“And when will they be doing that?” she said.

“Four cygies give or take. Sooner if they decide to fire the Child’s engines.”

Naecia stepped into her chamber and waited to be sealed and sent below.

Aptat hesitated for a moment before closing the glass. “Tell me: would you rather that I turn off your air supply or space your chamber when the Vortu arrive?”

“You’re not going to fight them?”

Aptat laughed grandly. “What fight I can manage with no ability to maneuver and limited access to the ship’s systems. I will make my best personal stand.” They clicked heels and mimed a sword twirl. “You’re the one with a choice. I’ll do it for the three of you who remain. Or, if you choose to stay in your chambers, alive and well for your kidnappers when they arrive, I suppose that’s an option as well.”

Naecia turned a shoulder at the non-choice and the chamber descended.

Silence magnified the pounding headache. It was worse than a hangover from an after-shift party spent drinking pipe spirits back on Vask. She’d long since given up on returning home to the steam fields or to her family on Drev, but had always been able to take comfort in an imagined homecoming. Now if – when – the Earth man gave up the Chime, the entire Pangemic system and the galaxy it called home, would cease to exist anywhere.

The arrival of nausea was an unpleasant companion to the headache. Of course, she’d choke on it rather than decorate her chamber as the Earth man had. She condemned his weakness. With any luck, the trait ran deep, and the Scythin dredge would do to him what should have already been done. With any luck, it would melt his brain before he spilled.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

I had never considered myself claustrophobic, but being trapped inside a roughly sarcophagus-sized space-kayak was enough to bring the phobia forward. Did this thing even have an air supply or were we stuck with whatever was in here when we departed? My mind jumped to Loricifera, a phylum of sediment – dwelling microorganisms that can live in anoxic environments. How fitting to daydream on such a thing as we suffocated.

“I’m glad you got the pickles,” said Patton from beside me in the dark. He reached over and caressed the lid. “I liked the protein bars fine, but they made me gassy. I’m glad to be out of that fart jar.”

“Give it time,” I said. “This thing is smaller and there are two of us.”

Distracting myself from the disorienting dark and strange alterations in momentum, I explained to Patton everything I’d learned from Aptat. He took it all in relative stride, including that no one believed that he was me and that he’d likely end up getting tortured if I didn’t give freely of whatever treasures my mind possessed.

The interior became lambent, exposing black spans of something stretching from wall to wall, weblike. I reached out and touched one, expecting it to give, but found it inflexible. There had been nothing like this on Silent Child. That ship was – and I feel the use of this word odd under the circumstances – conventional. Expected. Regular old spaceship stuff. This though... different.