In her ear, Falconi said, *Kira, what are you doing? You gotta get back here, before—*

His voice faded into the background as she ignored him.

She took a breath. And then another one.

There was no way they could win now. It was one thing to fight knowing that while she might die it was also possible they could drive off their enemies. It was an altogether different thing to know that she would die and that victory was impossible.

She resisted the urge to scream. After all they’d done, all they’d lost and sacrificed, it felt wrong to lose now. It felt unfair in the deepest possible sense, as if the two hundred and twenty-four nightmares that had just arrived were an affront to nature itself.

One more breath, this one longer and slower than before.

Kira thought of the greenhouses on Weyland—the fragrance of the loam and flowers, the lazy drift of dust in the sunbeams, the taste of the warm summer tomatoes—and of her family also. Then too of Alan and the future they’d planned, the future that she’d long since had to accept would never happen.

The memories left her with a bittersweet ache. All things came to an end, and it seemed her own end was swiftly approaching.

Her eyes filled with tears. She sniffed and looked at the stars, at the glowing band of the Milky Way that spanned the boundless sphere of the heavens. The universe was so beautiful it hurt. So very, very beautiful. And yet, at the same time, so full of ugliness. Some born of the inexorable demands of entropy; some born of the cruelty that seemed innate to all sentient beings. And none of it made any sense. It was all glorious, horrible nonsense, fit to inspire both despair and numinosity.

The perfect example: even as she looked at the galaxy and marveled in its radiance, another of the nightmare ships sailed into view, a torpedo-shaped growth of crimson carnality. From it she could feel a distant tug, an affinity drawing flesh to flesh, like a wire pulling at her navel—pulling at her very essence.

A new sensation broke upon Kira: determination. And with it, sorrow. For she understood: she had a choice where, before, she didn’t. She could allow events to continue unchecked, or she could wrench them out of joint and force them into a new pattern.

It was no choice at all.

Eat the path. That was what she would do. She would eat the path and bypass bare necessity. It wasn’t what she wanted, but her wants were no longer important. By her act, she could help not just the Seventh, but her friends, her family, and her entire species.

It was no choice at all.

If she and the crew of the Wallfish weren’t going to survive, she could at least try to stop the Maw from spreading. Nothing else really mattered now. Left unchecked, the corrupted Seed would spread across the whole of the galaxy in the blink of a cosmic eye, and there was little that the Jellies or the humans could do to stop it.