The entertainments available to him in his sanctum finally all but exhausted, Immanence decided to take a tour of his ship before its arrival at the next target. He summoned both Vagule and Gnores, and the second-child XF-326 along with a random selection of that one's contemporaries. The two first-children arrived before the others outside the closed doors to the sanctum and Immanence watched them through the corridor cam system. Gnores moved to the fore and carefully watched the doors. Vagule shoved him aside, and when Gnores raised his claws, Vagule quickly smacked him hard across the visual turret. Gnores hesitated—not being that much smaller than Vagule—but the other having been appointed Prime by Immanence forced his decision. He squealed obligingly and backed off.

Now the second-children arrived, led by XF-326 who, Immanence noted, with his new privileges providing him better nutrition that Immanence also ordered dosed with certain hormones, was growing fast. The second-children, clambering over each other behind where XF-326 halted a safe distance from the two first-children, were all about the same size. His size lay between that of them and Vagule and Gnores. Immanence understood why XF-326 held back. His recent growth spurts would have weakened his carapace and a blow administered by either of the two first-children might result in serious injury. Immanence rose up on his grav-motors and swung towards the doors, ordering them open as he slid towards them.

Much scrambling, pushing and shoving ensued as his children realised he actually intended to leave the sanctum. The second-children were fine staying in the corridor all about him, there being room for them. As Immanence turned into the wide oblate-section corridor, perfect for his large carapace, he noted that XF-326 assumed the safe position directly underneath the rear of his carapace—safe so long as the captain did not decide to shut off his grav-motors, which he was known to do. Vagule and Gnores necessarily scrambled ahead, scuttling sideways so they could keep their father in clear view, clattering their back ends against the rough walls, loosening weed and sending ship lice scuttling.

"I want to see how you are progressing with these humans," Immanence told them.

"We have four recently implanted, and we are seeing how they progress before doing any more," Vagule informed him.

"I am aware of the current status of your research, Vagule. I want to see the entire process. Bring up another four and show me."

"We were thinking of trying spider thralls next," piped up Gnores.

Immanence observed Vagule's mandibles grinding and knew that Gnores would pay for that impertinence later.

"Why spider thralls?" Immanence asked.

Gnores replied, "With a less traumatic installation we were hoping… were expecting… that is—"

Vagule interrupted, "Even with all the support systems, full coring kills them within a few days. We are gradually learning about their autonomous nervous system, but we need to learn more to know what can be safely retained or discarded. Using spider thralls we are hoping they will live longer and thus provide us with more time to gather data."

Very good,thought Immanence. Vagule already understood that though the truth might result in some unpleasant punishment, lies, though delaying it, would result in punishment more severe.

"How many have died so far?"

"As a result of installation, fifty-three. A further eight have died in the holding area from injuries suffered during capture. We have also discovered that feeding them can be a problem. At present they are refusing to eat their own kind, though that might change should they become sufficiently hungry."

"And?"

"I would rather try them on other foods, since waiting until they are starving would result in them being weakened and ill and less able to sustain thrall implantation."

"Very well. Try them on our stores of meat and check their requirements for supplements. These humans are omnivores, remember, so may require certain minerals from vegetative matter."

At the end of the corridor they reached a shaft down which Vagule and Gnores scurried. Immanence slid into it, the second-children scuttling all around him and descending using footholds in the rough wall of the shaft. Immanence dropped slowly in the lower gee, his grav-motors countering the plates at the shaft bottom to halt him a few metres from the floor. The procession continued until they reached a sealed chamber much like the captain's sanctum. Vagule opened the doors for him and ducked inside. Immanence followed, scenting alien blood and flesh and the other smells concomitant with human life, and death. In the chamber he turned, surveying the humans upon whom Vagule experimented.

Twelve of them were clamped along one wall. To his left lay a stack of about twenty corpses—failures. Of the twelve, he could see by the readouts on the hexagonal screens above, five were dead. He eyed a rack of spider thralls, then another rack containing the larger thrall hardware required after a full coring. Perhaps something even smaller should be made? Immanence filed the thought for later attention as he now surveyed surgical equipment dipped in bins of sterilizing grease and two surgical robots standing off to one side. These dark metal shells conformed to the foreparts, visual turret and underside of a first-child. Many recessed pit controls inside took their claws and manipulatory hands, whilst to the fore spread many jointed, precision limbs, each ending in surgical tools.

"Remove the corpses and bring in four replacements," Immanence instructed. He then gestured his claw towards XF-326. "You, bring one of them over and feed me."

Under orders from Vagule, Gnores took some of the second-children off to collect four living humans, while Immanence kept a greedy eye on XF-326. The second-child closed its claw into the ribcage of one corpse, swiftly dragged it over and methodically began to dismember it, passing up pieces to Immanence's mandibles. As he crunched up a severed hand and forearm, the captain contemplated what enabled him to eat such fare. The rugged Prador digestive system could extract nutriment from a stone—this being a known method of survival in some situations. While eating he realised that decay improved the taste, probably because bacteria in the ship were partially breaking down the alien flesh. Even so, the captain pondered the quirks of evolutionary biology that resulted in something that tasted so good.

Gnores returned with the four humans who were, until they entered this chamber, docile and mainly inactive. However, two of them began yelling and babbling human speech. Immanence guessed they found the scene somewhat distracting. Sending a command to one of his sanctum chouds he ran the speech through a translator then directly back to him, but it revealed nothing of relevance, just many questions concerning their fate, occasional threats, and vague references to some human deity. He studied the humans while Gnores and the second-children began stripping off their filthy clothing. They were difficult to tell apart but now Immanence knew enough about their anatomy to identify one male, two females and a younger version that was probably the human equivalent to a second-child, though he could not guess at what its sex might be. Strange creatures. What was the purpose of that thick mat of hair on their heads, some form of protection perhaps? Why were two of them emptying their bowels—surely in a dangerous situation it would be better not to leave a scent that could be tracked? What purpose was served by piercing the body here and there with pieces of rare metals decorated with cut gems? Why those vulnerable external genitalia on the men and those ridiculously inflated mammary glands on the women? Immanence realised he had much yet to learn, should he be interested enough.