It took Sobon about an hour to car-ry drag the boat con-tain-ing Ki'el's un-con-scious form back to the ship, and then steer the ship (de-spite its bro-ken wheel, which didn't ham-per his telekine-sis much) into what he be-lieved to be a con-ve-nient shal-lows near a neigh-bor-ing is-land, work the an-chor loose, and then tie up the sails. By the time he was done, all of his dy-namos were long since de-plet-ed, and his body's qi near-ly ex-haust-ed, but at least the ship was no longer go-ing to end up in some for-eign wa-ters be-fore Ki'el awoke, and be-fore he was able to fig-ure out who among the pas-sen-gers was trust-wor-thy.

  He hes-i-tat-ed to slow down, be-cause he knew that his body, like Ki'el's, des-per-ate-ly want-ed to pass out, but it would be long enough be-fore ei-ther of them woke nat-u-ral-ly that every-one in the ship's hold would be in bad shape, and that's as-sum-ing none of the pi-rate sailors had a stealth pat-tern ac-tive and were wait-ing for a chance to re-board the ship and slit their throats. At the same time... he was a lit-tle anx-ious about sim-ply strolling down into the ship's jail as a squir-rel. There were a num-ber of things that could go wrong.

  In-stead, he forced him-self into a wake-ful med-i-ta-tion and pressed his Right-spin and Out-ward-spin aether dy-namos into ser-vice. Nei-ther was an ad-e-quate sub-sti-tute for food or sleep, and his mood was al-ready grow-ing ir-ri-ta-ble, frag-ile al-most, but he con-tin-ued de-spite him-self, keep-ing the en-er-gy flow-ing around him in a loop. As a side ef-fect... Sobon could also tell that the fresh aether from his Out-spin core was wash-ing away just a lit-tle bit of the foul black qi soaked into the deck be-neath him, and the Right-hand aether move-ments that flowed through the air dragged bits of black pol-lu-tion around in their or-bit, un-touched by cor-rup-tion but also un-able to pu-ri-fy it.

  It was prob-a-bly an-oth-er hour or so lat-er when Ki'el's body sud-den-ly leaped up-wards off the ship's deck from where she had been lay-ing. Sobon re-act-ed im-me-di-ate-ly, but it wasn't an en-e-my at-tack, and it wasn't her wak-ing, ex-act-ly; in-stead, it looked like her body was ad-vanc-ing from dark grey--iron--to sil-very grey. As his own body had done, her body re-act-ed to this by float-ing, and then sud-den-ly voilent-ly ex-pelling a thin lay-er of black goo be-fore drop-ping grace-less-ly to the deck. It was... as of-fen-sive to watch from the out-side as it had been when it hap-pened to him, al-though it had hap-pened to him in-side a fair-ly small an-i-mal den.

  The only ben-e-fit was that Ki'el snapped awake a mo-ment af-ter, look-ing stunned. Her hand came up to her face, and Sobon not-ed that she looked dif-fer-ent... but didn't quite care ex-act-ly why or how.

  [ It'd good that you're awake, ] he said, fi-nal-ly low-er-ing the pres-sure on his dy-namos. [ We should let the cap-tives out, now, be-fore things get any worse for them. ] He paused, hes-i-tat-ing.

  Ki'el looked to him, and im-me-di-ate-ly spot-ted all the sludge around her, and on her clothes. "Ah..."

  [ Yes, you should try to clean up, first. I will see if there are oth-er clothes. ]

  Ki'el forced her-self to her feet, more grace-ful-ly than she would have be-fore. "Are we... close to the is-land? My is-land?" she cor-rect-ed, af-ter bare-ly a heart-beat.

  [ I didn't try to turn us around, but I stopped us at the next is-land. ] He con-sid-ered the now ru-ined rags on her, and men-tal-ly com-pared them to the filthy rags of the pi-rates. [ ...per-haps I could run back, but... it would be... ]

  "No, that's fine." Ki'el moved over to the edge of the deck, where the lad-der should be. "I'll just..." she let her voice trail off.

  In-stead of com-ment-ing, Sobon be-gan search-ing the ship. He was no ex-pert on the lay-out of sail-ing ves-sels, even from Crest's his-to-ry, but he quick-ly found that there wasn't too much to know, at least as far as was rel-e-vant now: there were spaces for the crew, ser-vice ar-eas, ar-eas that ex-ist-ed to help ser-vice things when they broke, and stor-age. Stor-age, nat-u-ral-ly, took up a lot of space, and in par-tic-u-lar, the least-de-sir-able space fur-thest from the work-ing ar-eas--in short, the bot-tom.

  As far as the pi-rates were con-cerned, their jail also was stor-age space, al-though it was a lev-el up. Sobon saw them as he searched, but while the cap-tives might have seen him scam-per-ing around, they didn't re-act at all to a squir-rel scam-per-ing around on deck. Some-how, that still sur-prised him, if only a lit-tle. There seemed to be noth-ing to the jail area aside from sev-er-al wood-en cages re-in-forced by iron cross-bars, cur-rent-ly with far more peo-ple in it than Sobon was com-fort-able walk-ing away from. And yet... with Ki'el need-ing new clothes, he put it out of his mind for the mo-ment.

  Be-low, in the very base of the craft, were a great many bar-rels and box-es, and it didn't take too much work to find an open bar-rel in which a lot of clothes had been dumped--some great fin-ery, some work-ing out-fits, and some torn rags mixed in, but none of them bloody, at least. Sobon made a men-tal judge of Ki'el's size, and found a work-ing out-fit in a sim-i-lar style to her own, and car-ried it back to the deck as quick-ly as he could.

  He didn't need to rush. Ki'el had made it to the near-est shore and was stand-ing in the shal-lows, try-ing to scrub her hair of the black goo that had emerged from her pores. He used his dyan-mos to pow-er his lev-i-ta-tion again, glad to be us-ing a bare min-i-mum of pow-er from his own strained core, and brought the clothes over to her.

  Ki'el didn't star-tle when she no-ticed him ar-rive, and he gra-cious-ly ig-nored how she seemed to be star-ing dag-gers at him. In-stead, he just laid the clothes out on the shore, and then fled back to the ship with-out com-ment. Al-though he had no urges re-gard-ing her...

  Sobon let his mind stop churn-ing about what she might be think-ing of him and his in-tru-sion a mo-ment as his thoughts got caught in an old flow, one he hadn't con-sid-ered in a while. Ig-nor-ing Ki'el, who was a child... how long had it been since he had a real re-la-tion-ship? It would have to have been be-fore he joined the Marines. When he first be-came a cy-borg, there was his fit-ness in-struc-tor, but she... they'd both known that wasn't go-ing to go any-where. There was an-oth-er re-cruit when he was go-ing into of-fi-cer train-ing, but she made it and he didn't. He might have chased af-ter her, tried to stay at-tached to her unit, but... some-thing in her eyes, as they had their last talk, told him that would have been un-wise.

  There were flings while in the Ser-vice, but he didn't like how so many of them were just us-ing him for a plea-sure ma-chine. Cy-borgs cer-tain-ly had a rep-u-ta-tion, there, but it didn't do near-ly as much for him as it did for them. And... many of those flings only end-ed up get-ting him in-ter-est-ed in a per-son who would soon die, or be trans-ferred.

  "Mas-ter." Sobon reg-is-tered Ki'el's voice more than her ar-rival, and turned to find her dressed and stand-ing there, some-how dry. "We should let them out now. I'm sor-ry I took so long."

  [ We will both need to apol-o-gize to them, ] Sobon replied, dis-tract-ed-ly, as he leaped to her shoul-der. [ I chose this way of han-dling things, not you. ]

  Ki'el didn't com-ment more, and with only a few mi-nor nudges from Sobon, found her way straight to the jail cells. Un-like with Sobon's tiny body, the cap-tives heard her ap-proach and were all stand-ing there anx-ious-ly, look-ing right at her as she came down the stairs above.

  When the girl was qui-et for a long mo-ment, Sobon men-tal-ly nudged her. [ You should talk, at least at first. ]

  She bare-ly need-ed to pause and col-lect her thoughts. "They're dead," she said. "I'm sor-ry. I should have let you out soon-er, but I..."

  "He's dead? Cap-tain Blacksaber?" A young man lean-ing against the bars of the in-ter-rupt-ed, push-ing for-ward like he want-ed to squeeze out of the cage all on his own, al-though the gaps were far too small for that.

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  "Yes. My mas-ter killed him." Ki'el moved for-ward, heis-tant-ly, and ex-am-ined the near-est door-way. Sobon eyed the lock, a heavy steel key-lock that he sensed was fair-ly com-plex, com-pared to much of the rest of the tech-nol-o-gy he'd seen. Even so, when he flexed his telekine-sis, he was able to very quick-ly sense the mech-a-nisms in-side and by-pass the puz-zle part of the lock, mere-ly mov-ing pieces out of the way so that the shack-le would slip open.

  Every-one ex-cept Ki'el jumped when the lock seemed to fall open of its own ac-cord. Ki'el just reached out and took it off the door, then moved to-wards the next. The heavy wood door swung on its hinges be-hind them, but Sobon was al-ready let-ting his thoughts touch the next lock, search-ing out the same flaw. With-in min-utes, the rest of the cages were opened, and the for-mer pris-on-ers were im-pa-tient-ly push-ing their way out.

  Some-one tried to ap-proach Ki'el, to talk, but now peo-ple were all start-ing to talk and yell, and so Ki'el shook her head and point-ed up, and made her way back to the stairs.

  Sobon let her han-dle things, but kept an eye on the for-mer cap-tives as best he could. When it be-came clear to the oth-ers that Ki'el was head-ed back on deck, many be-gan spread-ing out to can-vas the whole ship, and Sobon was sure he heard them in the gal-ley, hunt-ing for food and wa-ter, al-most im-me-di-ate-ly. Oth-ers no doubt went down, but while he could sense them clear-ly enough, he split his in-ten-tion be-tween those clos-est to Ki'el and those who seemed to find or be look-ing for weapons.

  Those that fol-lowed Ki'el up to the deck seemed to be lead-ers and war-riors them-selves, al-though none of them had pow-er-ful qi. At the very least, though, they all had the very be-gin-nings of it, while most of the rest had al-most no spark. Those that did... were also the ones that were hunt-ing for weapons, which Sobon made note of and kept track of.

  "The cap-tain's body is not here," Ki'el said when they reached deck, "but I saw him die, his head..." she gri-maced, and Sobon not-ed that the el-ders and war-riors that were fol-low-ing her all not-ed her re-ac-tion. She shook slight-ly, but turned and ges-tured to the dead bod-ies that re-mained on the deck. "But you can see that my mas-ter's pow-er is quite real."

  "And where is your mas-ter?" asked one of the el-ders, though by the way he was star-ing straight at Sobon, he thought that the man al-ready knew.

  "He is..." she turned to look at Sobon, still perched on her shoul-der.

  Sobon chose to pull him-self away and lev-i-tate in the air in front of them. [ I must apol-o-gize. If I thought you could have han-dled this form bet-ter... I could have let every-one out much ear-li-er. But be-ing in this body makes things com-pli-cat-ed. ]

  As ex-pect-ed, there were a wide range of re-ac-tions, but he was pleased to see that the el-ders seemed to most-ly not be sur-prised, and most of the rest who had some kind of qi pre-sent with-in them had only a sub-dued re-ac-tion, as though they'd sensed it, but not be-lieved it.

  Those few who had fol-lowed on deck but had no sense of qi in them at all were, pre-dictably, ter-ri-fied.

  "Star-beast!" Many of them mur-mured or shout-ed, and most of them backed well away. But when the el-ders and war-riors didn't re-act, there was a long mo-ment, a con-fused si-lence as they ex-pect-ed every-one to ral-ly in pan-ic.

  Sobon con-cen-trat-ed, push-ing gen-tly on his Out-spin dyan-mo and re-leas-ing a touch of that pow-er into the air, even as he felt that it was a waste of the re-source. Al-ready, af-ter be-ing on this plan-et bare-ly... what, a week? Not count-ing the time I was dead... al-ready, I can only think of aether as a crude re-source to be thrown at prob-lems. The Cy-borg Corps of En-gi-neers would be in-sult-ed. He set the thoughts aside, though, and tried to pro-ject a sense of peace along with the gen-er-al-ly sooth-ing feel-ing that would come from the en-er-gy. [ Peace, ] he pro-ject-ed into all of their minds. [ I am not a Star-beast, and not a mon-ster. I am only... trapped in this form. That is all. ]

  At the very least, those with-out qi didn't flinch back like he'd hurt them or any-thing, though he wasn't sure any of them ap-pre-ci-at-ed the ca-su-al use of pow-er. When no-body ac-tive-ly fled or at-tacked, though, Sobon float-ed back to Ki'el's shoul-der, and fo-cused his thoughts more on the group clos-est to him. [ Un-for-tu-nate-ly I am quite tired out by the fight. You will need to work out with Ki'el what you are go-ing to do, how you will get back home and what to do about this ship. I... can-not keep go-ing much longer with-out rest. ]

  Sev-er-al of the el-ders just nod-ded, know-ing-ly, and Sobon had the im-pres-sion that they were look-ing at his core. Which, once he had that thought him-self...

  Of course it was full to burst-ing, hav-ing reached nine sil-very lobes but be-ing un-able to sta-bi-lize at ten. Just look-ing at his core made his mind hurt; it want-ed to do some-thing to him, and it was in-creas-ing-ly un-clear ex-act-ly what that was, but he could tell it would be an ag-gres-sive change to his body... and maybe his mind.

  Still, Sobon not-ed that while those on deck seemed to be re-gard-ing him qui-et-ly, sev-er-al of the ones be-low who had been get-ting weapons were also look-ing back at him with their own spir-i-tu-al sens-es. He pressed his head against Ki'el's for a mo-ment, pass-ing her a qui-et thought, then fled into the Cap-tain's quar-ters.

  Ki'el found her-self very quick-ly, and very po-lite-ly, re-placed as the cen-ter of com-mand by a par-tic-u-lar el-der named Jalor. It only took a few min-utes of work, with her ad-mit-ting to be-ing lit-tle more than a reclu-sive rem-nant of her vil-lage, for every-one to ac-cept that while she was not the one to look to for lead-er-ship. As such, Jalor quick-ly del-e-gat-ed sev-er-al tasks, in-clud-ing get-ting peo-ple food and sur-vey-ing who had what skills.

  It wasn't long be-fore they found two among them that had some un-der-stand-ing of wood-work-ing and ships, and who could at the very least undo the dam-age Sobon had done to the wheel, but no-body looked ea-ger to stay on the ship all the way back to their own vil-lages, and there was no con-fu-sion as to why. Even with the cap-tain gone, the whole ship stank of dark-ness, death, and tor-ture. It was dif-fer-ent now, cer-tain-ly, and not only be-cause the cap-tain and crew were dead; when-ev-er Ki'el came near the scar that Sobon's blast had left on the ship, she had in-vol-un-tary flash-backs and glimpses of that blind-ing ray of light, and those stung her in much the same way the rest of the ship un-nerved her. Sobon, she sus-pect-ed, could have ex-plained... but even she didn't re-al-ly need it spelled out for her. Pow-er-ful qi, or per-haps aether, left a mark that was slow to fade.

  "And there are no ships on these isles?" asked one of the tired cap-tives, this one firm-ly with-out qi. It wasn't the first time he had asked, and he was not the first to ask, ei-ther.

  "My fish-ing skiff, an-oth-er that's wrecked. Noth-ing that will sur-vive the seas." Ki'el was get-ting ner-vous about hav-ing to an-swer the same ques-tion again. She hadn't talked this much... in a long time, but she was feel-ing more clear-head-ed, ever since she awoke af-ter the bat-tle, cov-ered in ichor. She itched to ask Sobon, or the oth-ers, but... she sim-ply re-mained qui-et on the mat-ter.

  "No trad-ing ves-sel?"

  "Not since the vil-lage was de-stroyed."

  The man clicked his tongue and tapped his teeth, then turned and marched off to a rail-ing, where he ei-ther sulked or thought for a time, Ki'el didn't care which. Jalor was off con-sult-ing with oth-ers, still, and Sobon... well, they were all try-ing to ig-nore what was hap-pen-ing in the Cap-tain's cab-in. It was... dif-fi-cult. Sobon's body was hov-er-ing, a sil-very light seep-ing out from be-neath his fur, and there was an un-heard hum when-ev-er any-one got close. And close wasn't even close. It was there be-fore you opened the door, and when you were on the deck above or be-low. It could be ig-nored, but... it set peo-ple on edge.

  Sobon... was strange. She had no idea who or what he re-al-ly was, but he shared en-light-ment with her while stuck in the body of a squir-rel, and turned a peb-ble into the most dan-ger-ous weapon she had ever heard of. He--far more than her--had over-come and en-tire crew of pi-rates, slaugh-ter-ing them with peb-ble-based weapon-ry and mak-ing a mock-ery of every-thing they had ever stood for or been. In less than a month, he had changed her whole world, and all of these peo-ple's lives would nev-er be the same.

  It was a grand sur-prise to her, and to every-one, then, when in the mid-dle of his med-i-ta-tion, he lost con-trol of his qi, and his body ex-plod-ed into flame and gore, the en-tire cap-tain's cab-in at first char-ring in-stant-ly into black, and then every sur-face ripped apart by an im-plo-sion that only by sheer ac-ci-dent didn't kill any-one else. It wrecked the floor above and be-low, blew holes in the sides and rear of the ship, dam-aged the rud-der again, and in gen-er-al, made the ship all but un-suit-able for an ocean voy-age.

  None of that mat-tered near-ly so much to Ki'el as the fact that, no mat-ter how she searched with her eyes or spir-it, she could find no trace of him.

  "Mas-ter!" She screamed and ran at the room, but she knew he wasn't there. "Mas-ter! Mas-ter! MAS-TER!" She reck-less-ly jumped into the hole, look-ing for any signs of him, even any burnt re-mains. Any-thing that could be buried, even, or any-thing she could use to hon-or him. Her thoughts be-came more and more pan-icked when she couldn't even be-gin to tell one bit of burned de-bris from the next.

  Af-ter a time, she sat down in the char, ig-nor-ing the peo-ple who had come up to look at the mess along with her, her mind stuck in a loop. He had said all along he didn't know enough, that he didn't know every-thing. That he was from far away, and that he might still make mis-takes.

  He had made one. He had made a great mis-take, and now she was alone, again.

  Ki'el buried her face in her hands, but she couldn't make the tears come. There was noth-ing left in-side of her. Noth-ing at all.