“PUT DOWN THAT PIG!”

Gregorovich.

5.

The pressure door at the end of the shaft slammed shut, cutting off the Jelly’s tentacle amid a spurt of orange ichor. The tentacle floated free, twisting and writhing in apparent agony. It threw Runcible’s cryo box against the wall, and the box bounced, tumbling several times in the shaft before Falconi managed to snare it.

The box and the pig inside appeared unharmed, save for a deep scratch along one side.

“Perforate that thing,” said Falconi, pointing at the tentacle.

Nielsen, Sparrow, and Kira happily obliged.

“Welcome back, my symbiotic infestation!” cried Gregorovich. “O happy day that we should be reunited, my bothersome little meatbags! Such dark times they were with me lost in the twisting maze of fruitless fallacies and you off gallivanting in meddlesome misadventures! How fortunate for you a luminous lantern led me back. Rejoice, for I am reborn! What have you done to this poor snail of a ship, hmm? I’ll assume control of operations, if you don’t mind. Morven, alas poor simulacrum, isn’t fit for the task. First to purge this grotesque bit of alien code infecting my processors, aaand … done. Venting and stabilizing reactor. Now to show these sump-sniffers what I’m really capable of. Whee!”

“About time,” said Falconi.

“Heya,” said Sparrow, slapping the bulkhead. “Missed you, headcase.”

“Don’t get too carried away,” said Nielsen, giving the ceiling a warning glance.

“Me? Carried away?” said the ship mind. “Well, I never. Please remove all hands and feet from walls, floors, ceilings, and handholds.”

“Uh…” said Vishal.

[[Kira here: Itari, move away from the walls!]]

The Jelly responded to the urgency of her scent with gratifying swiftness. It withdrew its tentacles and stabilized itself in midair with small puffs of gas along the equator of its carapace.

A dangerous hum filled the air, and Kira felt the skin of the xeno prickle and crawl. Then from behind the door that had severed the tentacle, teeth-jarring discharges sounded: mini-crashes of lightning snapping and crackling and buzzing.

And a horrible burnt-meat smell drifted toward them.

“All taken care of,” said Gregorovich with evident satisfaction. “There’s your fried calamari, Sparrow. My apologies, Hwa-jung, but you’ll have to replace some of the wiring.”

The machine boss smiled. “That’s okay.”

“You heard what I said earlier?” Sparrow asked.

The ship mind cackled. “Oh yes, faint as feathers, a voice echoing across misty water.”

“How?” said Falconi. “We had you isolated from the rest of the ship.”

Gregorovich sniffed. “Ah well, see now. Hwa-jung may have her little secrets, but I have mine as well. Once my mind was cleared of perfidious visions and debilitating doubts, it was quite a simple challenge to circumvent, oh yes it was. A twist of that, a dab of this, lizard’s leg and adder’s fork, and a sly bit of mischievous torque.”

“I don’t know,” said Nielsen. “I think I preferred you the way you were before.” But she was smiling.

“What about Mr. Fuzzypants?” Vishal asked.