Only a handful of hours remained before they arrived at the Battered Hierophant. She kept herself awake until, halfway through their flight, the free-fall warning sounded, and then she used the Soft Blade to hold Falconi and herself in place while the Wallfish flipped end for end before resuming thrust.

Falconi mumbled something incoherent as thrust resumed, but like a true spacer, he stayed asleep through the whole procedure.

Then Kira slid farther under the blanket, lay next to him, and allowed her eyes to close.

And finally, she too slept.

6.

Kira dreamed, but the dreams were not her own.

Fractures upon fractures: forward, backward, she could not tell which. Twice the cradle cupped her resting form. Twice she woke and waking found no sign of those who first laid her there to rest.

The first time she woke, the graspers stood waiting.

She fought them, in all their many forms. She fought them by the thousands, in the depths of oceans and the cold of space, on ships and stations and long-forgotten moons. Scores of battles, large and small. Some she won; some she lost. It mattered not.

She fought the graspers, but she herself was bound to one. The graspers warred amongst their own, and she to her bond of flesh was true. Though she had no wish to kill, she stabbed and sliced and shot her way across the stars. And when the flesh was hurt beyond repair, another took its place, and still others after that, and with each joining, the side she served was wont to change, back and forth and round again.

She did not care. The graspers were nothing like the kind who made her. They were quarrelsome upstarts, arrogant and foolish. They used her badly, for they knew not what she was. But still, she did her duty best she could. Such was her nature.

And when the graspers died, as die they did, she took a certain satisfaction in their end. They should have known: it was wrong to steal and wrong to meddle. The things they took were not for them.

Then came the flesh of Shoal Leader Nmarhl and the ill-fated uprising of the Knot of Minds that ended with the triumph of Ctein. Cradle-bound she became again as Nmarhl laid their flesh down to rest, and rest she did for fractures yet.

The second time she woke, it was to a new form. An old form. An odd form. Flesh joined with flesh, and from flesh came blood. The pairing was imperfect; she had to learn, adjust, adapt. It took time. Errors had crept in; repairs had to be made. And there was cold that dulled her, slowed her, before the match could then conclude.

When she emerged, it was difficult. Painful. And there was noise and light, and though she tried to protect the flesh, her attempts were flawed. Sorrow then, that upon waking, she had again been the cause of death, and with that sorrow, a sense of … responsibility. Apology even.