But, “Wait, they attack Indigo, too,” I said. “They’re really interested in Indigo. They attacked him like you and me, they just took longer about it.”

Indigo said nothing beside me. Impossible to tell from his expression if he cared at all about the answer.

“I think they don’t know what to make of him,” Tamara said, with a brief glance Indigo’s way. “He’s not a human, but he’s not a maniki… species 019, either. Maybe they decided he was close enough to human.”

“Their method of killing their victims is unusual,” Indigo said calmly, as if Tamara had not just called him close enough to human. “Is their intention to climb through the orifices to gain access to the inner organs?”

That was wonderfully revolting. “Burrow their way inside?” I said.

“I don’t know exactly how they kill,” Tamara said. “I couldn’t get close enough to any of their victims to examine them as it happened, not without becoming infected myself. But my observations suggest that they’re looking for access to the brain, and only the brain. Once enough of the nanomachines have gained access to the skull, the victim stops struggling. Comatose, or simply paralyzed. The remaining nanomachines remain perched on the body, guarding it, maybe. Periodically one or two of them will join the others inside the victim’s skull, usually through the eyes, sometimes through the ears. The victim lies unmoving for a period of time between thirty minutes to twelve hours. Then they begin seizing. After death, the nanomachines leave the corpse. Post-mortem examination suggests that the brain has been burrowed through and partially liquified. Currently there are no theories as to what determines the length of time the victim will spend dying.”

She sounded clinical, as cool and impenetrable as the metal around us, but the sparse horror of her report carried through. How many of your team did you watch die that way, I wanted to ask, but even my imp right now was silent.

I cleared my throat to break the oppressive silence. “Exactly how many different dangerous species are present on this ship?”

“There are four to really look out for. Species 019, the ones you call the manikins, are the worst—fast, smart, and deadly. Then there’s species 048, the ones who look like… like children. There’s the Dreamer, which controls the repair bots. Species 082 is the least common one—the Dreamer’s trying to wipe it out. It’s a mutated form of coral, as near as my team and I could tell.”

The mutated coral must be that rock thing that spat acid at us. The one with bones sticking out of it. I really hoped that there were bones in it because the coral was eating them, and not because the scientists had, like, fused their own DNA with coral in a terrible bid for immortality. Honestly, with this ship, it could have gone either way.

“So you intend to go through the center of the ship to avoid as many of these creatures as possible,” Indigo said.