Again she felt the substance of the dark shell that coated the inside of her cabin, flesh of her flesh and yet … not. It was a strange sensation.

She shook herself, forced her attention back onto the overlays.…

6.

Nearly four hours had passed before the intercom clicked on and Falconi said, “Listen up, everyone. Vishal just gave me an update.”

In her cabin, Kira perked up, eager to hear.

“Long and the short of it is, Greg is in pretty bad shape. The surge from the impedance block caused damage throughout his neural net. Not only did it burn out a good chunk of the leads, but the connection between the computer and Greg’s brain is continuing to degrade as the neurons that got shocked are dying off.”

A commotion of concerned and overlapping voices on the line. “Is he going to die?” Sparrow asked with characteristic bluntness.

“Not unless we all get blown up tomorrow,” said Falconi. “Vishal isn’t sure if this is going to cause permanent problems for Greg or if he’s just going to lose a few extra brain cells. No way to tell at the moment, and the doc can’t exactly wheel Greg into sickbay for a scan. He did say that Greg is probably enduring extreme sensory distortion. Aka, hallucinations. So Vishal is keeping him under sedation, and he’s going to keep working on him.”

“Aish,” said Hwa-jung. The machine boss sounded unusually emotional. “This is my fault. I should not have thrown the breaker without checking the line first.”

Falconi snorted. “No, it’s not your fault, Song. You couldn’t have known the block was there, and Greg wasn’t giving us any choices, the stubborn bastard. This is the UMC’s fault and no one else’s. Don’t beat yourself up about it.”

“Nossir.”

“Alright. I’ll let everyone know if there are any changes.” And the intercom clicked off.

In the dark of her cabin, lit only by the green glow of the fruit-like orbs hanging from the vines the Soft Blade had grown, Kira hugged herself. So Gregorovich had made a mistake in not wanting to come to Cordova. He’d still been trying to do the right thing. He didn’t deserve what was happening now, and she hated to think of him trapped alone in the madness of his mind, not knowing what was real, perhaps even thinking that his fellow crewmates had abandoned him. It was terrible to imagine.

If only … If only she could help.

Kira looked down at the arm the Soft Blade had made for her. Even if she couldn’t, maybe the xeno could. But no, that was crazy. There was a universe of difference between an arm (or a tree) and a brain, and a mistake with Gregorovich could cause even worse problems.

She put the thought from her mind.

7.

With the tweaks Itari had made to their Markov Drive, the Wallfish was able to dive into Cordova’s gravity well nearly as deeply as the Jellies.

They dropped out of FTL close to a pitted moon in orbit around a minor gas giant, the location of which the Knot of Minds had given them beforehand. The instant the Markov Drive shut off, Kira, the Entropists, and the crew (except for Vishal) abandoned their self-imposed exile and headed in a group toward Control.