Lantern leapt off next, followed by Ashok. Elena couldn’t bring herself to jump toward the monster. She remembered Ibn and Hans too vividly, screaming and afraid. But she straightened her spine and walked, one magnetized step at a time, to the edge of the platform. The bio-drone swooped lazily around her, then reached down, almost in passing, and swallowed her. The petals were powerful tentacles, grabbing her body and pushing her down the gullet, which pulsed and rippled and moved her relentlessly downward, feet first. The sensation was viscerally repulsive, and when she dropped into the cargo hold or prisoner cell or garbage receptacle at the bio-drone’s center, it was a profound relief, though it would have felt claustrophobic under most other circumstances.

Suit lights shone all around her, revealing dark red, fleshy walls and a “ceiling” just two and a half meters above the spongy floor. They jostled in the lack of gravity, brushing against the walls, which felt disturbingly organic, twitching and contracting like muscle away from their touch.

“Everyone present and accounted for?” Callie scanned around with a light on her wrist as everyone counted off. “Lantern, is that little ball of information telling you anything useful?”

The Liar floated with neutral buoyancy halfway between the ceiling and the floor, two of its tentacles holding the glowing sphere to its faceplate. “I have location data on the map, so I can watch our progress. We’re moving toward the access hatch the bio-drone emerged from. I think it will proceed through special service tunnels to the reconditioning center.”

“Stephen, can you still read us?” Callie said.

“He’s busy with Robin,” Drake said. “But we still hear you. We’ve been monitoring all the excitement. Did you really let yourself get eaten?”

“It seemed like a good idea at the time. Send the lifeboat back to the hangar door. If we can get Ibn and Hans out, we may need to ship them back to the White Raven for medical treatment right away.”

Elena smiled in the dimness. Callie’s voice was so confident and self-assured that Elena dared to hope her crewmates really could be saved.

“Will do, cap–” The transmission abruptly cut off.

“Drake?” Callie said. “Are you there?”

“Connection lost,” Shall said in a curiously neutral voice. “Accessing local copy.” A pause. “Ugh. All right, my consciousness is up and running. This drone is pretty cramped compared to the White Raven. I feel blind and paralyzed and drunk and forgetful. I might as well be a human.”

“Why did we lose our connection to the ship?” Callie said.

“We left the hangar.” Lantern held up the sphere, where a luminous green line snaked along through a maze drawn in red, all against a pale blue background. “We’re in the walls now, moving through the service tunnels. We don’t have that open hangar door allowing our radio signals to pass through anymore. We’re behind new walls, and cut off.”