“No,” Yvonne said, channeling the Architect. “Too dangerous for you.”

“How come these guys can come into our habitat, but we can’t handle theirs?” Dale said. “The atmospheres have to be pretty good matches.”

“There’s no surface,” Yvonne said.

“There’s got to be a surface of some kind!”

“I think what she means,” Zack said, “is that the Skyphoi are creatures of the air…their habitat is filled with oxygen and other elements, but is really a giant cylinder.”

“Imagine the human habitat with no floor,” Makali said.

“It would be like trying to walk across the Grand Canyon,” Yvonne said, speaking more for herself, Makali realized. “You could do it, but it would take you a long time. And the Skyphoi aren’t strong enough to carry you.

“We have to use the transports.” She nodded at the waiting railcar farther down the tunnel.

Now Zhao pointed to the Skyphoi. “It’s their habitat. Can they get there more quickly?”

“Of course,” Yvonne said. “But they will be unable to do much if they do reach the vesicle. The Reivers have already…evolved ways to kill the Skyphoi.”

Even now one of the Skyphoi, its color a sickly pink, had to slide back through the Membrane.

“Then what fucking use are they?” Dale Scott muttered. Makali thought she was the only one who heard him, but apparently the Architect had better ears than the humans.

“You should hope that you never need to know,” Yvonne said.

“Assuming we reach the vesicle in time,” Zack said, “we’re still facing these Reivers. We don’t even know what they look like, much less how to fight them.”

Zhao and Pav and Yvonne explained. The thought of microscopic nanotemplates was bad enough; Makali had spent much of her life in tropical or subtropical regions. The bugs in Houston annoyed her, especially when she stepped on them barefoot.

The idea of bugs that were not only intelligent as a group, but capable of assembling themselves into creatures on any scale…

“They’re vulnerable to heat,” Yvonne said. “And energy, though only in high, concentrated doses. The best weapon is speed. We have to beat them to the vesicle.”

With no further discussion, the group—including the Architect—turned as one and headed directly for the railcar. Only Dash seemed to lag, a fact Dale Scott commemorated by saying, “Move it or lose it, big boy.”

The Sentry gave no sign that it heard or understood.

Before they reached the railcar, Makali heard Rachel say to Zack, “Daddy, what if the power goes out while we’re on the way?”

Makali didn’t hear Zack’s answer. Was he still feeling like the glass was half full? She hoped so, for everyone’s sake.

Makali had judged the railcar to be far larger than needed, the size of a semitrailer. But with the entire group crammed into it—Zack holding Rachel by the hand, Zhao, Pav, the dog, Dale, and Makali, along with the Architect and the Sentry—Makali felt as though she were back in Bangalore, crammed into public transport.

It was an impression rather than a fact; the Architect placed itself at one end of the car, the humans clustered in the middle, while Dash the Sentry hunkered at the other end, its many arms busy with objects it was removing from its vest.

The first motion was a violent lurch. “Wow,” Zack said, “just like liftoff!”

Makali asked Zhao, “Is that normal?”

“No,” he said.

“Should I be worried?”

The Chinese spy smiled. “If it will make dying easier.”

Makali couldn’t help asking, “What makes this thing go? Is it electric?”

“Driven by super-dense mass,” Zhao said. “Cat’s-eyes, like really, really tiny marbles.”

“But electricity must drive them,” she said, happy to be thinking about alien transport technology rather than improbable and likely non-existent weapons.

“Yes,” Yvonne said, “the warship contains a network of power and fluid conduits.”

“Which means this whole system is subject to blackout?”

“There are backup systems,” Yvonne said, but only that much. Her sudden shifts between disinterest and engagement were starting to bother Makali.

“Well, that’s reassuring,” Makali said, unable to hide the sarcasm. She turned to Zhao. “Are you reassured?”

“I’m pondering the weapon we can use against the Reivers,” he said. “Along with wondering how they got to the NEO in the first place, and what they really want.”

Yvonne turned to them. “They came,” she said, with the familiar channeling-Keanu tone, “as unwanted passengers on an arriving spacecraft. Like mice on a sailing ship. We thought we had exterminated them,” she continued, totally given over to her avatar mode now. “But one race deliberately hid a colony, which then reestablished itself.”

Now she shuddered, and seemed to wake up. “What they want is to suck every one of us dry, take all our energy and life to make more of them. Apply that to maybe the entire galaxy. Their goal is to…transform everything into their kind of being or matter.”

Makali grinned at Zhao, who seemed stunned to disbelief. “So, what have you got? A paper clip in your pocket?” She nodded at Pav, who cradled a Slate in his lap. “We could boot that up and dazzle them with graphics or pound them with loud music.” She patted her pocket. “I’ve got a Tik-Talk. Maybe I could throw it at them—”

Yvonne sat up straight. “Use the Tik-Talk,” she said.

Zack heard her, too. “For what?”

“Contact with the habitat!” Rachel said.

“How would that even work?” Makali said.

Yvonne looked happy for the first time since Makali had met her. “Signals have a tough time going through habitats, but these tunnels not only conduct mass, they conduct energy and radiation—”

“Got it,” Makali said, thumbing the power button. She was pleased to note that the battery indicator was, appropriately, half full. Then she offered the Tik-Talk to Zack. “Your call, boss.”

“You go ahead.”

She needed no further encouragement. “Hello, Temple. Hello, Temple, this is Makali Pillay. Anybody home?”

They all waited. Thirty seconds passed. “For God’s sake, keep trying,” Dale said. “It’s standard operating procedure.”

“I’m hardly a standard operator,” she snapped. But she repeated the call.

Then waited. Still nothing.

“Are we sure it’s working?” Rachel said.

“You can hear the carrier wave,” Pav said. He slid forward, assuming a praying posture in front of Makali and the Tik-Talk. “Come on, somebody!”

“While this would be great,” Dale said, “it doesn’t change our situation.” He looked at Yvonne, then at Zack. “We’ve still got to get to the vesicle. The Temple people aren’t going to be able to help—”

“Hello!” A voice spoke from the Tik-Talk. “Who is this? Where are you?”

Harley Drake. Makali handed the Tik-Talk to Zack.

There wasn’t time for a long chat. And from what Makali heard about the situation in the human habitat, only a long chat would be sufficient to catch them up. The infestation was bad news, certainly. Camilla’s strange behavior—also bad.

But the wonderful things being whipped up by Nayar’s team in the Temple? Not only tools, but food, water, clothing, medical equipment?

Weapons?

Still, in spite of what Makali was hearing from Harley on the speaker, Dale’s point was sound: There wasn’t anything the Temple team could do to help them against the Reivers. Not yet, anyway.

She actually moved away. It was too painful to listen. She preferred instead to watch Yvonne and the Architect, both of them in silent communion for the entire conversation between Zack and Harley.

Then there was Dash the Sentry, alone with its alien thoughts. As she looked, something about the Sentry’s appearance troubled Makali.

Makali turned back to the conversation in time to hear Zhao say, “I don’t know how to fight the Reivers face-to-face, but I’ve been trained in asymmetric or cyberwar methods.”