“So that was your people’s work,” she said to Layanna.

“I’m sure it was.”

“This is what Sheridan warned us about,” Avery said softly. “Now that the R’loth can’t rely on Octung, they’re having to continue the war themselves. This is how they mean to do it.”

Layanna nodded. “I’m amazed they were able to fabricate this ... thing ... so quickly.”

“Is that what they did? Manufacture it?”

"Or grow it, yes. Or bring it over from ... elsewhere."

Avery resisted a shudder.

“And so quick!” Hildra said. “It's only been, what, a coupla months, since we flipped on the Device."

"We're assuming this is some response to that," Avery said. "It’s always possible that the Starfish could be the result of a project they started earlier." It’s what he wanted to believe, was desperate to believe, but Layanna was soon to crush the notion.

"No," she said, with certainty. "This thing is new."

“Think it’s headed toward the mainland?” Janx said. “I mean, the Gyrgins are east, Ghenisa’s west, and the Azads are plumb in the center.”

“We must assume it is,” Layanna said.

“We’ve got to warn them,” Avery said. “Prepare some defense."

"That won't be easy,” Hildra said. “Shit, we’re wanted fugitives back home, and that’s where this ship is goin’. It operates straight out of Hissig.”

"It won’t be easy. But with the samples we collected it might just be possible.”

“To do what?”

“I don’t know. Find some weakness of the creature.”

“Kill it?”

“That would be the goal, yes.”

They digested this in silence.

Janx’s gaze swung to Layanna. “What if you do? Find some way to fight the beastie, I mean. That it? You and the doc figure some way to end it and it’s over? The fucking R’loth ain’t got another pet waitin’ to unleash on us, have they?”

Layanna held his gaze. “It’s always possible that there are more than one of these creatures. Where they have made one, they can make two. And since I doubt the creature could travel a thousand miles overnight, there must at least be that many. But yes, Janx, even the resources of the R’loth are not inexhaustible. This is their one last big push to win the war. If we defeat the Starfish, we defeat them.”

Avery frowned as a thought occurred to him. "Sheridan," he said, and they glanced at him sharply. "I wonder ... she didn't come with us into port. She said she was feeling poorly, remember."

"Yeah, so?" said Hildra.

"It's probably nothing. I just wondered if it were possible that, well, that she could have known ...”

Later that night, when Layanna and Ani had retired to bed, and Janx and Hildra had gone off to drink with the whalers in their quarter of the ship, Avery lay on his cot alone for a long time, watching the play of light on the ceiling coming in from the porthole. One of the occasional pseudo-auroras was occurring over the sea, and its eerie yet colorful lights shimmered in his cabin, drowning him in another world. He didn’t see the lights. He saw only the destruction of Ethali, its proud buildings ground to slog, its people crushed and vaporized and made homeless. He saw the fires and heard the screams.

I’m so sorry. Hildra had said it had been all of them that caused it, but that wasn’t true. Avery alone had activated the Device, and he alone, of the whole group, had known the consequences.

Don’t be so dramatic, Frank. It’s not all about you. Besides, if he hadn’t fired the Device, Octung would have won the war. They would have conquered first the continents on this side of the world, then the other. Nothing could have opposed them. They would have forcibly converted all the humans on the planet, infected them, a process that would have killed millions, even billions, turning the rest into slaves if they were lucky, food for the gods if they weren’t.

Avery had done the right thing. He had.

And yet ...

The wrath of the gods is upon us, and I’m the one who incurred it.

What could he do to stop it? Would some samples of tissue really be enough?

He tossed and turned, trying to sleep, then trying to watch the lights dancing ghostily on his walls, flaring suddenly as a lance of lightning lit the whole aurora, making it shine like a luminous cloud. Avery had heard that the auroras could be deadly, that ships could vanish in them, that they could even drive men mad, but they were lovely to behold. Still, he found no solace in the display.

But I know where I can, don’t I?

He snorted. Then, not allowing himself to think about it, he threw on some clothes and slipped out the hatch. Making his way down the hall, he paused before Sheridan’s hatch, wondering what her thoughts on the Starfish were, wondering if she were awake, basking in her own righteousness or, perhaps, even mourning the many who had died today.

“Would you like to speak with the Admiral?” inquired the sailor assigned to watch Sheridan’s door.

Avery paused a moment more, then shook his head. “No. Thank you, no.”

He moved on, ascending two decks and coming, at last, to the bar.

Chapter 3

“I’m still having those strange dreams,” Ani said.

“Dreams?” Avery repeated, but he was thinking, Please, no. He and Ani were taking a walk on the outer deck, enjoying a little father-daughter time—or they had been.

“You remember, I told you,” she said. “There’s a door, a huge, crystal door, and I’m walking closer to it ... closer ... but I never seem to get there. And there’s weird sounds. Music. Bells. Singing, but creepy. And a heartbeat. A huge heartbeat.”

Avery thought of a monstrous heart that was all too familiar. “You’ve had this dream since you’ve been back with me?” He’d hoped her recurring nightmare would have faded after she left Octunggen custody.

“It’s coming more and more often.”

“It’s just stress,” he said. “I’m sure it’s just stress.” But inside he was unsure. No one had been through what she had before, and its possible implications frightened him deeply.

Suddenly, she brightened. “Look!” She ran to the gunwale, the boots of her environment suit clomping on the metal deck. “A squid!”

Something squirmed, white and ghostly against the stars. Crying in delight, Ani turned back to him, making sure he’d seen it—as if he could miss it. The great white translucent cephalopod floated almost serenely over the waters, its dangling tentacles drifting slightly behind it as it coasted over the bubbling, vapor-wreathed ocean, in a course that took it, Avery noted, perilously close to the ship.