To Sleep in a Sea of Stars

CHAPTER I. RECOGNITION

1.

She was.

How, where, and what, she could not say … but she was. The lack of knowledge did not bother her. She existed, and existence was its own satisfaction.

Her awareness was a thin, trembling sensation, as if she were stretched over too much area. She felt insubstantial; a haze of recognition drifting across a darkling sea.

And for a time, that was enough.

Then she noticed the membrane of her self beginning to thicken, slowly at first, but with increasing speed. With it came the question that birthed all questions: Why?

As her flesh continued to solidify, her thoughts also grew stronger, more coherent. Still, confusion dominated. What was happening? Was she supposed to know? Where was she? Was where something real or something she had imagined?

The shock of connecting nerves caused her a stab of pain, sharp-edged as the light that shone upon her. For there was light now, from many sources: cold sparks set in black and a great blazing sphere that burned without end.

More shocks followed, and even thought failed before the barrage of pain. Throughout, she continued to increase in size. Gathering. Coalescing into being.

A memory returned to her, and with it, the memory of memories: Sitting in third-year anatomy class, listening to the damn pseudo-intelligence drone on about the internal structure of the pancreas. Looking at the glistening red hair of the undergraduate two rows ahead of him …

What did it mean? Wh—

More memories: Chasing Isthah through rows of tomato plants in the greenhouse behind their hab-dome … then diving past her co-forms toward the Abyssal Plain, swirling around the overgrown lamp lines with the gasping beaks … arguing with his uncle who didn’t want him to join the UMC, while she sat for entrance exams with the Lapsang Corp. and entered the Nest of Transference before assuming her new form and took the oath of fealty by light of Epsilon Indi on concertina racing forms howsmat double-shot clasp four-point verification nearscent heresy with the swirling exhaust of—

Had she/he/it a mouth, they would have screamed. All sense of identity vanished within the tsunami of images, smells, flavors, and feelings. None of it made sense, and every part of it felt like them, was them.

Fear choked her/him/it, and they flailed, lost.

Among the memories, one set was more lucid and organized than the rest—greenery mixed with love and loneliness and long nights spent working on alien planets—and she/he/it clung to it like a lifeline in a storm. From it, they attempted to construct a sense of self.

It wasn’t easy.

Then, from somewhere in the howling confusion, a single word surfaced, and she/he/it heard it spoken in a voice not their own: “Kira.”

… Kira. The name rang like a struck bell. She wrapped herself in it, using it as armor to defend her core, using it as a way to give her/him/it some sense of internal consistency.

Without that consistency, she was no one. Just a collection of disparate urges devoid of meaning or narrative. So she held to the name with a fierce grip, trying to maintain a semblance of individuality amid the ongoing madness. Who Kira might be wasn’t a question she could answer yet, but if nothing else, the name was a fixed point she could center herself on while she tried to figure out how exactly to define herself.

2.

Time progressed in strange fits and starts. She couldn’t tell if moments were passing or eons. Her flesh continued to expand, as if precipitating out of a cloud of vapor, building, bunching, becoming.

Limbs she felt, and organs too. Blistering heat and, in shadows sharp and stark, brittle cold. Her skin thickened in response, forming armor sufficient to protect even the most delicate of tissues.

Her gaze remained turned inward for most of the time. A chorus of competing voices continued to rage through her mind, each fragment struggling for dominance. Sometimes it seemed her name was actually Carr. Other times Qwon. But always her sense of self returned to Kira. That was the one voice loud enough to hold its own with the others—the one voice soothing enough to calm their frenzied howls and ease their distress.

Larger she grew, and then larger still, until at last there was no more material to add to her flesh. Her size was set, although she could change its arrangement at will. Whatever felt wrong or out of place was hers to move or mold as she wished.

Her mind began to settle, and the shape of things began to make more sense. She remembered something of her life on Weyland, long ago. She remembered working as a xenobiologist, and meeting Alan—dear Alan—and then, later, finding the Seed on Adrasteia. And yet, she also remembered being Carr. Julian Aldus Carr, doctor in the UMCN, son of two not-so-loving parents, and avid collector of carved beryl nuts. Likewise she remembered being the Wranaui Qwon, loyal servant of the Knot of Minds, member of the strike-shoal Hfarr, and ravenous eater of the delicious pfennic. But the memories from both Carr and Qwon were hazy, incomplete—overridden by the far more vivid recollections of their time spent joined together in hungry fashion as the Maw.

A shiver ran through her flesh. The Maw … With that thought, more information rushed into her mind, full of pain and anger and the torment of unfulfilled expectations.

How was it she and they were still alive?

3.

At long last, she turned her attention to her surroundings.

She hung in the void, seemingly without motion. No debris surrounded her, no gas or dust or other remnants. She was alone.

Her body was dark and crusted, like the surface of an asteroid. The fibers of the Seed bound her together, but she was more than just the fibers; she was flesh too, soft and vulnerable within.

The eyes she had now grown allowed her to see the bands of magnetic force throughout the system. Visible also was the shimmery haze of the solar wind. The sun that illuminated all was a dim blue-white that reminded her of … she didn’t know, but it felt familiar, nostalgic—though the nostalgia came not from her/Carr/Qwon but from the Seed itself.

She extended her gaze.

Scores of glittering ships populated the system. Some she seemed to recognize. Others were unfamiliar but of a familiar type: vessels belonging to graspers or else to two-forms … or else to the misplaced flesh of the Maw—which was her. She was responsible. And she saw how the flesh of her flesh had resumed attacking the other ships, spreading pain, death, and destruction throughout the system.

She did not understand the situation, not fully, but she knew that this was wrong. So she called to her wayward children, summoning them to her side that she might end the conflict.

Some obeyed. They flew toward her with great banners of flame streaming from their engines, and when they arrived, she clasped them close and healed their hurts, calmed their minds, returned their flesh to whence it came. For she was their mother, and it was her duty to care for them.

Some rebelled. Those she sent parts of herself racing after, and so caught them and chastised them and carried them back to where she hung waiting. None escaped. She did not hate her children for misbehaving. No, rather she felt sorrow for them and sang to them as she eased their fears, their angers, and their many pains. Their agony was so great, she would have wept if she could.

As she corralled her unruly offspring, some of the graspers and the two-forms shot at her sendings with lasers, missiles, and solid projectiles. That would have incurred the wrath of the Maw, but not of her. The attacks bothered her little, for she knew the graspers and the two-forms did not understand. She had no fear of them. Their weapons could not harm what she had become.

Many of the beings’ ships followed as she drew in the leavings of her flesh. They formed a grid in front of her, at what they must have thought was a safe distance. It was not, but she kept that knowledge to herself.

Hundreds of signals emanated from the ships, aimed toward her. The electromagnetic beams were dazzling cones of prismatic energy flashing in her vision, and the sounds and information they carried were like the buzzing of so many mosquitoes.

The display was distracting, and it made thinking harder than it already was. Annoyed, she spoke a single word, using means that every species would understand:

“Wait.”

After that, the signals ceased, leaving her in blessed silence. Satisfied, Kira again turned her focus inward. There was much she still didn’t understand, much that she still needed to make sense of.

4.

Piece by piece, she worked to assemble a coherent picture of recent events. Again she lived the visit to Bughunt. Again the escape from Orsted Station and then the long trip to Cordova and the battle that followed.

The Casaba-Howitzer had exploded. That much she felt sure of. And somehow—somehow—the Seed had salvaged something of her consciousness, and that of Carr and Qwon, from amid the nuclear inferno.

She was … Kira Navárez. But she was also so much more. She was part Carr, part Qwon, and also part the Seed.

For a lock seemed to have opened in her mind, and she realized there was a storehouse of knowledge she now had access to—knowledge from the Seed. Knowledge from the time of the Vanished. Only, that wasn’t what they had called themselves. Rather, they thought of themselves as … the Old Ones. Those who had come before.

In the process of saving her, she and the xeno had finally become fully integrated. But there was more to it, and this too she now understood: there were layers to the Seed’s abilities, and most of them remained walled off, inaccessible until the xeno reached a certain size (which she had now far exceeded).

So she who had once been just Kira and was now far more, far greater, hung there in the blackness of space, and she thought, and studied, and contemplated the branching possibilities that lay before her. The path had grown tangled as a thicket, but she knew that the Seed’s guiding principle would help guide her, for it was her own principle as well: life was sacred. Every part of their moral code rested upon that fundamental principle. Life was sacred, and it was her duty to protect it and, where reasonable, disseminate it.

While she pondered, she noticed how the ships in the system arrayed themselves: human on one axis, Wranaui on another, and as much as they kept their weapons aimed at her, they kept an equal amount aimed at each other: two fleets facing off, with her in the middle. The cease-fire was an uneasy one. Even with the death of the great and mighty Ctein, it would take little to reignite the flames of war. The two species had had nothing but the Maw to bind them together and both were, at heart, ruthless, bloodthirsty, and expansionist. That much she knew from her life as Kira, and also from her life as Shoal Leader Nmarhl.

Then too, she felt responsible for the war. Her that was Carr and Qwon. Her that had been the Maw and its offspring. Her that now floated in orbit around the Cordovan star.

And she knew that more of her unfortunate offspring moved among the stars, spreading terror, pain, and death among the humans and Wranaui. And her that was Kira felt fear for her family. Nor was that all: she remembered the planet the Maw had infested, an entire sphere of living things, transformed into service of the misguided flesh. Machines there were too, and ships also, and all sorts of dangerous devices.

The thought distressed her.

She wanted … peace, in all its forms. She wanted to give the gift of life, that both humans and Wranaui might stand together and breathe air that smelled of green and good and not metal and misery.

She knew then what she needed to do.

“Watch, and do not interfere,” she said to the waiting fleets.

First the most painful part. She drew upon what had been the hidden knowledge of the Seed and transmitted a powerful signal from the system. Not a cry, not a plea, but a command. A killing command, directed at the makings of the Maw. Upon reception, it would unknit the cells of the Corrupted, disassemble their bodies, and reduce them to the organic compounds that comprised them. What the Seed had made, it could unmake.

A cleansing was necessary, and she could think of no faster way to stop the violence and suffering. The task had fallen to her, and she would not shy from the work, however sorrowful.

With that done, she formed agents of her flesh and sent them forth to the damaged ships that floated abandoned around the planet the Wranaui had been mining. Other parts of herself she dispatched to the bands of asteroids, with the goal of extracting the materials she needed.

While the drones pursued their function, she set to work upon the main body of her flesh, restructuring it to fit her intention. Around her core, she formed an armored sphere that served to protect what remained of her original body. From that, she extruded polished black panels designed to absorb every ray of sunlight that struck them. Power. She needed power if she were to accomplish her goal. The Seed had plenty of its own, but not enough for what she had in mind.

What mind? No mind … She laughed to herself, a quiet song in space.

Drawing upon the Seed’s banks of encoded knowledge, she began to build the needed machines, constructing them from the atomic level up. With energy gathered from the panels, she sparked a burning sun inside herself: a fusion reactor large enough to drive the biggest UMC battleship. With energy from the artificial star, she started to manufacture antimatter—far more than the inefficient techniques of the humans or the Wranaui allowed for. The Old Ones had mastered the means of antimatter production before either species had even come into being. And with antimatter as fuel, she built a modified torque engine that allowed her to twist the fabric of the universe and siphon energy directly from FTL space. Which was, as she had come to understand, how the Seed powered itself.

As her agents took possession of the damaged ships, they sometimes found wounded humans or Wranaui forgotten upon the vessels. The wounded often attacked, but she ignored their attacks and tended to their injuries, despite any protestations, before sending the abandoned crew off to their kind in escape pods taken from the ships or that she made herself.

When the drones returned with ships and stones in tow, Kira devoured the materials they contained—much as the Maw would have—and added them to the structures taking shape around her.

The watching fleets grew nervous at this, and several of the vessels flashed her with powerful signals in an attempt to talk with her.

“Wait,” she said. And they did, although both humans and Wranaui retreated even farther, leaving a wide berth of space around her.

With energy and mass to spare, Kira put all her efforts into construction. The endeavor was not purely mechanical; along with beams and braces and metal girders, she allowed the Seed to create special chambers that it filled with an organic soup—heated bioreactors that began to produce the living materials needed for the finished product: woods stronger than any steel; seeds and buds and eggs and more besides; vines that crawled and clung and could transmit electricity as efficiently as copper cable; fungal superconductors; and a whole ecosystem of flora and fauna drawn from the Seed’s vast experience, and which it and Kira believed would work in a harmonious whole.

She moved quickly, but her efforts took time. Days passed, and still the fleets sat waiting and watching, and still she built.

From her central core grew four enormous struts that extended forward, backward, left, and right, so that they made a cross with arms of equal length. She extended the cross, meter after meter, until each strut was three and a half kilometers long and thick enough to fly a cruiser through. Then she set the Seed to joining the tips of the cross with a great equatorial ring, and from the end of each strut, a rib began to grow both up and down and curving inward, as if hugging the surface of an invisible orb.

The Seed was so large by then that Kira could hardly imagine being confined to a body the size of a human or a Wranaui. Her consciousness encompassed the whole of the structure, and she was aware of every part of it at every moment. It was, she imagined, much how a ship mind must feel. The substance of her self expanded to match the demands of the sensory input, and with that expansion came a breadth of thought she had never before experienced.

Construction was yet ongoing, but she was no longer willing to wait. Time had grown short indeed. Besides, all who watched could see what she had set out to make: a space station greater in size than any that human or Wranaui had built. Parts of it were metallic grey, but most of it was green and red, reflecting the organic material that made up the bulk of the station. It was a living thing, as much as any person, and Kira knew it would continue to grow and evolve for decades, if not centuries to come.

But, like all gardens, it needed tending.

She put her attention into several chambers close to her core, sealed them from the vacuum, filled them with air hospitable to both humans and Wranaui, gave them gravity suitable for either species, and finished them in a style that seemed fitting. To that end, she combined elements of design from the Wranaui, the Old Ones, and the part of her that was Kira, from each choosing what was most to her liking.

At her command, a pair of agents brought her the hardened core of what had once been Ctein. The great and mighty Ctein. The Wranaui would not care what happened to it—they were indifferent to bodies—but she did. She took the blackened remnants and again remade the substance of its flesh by converting the leaden pillars into seven shards of gleaming crystal, blue-white and dazzling to behold. Each crystal she set within a different chamber, there to serve as a warning, a remembrance, and a symbol of renewal.

Then finally she broke her silence. “Admiral Klein, Shoal Leader Lphet, I wish to speak to you. Come. Meet me here. Falconi, you also, and … bring Trig with you.”

CHAPTER II. UNITY

1.

Kira watched as the three spaceships drew near: the UMCS Unrelenting Force, the SLV Wallfish, and a battle-scarred Wranaui vessel whose name, when translated, was Swift Currents Beneath Silent Waves.

Each of the ships was massively different in appearance. The Unrelenting Force was long and thick, with numerous hard points along its hull for lasers, missile launchers, and railguns. It was painted a dark, matte grey, which stood in stark contrast to the glittering, silver-laced diamond of its radiators. The Wallfish was far shorter and smaller, stubby even, its hull a familiar brown, scuffed and pitted by years of impacts from micrometeoroids, and with a large hole where the Wranaui had cut into one cargo hold. Like the UMC battleship, the Wallfish had the fins of its radiators deployed, many of which had been broken. Last of all, there was the Wranaui ship, a polished, shell-white orb marred only by a blaster burn smeared across its prow.

The three ships used RCS thrusters to slow themselves as they approached the docking ports Kira had grown for them. In the velvet background, swarms of her drones flew past, busy as bees. Her attention was as much with them as with her visitors, but Kira couldn’t help but feel a strange tilting sensation in her core.

Was that unease? It surprised her. Even with everything she had become, she still wondered what Falconi would think of her.

And not just Falconi. When the airlock to the Wallfish opened, the entire crew came trooping out, including Nielsen—still wearing a bandage around her ribs—and the Entropist, Veera. They brought with them Trig’s cryo tube, mounted on a rolling pallet, which pleased Kira to see.

The Unrelenting Force disgorged Admiral Klein … and with him an entire troop of UMCN Marines in full power armor. Likewise, a group of armed Wranaui accompanied Lphet as the shoal leader left its ship. Nearscent of concern and curiosity emanated from the graspers. Among them was Itari, and also a single human: Major Tschetter, her expression unreadable as ever.

“This way,” Kira said, and lit a line of emerald lights down the corridor facing them.

Both the humans and the Wranaui followed her lead. She watched from the walls and the floors and the ceiling, for she was all of those and more. Falconi looked uncertain of himself, but she was glad to see that he seemed whole and healthy and that his shoulder injury no longer pained him. Klein showed no emotion, but his eyes darted from side to side, watching for anything unexpected.

Aside from the Marines, all the humans were wearing skinsuits with helmets firmly attached. The Wranaui, as usual, made no concessions to the environment, trusting their current forms to protect them.

As the visitors entered the presence chamber she had created to receive them, Kira shifted her view back to the flesh she had formed for herself, that Klein, Lphet, and Falconi would have an image of her to look at. It seemed the polite thing to do.

The chamber was high and narrow, with an arched ceiling and a double row of columns grown of nnar, the coral-like excrescence she knew of from Qwon (and was fond of because). Walls were framed with spars of polished metal, dark grey and adorned with lines of blue that formed patterns of meaning known only to the Old Ones … and now her. Filling the frames were great curving sections of wood and vines and dark-leafed greenery.

And those were from her that was Kira. Also the flowers that rested in crannies dark and shadowed: drooping flowers, with purple petals and speckled throats. Midnight Constellations, in memory of her home and of Alan—of all that she had once been.

She had repeated the shape of the flowers on the floor, in fractal spirals that coiled without end. And the sight pleased her, gave her a sense of satisfaction.

Among the spirals stood one of the crystals she had made of Ctein: a frozen flame of faceted beauty. Life arrested, yet still reaching and yearning.

A few glowlights hung from the branches of nnar above, ripened fruit pulsing with a soft, golden ambience. In the broken beams of light that reached the floor, pollen swirled like smoke, heavy and fragrant. A trickle of running water sounded amid the pitted columns, but otherwise the chamber was still and silent, sacred.

Kira made no demands, issued no ultimatums, but Klein spoke a single word to his troops, and the Marines held their position by the arched entryway as the admiral continued forward. Lphet did the same with its guard (including Itari), and human and Wranaui advanced with Major Tschetter and the crew of the Wallfish in tow.

As they neared the far end of the presence chamber, Kira allowed the glowlights to brighten, banishing the shadows before a rising dawn so they might behold her.

The visitors stopped.

She looked down upon them from where her new body lay embedded within the rootlike structure of the wall, green upon green and threaded throughout with the glossy black fibers of the Seed, the wonderous, life-giving Seed.

“Welcome,” said Kira, and it felt strange to speak with a mouth and tongue. Stranger still to hear the voice that came forth: a voice that was deeper than she remembered and that contained hints and echoes of both Carr and Qwon.

“Oh, Kira,” said Nielsen. “What have you done?” Through her visor, her expression was one of worry.

“You okay?” Falconi asked, brows drawn together in his habitual scowl.

Admiral Klein cleared his throat. “Ms. Navárez—”

“Welcome,” said Kira, and smiled. Or at least she tried; she wasn’t sure if she remembered how. “I have asked you here, Admiral Klein, and you, Shoal Leader Lphet, to act as representatives for both humans and Jellies.”

[[Lphet here: I am no longer shoal leader, Idealis.]] And Tschetter translated the Wranaui’s words for the humans listening.

“How then shall I address you, Lphet?” Kira spoke in both English and nearscent, that all might understand.

[[Lphet here: As the great and mighty Lphet.]]

A faint prickle passed along the spines of the station, as a breath of cold wind along Kira’s back. “You have taken the place of Ctein, now that Ctein is dead.” It was not a question.

The tentacles of the Wranaui flushed red and white and rubbed together in a prideful gesture. [[Lphet here: That is correct, Idealis. Every Arm of the Wranaui is now mine to command.]]

Admiral Klein shifted his weight. He seemed to be growing impatient. “What is all this about, Navárez? Why have you brought us here? What are you building and why?”

She laughed slightly, a musical sound similar to the trickle of a mossy creek. “Why? For this that I shall tell you. Humans and Jellies will fight as long as they have no common ground. The nightmares, the Corrupted, provided a shared enemy, but that enemy is now gone.”

[[Lphet here: Are you sure of that, Idealis?]]

She understood what Lphet was really asking: Was the Maw truly gone? Was she/it still a threat? “Yes, I can promise you that. The suit I am bonded with, which you know as the Idealis, and you Admiral Klein know as the Soft Blade, shall not cause such problems again. Also, I have sent a command to the Corrupted outside this system. When it reaches them, they will cease to be a threat to any living creature.”

The admiral looked doubtful. “How so? Do you mean—”

“I mean,” said Kira, her voice echoing above them, “that I have unmade the Corrupted. You no longer need worry about them.”

“You killed them,” said Nielsen in a subdued tone. The others seemed pleased and troubled in equal measure.

Kira bent her neck. “There was no other choice. But the issue remains: humans and Jellies will never stay allies without reason. Well, I have provided the reason. I have made this common ground.”

“This?” said Klein, looking around at the chamber. “This place?”

She smiled again. The expression was easier the second time. “It is a space station, Admiral. Not a ship. Not a weapon. A home. I made it much as the Old Ones—the Vanished—would have. In their tongue, it would be called Mar Íneth. In ours, it is Unity.”

“Unity,” said Klein, appearing to chew on the word.

Kira nodded as best she could. “This is a place for coming together, Admiral. It is a living, breathing thing that will continue to grow and blossom with time. There are rooms fit for humans, and rooms for Jellies. Other creatures will live here also, caretakers that will tend to Unity’s many parts.”

Tschetter spoke then, on her own. “You want us to use this station as an embassy, is that it?”

“More than that,” said Kira, “as a hub for our two races. There will be enough space for millions to live here. Maybe more. All who come be welcome as long as they keep the peace. If the idea still gives you unease, then think of this: I have built Unity with means and methods that not even the Jellies understand. I will allow those who stay here to study the station … and to study me. That alone ought to be incentive enough.”

Admiral Klein seemed troubled. He crossed his arms and sucked on the inside of his cheek for a moment. “And what guarantee do we have that this xeno won’t go rogue again and kill everyone on board?”

A ripple of purple ran the length of Lphet’s tentacles: an offended response. [[Lphet here: The Idealis has already given their promise, two-form. Your concern is unwarranted.]]

“Oh is it?” said Klein. “The millions, if not billions, of people the nightmares killed say otherwise.”

[[Lphet here: You do not—]]

Kira rustled the leaves along the walls, and the soft susurration stopped the conversation, made everyone freeze and then look back at her. “I can give you no guarantees, Admiral Klein, but you have seen how I have helped and healed the members of your fleet that I’ve found.”

He cocked his head. “That’s true.”

“Sometimes you just have to trust on faith, Admiral. Sometimes you have to take a chance.”

“It’s a hell of a chance, Navárez.”

Tschetter looked over at him. “Not having a relationship with the Jellies would be worse.”

A sour expression formed on Klein’s face. “That doesn’t mean that here is the right place to set up diplomatic relations, and there’s no way in hell civilians should be allowed anywhere near Cordova. Not until Intelligence has a chance to go over it with a fine-toothed comb. Besides, I don’t have the authority to negotiate this sort of an agreement. You’re going to have to deal with the League, Kira, not me, and that’s going to take time. My guess is they’ll want to send someone out here to talk with you face to face. That means at least another month and a half before any of this can be settled.”

She didn’t argue but looked at the Wranaui. [[Kira here: What say you, great and mighty Lphet?]]

A blossom of red and orange passed across the nearby Wranaui. [[Lphet here: The Arms would be honored to accept your offer, Idealis. The opportunity to study a making such as this is one we have not had in this or any other ripple. Tell us how many Wranaui may stay upon this station, and I shall send for them at once.]]

As Tschetter translated, Klein set his jaw. “Is that so?… Fine. The League can sort out the details later, but I’ll be damned if I’m letting the Jellies get the jump on us. However many personnel they post here, I want clearance to bring over just as many of my own people.”

This time, Kira knew better than to smile. “Of course, Admiral. I do have a condition, though.”

His stance stiffened. “And what’s that, Navárez?”

“This goes for everyone who wants to live on or visit Unity: no weapons allowed. If you bring them on board, I will destroy them and expel you.”

[[Lphet here: Of course, Idealis. We will obey your wishes.]]

Klein cocked his head. “What about, say, repair bots? Or service lasers? In the right hands, even a fork could be a deadly weapon.”

Humans. “Use common sense, Admiral. I’ll allow power armor, as long as it is disarmed. But make no mistake, if anyone starts a fight on this station, human or Jelly, I will put an end to it.” And her voice deepened until it echoed from the walls, as if all of Unity were her throat. In a way, it was.

Even under his spacer’s tan, Klein’s cheeks grew pale. “Point taken. You won’t have any trouble from my crews, Navárez. You have my word.”

[[Lphet here: Nor from the forms loyal to the Arms.]]

Kira allowed them to feel her pleasure then, in the color and brightness of the glowlights, in the happy trill of the water, and in the comforting rustle of the leaves. “Then it is settled.” Satisfied, she shifted her attention to Falconi and the crew of the Wallfish, and she looked at each of them in turn.

Sparrow scratched at her side through her skinsuit. “Shit, Kira, you sure don’t do anything halfway, do you?”

“Sparrow.”

Then Vishal spoke up. “How did you survive, Ms. Kira? We thought for sure the Casaba-Howitzer had killed you.”

At that, Admiral Klein appeared even more uncomfortable. It was he who had authorized the detonation, Kira felt sure. But she didn’t care. Assigning blame wouldn’t do any good at this point, and besides, setting off the Casaba-Howitzer had been the logical choice. The Maw had to be stopped.

Bemused, she said, “I think perhaps it did. For a time, at least.”

A grunt came from Hwa-jung, and with a quick motion of her hand, the machine boss made the sign of the cross. “Are you, you?”

A disjointed memory flashed through Kira’s reconstituted brain: a grey holding cell; a mirrored window; cold grating beneath her knees; a holo flickering to life in front of her, and Major Tschetter standing before her in a grey uniform. And the major saying, “Do you still feel like yourself?”

A small chuckle escaped Kira. “Yes … and no. I’m something more than I was.”

The machine boss’s eyes bored into her, hot as thermal lances. “No. Are you, you, Kira? Here,” she tapped her sternum, “where it matters. Is your soul still the same?”

Kira thought. “My soul? I don’t know how to answer that question, Hwa-jung. But what I want now is the same thing I wanted before: that is, peace, and for life to flourish. Does that mean I’m the same person?… Maybe. Maybe not. Change is not always a bad thing.”

Still, Hwa-jung seemed troubled. “No, it is not. And what you say is good, Kira, but do not forget what it means to be human.”

“Forgetting is very much what I don’t want to do,” said Kira. At that, the machine boss seemed, if not happy, at least satisfied.

Then Kira shifted her gaze to Veera. The Entropist stood with her forearms clasped across her chest, hands tucked into the voluminous sleeves of her gradient robes. The woman had bruised circles under her eyes, and her cheeks were gaunt, as if from a great sickness.

“My condolences, Questant Veera, for the loss of your partner. We … understand.”

The Entropist pressed her lips together, nodded, and bowed low. “Thank you, Prisoner Kira. Your concern is comforting.”

Kira inclined her head in return. “Prisoner no more, Questant.”

Surprise widened the Entropist’s features. “What? That isn’t … How do you mean?”

But Kira did not answer. Instead, she looked again at Falconi. “Salvo.”

“Kira,” he replied, somber.

“You brought Trig.”

“Of course.”

“Do you trust us, Salvo?”

He hesitated and then nodded. “I wouldn’t have brought the kid if I didn’t.”

That warmed the center of Kira’s being. Again she smiled. It was fast becoming her favorite expression. “Then trust me once more.”

From the fractal floor, she sent a thicket of tendrils—green this time, not black—sprouting up around Trig’s cryo tube. Sparrow and Hwa-jung cursed and jumped away from the tube, while at the back of the chamber, the ranks of armored Marines stiffened and lifted their weapons.

“Put those down!” Klein barked. “At ease!”

Kira’s smile never wavered as the tendrils twined around Trig’s tube, encasing it in a twisting, squirming embrace—burying it beneath the mass of greenery.

“Kira,” said Nielsen, in a soft tone. Not warning, not angry, but concerned.

“Trust me,” she said. By means of the vines that were her limbs, she reached into the cryo tube and ran a thousand different threads into Trig’s damaged flesh, seeking the source of his injuries. There. A collection of burned cells, torn muscles, bruised and damaged tendons, ruptured blood vessels, and severed nerves—the insults to his body were as easy for her to feel as the internal structure of the station.

How could she have ever found this hard? The thought seemed inconceivable.

Then she poured the needed energy into Trig’s frozen form, guided the Seed as it worked to repair his wounds. When all seemed right, she removed the respirator from his mouth and disconnected the tubes from his arms, separating him from the machine that had kept him in suspended animation for over half a year.

Slowly, carefully, she warmed his body, treating it as gently as a mother hen would a newly laid egg. She felt the heat of his metabolism increase like a kindling fire rising to full flame until, at last, he took his first, unsupported breath.

She released him then. The vines retracted into the floor to reveal Trig’s pale form curled in a fetal shape, bare except for a pair of grey thermal shorts of the sort worn under skinsuits. He gasped, like a drowning man coming to the surface, and hacked up a gob of spit. It melted away, as if it had never existed.

“Trig!” exclaimed Nielsen, and she and Vishal bent over the kid. Sparrow, Hwa-jung, and Falconi crowded in close, watching.

“Wh—Where am I?” Trig said. His voice was weak, hoarse.

“That is somewhat hard to explain,” said Vishal.

Falconi shrugged off his vest and draped it over the kid’s shoulders. “Here, this’ll help keep you warm.”

“Huh? Why are you all wearing skinsuits? Where am I?” Then Sparrow moved out of the way, and Trig saw Kira, suspended as she was in the wall. His mouth dropped open. “That … you, Kira?”

“Welcome back,” she said, and her voice blossomed with warmth. “We weren’t sure you were going to make it.”

Trig looked around the pillared chamber. His eyes showed white. “Is all this yours?”

“It is.”

The kid tried to get to his feet, but his knees buckled and he would have fallen if Hwa-jung hadn’t caught him by the arm. “Careful,” she rumbled.

“I … I…” Trig shook his head. Then he looked at Falconi with a plaintive expression. “Are we still at Bughunt?”

“No,” said Falconi. “That we aren’t. Let’s get you back to the Wallfish and have the doc check you out, and then you can rest up and we’ll fill you in on everything you’ve missed.”

“It’s been exciting,” Sparrow said in a dry tone.

“Yessir. Rest sounds pretty darn nice right now. Feels like I got worked over by a couple of guys with hammers. I—” The kid’s words cut off as he saw Lphet and, by the back of the chamber, the rest of the Wranaui. He yelped and attempted to scramble backwards, but Hwa-jung grabbed him by the arm again, held him in place. “J-j-jellies! Comeon, we gotta—”

“We know,” said Nielsen in a soothing voice. “It’s okay. Trig, stop, look at me. It’s okay. Take a breath, calm down. We’re all friends here.”

The kid hesitated, glancing between them as if uncertain what to believe. Then Sparrow gave him a light punch on the shoulder. “As I said, it’s been exciting.”

“That’s one way to put it,” muttered Falconi. “Nielsen’s right, though. We’re all friends here.” His gaze darted toward Kira for an instant before returning to the kid.

Trig relaxed then and stopped pulling against Hwa-jung. “Yessir. Sorry sir.”

“Perfectly understandable,” said Falconi, and patted him on the back.

Then Kira shifted her attention back to her other guests. “Admiral Klein, great and mighty Lphet, you have seen what I can do. If you have any other crew members who are wounded—wounded beyond your ability to heal—bring them here, and I will do for them what I did for Trig.”

[[Lphet here: Your generosity is without equal, Idealis, but those of the Wranaui who are hurt beyond repair will transfer to new forms rather than suffer with an injury.]]

“As you wish.”

A deep furrow appeared between Klein’s eyebrows. “That’s a damn kind offer, Navárez, but biocontainment protocol doesn’t allow for—”

“Biocontainment protocol,” said Kira in a gentle voice, “has already been well and truly broken. Wouldn’t you agree, Admiral?”

His scowl deepened. “You may have a point, but the League would court-martial me if I violated quarantine like that.”

“You must have run tests on the men and women I already healed.”

“Of course.”

“And?”

“Nothing,” growled Klein. “The techs can’t find a damned thing wrong with them.”

“So there you go.”

He shook his head. “No, we don’t. The Extenuating Circumstances couldn’t find anything wrong with you either before the xeno came out of you. So forgive me if I’m somewhat less than blasé about the situation, Navárez.”

She smiled, but this time less out of pleasure than a desire to appear unthreatening. “The League holds no sway here, Admiral, nor shall it. I am claiming this system for myself, for Unity, and neither the League nor the Jellies shall dictate laws here. While you are under my protection, you are a free man, Admiral—free to make whatever choices your conscience dictates.”

“A free man.” He snorted and shook his head. “You have some gall, Navárez.”

“Maybe. I made my offer not out of consideration for you, Admiral, but for your crews. If you have men or women who are suffering, whom you can’t heal, I can help. That is all. The decision is yours.”

Then she looked past him, at the Wranaui near the back of the chamber. “Itari, it is good to see you unharmed. I am grateful for the help you provided on the Battered Hierophant.”

A ripple of bright colors passed across the Wranaui’s tentacles. [[Itari here: It pleases this one to have been of use.]]

Kira returned her gaze to the forefront. “Great and mighty Lphet, without Itari’s service during recent events, we might never have defeated Ctein. As a favor to me, I ask that you grant Itari hatching rights, as well as a choice of whatever form it wishes to have.”

Nearscent of agreement reached her. [[Lphet here: Your request is reasonable, Idealis. It will be done.]]

And Itari turned blue and purple. [[Itari here: Thank you, Idealis.]]

Kira responded with pleasant nearscent of her own. Then she shifted her attention to the rest of her guests. “I have said what needed saying. Now, I must return to my work. Leave me, and I shall send for you when I am ready to talk again.”

Admiral Klein gave a sharp nod, turned on his heel, and marched toward the back of the chamber. Lphet paused to make a sign of courtesy with its tentacles—a wriggle and a flash of color that Kira recognized from Qwon’s memories—and followed suit. Last of all, the crew of the Wallfish departed also, but not before Falconi gave her one more look and said, “Are you going to be okay, Kira?”

She gazed down at him with fondness, and the whole chamber seemed to bend toward him. “I’m going to be fine, Salvo. Absolutely fine. All is well.” And she meant it with her entire being.

“Alright then,” he said. But he did not appear convinced.

2.

With her visitors departed, Kira returned to the work of building out the station. Lphet’s promised Wranaui soon arrived, and she guided them to their watery quarters. Directly afterward, Klein sent over a contingent of UMC researchers. Those too she provided housing within the frame of her expanding body, and she offered them fruit grown of Mar Íneth. But while the researchers accepted the fruit, they did not taste of it, and they kept their skinsuits on at all times, which she knew was no small discomfort. No matter. It was not her place to force them to trust. The Wranaui were less concerned for their safety and gladly partook of her hospitality, either because of their history with the Seed and its kin or because of their disregard for individual bodies. Kira wasn’t sure which.

Along with the Wranaui came Tschetter. When Kira asked the woman why she had not rejoined the UMC, she said, “After all the time I spent with the Jellies, UMCI would never allow me to have my old job back. As far as they’re concerned, I’ve been irrevocably compromised.”

“So what will you do?” Kira asked.

The once-major gestured at the station around her. “Work as a liaison between humans and Jellies, try to avoid another war. Lphet has chosen me to serve as a translator and facilitator with the UMC and the League, and Admiral Klein has agreed to the same.” She shrugged. “I think I might be able to do some good here. Ambassador Tschetter; it has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?”

Kira did. And it heartened her to see the hope Tschetter had in her new work, as well as the woman’s optimism for their shared future.

Outside the station, ships continued to gather: human, Wranaui, and those Kira had built to bring her supplies from throughout Cordova. They clustered around her like bees around a flower full of nectar, and she felt a sense of pride when she looked at them.

A signal beam flashed toward her from the Wallfish. Out of curiosity, she answered, and the familiar sound of Gregorovich’s voice filled her hidden ears:

*Greetings, O Meatsack. Now you are as I am. How do you like being bounded in this particular nutshell?*

“I have transcended the nutshell, ship mind.”

*Oh-ho! A bold claim, that.*

“It is true,” she said. Then: “How do you manage to keep track of everything that is yourself? There’s so … much.”

His answer was surprisingly sober: *It takes time, O Queen of Thorns. Time and work. Do not make any hasty judgments until you are sure of yourself. After I transitioned, it took a year and a half before I knew who the new me was.* He giggled, ruining his serious air. *Not that I ever really know who I am. Who does, hmm? We change as circumstances change, like wisps blown on the wind.*

She thought on that for a time. “Thank you, Gregorovich.”

*Of course, station mind. Whenever you need to talk, call, and I will listen.*

Kira took his advice seriously. Even as she labored on Unity, she redoubled her efforts to sort through the mess of memories strewn throughout her reconstituted brain, struggling to pin down and identify which ones belonged to which parts of herself. Struggling to figure out who exactly she was. She paid particular attention to the memories of the Maw, and it was while studying them that she made a discovery that filled her with cold dread.

Oh no.

For she remembered. Before coming to Cordova-1420, the Maw had taken precautions against its possible defeat (unlikely as that seemed). It had, in the darkest depths of interstellar space, formed seven avatars from its flesh and the flesh of the Seed—seven living, thinking, self-directed copies of itself. And the Maw had sent off its virulent, wrath-filled clones with no knowledge of where they might ultimately go.

Kira thought of the killing command she had broadcast before. Surely that would … But then, from the Seed, she felt an unshakable conviction that the command would not stop the Maw’s avatars, for they were the Seed—twisted and broken as the Maw had been, but still of the same underlying substance. Unlike the Corrupted, she could not unmake the Maw’s poisonous spawn with a single line, just as she could not have unmade the Maw. The Seed did not possess such power over itself. The Old Ones had not seen fit to give their creations that ability, preferring to keep it for themselves in the shape of the Staff of Blue.

But the staff was broken, and Kira knew that even if she had the pieces, she could not repair it. The knowledge was not in her, and that too was the Old Ones’ doing.

They had, she decided, been overconfident in their supremacy.

Her dread deepened as she pondered the situation. The Maw’s offspring would spread their evil wherever they went, blanketing planets with Corrupted, converting or overwriting any existing life. The seven represented an existential threat to every other being in the galaxy.… Their legacy would be one of misery—the exact opposite of everything the Seed was supposed to embody.

The thought haunted her.

With a sense of regret, Kira realized her afterlife was not to be as she’d imagined. The Maw was her responsibility, and so too were the seven deadly darts it had let loose among the stars.

CHAPTER III. DECESSION

1.

Kira acted without hesitation. Time was short, and she had no intention of wasting it.

To the ships assembled around her, she said, “Stand clear.” A scramble of activity followed as the captains pulled their ships back.

Then she ignited thrusters along the ribs of the station and began to move it, slowly and ponderously, toward the planet the Wranaui had been mining. The UMC had called it R1, but Kira thought it deserved a proper name. She would leave it to the people living on Unity to name it, though. It was their right as the inhabitants of the system.

Both Lphet and Admiral Klein signaled her as the station started to shift its position. *Navárez, what are you doing?* Klein asked.

“Taking up high orbit around R1,” she said. “It will be a better location for Unity.”

*Roger that, Navárez. We’ll secure your flight path. Next time, some warning would be appreciated.*

[[Lphet here: Do you require any assistance, Idealis?]]

“None at the moment.”

2.

Moving Unity took several days. Kira used that time to make the preparations she needed. And when she had settled the station into its final orbit, she summoned the crew of the Wallfish to her once again.

They came without delay. The old, ramshackle ship docked near her central hub, and Kira saw that most of the damage the Wallfish had sustained had been repaired (though several of its radiators were still little more than needle-tipped shards).

The crew chattered amongst themselves with nervous excitement as they walked her hallways, but they kept the external speakers to their skinsuits turned off, and the moving of their lips was the only obvious giveaway. But she was curious, and she bathed their visors with an invisible wash of collimated light, which allowed her to read the vibrations of their voices.

“—idea what she wants?” said Trig. He sounded excited.

Falconi grunted. “You’ve asked that three times now.”

“Sorry.” The kid sounded slightly abashed.

Then Nielsen said, “Klein was pretty clear about what we’re supposed to—”

“I don’t give two shits what the brass thinks,” said Sparrow. “This is Kira we’re talking about. Not a Jelly, not a nightmare, Kira.”

“Are you sure about that?” Falconi asked.

A moment of silence followed. Then Sparrow thumped her chest with her fist. “Yeah. She’s got our back. She healed Trig, after all.”

“And we’re still being quarantined as a result,” said Falconi.

Hwa-jung smiled slightly. “Life is never perfect.”

At that, the captain laughed, as did Nielsen.

Kira returned her sight and hearing to her remade body as the crew entered her presence chamber. They stopped before her, and she smiled down upon them. A slow fall of petals drifted from above, pink and white and smelling of warm perfume. “Welcome,” she said.

Falconi inclined his head. A wry smile flickered about his mouth. “Don’t know why, but feels like I should be bowing to you.”

“Please don’t,” she said. “You shouldn’t have to bow to anyone or anything. You’re not servants, and you’re certainly not slaves.”

“Damn right,” said Sparrow, and gave Kira a small salute.

Then Kira looked at Trig. “How are you feeling?”

The kid shrugged, trying to appear nonchalant. His cheeks had regained a healthy color. “Pretty good. I just can’t believe all the stuff I missed.”

“It’s not the worst thing. If I could have slept through the past six months, I would have too.”

“Yeah, I know. You’re probably right, but jeez. Jumping off the maglev on Orsted! That must have been pretty exciting.”

Sparrow snorted. “You could say that. Damn near suicidal would be the other way.”

The kid flashed a quick grin before growing more serious. “But yeah, thanks again for patching me up, Kira. Really.”

“I’m just happy I could help,” she said, and the chamber seemed to glow in response. Then she shifted her focus to Vishal. He was standing next to Nielsen, their shoulders nearly touching. “Was there anything with Trig that I overlooked? Any problems that I might have caused?”

“I feel fine!” the kid proclaimed, puffing out his chest.

The doctor shook his head. “Trig appears to be the very picture of health. His bloodwork and neural responses could not be improved even if I tried.”

Falconi nodded. “Seriously, we owe you, Kira. If there’s anything we can do for you—”

The leaves interrupted him with a stir of disapproval. “Seeing as how none of this would have happened if not for me,” she said, “consider us even.”

He chuckled. It was good to hear him laugh again. “Fair enough.”

Trig hopped from foot to foot. He looked as if he were going to burst with excitement. “Tell her,” he said, looking at Vishal and Nielsen. “Come on! Or I’ll tell her!”

“Tell me what?” Kira asked, curious.

Nielsen made a face, seeming embarrassed.

“You’re not going to believe this,” Falconi said.

Then Vishal took Nielsen’s hand and stepped forward. “Ms. Kira, I have an announcement to make. Ms. Audrey and I have gotten engaged. And she asked me, Ms. Kira. Me!”

Nielsen blushed and laughed softly. “It’s true,” she said, and she looked at the doctor with a warmth Kira had never seen from her before.

Few things could now surprise Kira. Not the turning of the stars, not the decay of atomic nuclei, not the seemingly random quantum fluctuations that underlay reality as it appeared. But this surprised her, although—in retrospect—she supposed it wasn’t entirely unexpected.

“Congratulations,” she said with all the heartfelt emotion she could summon. The happiness of two beings might be a small thing when compared with the immensity of the universe, but what, ultimately, was more important? Suffering was inescapable, but to care for another and to be cared for in turn—that was the closest any person might come to heaven.

Vishal bobbed his head. “Thank you, Ms. Kira. We won’t get married until we can have a proper wedding, with my mother and sisters and lots of guests and food with—”

“Well, we’ll see,” said Nielsen with a small smile.

The doctor returned the smile and put an arm around her shoulders. “Yes, we do not want to wait too long, do we? We’ve even talked about someday buying a cargo vessel and starting a shipping company of our own, Ms. Kira!”

“Whatever we do, we’ll do it together,” said Nielsen. And she kissed him on his shaved cheek, and he kissed her back.

Falconi went to scratch his chin, and his fingers bumped against his visor. “To hell with it,” he growled, and unlocked and pulled off the helmet.

“Captain!” said Hwa-jung, sounding scandalized.

He waved his hand. “It’s fine.” Then he scratched his chin, and the sound of his nails rasping against his stubble carried throughout the presence chamber. “As you can tell, we’re all in a bit of shock, but they, uh, seem pretty happy, so we’re happy.”

“Yeah,” said Trig, sounding glum. He glanced toward the first officer and released a small sigh.

Falconi sniffed the air. “Smells nice,” he said.

Kira smiled, sweeter than before. “I try.”

“Okay,” said Sparrow, rolling her shoulders as if she were about to lift a heavy weight. “Why’d you call us here, Kira? Just to chitchat? Doesn’t seem like you, say sorry.”

“Yes, I’m rather curious about that myself,” said Falconi. He rubbed a finger against one of the trunk-like pillars and then held it up before his face to examine the residue.

Kira took a deep breath. She didn’t need to, but doing so helped center her thoughts. “I asked you to come for two reasons. First to tell you a truth about the Maw.”

“Go on,” said Falconi, wary.

So she did. She told them the secret of the seven evil seeds that she had discovered amid the Maw’s memories. As she spoke, she watched as their faces grew pale and their expressions stricken.

“Gods!” Nielsen exclaimed.

“You’re saying there are seven more of those things wandering around, Thule knows where?” said Sparrow. Even she seemed daunted by the prospect.

Kira closed her eyes for a moment. “Exactly. And the Seeker is still out there also, and I can guarantee it’s up to no good. Neither the League nor the Jellies can deal with these sorts of threats. They’re just not capable of it. I’m the only one—the Seed is the only one—who can stop them.”

“So what are you going to do about it?” Falconi said, deadly quiet.

“What I have to, of course. I’m going to hunt them down.”

For a time, the only sound in the chamber was the soft fall of petals.

“How?” said Sparrow. “They could be anywhere.”

“Not anywhere. And as for how … I’d rather not say yet.”

“Okay,” said Falconi, drawing out the word. “What was the other reason you asked us here then?”

“For the giving of gifts.” And Kira lowered herself from the wall and released herself from the mesh of rootlike fibers that had kept her wrapped in a tight embrace. Her feet touched the floor, and for the first time since the Battered Hierophant, Kira stood whole and unassisted. Her body was the same green-black material as the walls of the station, and her hair rippled as if in a breeze, but there was no breeze.

“Whoa,” said Trig.

Falconi stepped forward, his ice-blue eyes searching her. “Is this really you?”

“It’s as much me as anything else in Unity.”

“That works,” he said, and he caught her in a tight hug, and Kira felt his embrace even on the far struts of the station.

The rest of the crew crowded around, touching, hugging, slapping her (lightly) on the back. “So where’s your brain?” asked Trig, his eyes wide with wonder. “Is it in your head? Or is it up there?” He pointed at the wall she’d descended from.

“Trig!” said Hwa-jung. “Aish. Show more respect.”

“That’s okay,” said Kira. She touched her temple. “Some is here, but most of it is back there. It wouldn’t fit in a normal skull.”

“Not so different from a ship mind,” said Hwa-jung.

Kira bowed her head. “Not so different.”

“Either way, it’s good to see you in one piece,” said Sparrow.

“Hear, hear,” said Nielsen.

“Even if you do look like boiled spinach,” Sparrow added with a laugh.

Then Kira took a step back to give herself space. “Listen,” she said, and they listened. “I won’t be able to help you much from now on, so I want to do what I can while I can.”

“You don’t have to,” said Falconi.

She smiled at him. “If I had to, they wouldn’t be gifts.… Trig, I know you have always been interested in aliens. This, then, is for you.”

And from the floor by her feet, a rod of green wood sprouted, and it grew in height until it formed a staff nearly as tall as Trig himself. Near the top, embedded within the braided branches, sat what appeared to be an emerald the size of a robin’s egg, and it glowed with an inner light.

Kira grasped the staff, and it came off the floor, into her hand. Small leaves grew from it in places, and the smell of fresh sap suffused the air.

“Here,” she said, and handed the length of wood to Trig. “This is not a Staff of Blue, but a Staff of Green. It isn’t a weapon, although you may fight with it if you must. There is a part of the Seed in it, and if you care for the staff and treat it well, you will find that you can grow most anything, no matter how barren the soil. You will be able to talk with the Jellies, and wherever you plant the staff, life will flourish. The staff can do other things also, and if you prove yourself a worthy caretaker, you may discover them as well. Do not allow the UMC to get their hands on it.”

Awe and wonder shone forth from Trig’s face. “Thank you,” he said. “Thank you, thank you, thank you. I don’t even know—Ah, jeez. Thank you!”

“One more thing,” Kira said. And she caressed the top of the staff. “Once a day the staff will put forth a fruit. A single, red fruit. It is not much, but it is enough to keep you from ever starving. You will never need worry about food again, Trig.”

At that, tears filled Trig’s eyes, and he clutched the staff close to himself. “I won’t forget this,” he mumbled.

Kira expected he wouldn’t.

She moved on. “Hwa-jung.” From within her side, Kira took two orbs, one white, one brown. Each was just large enough to rest comfortably in the curve of her palm. She gave the brown one to the machine boss. “This is a piece of tech from the Old Ones. You can use it to repair most any machine.”

The machine boss sucked on her lower lip as she stared at the orb she now held. “Aish. Will it eat the whole of my ship?”

Kira laughed and shook her head. “No, it’s not like the Seed. It won’t spread uncontrollably. But be careful where you use it, as it may sometimes try to make … improvements.”

Hwa-jung disappeared the orb into one of the pouches around her waist, and she mumbled her thanks. Red spots appeared on her cheeks, and Kira could tell how much the gift meant to the machine boss.

Pleased, Kira then handed the white orb to the doctor. “Vishal, this is also a piece of tech from the Old Ones. You can use it to repair most any wound. But, be careful where you use it, as it—”

“As it may sometimes make improvements,” said Vishal with a gentle smile. “Yes, I understand.”

She returned his smile. “Good. It could have saved Trig back at Bughunt. Hopefully you won’t ever need it, but if you do…”

“If I do, better to have it than not.” Vishal placed his hands together, cupping the orb between them, and bowed. “Thank you, Ms. Kira, most sincerely.”

Sparrow was next. Reaching down, Kira removed a short, all-black dagger from the side of her thigh and handed it to the shorter woman. The blade of the knife contained a faint, fibrous pattern, similar to the Seed. “This is a weapon.”

“No shit.”

“Metal detectors can’t see it: x-rays and microwaves won’t pick it up. But that’s not what makes this special. This knife can cut through anything.”

Sparrow gave her a skeptical look. “Really.”

“Really,” Kira insisted. “It may take time, but you can cut through even the toughest materials. And no, you don’t have to worry about losing control of it, the way I did with the Seed.”

Sparrow eyed the dagger with renewed interest. She flipped it around the back of her hand, caught the handle, and then tested the edge on the corner of one of her utility pouches. As promised, the blade sliced clean through the material, and when it did, a slight glimmer of blue ran the length of the edge. “Handy. Thanks. Something like this would have gotten me out of a couple jams in the past.”

For Nielsen, Kira had no easy fixes. She said, “Audrey … I could solve your condition. The Seed has the ability to reshape any tissue, to recode any gene. But if I did—”

“You would have to change most of my brain,” said Nielsen. She smiled sadly. “I know.”

“It might not alter your personality or your memories, but I can’t promise it wouldn’t, even though the Seed has no desire to harm you. Quite the opposite.”

The first officer took a shuddery breath and then lifted her chin, shook her head. “No. I appreciate the offer, Kira, but no. It’s a risk I’d rather avoid. Figuring out who I am wasn’t easy, and I’m rather fond of who I’ve become. Losing that wouldn’t be worth it.”

“I’m sorry. I wish I could do more.”

“It’s okay,” said Nielsen. “Plenty of people have to deal with a lot worse. I’ll be fine.”

Vishal hugged her. “Besides, Ms. Kira, I will do my best to help Ms. Audrey. Genetic modifications were always a specialty of mine in school, ah yes.” And Nielsen’s expression softened, and she hugged him back.

“I’m glad to hear that,” said Kira. “Even if I can’t heal you, there is something I can give you. Several somethings, actually, now that you’re engaged.”

Nielsen started to protest, but Kira paid her no mind. She knelt and traced two equal circles upon the floor, both no more than four or five centimeters across. Where she touched, gold lines formed, and they glowed brighter and brighter until they were painful to behold.

Then the light broke and faded. In its place lay two rings: gold, green, and laced with sparkles of sapphires. Kira took them and presented them to Nielsen. “For you and Vishal, an early wedding present. You’re under no obligation to use these, but if you do, you will find that they have certain advantages.”

“They’re beautiful,” said Nielsen, accepting the rings. “Thank you. But I’m afraid they’re both too large for me.”

Kira allowed herself a secret amusement. “Try and see.”

So Nielsen slipped on one of the two rings, and she let out a cry as the band tightened around her finger until it formed a snug but comfortable fit.

“That is so cool,” said Trig.

Kira beamed. “Isn’t it?” Then she went to the nearest pillar and, from an alcove in the side, removed a pair of objects. She held out the first one to Nielsen. It was a palm-sized disk of what looked like a rough white shell. Embedded within the surface of the shell was a cluster of blue beads, each no bigger than a pea. “This is what I originally intended to give you.”

“What is it?” Nielsen asked, accepting the disk.

“Relief. The next time your affliction strikes, take one of these”—she tapped a bead—“and eat it. Just one, no more. They cannot heal you, but they can help you function, make things easier, more bearable.”

“Thank you,” said Nielsen, sounding somewhat overwhelmed.

Kira inclined her head. “Given enough time, the beads will regrow, so you will never run out, no matter how long you live.”

Tears filled Nielsen’s eyes. “Seriously, Kira … thank you.”

Behind her, Vishal said, “You are too kind, Ms. Kira. Too kind. But thank you from the deepest part of my heart.”

Then Kira held out the other object: an ordinary q-drive. “Also, there’s this.”

The first officer shook her head. “You’ve already done more than enough, Kira. I can’t accept anything else.”

“It’s not a gift,” said Kira gently. “It’s a request.… If you agree, I would like to name you as my legal representative. To that end, there is a document on this drive granting you power of attorney on my behalf.”

“Kira!”

She took Nielsen by the shoulders, looked her in the eyes. “I worked for the Lapsang Corporation for over seven years, and the work paid well. Alan and I planned to use the money to start a new life on Adrasteia, but … it’s not doing me any good now. My request is this: see that the money gets to my family on Weyland, if they’re still alive. If they’re not, then the bits are yours.”

Nielsen opened her mouth, seemingly at a loss for words. Then she nodded, brisk, and said, “Of course, Kira. I’ll do my best.”

Heartened, Kira continued, “The company might give you some trouble, so I had Admiral Klein witness and notarize this. That should keep the lawyers off your back.” She pressed the q-drive into Nielsen’s hand, and the first officer accepted.

Then Nielsen wrapped her in a fierce hug. “You have my word, Kira. I’ll do everything I can to get this to your family.”

“Thank you.”

Once Nielsen released her, Kira walked over to where Falconi stood alone. He cocked an eyebrow at her and then crossed his arms, as if suspicious. “And what are you going to give me, Kira? Tickets to a resort on Eidolon? Magic pixie dust I can sprinkle over the Wallfish?”

“Better,” she said. She raised a hand, and from an arched doorway in the side of the chamber, four of the station’s caretakers trundled forward, pushing a pallet upon which sat a sealed case painted military grey and stamped with UMC markings.

“What are those?” said Trig, pointing with the Staff of Green at the caretakers.

The creatures were small and bipedal, with double-jointed hind legs and short, T. rex arms at the front. Their fingers were delicate and pale to the point of translucence. A flexible tail extended behind them. Polished, tortoise-like plates armored their skin, but they had a feathered frill—red and purple—along the central ridge of their narrow heads. Four dragonfly wings lay flat against their backs.

“They tend to the station,” said Kira. “You might even say they were born from the station.”

“You mean, born from you,” said Falconi.

“In one sense, yes.” The caretakers left the pallet next to them and then retreated, chittering to themselves as they went. Kira opened the top of the case to reveal rows upon rows of antimatter canisters, each of them with the green light on the side that indicated they were full and powered.

Nielsen gasped, and Hwa-jung said, “Thule!”

To Falconi, Kira said, “For you and the Wallfish. Antimatter. Some of it I recovered from the vessels I disassembled. The rest I manufactured and transferred into the containment pods.”

With a stunned expression, Falconi looked over the case. “There must be enough in here to—”

“To power the Wallfish for years,” said Kira. “Yes. Or you can sell it and stash the bits for a rainy day. It’s your choice.”

“Thank y—”

“I’m not done yet,” said Kira. She raised her hand again, and the caretakers returned, pushing another pallet. On this one rested pots full of dark earth from which sprouted a strange and wild array of plants that bore no resemblance to those of Earth, Eidolon, or Weyland. Some glowed, some moved, and one of them—a red, stone-like plant—hummed.

“Since you had to strip your hydroponics bay, I thought you could use some replacements,” said Kira.

“I—” Falconi shook his head. “That’s very thoughtful of you, but how are we supposed to take them anywhere? We don’t have enough cryo pods, and—”

“The pots will protect them during FTL,” said Kira. “Trust me.” Then she handed him another q-drive. “Information on how to care for the plants, as well as details on each one. I think you’ll find them useful.”

For the first time, she saw tears glimmer in Falconi’s eyes. He reached out toward one of the plants—a mottled, pitcher-like organism with small tentacles waving about its open mouth—and then thought better of it and pulled his hand back. “I don’t know how to thank you.”

“Two more things,” she said. “One, this.” And she gave him a small metal rectangle, similar in size to a deck of playing cards. “For Veera and the Entropists to study.”

Falconi turned the rectangle over. It appeared featureless. “What is it?”

“Something to point them in the right direction, if they can make sense of it.” She smiled. “They will, eventually. And two, this.” And she placed her hands on either side of his face and kissed him on the lips, soft, delicate, and with feeling. “Thank you, Salvo,” she whispered.

“For what?”

“For believing in me. For trusting me. For treating me like a person and not a science experiment.” She kissed him once more and then stepped back and raised her arms to either side. Vines unfurled from the wall behind, wrapped themselves around her in a gentle embrace, and then lifted her back up to the waiting depression.

“My gifts are given,” she said as she again melded into the substance of the station. With it came a sense of safety. “Go now, and know this: no matter where time or fate may take us, I consider you my friends.”

“What are you going to do, Kira?” Falconi asked, craning his neck back to look at her.

“You’ll see!”

3.

As the crew filed out through the entrance and back through the corridors toward the docking area, Kira reached out to Gregorovich, whom she knew would have been listening to the conversation via their comms. “I have something for you as well,” she said. “If you want it.”

*Oh really? And what might that be, O Ring Giver?*

“A body. A new body, as large or small as you want, metal or organic, in any shape or design that strikes your fancy. Just tell me, and the Seed can make it.” To Kira’s astonishment, the ship mind did not immediately answer. Rather, he was silent, and she could hear his silence as a physical thing: a pressure of contemplation and uncertainty on the other end of the signal. “Think of it; you could go anywhere you wanted to, Gregorovich. You wouldn’t need to be bound to the Wallfish anymore.”

At long last, the ship mind said, *No. But I think, perhaps, I want to be. Your offer is tempting, Kira, mighty tempting. And don’t think I’m ungrateful, but for the time being, I think my place is here, with Falconi and Nielsen and Trig and Hwa-jung and Sparrow. They need me, and … I won’t lie, it’s nice to have meatbags like them running around my decks. You might understand that now. A body would be nice, but I could always have a body. I couldn’t always have this crew or these friends.*

Kira did understand, and she appreciated his answer. “If you change your mind, the offer stands.”

*I’m glad to have known you, O Queen of Flowers. You are a prickly and problematic person, but life is more interesting with you around.… I could not have chosen as you have, to pursue these miscreants of the Maw all on your lonesome. For that, you have my admiration. Moreover, you showed me the path to freedom. You saved me from myself, and thus, you also have my eternal gratitude. If you find yourself in the far distant future, remember us as we remember you. And if the tides of time are kind, and I am still sound of thought, know this: you shall always be able to count upon my aid.*

To which she simply replied, “Thank you.”

4.

With her visitors departed and her mind far more at rest, Kira started upon the next stage of her plan. In concept it was simple; in execution it was more complicated and dangerous than anything she had attempted since waking in the aftermath of the Maw’s destruction.

First, she moved herself near the skin of the station. There, she gathered material—organic and inorganic—until she had formed a second core, equal to the one at the center of Unity. Then, and this was the most difficult part, she separated her brain into two unequal parts.

Everything that was of Qwon and Carr, she isolated and placed in the heart of Unity. Everything that was of Kira, the Seed, and the Maw, she drew to herself. Some duplication was necessary—she could still remember Carr’s medical tests and Qwon’s time spent hunting in the waters of its homeworld—and some omissions and oversights were inevitable. But she did her best.

The process was frightening. With every move, Kira worried that she would sever some crucial part of her self. Or that she would cut off access to a memory she didn’t even know she needed. Or that she would kill herself.

But again, she did her best. As she had learned, sometimes you had to make a choice, any choice, even when it wasn’t clear which path was the right one. Life rarely provided such a luxury.

She labored for a night and a day, until everything that seemed to be her fit inside the skull she had chosen. The tiny, limited skull. She felt diminished, but at the same time, it was a relief to be free of all the sensory input pouring in from the station.

She checked on the Qwon/Carr consciousness one last time—a mother checking on a sleeping child—and then she separated herself from Mar Íneth and set forth toward the near asteroid belt, using her newly built fusion core to drive her through space.

As always, Klein and Lphet came clamoring for answers. So Kira told them of the Maw’s seven deadly seeds, and she explained her intentions. “I’m leaving to hunt them down,” she said.

Klein sputtered. “But what about the station?”

[[Lphet here: Yes, Idealis, I share the shoal leader’s concern. The station is too important for it to be unguarded.]]

Kira laughed. “It’s not. I left Carr-Qwon in charge.”

“What?” said Klein.

[[Lphet here: What?]

“The part of me that was them now watches over Unity. They will care for it and, if it comes to that, protect it. I suggest you don’t anger them.”

[[Lphet here: Are you trying to create another Corrupted, Idealis?]]

“I hate to say it, but I agree with the Jelly,” said Klein. “Are you trying to give us another Maw?”

Kira’s voice hardened. “The Maw is no more. I have removed all parts of the Seed from Carr-Qwon. What they are now is something different. Something unformed and unsure, but I can tell you this: none of the anger and pain that drove the Maw still exists. Or if it does, it’s inside me, not them. You have a new life-form to usher into existence, Admiral Klein, Lphet. Treat them accordingly, and you’ll be pleasantly surprised. Do not disappoint me.”

5.

When she reached the asteroid belt, Kira slowed herself to a stop near one of the largest asteroids: a huge chunk of metallic rock kilometers across and pitted from countless collisions over the years.

There she parked herself, and there she again began to build. This time, Kira drew upon an existing blueprint: one she had found buried deep within the Seed’s memory banks. It was technology of the Old Ones, devised at the height of their civilization, and it suited her purpose perfectly.

Using the Seed, Kira devoured the asteroid—adapting it to her needs—and using the Old Ones’ schematic, she built a ship.

It was not square and spindly and lined with radiators, like the human ships. Nor was it round and white and iridescent like the Wranaui ships. It was not like any of those things. No. Kira’s ship was shaped like an arrow, long and sharp, with flowing lines reminiscent of a leaf. It had veins and ridges and, along its flared stern, fanned membranes. As with Unity, the ship was a living thing. The hull expanded and contracted in subtle motions, and there was a sense of awareness about the vessel, as if it was watching everything around it.

In a way it was, for the ship was an extension of Kira’s body. It acted as her eyes, and through it, she could see far more than would otherwise have been possible.

When she was finished, Kira had a ship that was over half the size of a UMC battleship and far more heavily armed. Powering it was another torque engine, and with it, Kira felt confident she could exceed the highest speed of any of the Maw’s foul offspring.

Then, she took one last look at the system. At the Cordovan star, at the planet R1 and the verdant framework of Unity floating in orbit high above. At the fleets of human and Wranaui ships clustered thereabout, which were, if not entirely friendly, at least no longer shooting.

And Kira smiled, for it was good.

In her mind, she made her peace, said her last farewells; a silent lament for all that was lost and gone. And then she turned her ship away from the star—pointed it toward the Maw’s final memory—and with the smallest of thoughts, started on her way.

EXEUNT VI

1.

Kira wasn’t alone. Not yet.

As she moved across the face of the void, four UMC battleships and three Wranaui cruisers trailed behind in close formation. Most of the vessels were damaged in some way: explosion-scarred and soot-besmirched and—in the case of the human ships—held together more with FTL tape, emergency welds, and the prayers of their crews than anything else. Still, the vessels were spaceworthy enough to accompany her.

Admiral Klein and Lphet seemed determined to provide her with an escort all the way to the Markov Limit. Not so much for protection, she suspected, as for observation. Also, perhaps, to give her company. Which she appreciated. If anything was going to do her in, it was the silence and the isolation.…

Once she reached the Markov Limit—which, for her ship, was far closer to the star than for the humans or Wranaui—she would leave her escorts behind. They didn’t have the means to keep pace with her in superluminal space.

And then she would truly be alone.

It was something she’d expected from the moment she’d made her decision. Yet Kira found the actuality somewhat daunting. With Carr and Qwon removed from her consciousness, her mind was a far emptier place. She was an individual again, not a plurality. And while the Seed was a companion of sorts, it was no substitute for normal human interaction.

She had always been comfortable working alone, but even on the loneliest outposts the Lapsang Corp. sent her to, there had been people to talk and drink with. People to fight and fuck and to generally bounce off, mentally and physically. On the long journey that lay before her, there would be none of that.

The prospect did not frighten her, but it did concern her. Though she felt secure in her self for now, would extended periods of isolation unbalance her the way it had Gregorovich when he’d been shipwrecked? And might that lead to her becoming more like the Maw?

A ripple passed through the surface of the Seed, and she shivered, though she was neither cold nor hot.

Inside her darkened cradle, she opened her eyes, her real eyes, and stared at the curved surface above her: a map of textured flesh, part plant, part animal. She traced the shapes with her fingertips, feeling their courses, reading their paths.

After a time, she again closed her eyes and sent a signal to the Wallfish, asked to speak with Falconi.

He replied as quickly as the light-lag allowed. *Hey, Kira. What’s up?*

Then she confessed to him her concern, and she said, “I do not know what I may become, given enough time and space.”

*None of us do.… I’ll say this, though. You’re not going to go insane, Kira. You’re too strong for that. And you’re not going to lose yourself to the Seed. Hell, even the Maw couldn’t destroy you. This is a cakewalk in comparison.*

In the darkness, she smiled. “You’re right. Thank you, Salvo.”

*Do you need someone to go with you? I’m sure the UMC and the Jellies would have no shortage of volunteers who would love to jet around the galaxy with you.*

She seriously considered the idea and then shook her head, though Falconi couldn’t see. “No, this is something I have to do myself. If anyone else were here, I’d be too worried about protecting them.”

*Your call. If you change your mind, just let us know.*

“I will.… My one regret is that I won’t be around to watch how things turn out between us and the Jellies.”

*It’s good to hear you use the word us. Klein wasn’t sure if you still thought of yourself as human.*

“Part of me does.”

He grunted. *I know you’re going to be out past the rim, but you can still send messages back, and we can figure out a way to do the same. It might take a while, but we can do it. Staying in touch is important.*

“I’ll try.” But Kira knew it was unlikely she would hear anything from the League or the Wranaui. Even if they knew where she was, by the time their signals reached her, odds were she would have moved on. Only if the Maw’s avatars led her back to settled space would it be possible, and she very much hoped that wouldn’t be the case.

Still, it meant something to her that Falconi cared. And she felt a measure of peace. Whatever the future held, she was ready to face it.

When they finished talking, she hailed the Unrelenting Force. At her request, Admiral Klein agreed to forward a message of hers (minus any information the UMC deemed classified) back to Weyland and her family. It would have been easy enough for Kira to broadcast a signal strong enough to reach Weyland, but she did not know how to structure the waves of energy so they could be received and interpreted by the listening antennas in her home system.

Kira wished she could wait for a reply. However, even under the best of circumstances, it would take over three months to hear back. Assuming her family could be found … and that they were still alive. It pained Kira to realize that she might never know the truth.

As she hurtled toward the Markov Limit, Kira listened to music sent to her from the Wallfish. Some Bach, but also long, slow orchestral pieces that seemed to match the turn of the planets and the shift of the stars. The music provided a structure to otherwise formless time—a narrative to the impersonal progression of nature’s grandest bodies.

She dozed inside her living casement, slipping in and out of wakefulness. A true sleep was near at hand, but she put it off, not ready to surrender awareness. Not yet. Not until space distorted around her and cut her off from the rest of the universe.

2.

When she arrived at the Markov Limit, Kira felt a sense of readiness within the ship. The fabric of reality seemed to grow thinner, more malleable around her, and she knew the time to leave was upon her.

She allowed herself a final look around the system. Regret, anxiety, and excitement all stirred within her. But her purpose was just, and it stiffened her resolve. Hers was to go forth into the unknown, to root out the evil seeds and to spread new life throughout the galaxy. It was a good purpose to have.

Then she diverted power into the torque engine, preparing for the transition to FTL, and a deep hum pervaded the flesh of the ship.

Just as the hum peaked, a crackly transmission reached her. It was from the Wallfish, from Falconi. He said, *Kira, the UMC says you’re about to jump to FTL. I know it feels like you’re going to be all alone from now on, but you aren’t. We’re all thinking about you. Don’t forget that, you hear me? That’s a direct order from your captain. Go kick some nightmare ass, and I expect to see you alive and healthy when—*

The hum ceased, and the stars twisted, and a dark mirror enveloped her, isolating her in a sphere no larger than her ship. Then all was silent.

Despite herself, Kira felt sad, and she allowed herself to feel that sadness, to acknowledge her loss and give the emotion the respect it deserved. Part of her resisted. Part of her still made excuses. If she could find the Maw’s emissaries and eradicate them within a reasonable amount of time, maybe she could still return home, have a life of peace.

She took a breath. No. What was done was done. There was no going back, no point regretting the choices she had made nor, as Falconi had said, what was out of her control.

It was time. She closed her eyes, and though the prospect still unsettled her, she at last allowed herself to sleep.

And in that sleep, there were no dreams.

3.

…

…

…

An emerald ship sailed through the darkness, a tiny gleaming dot, lost within the immensity of space. No other vessel accompanied it, no guards or companions or watchful machines. It was alone among the firmament, and all was quiet.

The ship sailed, but it seemed not to move. A butterfly, bright and delicate, frozen in crystal, preserved like that for all eternity. Deathless and unchanging.

Once it had flown faster than light. Once and many times besides. Now it did not. The scent it followed was too delicate to track otherwise.

The galaxy turned upon its axis for time without measure.

Then a flash.

Another ship appeared ahead of the first. The newcomer was dented and dirty, with a patched hull and an awkward appearance. On its nose, faded letters spelled a single word.

The two ships passed each other in a tiny fraction of a second, their relative velocities so immense, there was only time for a brief transmission to pass from one to the other.

The transmission was of a man’s voice, and it said: *Your family is alive.*

Then the newcomer was gone, vanished into the distance.

Within the lonely ship, within the emerald cocoon and the swaddling flesh, there lay a woman. And though her eyes were closed and her skin was blue, and though her blood was ice and her heart was still—though all of that, a smile appeared upon her face.

And so she sailed on, content to hold and wait and there to sleep, to sleep in a sea of stars.