So… here was an easy decision. “Let’s do as they say.”

I was holding my breath, hoping you would decide on that.

“You don’t breathe.”

Your language is rich in metaphor. The Agency I communicated with spoke like that, too, only several orders of magnitude higher in complexity. For example—

“I don’t think I can stand to have an example. Save it for our report.”

We will report this?

“How do you think I’m going to pay for this? We’re under contract.”

They—the Agency—may not like to have word spread.

Rachel blinked. “Are your conversations monitored by them?”

I had not thought. I am not transmitting, of course, but—

Another atypical pause…. Fraq frowned.

Apparently the Agency is listening to us. Somehow.

“Planted some tech on our hull, probably.”

But they know they cannot control what others say.

“Mighty nice of them. Still—why are we still alive?”

Perhaps their moral code? Or they may think we are emissaries from another world-mind like theirs. In which case, they will want to be diplomatic.

“I wonder why they don’t just put up a No Trespassing sign.”

Do you believe that would work?

“On humans? Not a chance.”

The living spacecraft flocked in dense swarms now, as if to be ready for whatever might happen. Rachel bit her lip, drew in the ship’s dry, scorched air, and felt very tired. How long had they been here?

“Y’know, we’re mice among elephants here. No, microbes. And elephants can change their minds. Or just make a misstep. Let’s run.”

I quite agree.

The Planetary Agency, as they decided to call it, spoke through lightning with microwave sizzles—all while the ship worked its way into the hydrogen plume. When microwaves from the home planet failed, it used rattles of particle storms on Silver Metal Lugger’s hull. The kite life guided them, in odd ways that Rachel couldn’t follow but Erma somehow found quite natural. A few hours of turbulent piloting brought them to the whirlpool of gas near the ringhole. The kites backed off and waited to watch them dive in. And in. And in…

“Y’know, we had a weird time in there before….”

You are cautious. I applaud. But recall that we cannot go back out of this plume.

“Meaning?”

I believe the Agency would take that act rather unkindly.

“Okay. Let’s do it.” Rachel put a confident tone to the words, though her heart was hammering, and she double-checked the straps on her couch.

Silver Metal Lugger rattled and hummed. The couch leather dimpled again as torques warped through the ship. The churning red winds outside had snapped into an utter blackness that somehow also writhed. Rivulets of gravitational stress worked at their trajectory. The helm fought her. Again Rachel was flying blind.

Pops and pings rang through the ship. She drove them forward with a hard burst of antimatter and saw nothing change ahead at all. Bunches of green mass shot by them and then came around again. That was how she knew that they were in some whirl that grew and grew, pressing her into her couch with a heavy hand, then twisting her around two axes at once. Gravs rose and it felt like Silver Metal Lugger tried to torque around and bite itself.