“Oush, check in!” she said. No response.

“Up ahead,” called Aptat, pointing.

It was hard to miss. Across the rotunda was a towering organic structure, like a giant seedpod that had grown up out of the floor. A huge, milky white-blue taper stretching all the way up to the apex of the vast space.

Aptat put increasing distance between themselves and Naecia, being faster and of bespoke origin, and wearing an augmented suit, and also not being encumbered by the rubbery dead aromatic weight of the second-hand Vortu toilet garb.

Naecia moved as best she could. The suit was rubbing her skin off at the armpits. Their vector took her past what she could only describe as piles of Scythin, who looked as if they’d literally fallen apart. She was left with an uneasy feeling, like they weren’t dead, just dormant.

Far ahead, Aptat arrived at the soaring organo-structure. “Oush’s beacon is coming from inside this thing,” they said. “It’s made of something I’ve never seen. Like twice-hardened rhyconin.” Naecia saw the flare of Aptat’s magmafier. “Watch our backs, Naecia, I don’t trust these chunks to not snap out of it.”

CHAPTER FORTY

CHAPTER FORTY

“Benbenbenbenbenbenbenbenben.”

It was Patton, trying to shake me back into the waking world. I didn’t want to be in that world. I wanted to be in nectar world. My eyes cracked open. “Ben!” he yelled, kindly slapping my cheeks.

His face came into focus. He looked... great? “Patton?” I rasped, “I thought you were...”

“Food tube, bro. Stuff’s stronger than Grease Monkey Indica.”

I sat up, wiped my eyes and looked ahead. Was there a Vortu lying in our enclosure?

It groaned.

Patton helped me up. “Yeah,” he said, acknowledging our new cellmate. “Another voidscull showed up in here and that old Vortu came charging out. Then it fainted. I think I did too.”

“Back away from it,” I said, scooting a retreat on my butt tube.

“You think it knows Kung Fu?” asked Patton, assuming a vaguely martially artistic stance. The Vortu began rolling side to side, grunting. I pulled Patton away. Then it reached up and popped off the helmet.

“Oush?” I exclaimed.

“We’re rescued!” cried Patton.

“Not quite yet,” said Oush, pointing to the outside. “We need them to get us out.”

A silhouette materialized. “Aptat?”

The membrane brightened with flame.

“Wait,” I said, “how did they get past the Scythin? How did you get in here? Where are the Scythin?”

“I don’t know,” said Oush. “Let me ask.” He put the helmet back on and com’d the others, then answered, “They say the Scythin are asleep.”

“No, no, they don’t sleep,” I said, peering through the membrane. I could make out some small boid piles on the floor just outside the mist. “I’ve never seen them sleep.”

Oush shrugged.

“How did Aptat get here?”