She looked awful. Washen’s chief engineer hadn’t slept in weeks, or washed, and judging by the sharpened cheeks and the narrowness of the neck, Aasleen must have given up eating, too. Just standing was a burden for the woman. Standing before the First Chair, she rocked gently, shifting her fading weight from one exhausted leg to the other and back again. One last time, she said, “Not yet,” then suddenly, almost unexpectedly, the weary face brightened. Infinite burdens lifted, at least a little, and a voice younger by a hundred thousand years quietly declared, “Now. We’re ready.”

Washen nodded.

To the Master Captain’s image, she asked, “Do you agree, madam?”

The golden face appeared a little better rested, and in certain ways, almost confident. Was it her true face, or was the Master enhancing her appearance? Washen had time to pose the question; the woman was standing on the opposite side of the ship, far enough removed to delay any response by a full luxurious second.

“Agreed,” the Master finally replied.

The ceremony was finished. An order already crafted and agreed upon was left in the First Chair’s hands. The final decision was hers, and what surprised her was the ease with which she said, “Go.”

Aasleen was a projection, but physically closer. “Port Endeavor—?”

“Go.”

The first trace of change came across the nexuses, alarms wrapped around raw data, and that was followed a half moment later by images captured by a circle of immersion eyes. A hatch older than the Earth was opening, its hyperfiber cap separating along a thousand fissures, bending with the hidden hinges, then folding backward with an ease and elegance all the more astonishing because of what lay on top. One hundred kilometers of life squatted on the hatch, pressing down with pressure enough to crush steel and flesh. Water exploded downward into the waiting vacuum. With an expert eye, Washen picked out the shapes of key organs and fusion stomachs and the elastic bands and walls that always weaved their way through the polypond’s body. At Port Gwenth, the body had flowed unimpeded down the great shaft. This time the polypond made adjustments, strengthening the banded tissues and doping its fluids with smart gels, the ocean dropping slower this time, then slowing further, bowing downward in the middle while the edges clung stubbornly to the slick gray face of the shaft.

This time, the alien intended to move slowly, cautiously.

“Good,” Washen whispered.

Closed, the hatch covered hundreds of square kilometers. Even at full speed, the retraction required ninety-one seconds. Eyes emerged from the alien’s leading edge. The darkness beneath would appear cold and apparently empty. Probes and bioluminescent markers were dropped, and for a while they found nothing but an enforced vacuum and a familiar, probably reassuring chill.

Then the first warning came.

Aasleen’s projection had vanished, and the Master’s. Now Pamir showed himself, standing inside another portion of the ship. He was near Denali, inside one of the auxiliary bridges. With a keen amusement, he said, “Look. Our guest is beginning to worry.”

The only visible response from the polypond was a shimmering deep inside the body, bluish and faint.

Someone else said, “Now.”

Aasleen.

And then the shimmer vanished. Suddenly and everywhere, the belly of the polypond turned white. Washen’s view showed only the upper edges of the port, and even if she knew what was to come, the fierce glare took her by surprise. An instant later, the first jet struck, its rising plasma boiling the water and shattering the freshly made steam, then stripping the electrons from the screaming nuclei. The carefully crafted strength of the body was obliterated. Gels vanished. Membranes and carbon fibers surrendered. The sluggish flood turned into a torrent, and then the plunging water met a greater flood rising upward to meet it.

A hundred engines were firing.

And then another hundred joined the wildfire.

Through a tiny, heavily shielded eye, Washen looked downward. The project—a crash program with the emphasis on the ancient word “crash”—had involved the ship’s engineers and technicians. An army of them had fabricated hyperfiber braces and buttresses, testing them on the run, and then fastening to them the most potent engines held in storage. A fortune in starships had been stripped of their muscles, and fuel tanks had been adlibbed, and a lake of liquid hydrogen had been lifted from the deep tanks, using adapted pumps and empty tunnels.

Again, the Great Ship had an engine.

True, it was a clumsy, low-powered engine. But Washen felt the sluggish kick, and she allowed herself to smile, just slightly, which caused Pamir to shake his head, warning her, “It could all fall apart.”

But it wouldn’t. Aasleen was too smart, and Pamir was too lucky. And for all of her fears and her consumptive gloom, Washen couldn’t see any way that their enemy would be able to counter this very simple response.

Nor fight what was coming next.

Wanting to feed her pleasure, she asked her companion, “How’s your work moving?”

“Along,” he allowed.

“The timetable?”

“Holding.”

Again, Washen looked upward. The cumulative thrust of the stardrives—a carefully layered thrust meant to enhance its power and give its owners many options—was shoving up into the dying water. In principle, one hundred kilometers of liquid anything could resist the power and heat for a long while. But the boiled water kept turning into plasmas that expanded with a useful vigor, struggling to find any means of escape. And there was no place to go, save upward. The increasing thrust of the rockets gave the fire no choice, and despite the hundreds of cubic kilometers of water pouring in from all sides, only a tiny portion of that white-hot plasma could be quenched.

A scalding bubble formed and lifted, pushing away.

A second, much larger bubble grew in its wake, and feeling the insistent shove of the engines, it rose faster, merging with the first bubble before both of them vanished from view.

Washen allowed herself a small laugh.

AIs had dreamed of this moment, and their dreams weren’t too far removed from the truth. It wasn’t the third bubble that won out, or the fourth. The polypond was swift enough and clever enough to put up a struggle, at least long enough that Aasleen called the First Chair, warning her, “We’re going to have breaches.”

There had been too many little hatches to secure inside the port. Without time or enough hands, they had no choice but to risk a thousand fires scorching hallways and the nearby avenues.

“Thrust?” Washen asked.

“Ninety-four percent,” said Aasleen. Said a myriad of AIs and alert nexuses.

Throttle back, or throttle up? Washen posed the question, but she didn’t need to give either command. The next bubble of plasmas not only pushed to the surface, but it pushed down against the fierce pressure of the engines. In an instant, a wide cylindrical hole had been cut through the polypond, and the rising jet—a great cumulative body, stable and relentless—burst out into space.

A millimeter at a time, the ship responded.

With measurements exact and heartening, Washen felt them slowly, slowly changing course. The next black hole would have to match this new trajectory, and none of these bits of degenerate matter could hope to strike the ship’s center. And for as long as the engine blazed, the polypond was being injured—maimed, seared, cooked, and slowly changed into a lifeless vapor hotter than a sun.

Washen reached for Pamir.

The empty air let her hand pass. Then with a harsh little laugh, Pamir’s image said, “Hey. Do you want to see something really incredible?”

An alarm was sounding.

Suddenly an AI sage was calling to her by name.

“What—?” Washen began.