THE BLUE WORLD continued her descent.

Alone, O’Layle lived in the most remote room of his enormous prison cell, watching the public feeds, feeling a dim and constantly diminishing interest in the war news. What could he do? Absolutely nothing. Neither the polypond nor the captains had any interest in him. His friends and old companions wouldn’t answer his pleas. And why should they? There was nothing left to do but sit, sleeping when necessary and eating the occasional bite of barely tasted food. For another two days, even thought seemed like too much effort. This was infinitely worse than drifting inside that hyperfiber bubble, wandering between the stars … in so many more ways, he felt alone and lost, hope spent and not even an imaginary thread connecting him to the souls that should have mattered …

The third day brought weeping punctuated with deep, wrenching sobs.

And then he slept, and it was suddenly the fourth day.

The Blue World was about to fall on their heads, and O’Layle woke from a brief, cleansing sleep. He couldn’t remember any dreams, or even a coherent thought, but something obvious had burrowed its way into his mind. Obvious, and probably useless. But it was such a simple, perfect idea that he found himself unable to throw it aside.

The captains had left him with a special nexus and instructions. “If you ever think of anything new, use the nexus. Any new memory, any new insight. If it seems inconsequential, tell us about it anyway. Rely on us to judge what is and what can never be worthwhile.”

“O’Layle here,” he whispered to the activated nexus.

Nothing happened.

On the public feed, he could see the Blue World falling rapidly. Little flecks of light marked where warheads detonated in the space beneath it. Trying to poison her with radiations and other hazards, no doubt.

“I just thought of something,” he told the silence. “Something obvious, and I’m sure you thought of it, too. But maybe you didn’t. Or maybe you did, but then threw the notion away.”

No captain answered. They were too busy fighting, and that probably wouldn’t change before the end of everything.

“Hello,” he kept saying.

Minutes passed.

Forever.

No human had ever felt so alone, he told himself.

And then came a smooth musical voice, familiar and beautiful, and O’Layle very nearly broke into tears again.

“Quick,” was all that Washen said.

To the First Chair, he muttered, “Madam. Thank you.”

“What is it?”

And then O’Layle hesitated. He hesitated and grinned slyly, and with a resolve that took both of them by surprise, he said, “No.”

“What?” the distracted voice said.

“I want to help you,” O’Layle muttered.

Silence.

“And the Great Ship, too.”

Quietly, Washen asked, “Do you have something, or don’t you?”

“But I won’t tell it to you,” he promised. Could she see his smile? Probably. Then he thought, Good. Let her see my smug, grinning face.

Silence.

“You need to let me go free,” O’Layle demanded.

“No.”

“Let me help you,” he pleaded. “Give me something difficult to do, and dangerous. I don’t care what.”

Silence.

“All right,” he said. Then with a faith born from depression and a bottomless longing, he told the First Chair what had finally, finally occurred to him.

Silence.

“Is it important?” he inquired.

“Probably not,” she allowed.

Of course it wasn’t.

But then with a quiet, tight voice, Washen suggested, “You should try your front door. Maybe you’ll find that it’s unlocked.”

Thirty-one

Two centuries earlier, the man managed to reclaim both his job and rank, and later his original name, which was Easterfall, and his nature-given face. He was so grateful for the pardon that he would tell his story to anyone. “The First and Second Chair found me,” he would begin. “I was hiding inside my sister’s house, of all places.” Then with a well-practiced shame, he admitted, “I wasn’t just a coward. I was stupid, too. Imagine, believing that I could hide in such an obvious place. And I don’t know why I did any of it. Honestly, I must have been crazy.”

Some people didn’t believe his story. It seemed ridiculous: two of the most important humans out for a lazy stroll and by accident stumbling over him. Even if Washen grew up inside that house—and the storyteller learned to keep plenty of proof on hand—what were the odds? Long, by any measure. Preposterous, and obviously this human, this technician, was some species of liar, and a very poor liar at that.

“They didn’t have to pardon me,” he would boast. “But they did. For abandoning my post during and after the Wayward War, I was granted a probationary sentence, and then my record was swept free of red. See? Ever since, my job ratings have been as high as possible, or nearly so.”

He had been a stupid coward, his story claimed. But now he was the most loyal and devoted member of the crew, and even after two centuries of uncomplaining service, Easterfall still reveled in his good fortune. No, he didn’t tell his story often anymore. At least not to strangers, who generally didn’t care to hear it, or to his dearest friends, who already knew it by heart. But the moment had been so frightening, ominous, and awful, that the subsequent kindness of the captains had remained something for which he would always feel grateful. “A million years from now,” he liked to boast, “and wherever the Great Ship finds itself, I’m going to be standing at my post, doing whatever it is that Washen and Pamir ask of me, and doing it to the best of my ability.”

Of course these years had been inordinately quiet. An expert in the servicing of most kinds of starships, Easterfall found himself with little work in a given day. There was no passenger traffic or commerce, and each of the ports was set into a maintenance-only state. The one major mission originated from his port—Port Alpha—but that streakship had been refitted by other teams. Then when the ship returned again, it was wrapped under the strictest quarantine protocols, and later still, other technicians were responsible for its mothballing.

Secrecy was the watchword at both ends of the mission, and Easterfall couldn’t feel any serious insult for being passed over. His record might be clear of red blotches, but you weren’t a captain unless you had a long, precise memory. There were thousands of candidates, and of course he always had something to occupy his time—usually a distant corner of the port to keep clean and ready, waiting for the day when they finally escaped from the Inkwell and the damned polypond.

But in the subsequent years, once the Great Ship was burrowing through the nebula, Easterfall’s assignments began to change.

First, there were the briefings. Minor captains would speak to him and his associates, explaining a little of this and a sliver of that without revealing the bulk of the secrets—secrets they probably didn’t understand in full. But certain tendencies were easy enough to see: The high captains were making contingency plans; defensive systems were being built beneath the hull and around each of the vital ports; no alien, polypond or otherwise, would be able to slip inside the biozones, much less conquer the ship’s interior.

Then came the great rain of living polyponds, and the original defenses were adapted and updated, a series of elaborate and inspired tricks applied to the presence of so much water and life … and still, Easterfall’s mood as well as the mood of his associates remained confident, even brazen.

There was only one polypond, they learned. One vast organism that seemed ready to steal what was theirs.

“Fuck you,” the technicians would shout, fists brandished at the vast wet monster rolling above their heads.