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His eyes kept expecting the gossamer transparency to be momentarily transformed into solid bulkhead, just as the transparency in the auditorium went from one state to the other in a matter of seconds. But instead, a lattice of opaque material appeared first, echoing the crisscross pattern he had seen in the stringers in the interspace. Then, finally, each individual section of the lattice began to close over.

That was when Lando tried to leave, feeling as though he had witnessed an exhibition of Qella ingenuity more impressive than the lost orrery.

“Lobot, where are you now?” he called over the suit’s comlink, to no reply. “The hull breaches are nearly repaired—I’m heading back. Lobot?” He switched to the secondary comm channel and repeated the call, with the same result.

Returning to the primary channel, he heard a voice he did not expect to hear: “—I would be glad to relay a message to him.”

“Threepio, what are you doing on Lobot’s comlink? What’s going on there?”

“Pardon me, Master Lando, but Master Lobot left his contact suit in our keeping.”

“You mean he’s gone off by himself? Where is he? Where did he go?”

“He said he was seeking the threshold of awareness,” said Threepio. “I’m quite sure I don’t know what that means.”

“Where are you, then? Is Artoo with you?”

“We are somewhere in the vagabond’s inner core,” said Threepio. “Artoo says that if you return to chamber two-twenty-nine, he can direct you to us from there.”

“I’ll be there in three minutes.”

But Lando had crossed through only two chambers when the portal ahead of him closed as he approached it. Turning, he saw the portal behind him had closed at the same time. Neither would respond to his touch. The portals to the interspace and the core were equally recalcitrant. He was sealed in.

“Threepio, is anything happening there? All of a sudden, the express lanes out here are closed.”

The only reply was a burst of white-noise static. Then the ship groaned, deep and long. The chamber shuddered around Lando.

“Blast,” Lando said, his eyes searching the boundaries of his prison. “They’re back.”

The groaning continued, and the shaking grew worse. The glow-rings around the portals dimmed and disappeared. In the darkness, Lando was thrown against the face of the chamber.

She’s turning fast this time—the propulsion system, whatever it is, is back online.

“Propulsion—stang! No, please, don’t try it,” Lando implored the ship. “Not after taking hits like those—”

The vagabond paid him no mind. Moments later, with the roaring growl and violent shaking at a terrifying peak, the vessel twisted realspace until it opened, then fell through infinity’s door.

Twenty-seven hours after she had taken custody of the Qella remains, Joi Eicroth hand-delivered a stack of three datacards containing the cadaver’s genetic sequences to Admiral Drayson at his home on the north shore of Victory Lake.

Drayson’s face was haggard and his greeting embrace distracted. “I expected you to transmit the sequences to me in a secure packet.” He rubbed his eyes. “I expected it several hours ago, in fact.”

“That was before we knew how extensive the sequences are. It would have taken me nearly as long to encode and transmit the report as it did to fly down here,” she said, moving past him into the grand parlor. “And I wouldn’t have gotten to see you again.”

A tired smile making a bid to reach his lips, Drayson followed her. “You’re saying that you found something surprising?”

“Very,” she said. “What species was that creature, Hiram? I would love to know more about its ethology and ecological niche.”

“I have a small research team looking into that right now,” said Drayson. “I hope to be able to share their findings with you soon. What was the surprise? Something about the amount of genetic material?”

She settled in a reclining chair facing the parlor’s lakeview transparency. “It’s that exactly,” she said. “This species has three—at least three—different types of cells that contain genetic material. The ordinary somatic cells