The scratch on the surface of the desk caught her eye, the scratch she’d put there when she’d first tried to force the Soft Blade off her body. That had been, what, her second day on the Wallfish? Her third?
It didn’t matter.
Cold pinpricks of sweat sprang up on her face. She hugged herself, feeling chilled in a way no external warmth could correct.
She didn’t want to be alone, not then. She needed to see another person, to hear their voice, to be comforted by the nearness of their presence and to know that she wasn’t the only speck of consciousness facing the void. It wasn’t a matter of logic or philosophy—Kira knew they were doing the right thing by helping the Knot of Minds—but rather animal instinct. Logic only took you so far. Sometimes the cure to the dark was to find another flame burning bright.
Still feeling as if her heart were about to hammer its way out of her chest, she sprang to her feet, went to the storage locker, and removed her jumpsuit. Her hands shook as she dressed herself.
There. Good enough.
Down, she told the Soft Blade. The protrusions throughout the room quivered and subsided several centimeters but no more than that.
She didn’t care. The spines retracted around her as she made her way to the door, and that was all she required.
Kira strode down the hallway with purpose-born steps. Now that she was moving, she didn’t want to linger, certainly didn’t want to stop. With each step, she felt as if she were teetering along the edge of a precipice.
She climbed one level up the central shaft to C-deck. The dimly lit corridor there was so quiet, Kira was afraid to make any noise. It felt as if she were the only person aboard, and all around her was the immensity of space, pressing in against a lone spark.
A sense of relief as she arrived at the door to Falconi’s cabin.
The relief was short-lived. A spike of panic erased it as she heard a clank farther down the corridor. She jumped and spun to see Nielsen opening a cabin door.
But not to her own cabin: Vishal’s.
The other woman had wet hair, as if she’d just washed, and she was carrying a tray with foil-wrapped snacks and a pair of mugs and a pot of tea. She stopped as she caught sight of Kira—stopped and stared.
In the first officer’s eyes, Kira glimpsed a hint of something she recognized. A similar need perhaps. A similar fear. And sympathy too.
Before Kira could decide how to react, Nielsen gave a brief nod and disappeared into the cabin. Even through the cutting edge of her panic, Kira felt a sense of amusement. Vishal and Nielsen. Well, well. When she thought about it, she supposed it wasn’t entirely surprising.
She hesitated a moment and then lifted her hand and knocked on Falconi’s door with three quick raps. Hopefully he wasn’t sleeping.
“It’s open.”
The sound of his voice did nothing to slow her pulse. She spun the locking wheel and pushed back the door.
Yellow light spilled into the corridor. Inside, Falconi sat in the cabin’s single chair, his feet (still in their boots) propped up on the desk, ankles crossed. He’d removed his vest, and his sleeves were rolled up, exposing the scars on his forearms. His gaze shifted from his overlays to her face. “You couldn’t sleep either, huh?”
Kira shook her head. “Mind if I…?”
“Be my guest,” he said, dropping his feet and scooting back in the chair.
She entered and closed the door behind herself. Falconi raised an eyebrow but didn’t object. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “Let me guess: worried about tomorrow?”
“Yeah.”
“Want to talk about it?”
“Not particularly.”
He nodded, understanding.
“I just … I…” She grimaced and shook her head.
“How about a drink?” Falconi reached for the locker over his desk. “I’ve got a bottle of Venusian scotch somewhere around here. Won it in a poker game a few years ago. Just give me a—”
Kira took two steps forward, put her hands on either side of his face, and kissed him on the mouth. Hard.
Falconi stiffened, but he didn’t pull away.
Up close he smelled good: warm and musky. Wide lips. Hard cheeks. He tasted sharp, and his perma-stubble was an unfamiliar prickle.
Kira broke the kiss to look at him. Her heart was pounding faster than ever, and her whole body felt alternatively hot and cold. Falconi wasn’t Alan, wasn’t anything like him, but he would do. For this one moment in time, he would do.
She fought and failed to keep from trembling.
Falconi let out his breath. His ears were flushed, and he appeared almost dazed. “Kira … What are you doing?”
“Kiss me.”
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”
She lowered her face toward his, keeping her gaze fixed on his lips, not daring to meet his eyes. “I don’t want to be alone right now, Salvo. I really, really don’t.”
He licked his lips. Then she saw a change in his posture, a softening of his shoulders, a broadening of his chest. “I don’t either,” he confessed in a low voice.
She trembled again. “Then shut up and kiss me.”
Her back tingled as his arm slid around her waist and he pulled her closer. Then he kissed her. He gripped the back of her neck with his other hand, and for a time, all Kira was aware of was the rush of sensations, intense and overwhelming. The touch of hands and arms, lips and tongues, skin against skin.
It wasn’t enough to make her forget her fear. But it was enough to redirect her panic and anxiety into a feral energy, and that she could do something with.
Falconi surprised her by putting a hand on the center of her chest, pushing her back, evading her mouth.
“What?” she said, half snarling.
“What about this?” he asked. He tapped her sternum and the Soft Blade covering it.
“I told you,” she said. “Feels just like skin.”
“And this?” His hand slid lower.
“Same.”
He smiled. It was a dangerous smile.
Seeing it only stoked the heat inside her. She growled and dug her fingers into his back while leaning in for his ear, nipping at it with her teeth.
With an eagerness born of impatience, he undid the seal to her jumpsuit, and with equal eagerness, she shimmied out. She’d worried that the Soft Blade would put him off, but Falconi caressed her as avidly and attentively as any of her past lovers, and if he didn’t find the texture of the Soft Blade as appealing as her real skin, he hid it well. After the first few minutes, she stopped worrying and allowed herself to relax and enjoy his touch.
As for the Soft Blade itself, it seemed unsure how to respond to their activities, but in one of her more lucid moments, Kira impressed on it (in no uncertain terms) that it wasn’t to interfere. To her relief, it behaved.
She and Falconi moved together with a frantic urgency, fueled by their shared hunger and the knowledge of what awaited them at night’s end. They spared no centimeter of skin, no curve of muscle nor ridge of bone in their feverish pursuit. Every bit of sensation they could wring from their bodies, they did, not so much for the sake of pleasure, but to satisfy their craving for closeness. The feeling drove the future from Kira, forced her into the present, made her feel alive.
They did all they could, but because of the Soft Blade, not all they wanted. With hands and fingers, mouths and tongues, they satisfied each other, but still it wasn’t enough. Falconi didn’t complain, but she could see he was frustrated. She was frustrated; she wanted more.
“Wait,” she said, and put a hand on his matted chest. He leaned back, his expression quizzical.
Turning inward, she focused on her groin, gathered her will, and forced the Soft Blade to retreat from her innermost parts. The touch of air on her exposed skin made her gasp and clench.
Falconi looked down at her with a crooked grin.
“Well?” Kira said, her voice taut with strain. Holding back the suit was an effort, but
it was one she could maintain. She arched an eyebrow. “How brave are you?”
As it turned out, he was very brave.
Very brave indeed.
5.
Kira sat with her back to the bulkhead, the blanket pulled around her waist. Next to her, Falconi lay on his stomach, his head turned toward her, his left arm draped across her lap, warm and comforting in its weight.
“You know,” he mumbled, “I don’t normally sleep with my crew or passengers. Just for the record.”
“And I don’t normally seduce the captain of the ship I’m traveling on.”
“Mmm. Glad you did.…”
She smiled and ran her fingers through his hair, lightly scratching his scalp. He made a contented sound and snuggled closer.
“Me too, Salvo,” she said, softly.
He didn’t answer, and his breathing soon deepened and slowed as he fell into sleep.
She studied the muscles on his back and shoulders. At rest, they appeared soft, but she could still see traces of the lines and hollows that separated them, and she remembered how they’d bunched and knotted and stood out in hard relief as he’d moved against her.
She slid a hand over her lower belly. Was it possible for her to get pregnant? It seemed unlikely the Soft Blade would tolerate the growth of a child inside her. But she wondered.
She leaned her head against the wall. A long breath escaped her. Despite her worries, she felt content. Not happy—circumstances were too dire for that—but not sad either.
Only a handful of hours remained before they arrived at the Battered Hierophant. She kept herself awake until, halfway through their flight, the free-fall warning sounded, and then she used the Soft Blade to hold Falconi and herself in place while the Wallfish flipped end for end before resuming thrust.
Falconi mumbled something incoherent as thrust resumed, but like a true spacer, he stayed asleep through the whole procedure.
Then Kira slid farther under the blanket, lay next to him, and allowed her eyes to close.
And finally, she too slept.
6.
Kira dreamed, but the dreams were not her own.
Fractures upon fractures: forward, backward, she could not tell which. Twice the cradle cupped her resting form. Twice she woke and waking found no sign of those who first laid her there to rest.
The first time she woke, the graspers stood waiting.
She fought them, in all their many forms. She fought them by the thousands, in the depths of oceans and the cold of space, on ships and stations and long-forgotten moons. Scores of battles, large and small. Some she won; some she lost. It mattered not.
She fought the graspers, but she herself was bound to one. The graspers warred amongst their own, and she to her bond of flesh was true. Though she had no wish to kill, she stabbed and sliced and shot her way across the stars. And when the flesh was hurt beyond repair, another took its place, and still others after that, and with each joining, the side she served was wont to change, back and forth and round again.
She did not care. The graspers were nothing like the kind who made her. They were quarrelsome upstarts, arrogant and foolish. They used her badly, for they knew not what she was. But still, she did her duty best she could. Such was her nature.
And when the graspers died, as die they did, she took a certain satisfaction in their end. They should have known: it was wrong to steal and wrong to meddle. The things they took were not for them.
Then came the flesh of Shoal Leader Nmarhl and the ill-fated uprising of the Knot of Minds that ended with the triumph of Ctein. Cradle-bound she became again as Nmarhl laid their flesh down to rest, and rest she did for fractures yet.
The second time she woke, it was to a new form. An old form. An odd form. Flesh joined with flesh, and from flesh came blood. The pairing was imperfect; she had to learn, adjust, adapt. It took time. Errors had crept in; repairs had to be made. And there was cold that dulled her, slowed her, before the match could then conclude.
When she emerged, it was difficult. Painful. And there was noise and light, and though she tried to protect the flesh, her attempts were flawed. Sorrow then, that upon waking, she had again been the cause of death, and with that sorrow, a sense of … responsibility. Apology even.
…
A flash, then. A disjunction, and somehow she knew, it was an earlier time, an earlier age, before the first ones had left. She beheld the whorl of stars that was the galaxy and—among that sprawling spiral—the billions upon billions of asteroids, meteors, moons, planets, and other celestial bodies that filled the heavens. Most were barren. Some few teemed with small and primitive organisms. Rarest of all were those places where life had developed into more complex forms. Priceless treasures were they, gleaming gardens pulsing with movement and warmth amid the deathless void.
This she beheld, and her sacred cause she knew—to move among the empty worlds, to furrow the fruitless soil, and to plant therein the germs of future growth. For nothing was more important than the spread of life, nothing more important than nurturing those who would someday join them among the stars. As the ones who came before, it was their responsibility, their duty, and their joy to foster and protect. Without consciousness to appreciate it, existence was meaningless—an abandoned tomb decaying into oblivion.
Driven, sustained, and guided by her purpose, she sailed forth into the desolate reaches. There, by her touch, she brought forth growing things, moving things, thinking things. She saw planets of bare stone flush and mottle with the spread of leafing plants. Glimpses of greenery and reddery (depending on the hue of the reigning star). Roots burrowing deep. Muscles stretching. Song and speech the primordial silence breaking.
And she heard a voice, though the voice used no words:
“Is it good?”
And she responded, “It is good.”
Sometimes battles broke the pattern. But they were different. She was different. Neither she nor her foes were graspers. And there was a rightness to her actions, a sense that she was serving others, and the fights, while fierce, were brief.
Then she was soaring through a nebula, and for a moment, she beheld a patch of twisted space. She could see it was twisted by the way it warped the surrounding gas. And from the patch, she felt a warped sensation, a feeling of utter wrongness, and it terrified her, for she knew its meaning. Chaos. Evil. Hunger. A vast and monstrous intelligence coupled with power even the first had not.…
She hurtled past stars and planets, through memories old and ancient, until once again, as once she had, she floated before a fractal pattern etched upon the face of an upright stone. As before, the pattern shifted, turning and twisting in ways she could not follow, while lines of force flashed and flared along the pattern’s edge.
The name of the Soft Blade flooded her mind, with all its many meanings. Image upon image, association upon association. And all the while, the fractal hung before her, like an overlay burned upon her sight.
The deluge of information continued in a loop, cycling and cycling without pause. Among the general profusion, she recognized the sequence she had translated as the Soft Blade. It still seemed fitting, but it no longer seemed adequate.Not given all she had learned.
She concentrated on the other images, other associations, attempting to trace the connections between them. And as she did, a structure began to emerge from what had once seemed formless and obscure. It felt as if she were assembling a three-dimensional puzzle without having any concept of the final product.
The smaller details of the name escaped her, but piece by piece, she came to grasp the larger theme. It coalesced in her mind, like a crystal edifice, bright and clear and pure of line. And as the shape of it grew visible, understanding broke.
A sense of awe crept through her, for the truth of the name was greater, so much greater, than the words Soft Blade implied. The organism had a purpose, and that purpose was of almost unimaginable complexity and—of this she was sure—importance. And though it seemed a contradi
ction, that purpose, that complexity, could be summed up not by pages or paragraphs but by a single word. And that word was thus:
Seed.
Wonder joined with awe, and joy too. The organism wasn’t a weapon. Or rather, it hadn’t been created with that sole intention. It was a source of life. Of many lives. A spark that could bathe an entire planet in the fire of creation.
And she was happy. For was there anything more beautiful?
7.
A hand shook her shoulder. “Kira. Wake up.”
“Uhh.”
“Come on, Kira. It’s time. We’re almost there.”
She opened her eyes, and tears rolled down her cheeks. Seed. The knowledge overwhelmed her. All the memories did. The Highmost. The horrible patch of distorted space. The seemingly endless battles. That the suit had apologized for the deaths of Alan and her teammates.
Seed. She finally understood. How could she have guessed? Guilt overwhelmed her that she had so terribly misused the xeno—that her fear and anger had led to the creation of a blighted monstrosity as horrible as the Maw. The tragedy was, now she had to again take the xeno into battle. It felt almost obscene in light of its true nature.
“Hey now. What’s wrong?” Falconi pushed himself up on an elbow and leaned over her.
Kira wiped her eyes with the heel of her hand. “Nothing. Just a dream.” She sniffed, and hated how weak she sounded.
“Sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah. Let’s go kill the great and mighty Ctein.”
CHAPTER IV
FERRO COMITANTE
1.
The Battered Hierophant hung before the Wallfish, a bright point of light against the black backdrop of space.
The Jelly ship was larger than any other vessel Kira had seen. It was as long as seven UMC battleships placed end to end, and almost as wide, giving it a slight ovoid shape. In terms of mass, it was equal to—if not greater than—a structure like Orsted Station, but unlike Orsted, it was fully maneuverable.
To Kira’s dismay, a trio of smaller ships had taken up positions in front of the Battered Hierophant: extra firepower ready to defend their leader should one of the human ships get close enough to threaten.
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