“That’s what makes my tat glow, eh?” Janx said. “I should have the bastard burned off.”

“Is it responsible for the phenomena of alchemy?” Avery said. “Or part of it? I mean, if it gives off, well, energies, that produce the nectar and other alchemical substances, then this is the source of alchemy, after a fashion.”

“There may be other ruins,” Layanna said. “Other sources. I don’t know.”

“Let’s finish this up,” Janx said.

“Yes. I’ll ingest the nectar. Wait here.”

“But if you drink it …”

“When we get clear I’ll be able to separate the nectar from myself and store it in an organelle. It will be safe there until we return, and when the Starfish arrives I’ll be ready to ingest it and use the abilities it gives me on the creature, assuming the drills can bore a hole in the Starfish’s exoskeleton so that I can reach the thing’s brain.”

“Go on, then, blondie, do your thing,” Hildra said.

Layanna started to take a step toward the great egg—

She stopped suddenly. Avery swore. Of course.

Sheridan had pressed her pistol against Layanna’s skull.

Instantly Janx and Hildra raised their weapons to point at Sheridan.

“Do it and die,” Janx said, and there was gravel in his voice.

“I’m prepared,” Sheridan said. “Are you?”

“Try me,” Janx said.

“Kill me and you all die. You need my dirigibles to escape the city, but I don’t need you. Drop your guns.”

“If we do, you’ll kill us,” Hildra said.

“Don’t do this,” Avery told her.

“I’m sorry, Doctor,” Sheridan said. “I can’t let her stop the Starfish.” Tugging at the clasp of her belt—the grenade belt, Avery saw—she unfastened it and threw it to him. He caught the belt with a frantic lurch. “I need you to embed those in that egg. Equidistant points all around it. Then blow it.”

“But why? You don’t need to do that if you’re just trying to prevent Layanna from drinking from it. You would just shoot her. Unless ...” He blinked. “Is there something in the egg—something that you want?”

Sheridan cocked her pistol, still pressed to Layanna’s skull, and Layanna winced. “Do it,” Sheridan said.

“Then what?” Avery said. “You still have to kill Layanna or risk her eating the remnants of the egg, or drinking its nectar. What do you have to bargain with?”

“She could agree to come with me,” Sheridan said. “I’ll send for the dirigibles, as planned. The rest of you can have one and go your own way. You will be no threat to us, not anymore. Though, Doctor, if you did want to come, with me ...” Something flickered across her face. “There will be a place available.”

“And Layanna will be your lab rat?”

“She will be handed over to my superiors, and they will decide her fate. I have no part in that. All I can do is give her the chance. Now—the grenades.”

He hesitated. “What is in the egg?”

Looking back at it, he saw it looming, black and glistening, and he thought ... no, he felt ... there was a sort of hum coming from it. The back of his teeth vibrated.

“That’s my business,” Sheridan said. “And my superiors. The grenades.” She sounded impatient. As Avery watched, a bead of sweat trickled down to her eye, and she blinked it away.

“Do it!” she said.

“Don’t.” This came from Layanna. “I must have living nectar, Francis. Once the plant is dead, unless I am very, very fast, the nectar will congeal and won’t be potent enough to do what we need it to. I know that much from experimenting with the nectar in Sevu.”

Another patch of sweat was growing, this from under one of Sheridan’s armpits. Her cheeks glistened.

This was it, Avery thought. Sheridan had been pushed to her limit. She was in an alien place, surrounded by superior numbers and arms (assuming Avery could be said to be in possession of the grenades) only trying to follow some vague order, whatever that might be. If there was ever a chance to defeat her, this was it.

Furtively, he felt for the knife.

Gone.

Damn it all.

No, wait. Not gone. Looking at Sheridan, he noticed the hilt of the weapon at her hip. She’s fast. I never felt a thing.

“Get going,” Sheridan said.

Instead of moving toward the egg, Avery, slowly, began circling around Layanna and the admiral, going the other direction.

“What are you doing?” Sheridan said, and he heard the faintest trace of something that might be fear in her voice.

He passed where she and Layanna stood, then moved around behind them. Sheridan still had Layanna, Janx, and Hildra to the fore, and she had to decide whether to swivel and reposition her gun on Avery or leave it where it was.

She kept it pressed to Layanna’s head.

Avery approached Sheridan from behind. Going slowly, making no sudden movements, he reached his hand around her side, slid it down her hip—she gasped, and he was surprised by how warm she was—and pulled out the knife in its sheath. With her free hand, she grabbed his wrist, stopping him.

“In my left hand I hold the belt of grenades,” he said, practically breathing in her ear. “With my mouth, I can pull a pin.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“If you stop me using the knife, I have only the grenade. With a choice of only one weapon, do you really want it to be the grenade?”

“You’re bluffing. You would kill us all.”

“No, Janx and Hildra are far enough away to get clear, and I think your body might shield Layanna from much of the blast.”

“Ani would be fatherless.”

“She might be dead if you win and the Starfish devastate the world.”

“You’re a fool! The Starfish are our only hope.”