She could, thankfully, see nothing of what actually surrounded her, but she could see a suited, streamlined version of Berdle a couple of metres away, turning away from her to swim towards the top of the large, cylindrical tank they were in. Beneath and to the side there were hints of tapered supports holding the tank, with further structure sketched in above and below showing where the decks were; these vanished into the distance. Cossont twisted, began to swim after Berdle.

She could feel her hands and limbs contacting semi-solids as she swam. It was like swimming through thick soup. She tried not to think about it. She was doing okay until she remembered the last time she and Berdle had been here on the airship, when they had been met by the strange person with the bowl-of-soup face.

Suddenly, she nearly threw up. Would have thrown up, but something inside her seemed to intervene at the last moment.

“Hey; calm,” Berdle said easily as he arrived at the top of the tank. “You’re triggering the suit’s medical unit.” He reached out to something on the under-surface that formed the ceiling.

“You be calm,” she told the avatar. “I’m swimming through shit here. You’re a fucking android, but this stuff is personal to us biologicals.”

“Fair enough. But … out in a trice,” Berdle said, both hands on a circular structure that Cossont sincerely hoped was a hatch. “One more sensor to fool … done. And a couple of little expander spheres to emplace, to take up our volume when we get out … There.” His arms twirled. The circular object swung up and away, hinging. She reached a surface she’d not even been aware was there, her top set of arms and her head suddenly in air. Or at least gas.

She was half a metre below the opened hatch. Berdle pulled himself up through it as easily as though they were in zero-G. Beside Cossont, as Berdle exited the tank, a tiny floating sphere expanded smoothly to over a metre in diameter, pressing against the surface of the tank and then down into the liquid.

Then a hand came down and pulled her up, though the suit made it feel like there was no weight or effort involved anyway. Having four arms probably helped too.

Once she was on her feet, the view switched. Conventional sight again. She was standing under a low, dark ceiling, on a dimly lit gantry facing Berdle – a spotless, conventionally clothed Berdle – across a side-hinged hatchway at their feet. She looked down. Her suit was also spotless, though it had gone back to looking like it was made of liquid mirror and soot again. She heard a tiny plopping noise in the tank beneath and then the suit snapped back to impersonating a normal-enough-looking pants and jacket combo.