here: Our goals are greater than our differences.]]
Kira thought on that for a while. So the Jellies were uploading their consciousness, or at least their memories, into different bodies. But they didn’t seem bothered by their actual deaths.… She couldn’t understand Itari’s seeming indifference to its individual fate.
[[Kira here: Don’t you want to live? Don’t you want to keep this form?]]
[[Itari here: So long as my pattern endures, I endure.]] One of its tentacles reached out, and Kira struggled not to recoil as the rubbery appendage poked her in the chest. The Soft Blade stiffened as if it were about to attack. [[The form is unimportant. Even if my pattern is erased—as Ctein did to Nmarhl’s, long ago—it will continue to propagate in the ripples that follow.]]
[[Kira here: How can you say that? What do you mean by ripple? What do you mean those that follow?]]
<
br /> The Jelly flashed red and green, and its tentacles wrapped tighter about its carapace, but it refused to answer. Kira asked her questions twice more, to no response. And that was all she could extract from the Jelly on the subject of ripples.
She asked a different question then: [[Kira here: I am curious. What is the tsuro, the summons that I felt when the Knot of Minds arrived at the resting place of the Idealis? I’ve felt it from all your shells, except here in this system.]]
[[Itari here: The tsuro is another of the sacred artifacts of the Vanished. It speaks to the Idealis and coaxes it forth. Were it not bonded with you, the Idealis would answer of its own accord and move to present itself at the source of the summons. By use of the tsuro, Wranaui shells everywhere search for the Ideali.]]
[[Kira here: And have you found any more since the end of the Sundering?]]
[[Itari here: Since then? No. Yours is the last surviving. But we live in hope that the Vanished have left more of their makings for us to find and that, this time, we will treat them with greater wisdom than before.]]
She stared at the weave of fibers on the back of her hands: black, gleaming, complex. [[Kira here: Does your form know—does the Knot of Minds know—how to remove the Idealis from the one it is joined with?]]
The Jelly’s skin roiled with the colors of affront, and its nearscent acquired a mix of shock and outrage. [[Itari here: In what ripple would that be desired? To be joined with the Idealis is an honor!]]
[[Kira here: I understand. It is a matter of … curiosity.]]
The alien seemed to struggle with that, but in the end it said, [[Itari here: The only way this form knows to separate from the Idealis is death. Lphet and the other ruling forms of the Knot may be aware of other methods, but if so, they have not scented them.]]
Kira accepted the news with resignation. She wasn’t surprised. Just … disappointed.
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