CHAPTER I

ARRIVAL

1.

Kira woke.

At first she couldn’t tell where she was. Blackness surrounded her, a black so profound there was no difference between her eyes closed and her eyes open. Where the emergency lights should have been, only an inky darkness pervaded. The air was warmer than normal for a trip in FTL—moister too—and no breath of wind stirred the womb-like space.

“Morven, raise lights,” she murmured, still groggy from her long inactivity. Her voice sounded curiously muffled in the stilled air.

No lights brightened the space, nor was there any response from the pseudo-intelligence.

Frustrated, Kira tried something else. Light, she told the Soft Blade. She didn’t know if the xeno could help, but she figured it was worth a try.

To her satisfaction, a soft green illumination gave shape to her surroundings. She was still in her cabin, but it in no way resembled the room as it had been upon departing Sol. Ribs of organic black material lined the walls, and fibrous cross-weaves matted the floor and ceiling. The newborn light came from pulsing, fruit-like orbs that hung upon growths of twisted vines that had crawled up along the corners of the room. The vines had leaves, and in them, she saw the shape of the oros fern repeated and elaborated upon in ornate, rococo flourishes. And everything—vines, orbs, ribs, and mats—was covered with tiny, textural patterns, as if an obsessive artist had been determined to decorate every square millimeter with fractal adornment.

Kira looked with a sense of wonder. She had done this. She and the Soft Blade. It was a far better thing than fighting and killing, she thought.

Not only could she see the results of their efforts, she could feel them, like extensions of her body, although there was a difference between the material of the suit itself and the plantlike creations. Those felt more distant, and she could tell that she couldn’t move or manipulate them the way she could with the actual fibers of the Soft Blade. They were, in a sense, independent of her and the xeno; self-sustaining life-forms that could live on without them, as long as the plants had proper nourishment.

Even disregarding the plants, the Soft Blade had grown during the trip. It had produced far more material than was required to cover her body. What to do with it? She considered having the xeno dispose of the material, as she had with unneeded tendrils on Orsted, but Kira hated to tear down what they had built. Besides, it might be unwise to get rid of the mass when there was a chance—unpleasant to consider but not outside the realm of likelihood—that she might need it in the near future.

Could she leave the extra material in the cabin, though? Only one way to find out.

As she prepared to free herself from the struts holding her in place on the bed, Kira looked down at her body. Her right hand—the one she’d lost at Bughunt—had melted into the mattress, dissolved into a web of snarled lines that ran the length of the bed and into the casing on the walls.