“As in, ‘a brontosaurus would be slow to react’?” Zack remembered a statement like that from a comic book he had read when he was thirteen.

“Something like that.”

He thought it was exactly like that, especially based on his experiences with the even larger Architect…which had been, no fooling, really slow of foot.

“If you’re going to talk about Dash rather than with him,” Valya said, suddenly assuming the role of hall monitor, “shouldn’t we let him go about his business?”

“Sorry,” Zack said. He addressed the Sentry. “How does your connate DSZ relate to the Reivers?”

“Ally,” Dash said. It rose at that point, as if fatigued by the interrogation—or just dismissing further questions.

“‘Ally’ of which party? The Reivers or us?”

But Dash returned to its pool without answering.

“I think you offended him,” Valya said.

Zack wasn’t going to debate that with Valya. He turned to Makali instead. “Not a whole lot on which to base a plan of action.”

“Actually,” Makali said, “it’s more than we’ve had since we got scooped.”

“Point taken.” He asked Valya, “When does it want to start with the war?”

“One-seventh.”

Which Zack took to mean…“soon,” or whenever Dash emerged from the pool. He was growing impatient. He needed his team to be moving, somewhere, anywhere.

Valya dozed off while Dash remained submerged. Zack lay down and got what he thought of as waking rest. His headache was still present, but he’d been dealing with physical discomfort for so long that it hardly mattered.

Dale Scott had proven he could sleep anywhere, any time; he actually snored.

Makali gave up on sleep and, unbidden, did a bit of exploring. When she returned, Dash was out of the pool, dripping wet and performing some obscure alien rituals involving the closing and opening of its outer shell, the apparent inventory of tools and other objects in its prison cell, and what seemed to be grudging responses to repeated questions from Valya. “I don’t think he wants to talk,” she said.

“It’s got to talk, or we’re not going to help. Tell it that.” He emphasized it over Valya’s growing use of he. Dash was not a human he, and Zack wanted the team to remember that.

Makali told Zack, “I can’t find a way out.”

“For Dash, maybe.” Zack had been considering this. “Remember your scale issue?” To Dash, he said, “Food and other supplies come in here, correct?”

“Yes.”

“Show me where.”

The giant Sentry didn’t have to go far; its prison cell abutted the last chamber separating the Beehive from the habitat beyond. In that chamber was a slit about a meter tall and at least that wide…two meters off the ground.

“Here’s the Mouse Door,” Makali said. It was clearly an opening of some kind. “It’s got stuff in it,” she said, tentatively probing with a screwdriver from her tool kit. To Zack, the stuff was a cross between the bubblelike material of the Membrane and the yellowish goo that filled the Beehive cells. Makali had sunk her arm into the opening up to her shoulder. “I think you can push through.”

“Any thoughts on what it might be?” he said.

“So far, all I’ve got is filling. Maybe it serves some disinfectant or sanitizing role for material coming in—or going out. Maybe it would cling to Dash or harden if it tried to escape. I’m just speculating, of course.”

Dale Scott was awake now, standing with Valya just behind Zack and Makali. “We’re half the Sentry’s size! One of us ought to be able to squeeze through there!”

Zack realized that, all things considered, he was the smallest human. Scott was bigger and heavier; Valya, bless her, shorter, but rounder.

Makali spotted him ten kilos, but barefoot, she was at least two centimeters taller.

He regarded the Mouse Door, then his clothing; he was still wearing his EVA suit undergarment, essentially a thicker pair of classic long johns, only with the added discomfort of a network of plastic tubing. He had been able to get out of it, wash himself, and at least rinse the outfit yesterday at Lake Ganges before having to re-don it. In spite of that, if he had the opportunity to shed it now…it might walk away.

And, trouble was, not be available.

Zack had trained for many uncomfortable situations in his astronaut career. EVA. Launch in a cramped Soyuz; landing in a cramped, spinning, vomit-inducing Soyuz. Microgravity toilets and showers. Winter and ocean survival training. Cold, water, vertigo—all good.

He could not face this war naked.

“Let’s try it,” he said. He knelt in front of the opening and put out his hands. As Makali had suggested, the bubbly material gave way. Zack couldn’t pull it out, but he could compress it.

“I think we’re going to have to shove you,” Scott said.

“Don’t look so happy about it,” Valya said.

“One question,” Makali said. “Assuming you get through…what about the rest of us? What about Dash?”

Zack thought for a moment. “Give me the screwdriver. If I make it through, I’ll start trying to widen the opening.”

Makali handed him the tool and leaned closer. “For Dash, that’s going to be a lot of widening.”

“I’m hoping this material fractures easily.” He grinned. “Hell, maybe I’ll find a big button out there that says PRESS TO OPEN BEEHIVE.”

Holding his breath, he inserted himself into the bubble-packed opening. He could feel Scott’s hands on his feet, raising him and transforming him into a battering ram. As if through cotton, he thought he heard Scott saying, “Here goes!”

He was propelled deeper into the opening…and then, just as quickly, he slid right through it, like a watermelon seed spit from a child’s mouth.

And tumbled face-first down a sloping rock wall onto a sandy beach.

Aside from a few scrapes to his palms—the rock wall had jagged edges—and a sense that he had been slugged in the midsection by some invisible assailant, Zack was unhurt. He got to his feet and regarded the scene.

The Sentry habitat had the same glowworm illuminators in its ceiling and seemed to have roughly the same shape as the human habitat. But beyond that, everything was different.

There was fog here…roiling, purplish, London-in-Sherlock-Holmes-era soup. It made it impossible to see very far, for one thing. Not that there was much else to see; the Sentry habitat was essentially a large lake. Aside from what appeared to be small islands in the distance—islands with trees and structures—the entire floor was liquid.

And no watercraft that Zack could see.

He knelt to scoop some, getting a minimal taste. Yes, water…the same brackish taste and texture as that in Dash’s pool.

Straightening up and looking back, he saw that there were structures embedded in the wall to the left and right of the Mouse Door. One was a platform that led to giant steps that marched right back down to the beach where Zack was standing.

Okay, getting back up would be easier.

The other structure, to the right of the Mouse Door, looked to be funicular—for delivery of materials? Removal of same?

There was also a ramshackle building near the base of the steps. A shed twice as tall as Zack, and clearly not in use for quite some time: flat-roofed (absent weather, why would you need a peaked roof?) and entirely open on the side toward the beach (for launching a watercraft?), it was assembled from oblong plates, some of them missing. To Zack the shed look like a worn-out gingerbread house.

Realizing that Makali and the others were probably curious as to his fate and whereabouts, he searched the place quickly, finding it filled with…junk. Discarded containers, bags of who knew what, odd bits of cabling, several exterior boards or plates, several long pieces of oxidized pipe.

All of it, to Zack’s mind, at least half again as big as it ought to be.