[[Kira here: Don’t you want to live? Don’t you want to keep this form?]]

[[Itari here: So long as my pattern endures, I endure.]] One of its tentacles reached out, and Kira struggled not to recoil as the rubbery appendage poked her in the chest. The Soft Blade stiffened as if it were about to attack. [[The form is unimportant. Even if my pattern is erased—as Ctein did to Nmarhl’s, long ago—it will continue to propagate in the ripples that follow.]]

[[Kira here: How can you say that? What do you mean by ripple? What do you mean those that follow?]]

The Jelly flashed red and green, and its tentacles wrapped tighter about its carapace, but it refused to answer. Kira asked her questions twice more, to no response. And that was all she could extract from the Jelly on the subject of ripples.

She asked a different question then: [[Kira here: I am curious. What is the tsuro, the summons that I felt when the Knot of Minds arrived at the resting place of the Idealis? I’ve felt it from all your shells, except here in this system.]]

[[Itari here: The tsuro is another of the sacred artifacts of the Vanished. It speaks to the Idealis and coaxes it forth. Were it not bonded with you, the Idealis would answer of its own accord and move to present itself at the source of the summons. By use of the tsuro, Wranaui shells everywhere search for the Ideali.]]

[[Kira here: And have you found any more since the end of the Sundering?]]

[[Itari here: Since then? No. Yours is the last surviving. But we live in hope that the Vanished have left more of their makings for us to find and that, this time, we will treat them with greater wisdom than before.]]

She stared at the weave of fibers on the back of her hands: black, gleaming, complex. [[Kira here: Does your form know—does the Knot of Minds know—how to remove the Idealis from the one it is joined with?]]

The Jelly’s skin roiled with the colors of affront, and its nearscent acquired a mix of shock and outrage. [[Itari here: In what ripple would that be desired? To be joined with the Idealis is an honor!]]

[[Kira here: I understand. It is a matter of … curiosity.]]

The alien seemed to struggle with that, but in the end it said, [[Itari here: The only way this form knows to separate from the Idealis is death. Lphet and the other ruling forms of the Knot may be aware of other methods, but if so, they have not scented them.]]

Kira accepted the news with resignation. She wasn’t surprised. Just … disappointed.

Then the ghost of Gregorovich’s voice sounded from the speakers, and he said, “Retracting radiators. Transitioning to FTL in four minutes. Prepare thyselves.”

Only then did Kira notice how cold it had gotten in the antechamber. Frustrated that she didn’t have any more time for questions, she informed Itari of the impending jump and then retreated from the doorway and closed and locked the airlock door.