Tomas bristles. “Hey?—”
Rakkh cuts him off with a look. “You are not built for this place.”
Travnyk tilts his head. “Nor, I suspect, was the place built to accommodate prolonged exposure at this level of activity.”
That lands wrong.
“Prolonged exposure to what?” I ask.
Travnyk doesn’t answer right away. He presses his palm flat against the wall, then lifts it again, studying his fingers as if expecting residue.
“The ship is awake,” he says slowly. “Systems that were dormant are no longer so. Power is flowing.”
“To where?” I ask.
Travnyk’s gaze shifts—brief, precise—toward the floor beneath our feet. “Everywhere.”
A chill skates down my spine. The ship isn’t attacking Tomas. It didn’t designate him a threat, so I don’t think it’s targeting him. If it’s not deliberate—if it’s unintentional—then it must be… leaking.
I rub my arms, suddenly hyperaware of the faint metallic taste at the back of my tongue. It’s barely there. Easy to ignore. Easy to ignore until it isn’t.
“We can’t stay here,” I say.
Rakkh nods once. Immediate. “Agreed.”
“But we also can’t rush,” I add, because the ship is still listening, even if it isn’t reacting. “If this is a transitional zone, then somewhere deeper is either worse… or safer.”
Tomas lets out a weak laugh. “Great. Fifty, fifty, love those odds.”
Travnyk considers the glowing path ahead. “Deeper,” he says, “is more controlled.”
“Controlled how?” Tomas asks.
Travnyk’s tusks catch the light as he turns.
“Whatever is affecting you is diffuse here. Residual. Deeper systems will either concentrate it further… or contain it properly,” Travnyk says.
“That’s not comforting,” Tomas says.
“No,” Travnyk agrees. “But it is logical.”
Rakkh looks down at me. “You are certain it will not harm you.”
I meet his gaze. “I’m certain it doesn’t want to.”
“That is not the same thing,” he says.
“I know.”
The light along the floor pulses once, as if in response to the decision already forming between us. It’s not urging or warning. It’s waiting. I take a careful breath. My lungs fill easily. Too easily.
“This place isn’t broken,” I say quietly. “It’s unfinished. Or interrupted.”
“By what?” Tomas asks.
I think of the flashes. The urgency. The sense of something launched too fast, too soon.
“By a deadline,” I say. “One it never got to finish preparing for.”
