The retracting cell door roused Lily. Eyelids fluttered open. The entrance framed Key Woman.

"Up and at 'em starshine," the Verakian said.

"Wuh, what?" Blinking, Lily pushed herself sitting. Vertigo twirled her cell. She put a hand to a lolling, leaden head. She smacked her lips. A dry tongue clicked in her parched mouth. Nausea sloshed her stomach like she'd been trashed not long ago.

Events preceding Lily's blackout came to her in a fast-forwarded flash back. The Utori. Vlex. He toad-licked her and knocked her into a drugged-up coma. She glanced into his cell where he'd retreated to the shadowed corner. If she asked what he did to her she'd end up in doctor Puu's recility ward again, so she zipped her lip and wobbled to her feet.

"I can leave?" Lily asked.

"Captain wants you reclamated and fully treated then he wants you in the navigation chamber for questioning."

Before Lily acclimated to her Vlex hangover, the Verakian woman entered the cell, gripped her arm and toted her into the access hall. The woman's long stride covered a wide swath of ground. Lily huffed and puffed and fought to keep pace. When she closed some of their distance, tools dangling from the Verakian woman's utility belt banged her hip. She backed off, rubbing her side.

"So," Lily gasped out between breaths, "captain Vortrand is your brother?"

The Verakian woman said nothing. Lily thought she might be under a gag order until a terse answer proved her wrong.

"We are siblings."

"What's your name?"

Another, shorter pause.

"Reesa. Lieutenant-technician Reesa Vortrand."

"I didn't kill him, you know. Goshan, I mean," Lily said in a tiny voice.

In front of the flight of spiral stairs on the fourth tier, Reesa halted them. Dark eyes met Lily's. On the fledgling, Goshan's eyes, Verakian eyes, appeared black and pupil-less. Up close, in decent light, Lily saw different. Reesa's eyes were deep crimson like the skin of a black cherry. The shadow of a pupil ghosted the center of her irises.

"I don't think you did. But you're here and he's not and that's inconvenient."

Finality resonated in LT Reesa's statement, so Lily shushed.

The duo ascended to the second tier. Domed windows, smaller than the one in the archive room, studded the left wall. A rust red nebula misted the vast gloom beyond the manta's boil-like membranes. Sealed doors stamped with red HOptic locks lined the right wall. Reesa led her into one of these rooms, its entrance marked by a placard she couldn't read. They entered a small, sparsely furnished space.

Strange cubicles molded from organic walls. Besides the door at their back and the tile underfoot, this chamber resembled the inside of the fledgling. Gnarled, fleshy material surrounded them. Lily held herself. At least it was dry in here.

More of the fleshy substance glued the legs of a table and three chairs to the floor.

"What's that stuff holding down the furniture?" Lily pointed as LT Reesa hauled her to a sphincter shaped indentation that starred the right wall.

"Flagettes. Don't you have organics on...wherever you're from?"

"Earth," Lily said. "And I'm pretty sure we don't."

The LT released her. "What model starship do your people use?"

"Rockets and shuttles. We've only been to our moon. We used to have two space stations too, but now there's only one."

"One?" The woman wedged her hands into the wall sphincter—a disturbing sight—and pried open an entrance to the neighboring chamber. "You really are cut off out there in zerospace aren't you? Go on through." She jerked her head at the dilated sphincter.

"You're joking." Lily eyed the portal which looked like it led to hell.

A cylindrical room lay beyond the sphincter. Organics comprised the space. Meaty and wet, shot through with purple and black veins, tall walls gleamed under light emanating from a mass of glowing pustules, which LT Reesa called lustules, bubbling the ceiling. Undulating appendages, flagettes, peeled from the walls and reached for them. Lily scooted away.

Reesa growled. "Would you get in? Opening a port fissure manually isn't exactly easy." Muscular arms trembled with strain.

"No way. Not without a barriersuit."

A toss of her head threw the woman's black braid over her shoulder. "Those aren't neural connective flagettes. They'll only reclaim your waste."

Lily stared until LT Reesa explained.

"They're going to clean you. If your body produces waste expel it in there."

Forming an X with her arms, Lily said, "No way. Can't I take a shower with, you know, water?"

The port fissure puckered, trying to close. With a big breath, the captain's sister thrust out her arms and forced it wider. She blew strands of stray hair out of her face. "Tapping the manta's lymph glands for every shower and load of laundry would make chaos with its vitals and immune system. Reclamation is far more efficient and cheaper than onboard mist stalls."

"But it's gross in there."

"Strip and get in the damn reclamation chamber."

Verakian fangs weren't as large or numerous or sharp as Utori, but seeing them gnashed at her brought hungry lions and leopards to mind. Lily threw off her clothes and hopped into the reclamation chamber. The port fissure snapped shut behind her.

Snaking flagettes accosted her the second the opening sealed. She batted at them and sprang back to the puckered entrance. Flagettes reacted to her movement. They retracted like startled anemone. As they inched towards her again, she put up hostage hands. A bolder tendril investigated her right palm. The mouth end of the tentacle suctioned her skin then roved over her open hand like a miniature hoover.

"Hello to you too," Lily told it.

With a little pop, the flagette broke contact. Lily flipped over her hand. A clean spot, free of the dried MSac fluid, circled the center of her palm. No burrowing. No pain like there'd been in the fledgling. Stepping away from the wall, she stretched out her arms.

Reclamation wasn't pleasant. Flagette mouths latched all over her body. They sucked and tickled like a thousand tiny cilia. They yanked her hair, which made her sneeze, then they sucked up her snot. After a prolonged think, she expelled the waste she held in. Clean up was as invasive as she anticipated.

When the flagettes finished making a meal of her grossness they nestled into the wall. Lily's skin was soft and rosy where it wasn't scabby. Hair cascaded through her fingers like silk. Still couldn't beat a hot shower. She faced the port fissure.

Lily put her face near the puckered exit. She called for LT Reesa and got no answer. Maybe the Verakian woman left the room? Or maybe no one heard her sealed off from the rest of the ship. Images of herself dead on the reclamation chamber floor being consumed by ravenous flagettes infected her mind. Chest tightened and her heart thumped out painful beats. She had to get out. Right now.

Wincing, Lily poked her finger into the puckered fissure. She pushed halfway to the second knuckle when the sphincter flexed and tightened around her. She snatched back her hand and flapped both of them while she hopped in place. Nope, nope, NOPE, nope, nope. No way was she ramming her hands in there.

Once she calmed down Lily remembered doctor Puu said the manta was a living organism. They rode inside a living being. Did that mean it understood them? The fledgling obeyed a thought she had to go home. Big mantas like this might work the same way. She placed her hand on the pulsating fissure.

"Would you let me out of here, please?"

No reaction. Maybe the manta didn't use language. Maybe, like doctor Puu, the manta was sensitive. Keeping her hand on the port fissure, she squeezed her eyes shut and crafted a mental image of the fissure opening. She concentrated on the visual, shouted it in her head like she'd done on the baby ship. The wall shuddered under her palm. The port fissure contracted then dilated. The space was wide enough for her to squeeze through. She stumbled into the outer chamber as LT Reesa re-entered the room with a white garment draped over her arm. The Verakian woman frowned.

"You're stronger than you look. Even I have trouble with the manual fissures."

Lily couldn't find her clothes. An arm draped over her breasts and she covered the fuzzy triangle between her legs and brought her knees together.

"The manta helped me with the port fissure," she said. "Where are my clothes?"

"In the chemical vats down the hall. Here." The white garment flew at Lily. "Wear that for now and tell me what you mean by the manta 'helped' you?"

Lily caught an oversized shirt. Cloth muffled her words as she pulled the garment over her head.

"The ship's alive isn't it? I figured asking it to let me out wouldn't hurt."

The shirt's hem fell passed Lily's knees. The flimsy material was practically sheer.

"How exactly did you ask an override CPU controlled ship to let you out of a room with a manual port fissure?"

"I thought about what I wanted and directed that at the ship." Lily shrugged. "It worked."

A dark line split Reesa's brows. "A hybrid manta shouldn't respond that way. One of the fledglings might if it established a neural bond with the pilot, but a manta with this much tech installed has its instinctual core bypassed by the CPU."

"All that?" Lily skimmed the top of her head with her hand. "Right over my head."

The LT sucked the inside of her cheek, said, "You're right that the manta's alive. I assume the doctor told you that."

Lily nodded then wondered if she'd get a stitch for her snitch. The Verakian woman gestured at the ship.

"This is a hybrid manta. It has a base two interior structure incorporated with its organics. Controlling a manta this large would be impossible without an override CPU. The CPU suppresses the manta's instincts. Only commands executed from the central control dash systems affect the ship. In some cases a hybrid manta can subvert the override when one of its fledglings is endangered or..." Her eyes clouded.

"Or what?"

The prompt sharpened the lieutenant-technician's focus. "Or if the fledgling has an immediate need. The parentship bond is nearly impossible to eradicate."

"I wish you never gave me these implants." Lily rubbed her ears.

"Are the TR-buds hurting you?"

"No, but I hate understanding what you say without really getting it." Lily's voice quavered. The impossibility and enormity of her situation threatened to overwhelm her again. Eyes watered and her chin wobbled. If she didn't keep talking, keep asking questions and gathering the information, she'd burst into tears. "I don't understand any of this or any of you and I want to go home. Can't you just take me home?"

"That's up to the captain. Zerospace isn't traveled lightly."

"What will you do with me until he decides?"

"That is also up to the captain. Knowing him as I do, your position on this ship will depend on your cooperation with us. How much stolen information you return."

"I told you I don't understand anything the storage globe showed me and I only remember a few bits of it. Why is the storage globe so important? Who are all of you?"

Reesa opened her mouth, but someone else answered.

"Couriers."

The male voice from the door made Lily jump. Captain Vortrand leaned against the doorjamb. He'd rolled up the sleeves of his gray shirt. Muscles shadowed his folded arms. Small barbs hooked off his elbows.

"We're independent haulers and, unfortunately, you've hijacked our cargo."

Independent cargo haulers with an alien prisoner in their belly? Lily shot him a doubtful look. There had to be some kind of galactic policy against hostage holding. She stiffened.

They could be super shady. Smugglers. That means the information I boosted from them might already be hot.

Vlex said so, didn't he? He said the storage globe was his. Hands on her hips, Lily jutted out her chin. "I never took anything from you on purpose."

"The result is the same." The captain cocked his head and lowered his sightline to her chest.

Lily crossed her arms over her breasts and held onto her shoulders. She scowled at the captain who looked to his sister.

"Is that one of my undershirts?" He asked.

LT Reesa shrugged. "She wouldn't have fit in anything of mine."

No. The Verakian woman's body was light years away from Lily's. Where LT Reesa was long and lean and busty, Lily was short and bottom heavy and top light.

The captain's chin dipped. "I suppose not. She has the widest bottom I've ever seen."

An affronted grunt no one acknowledged gusted from Lily.

"Both of you report to the navigation chamber," the captain said.

"I thought you wanted the Pashmi to patch her."

"The Pashmi is occupied with a project. I want leads before we interrupt him with further trivialities."

My health isn't a triviality, Lily shouted with her expression, but kept her mouth clenched shut.

"Why didn't you use your talk-round to page me?" LT Reesa asked.

The captain shook his right wrist. The chunky copper band he, and all of his crew, wore jostled.

"Something's wrong with it." The captain narrowed his eyes at Lily. "I think it was damaged when I fell in the belly."

"If you hadn't terrorized me I wouldn't have run," Lily lied.

"Terror is my job, Abadie. And I have a few more questions for you."

Lily wished Vlex had given the captain ash mites instead of Goshan. Then he would crumple into a pile of dust she could blow away. He had questions for her? Fine. There were a few she meant to ask as well.