How? He asked her. How do I get information from the Osiris?
You need to open your connection to the ship, she offered.
He pinched the top of his nose. How do I do that? I don’t see any downed electrical wires around here like I did when I activated Metal Rain.
That was in your head! The link to the Osiris is in your head, too. Maybe close your eyes and touch the ship. See what happens, she suggested.
That sounds… simple, he said with a frown. Shouldn’t there be… something more to it?
Actually, it should be simpler, Gehenna stated with a sigh. They should have downloaded a primer into your head about how to interact with the Osiris, but I don’t see any sort of data packet. Do you?
Uhm… no. I can’t see inside my own brain, Gehenna, he reminded her.
You can’t? Oh, right, you can’t! I mean not yet. Anyways, I think closing your eyes and touching things will help, she again suggested.
One of her tentacles with a pincer on the end gently took his right hand, lifted it up, and placed it on the wall. He could feel the thrum through his palm. It vibrated all the way up his arm into his shoulder. He had a moment feeling disconnected from his own body as he saw how much bigger his arm was. He could feel the muscles moving so easily. And there was no pain. No auras. No tinnitus. Just the thrum.
Closing my eyes is the next step...
But he hesitated. Jace fully expected people to be staring at him as he had gone silent and spoke to Gehenna, but instead, they were all investigating the Core. General Intoshkin was by the pool. When he kneeled down and went to touch the liquid, the tank slid shut with a firm bang.
Did I do that or did the Osiris? Jace wondered.
Either way, he was glad. He didn’t want the military testing and trying to take the Osiris apart. His mother had always told him that what the military didn’t understand, it would destroy. Now that the Osiris was active, he thought that was now true of the ship.
General Intoshkin’s eyes narrowed as he studied the now completely sealed floor. Jace thought the man would order blowtorch equipment into the room to cut the floor open to take a sample. He hid a grin. That was so not going to work.
His mother and father were speaking softly as they looked around the room, touching the walls, and remarking on how the material was the same or different from the rest of the ship. Khoth was interrogating Thammah.
“When you say the ship is healing what exactly do you mean, Thammah?” Khoth asked her.
“Just what it sounds like! I thought it would be faster to go outside of the ship and then up through the entrance the humans jerry rigged rather than the elevator,” she explained. “But when I tried to get out of the ship that way, the opening was half the size it had been. The calcanth no longer looked ripped open. There were glowing blue lines like a graph over the opening and the calcanth was stitching itself together.”
Khoth’s handsome face was drawn into a frown. “We have never seen calcanth do that.”
“No, but we haven’t seen that kind of damage to a ship either,” she answered with a shrug.
“If I might remind you, your ship is in pieces,” Khoth stated flatly. “Alteath ships can be damaged.”
“Yes, but we’ve never seen a ship like this,” she reminded him.
“Even if the repair on the side can be made, could the Osiris fly again?” His mother’s brows were drawn together.
In Jace’s mind, there was a single lone, Yes.
Jace’s head jerked up. Gehenna, was that you?
Was what me? She asked.
The word had almost been toneless, sexless, robotic. It was empty of emotion. Just a simple answer. Not like Gehenna at all.
I think… I think the Osiris just talked to me, Jace said and stared at the wall where his hand was resting.
That’s a good sign! Gehenna sounded eager. He could almost imagine her rubbing her hands together. In fact, she did have two of the tentacles touching at the ends in front of her. Try closing your eyes and--
Touching the wall thing at the same time? Yeah. Okay, here goes.
The moment that Jace closed his eyes, the thrum became more apparent and more interesting. It was more than just a sound, he realized, more than a simple vibration running throughout the ship. There were waves in it. Patterns. Two long thrums and then a short one, followed by another long and then three short.
