Shall scurried back up the esophageal tube. They all waited in thoughtful silence for ten minutes or so, and then a corpse fell out of the hole and landed with a loud thump.

Ibn shrank away and let out a strangled sob. Shall came after, carrying the guns that had been left inside. “I am sorry. There was no other way to get his body in, other than to push him ahead of me–”

“It,” Ibn said. “Not him. The soul inside Hans has moved on. We should treat his remains with respect, but the body is not the man.” He turned away again and began to pray softly to himself.

“Ashok, take us back to the hangar so we can get Ibn over to the Raven.”

“Sure thing. I think there’s a way to make the drone retrace its steps, a lot of what these things did was repetitive, so there are shortcuts.” He and Lantern consulted, and then Ashok flashed lights at the wall, and the drone lurched around and scrambled upwards, presumably heading for the tunnels. Shall moved toward the ragged opening in the drone and spanned it with his body, so no one would accidentally fall out. That was good thinking, because the trip was rough, bumpy, and fast, and sometimes weightless.

They reached the hangar and the kaiju swam down through the air, but because of the hole in its side, the aerodynamics were bad, and it flailed and listed and wallowed. Eventually it settled near the opening in the wall and Ashok and Lantern stopped flashing lights at it.

“Ohhhh, I have my brain back, that’s much better,” Shall said.

“Stephen?” Callie said. “Can you hear us?”

“I can. Good to have you back. Robin is doing well. She was fretting greatly over the rest of you, but consented to a sedative, and is getting some rest at last. Do you have more patients for me?”

“One, Ibn, but he’s only suffering from hunger and shock, as far as we can tell.”

“It’s thoughtful of you to space them out for me this way. I was expecting more of a trauma center experience today.”

“We’re sending over another Anjou crew member, Hans, too, but he’s… he’s beyond help.”

“I’m terribly sorry, Doctor Oh,” Stephen said. “I will treat his remains with all due respect and care.”

“Thank you.” Elena appreciated the kindness, but she was distracted, looking at Hans’s body. His faceplate was still blocked by the remains of the spider that had clawed its way into his helmet. She reached out and tugged at the spider, gently, but it was seated firmly. Embedded. Pulling hard would probably tear apart things she’d rather not see torn apart. She thought of the sharp little arms that had scrabbled at her own faceplate and shuddered. She switched to a limited comms channel. “Are we sure this thing is dead, Ashok? Lantern?”