Putting one’s self in the arms of a squid requires a courage not expected or taught in basic. We all do it, however, because it’s hard to imagine getting through the canebrake without searcher help—and because the Antags have submitted as well and are even now ahead of us. We don’t talk much. We’re scared, scared to our very guts, in that way that exhaustion makes worse.
It’s dark, it’s weird, it’s Guru—and there are squid.
But nobody gets hurt, and in half an hour we’re escorted through the brake, and what’s on the other side is more what you might expect within a gigantic spaceship—genuine, monumental architecture.
We’re taken across a hollow big enough to hold an apartment high-rise, but filled instead by a wide, undulating coral reef of spun and accreted metal. Judging from the occupants coming and going, like bees flying in and out of a hive, this is another low-g housing tract for searchers. Helping them get around are rope ladders and twisted cane bridges, but more open, with, at the center, a large concave blister that seems to reveal space, or at least blackness and stars. No sign of Titan or Saturn or any moons. About ten searchers are stationed inside the curve of the blister, paying no attention to what’s behind them. They’re on driver duty, I presume.
We’re brought up short on our leashes and again arranged into a bouquet, keeping our distance with outstretched arms and gripping hands, pajamas hiding very little, while Bird Girl takes hold of Ulyanova’s leash and leads her into a searcher congregation behind the starry blister. There, our prize pupil creates a minor sensation of movement, investigation, rearrangement.
“It’s like an aquarium,” Jacobi says.
“I thought squid are mollusks that live in water,” Ishida says.
“We’ve eaten enough of those,” Tak says, and Ishikawa looks unhappy.
“Don’t tell them that,” she says.
“But Bird Girl can read Vinnie like a book, can’t she?” Ishida says.
“Never liked sushi,” I say. “More a teriyaki kind of guy.”
“What’s she thinking?” Joe asks DJ and me.
“Who, Bird Girl or Guru Girl?” DJ asks.
“Either one,” Joe says.
“Bird Girl is feeling pretty good,” I say. “No specifics, but she’s where she wants to be—a slow carrier wave of accomplishment, of good feeling.”
“She’s at the end point of a long strategy,” Kumar says. We’ve all either ignored or tried to stay apart from him after his interlude, including me, hypocrite that I am.
“Maybe she really likes squid,” Ishida says. “Old friends from home?”
“She’s never been home,” I say.
With Vera at her side, Ulyanova’s submitting to a more thorough searcher examination, and maybe already being put to use. She’s the only one of us that seems to have a real purpose. Yet Bird Girl hasn’t stated to me, or to DJ, any change of heart regarding our starshina once her usefulness has ended. I hope it doesn’t come to that. She’s still human, still one of ours—until proven otherwise.
Like me.
Bird Girl leaves her surrounded by searchers to return and address us all. “We will find quarters,” she says. “Will be better than hamster cage. And there is food.”
“Good to know,” DJ says. We look quizzically at each other, since we don’t remember passing that comparison—the hamster cage—on to any of the Antags. Didn’t go through my head. Maybe the bats were listening.
Where are the bats now? I’d forgotten about them. Bats. Birds. Squid. I’d like to shove a few of our DIs into this present situation. They’d go nuts. Serve them right.
“We bring others around, outside, from tail forward,” Bird Girl says, and her eyes do not waver from mine.
“You trust this ship?” Joe asks.
“With searchers, yes,” she says. “The one named Ulyanova outranks all of you, for the time. Are there mating pairs or other considerations?”
Borden asserts herself. “If possible, we’d like to be kept close—but no mating arrangements. Kumarji will explain ranks, if you set time aside.”
“We do not like him,” Bird Girl says. “We are not sure of him.”
“Neither are we,” Ishida says, but Borden gives her an elbow.
“We’d like a decent service and arrangements for the dead we found,” Joe says.
“They will be incinerated, along with our dead.”
“Dead from Titan?” Joe asks.
Bird Girl blinks all four eyes. “We are told by our searchers that games were arranged for us as well as you. These provoke feelings of guilt in searchers. Arrangements will be made.”
“Thank you,” Joe says. “I understand.”
“Do you?” Bird Girl asks. “I have insight into two of you, and our searchers are, in your eyes, horrible.”
Borden says quickly, “We hope to revise our opinions.”
“Searchers always important, and these have been to our home, piloting this ship. I wish to learn from them and prepare for the journey. We have work to do, and all may be useful.”
She drafts and pulls herself back to the concave, star-filled dish.
“That isn’t the nose of the ship,” DJ says in an aside to me. “Not a direct view.”
“I got that,” I say.
“Ship goes way beyond. Wonder what’s up there—what they all used it for?”
“Kumar, come here,” Borden says.
Kumar climbs forward.
“What’s the chance that Ulyanova can remain independent while channeling a Guru?”
“Zero,” he says. “I’m pitiful, and all I did was look at them, work with them. She has one in her head.”
“Great to hear,” Joe says.
DJ hunches his shoulders. “You know what I’d give anything for right now?”
“A blow job,” Ishida says with rich sarcasm.
“Fuck no. That can wait. A tent on Mars, with some of those Russian food packs, those sausages, those little reindeer ones.”
“Yeah,” Tak says.
“Those were the best, weren’t they?”
The Russians agree. “Blow job would be good, as well,” Bilyk adds. He looks hopefully at Jacobi and Litvinov cuffs him.