Makali had wondered about that, too. The skinsuit had tended to that vital need but was no longer available. It wasn’t as though they could melt ice and snow from the Keanu exterior….

What was Zack’s plan? Did he have one? It seemed that ever since turning away from the sealed vesicle passage, they had been reacting or running, grasping the only option available: flee the croc, dive into the goo, head for the surface.

Head for Mt. St. Helens.

“How about safe passage into the Sentry habitat?” Zack said.

“You make that sound almost reasonable,” Dale said. “But it just makes me ask, and then what?”

Zack was slow in answering. Makali was quite sure that their commander had not reached an accommodation with Dale Scott and probably wished he had been left dead on the surface like Wade Williams. Finally he said, “If there are other Sentries, maybe they’ll know how to get us back to our habitat.”

“Or how to control the NEO,” Valya said. She had cheered up considerably since shedding the skinsuit and finding a purpose in establishing communication with the Sentry.

After several turns they saw branching passages that seemed decayed and otherwise disused, except for a central one.

As the Sentry slipped out of sight, Dale hurried to keep up.

Makali and the others heard what sounded like a yelp and a splash.

They came around the corner to a central chamber, clearly a collection of Beehive cells…and a floor that was half-ground and half-pool.

Dale Scott was rising from the pool, which seemed to be about a meter deep.

The Sentry was looking at him with what Makali hoped was curiosity.

“Well,” Dale said ruefully, “I found some water.”

It was obvious that the Sentry lived here; around the pool were pieces of what had to be furniture, including a table and a stool, both of them too large to be of use to humans. The facings of the cells had been stripped—there were objects or substances stored in several. One of the larger cells was clearly a sleep or rest chamber for the Sentry.

In one corner were piles of organic material…some looked like tubers, others like flattened fish or animals.

“Home sweet home,” Dale said. All the humans could do was stand and watch as the Sentry went about its business, pulling objects out of one chamber, transferring them to another. It found one device, roughly the size of a Slate, and held it up to its chest. Apparently satisfied with the data revealed—if that was what happened—the Sentry replaced the unit.

Then it turned to the pile of food and supplies in the corner. Kneeling, it carefully picked through the material, finding what it wanted—first, a flask that contained some kind of liquid, which it drank. (“I hope that’s water it might share,” Valya said.) Then, a silvery morsel that looked to Makali like a flattened eel; it used one of its good middle arms to smash the thing against the chamber wall.

“Savage,” said Dale, who had, with Zack’s help, emerged from his soaking and was standing there dripping. Fortunately the temperature was tolerable, even on the warm side. Dale would be uncomfortable until he dried off, but he wouldn’t be in danger of catching pneumonia, at least. As for other alien bugs, Makali couldn’t say.

Zack suddenly stepped between them and the Sentry. “Careful, everyone—”

Makali could still see the giant being…it was removing another item from deep inside a chamber. Clearly the item had not been used in a while; the Sentry literally rubbed it against its chest and examined it.

Then it inserted it into the vest it wore. A middle hand touched various spots on the vest. Then the Sentry addressed them: “DSH,” it said. It was one syllable that seemed to contain two sounds, deh and sh.

The Sentry pointed to itself.

“I think that’s communication,” Makali said.

The Sentry pointed directly at Zack, who said, “Zack.” Then Dale, who said his name, then Valya, who did likewise.

Finally it pointed to Makali. She couldn’t speak. She knew what to say; she approved of the way the others had offered their names.

She just wanted to be sure. Don’t anthropomorphize!

“DSH,” the Sentry said, pointing to itself again.

“Help him out,” Dale said. “Its name is Dash; he wants yours.”

“Makali,” she said, drawing out the name. She hoped that was the right thing to do.

“The voice is coming from that unit on its chest,” Valya said. “I assume it’s a translator.”

Still focused on Makali, the Sentry—Dash—began speaking again, but it all sounded like grunts and whistles, with the exception of a sound that could have been the word help.

Oh. “It needs vocabulary,” Valya said. “I think the device records sounds and structure. I need to keep it speaking, then exchange sounds and words. We’ll build from there.” For the first time since Makali had met her, Valya seemed happy.

Over the next couple of hours, Valya Makarova worked her magic with Dash, carefully taking him through the Roman alphabet, then numbers, weights, measures, body parts, colors, directions, units of time—every word she could think of that would be useful in creating a vocabulary for Dash’s translator.

It didn’t take long for Dash, or its machine, to begin uttering brief phrases, offering its own story, bits of which registered with Makali, as she sat with her back against the nearest intact Beehive cell, either dozing from exhaustion or attempting to unlock Brahma’s black box recorder.

She wanted to give Valya and Dash closer attention but found it frustrating, like listening to a mother explaining something to a not-very-bright child.

Nevertheless, several facts registered.

Much like the fabled broken clock, Dale had been right at least once today. “It’s not a ‘he’ or a ‘she,’” Valya proclaimed. “It’s gender neutral. Sentries reproduce by fission.”

Dash was not in the cell by choice. It had lost some sort of power or political struggle and been unfairly locked away in the Beehive…the equivalent of solitary confinement. “I think it wants us to help with some sort of scheme,” Valya said.

“The hell with that,” Zack told her. “Ask it why its people don’t need the Beehive’s function.” Like Makali, he had tried to stay out of the mutual education process in order to allay confusion. But now he had found a reason to join the exchange.

“They come,” Dash said, in the first coherent answer Makali heard. “When they want, they come. I move.” And Dash pointed farther down the Beehive.

Dash also kept saying, “Don’t trust!” without being clear about the untrustworthy party, though Makali felt the Sentry was talking about other Sentries.

Or did it mean Zack, Makali, Dale, and Valya?

Eventually, if Makali closed her eyes, she was able to imagine that Valya was conversing with an immigrant who had a machine-based speaking voice.

One bit of intriguing information: Dash’s major enemy was its fission partner! “Disease hurt me,” Dash said.

“‘Disease’ as in ‘illness’?” Zack said.

“No, ‘Disease’ is another name,” Valya said. “Think of it as ‘DSZ.’” With a bit more back-and-forth, it turned out that their fission parent’s name was actually was more like XYZABCDIYTMIDS. New connates adopted the last two designators, and added a third.

“So they’ve got, like, literal blood brothers,” Dale said.

“Or connates,” Zack said. “If you wanted to use the correct biological term.”

“Yeah,” Dale said. “I need the correct terrestrial biological term for a fucking alien.”

He spoke loudly enough to draw Valya’s stern look. She spread her hands as if to say, You’re making my work difficult!

“Maybe Dash can add profanity to its human vocabulary,” Makali said.

All the while it was patiently answering and asking, Dash continued to perform its own inexplicable rituals. At one point it dipped its flask into the pool and filled it. It drank, then offered the flask to the humans, directly addressing Valya. “Drink,” it said.