Page 111 of Stripped By the Alien

“It looks ready,” the drone says, inspecting the miniature Beast here and there. “I can sense the furnace burning hot. This is a male, by the way.”

“And is there room for us inside this male?”

“For me, certainly. For you…” His sensor cluster looks me up and down. “Maybe. You just have to try.”

There's only one opening in the side, and inside there's a warm inviting light.

I climb inside.

It's a tight fit. My shoulders brush both sides of the opening, and I have to fold myself smaller than feels natural. But once I'm through, the interior chamber is almost cozy. It's the only finished space in the whole living ship, a miniature echo of the Beast's own command chamber, complete with a scaled-down cluster of dark, wet eyes set into the front wall and a row of fleshy, lever-like protrusions along one side.

"These control heading and thrust," Lucius says, hovering at my shoulder to point out each one with his laser. "This regulates the atmosphere, as I understand it. You have a small reservoir of air, enough for several days if you're careful. And this," he taps a soft ridge near the floor, "will let you communicate with him, in a very limited way. Perhaps it's better if I deal with that part. This calf is basically a newborn."

I settle into the space in front of the eyes, my hands finding the levers more by instinct than understanding.

"Ready, Captain?"

I look back at the wall of raw pink tissue, the passage that leads back into the vast, sleeping bulk of the Beast, back toward the Beast's center and Krix'vorr's chamber and everything I am about to leave behind.

"Ready," I say. It's a lie, and Lucius is polite enough not to say so.

The calf detaches from his mother with a soft, wet release, and for a moment we simply drift, untethered, in the dark space between the Beast's flank and the stars.

Then the calf moves. It banks first, slow and deliberate, and carries us in a single looping circuit around the Beast's enormous flank, close enough that I can see individual hairs moving in whatever thin field of energy surrounds her. And the horns, long and sharp, three of them, looking like they're made of dark bone. They're stained with the blood and fluids of other living ships, scratched and burned from many battles.

Near the front, behind the cluster of eyes Krix'vorr calls the command chamber, the calf slows almost to a stop and presses itself, gently, against her hide in a gentle nuzzle. A small creature saying goodbye to its mother in the only language it has.

The Beast nuzzles him right back, then gives her calf a gentle nudge, pushing him out into space.

I feel it through the floor of the little chamber. Something in my chest gives out entirely, silent, and I have to press the back of my hand against my mouth.

Then the calf turns away, and the Beast falls behind us. Ahead there's only the false, glittering promise of the space station's lights.

I find myself reaching for where the translation flower would have sat against my ear, an old habit. I won't need it. If I find myself having to talk to a Gzet, it means the plan has failed.

"He'll be furious," I say, to no one, to the dark. "Or he already knows. Maybe he's found it by now."

Lucius says nothing. I suppose there's nothing useful to say.

I don't know what Krix'vorr is doing at this exact moment. Maybe he's still inspecting the Gzet worlds in triumph, maybe he's noticed I'm gone, maybe some small part of him already understands. I hope, distantly, absurdly, that he'll be happy. I hope that he gets to have this one thing, that he's worked for all his life.

"Goodbye," I whisper, so quietly that even the translation flower, if it had still been listening, might not have caught it. "I love you. I'm sorry."

The calf carries us on, small and eager and alive, toward the lights of the station and everything waiting inside it.

33

- Krix'vorr -

The Beast is jubilant. I can feel it in every pulse beneath my feet, in the crew's raised voices, in the way even the walls seem to hum a half-tone higher than usual as we turn for home.

She fought well and she knows it, and now she carries the richest secret any Brood has found in living memory. And of course, her calf grew big and strong, ready to explore the stars on its own. That is certainly a reason for her to be happy.

I have never felt less like celebrating in my life.

Sris comes into the command chamber, where I've been standing at the same 'eye' for longer than I can estimate. She climbs up my arm and settles at my shoulder. "You should be pleased, Chief Harrower. More pleased than you seem."

"I am pleased," I say, but even I can hear how little truth is in it.