Valya did not look well to begin with, but she grew even paler at the thought of putting her mouth on the alien container. In fact, Makali realized, none of the humans looked healthy. She was suffering from the queen of all headaches, likely from hunger….

Makali set aside her tool kit and the black box. She stepped up, took the flask, and drank.

It was water, though it had a briny taste. For a moment, she feared she had drunk seawater…and in another moment she concluded it didn’t make much difference; this was the only water available. If it was bad, they were dead.

Then Dash offered up a squirmy mass of flattened eel.

Makali had been raised in a restaurant. She had sampled a broad range of unlikely foods in her life on Earth, from haggis to eyeball of yak. How much worse could this be when it came to taste or texture? “I’ll try it,” she said.

“It could kill you,” Dale said.

“Worse yet,” Makali told him, “it could fill my belly but give me zero nutrition.” She wasn’t going to explain restriction enzymes and other digestive challenges; besides, Zack knew what she meant. “But I think we have to try. We’re going to need food. Besides, I am the exospecialist.”

Zack smiled. “You’ve talked yourself into it. What are you waiting for?”

She took the proffered food in her hand and transferred it to her mouth, forcing herself to chew (it was drier and tougher than she’d expected) and swallow.

She regretted it instantly. The Sentry food slid down her gullet like a horse pill without seeming to land in her stomach. It made her feel queasy.

“Texture, not so bad,” she said, hoping that by speaking she would be able to forgo vomiting. “Like one of those crunchy rolls you get at a high-end sushi place.”

“How about taste?” Zack said.

“Kind of overwhelmed by smell, unfortunately.” The Beehive smelled like a rain forest in the high heat of summer: moist, mixed, rotten.

Gulp, better now. The morsel had somehow worked its way to its intended destination. She forced a smile. Turning to Dash, she said, “It’s okay.” Then had to ask Valya if the Sentry understood okay.

Dash saved her the trouble. “Okay,” it said. Then it indicated that the other three should eat, too.

“Tell Dash we want to wait,” Zack said, glancing at Makali. “Just because it went down, don’t assume it will stay down.”

“I’m not.”

But now Dale Scott surprised her, stepping forward and saying, “Commander Stewart, with all due respect…we are beyond faint from hunger. I need something in my system, even if it’s rejected later.” He turned to Valya and Dash, spreading his hands. “Is there more?”

Once the four humans had drunk and eaten, Zack had begun to quiz Dash. “Why were your people so hostile when we arrived?” He recounted the death of Pogo Downey.

“I know nothing of hostile acts. When the People”—Makali wasn’t surprised that when Dash’s translator related the Sentry’s term for its race, it used that particular word—“were judged to be unsuitable candidates for the vessel’s needs, we were given a new task. Serving as guards.”

Zack said, “Who did the judging?”

“The Builders,” the Sentry said, through the translator.

“Which could easily mean ‘Architects,’” Dale said.

“I thought it said ‘vessel,’” Makali said. It was a struggle to keep the terms straight, especially since Keanu seemed to carry different classes of beings.

With further encouragement, Dash gave a halting, almost incoherent account of how the Sentries had landed on the NEO “seven times seven times seven” cycles ago, and found themselves enlisted in a war.

“Against the Architects?” Zack said.

“With.”

“Then, against whom? Who was the enemy?”

Here Dash got very agitated, so much so that Zack jumped back. The only sounds emerging from its translator were squeaks and squawks. “Valya,” Zack said. “Help.”

“I don’t know any more than you do.”

Makali stepped forward. “This enemy,” she said to Dash, “where is it? What planet?”

“Enemy controls many planets, many warships, many, many,” Dash said, and then abruptly rose to its full height. “You help me, yes? Yes,” it said, answering for them.

Then, in a process Makali wished she could have seen in slow motion, the Sentry seemed to collapse on itself, compressing its limbs and torso into a giant ball, which rolled into the pool.

And sank so that its top barely touched the surface.

Zack stared, openmouthed and wide-eyed. “Was it something I said?”

“If it’s like us,” Makali said, “I think the Sentry is just exhausted. Are any of you feeling headaches?”

“Is that the feeling where there’s a hatchet pounding on the center of your skull?” Dale said. “That headache? Hell, yes.”

They all were suffering, news that caused Makali to revise her diagnosis. “Zack, we’re all hungry, which might explain the symptoms, but—”

“It might also be low O₂,” he said. He was shaking his head, as if chiding himself. “I should have remembered. The Sentries I saw in our habitat…it wasn’t so much that we defeated them. They weren’t equipped for our environment. I think they died because there was too much oxygen.”

“Well, shit,” Dale said. “If their habitat’s ideal O₂ level is low, that’s not good for us.”

“Right. We’ve got to get out of here,” Zack said.

The situation wasn’t critical, merely urgent. The lack of oxygen—rendering them weaker, like climbers on Mt. Everest—would require them to rest more frequently, though true rest would be difficult to find.

Especially with Dale Scott still running his mouth. “Does this make sense to you?” Dale said. “To any of us?”

Zack was clearly tired now, almost dopey, but still about to lose patience. “What’s your problem?”

“First Dash says its big enemy is its connate”—he made a big show of using the term—“but now it’s this other enemy the Architects are at war with.” He laughed. “This reminds me of Earth! Interstellar civilization my ass. They’re like…fucking Somalia.”

“Why would you expect it to be any better than Earth?” Makali said.

“Didn’t they have to learn to get along in order to travel between the stars?”

“That’s always been an entirely human assumption,” Makali said. “Based on hope and zero information. Maybe they needed fear or war to make them travel between the stars.”

Zack laughed. “Worked for getting us to the Moon. No Sputnik, no fear of Soviet domination, no Apollo.”

“You mean, none of us would be here,” Dale said.

“Right.”

“If I ever get a time machine, I’m going to look up the guy who launched Sputnik and strangle him—”

“All right, everybody,” Makali said. “We have larger problems, such as this: Are we going to help Dash or not?”

“I don’t know why we should,” Dale said.

Zack looked at Dale. “This surprises me as much as it does you, but me, neither.”

It actually surprised Makali more than Dale. “I thought you were a huge proponent of brotherhood of intelligence and all that.”

Zack looked at the ground, but shook his head. “In theory, sure. But I’m not sure I trust these beings. And every moment we spend here, with Dash, is a diversion from the mission.”

“And what is that mission?” Makali said.

“Finding a way off the NEO.”

“Do you really think that’s possible? Not as a vague way of motivating us, but as a concrete goal. Because I don’t see how—”

“I’m convinced that if Keanu had the means to grab a couple of hundred humans and bring them here, it has the means to send them back. Yes. Though, realistically, the first goal should be getting control of the whole operation. Dash ought to be able to help with that….”

“But Dash is a prisoner. And his people aren’t flying this thing now. Why would we expect that to change because of us?”

“Hey, we’re the human race,” Dale said, sarcastically. “We rule, don’t we? We kick alien butt. We’re the meanest, smartest—”