The human clones are transported in two cavities on the broad side of the Kraey starship—males above, females in a lower cavity. Wazdog has a copy of the Hierarchy’s cargo manifest and quickly counts the number of suspension pods in the lower chamber and then climbs up to make sure the males are also the targeted individuals. They are. He starts unlocking the men. He’ll remove the women later. The clones are all asleep, stacked in two rows of pods, three pods per row. Kraeytian systems keep these humans under narcosis and feed them intravenously using tubes. Wazdog will need to remove these tubes from their mouths, noses, ears, and rectums to carry them out and astral project them to Saturnus, one by one.
“Wazdog, can you hear me?”
“Yes sir.”
“Does the cargo correspond to the manifest?”
“Yes and I’m ejecting one right now. But something is wrong, sir. The ship, it’s reacting to my presence.”
“What do you mean?”
“Something with the walls, sir. They’re moulting faster than usual.”
Meanwhile, inside the tower on Saturnus, a soldier is running up the staircase from the inner sanctum up into the communications room where captain Oddason is.
“We have a problem,” the soldier whispers in Oddason’s ear, “they lost contact.”
“What do you mean? Wazdog! Is everything alright?”
“Yes I’m ejecting another one sir. But the doorway is growing shut, sir.”
The bishop arrives in the communications room and explain to Oddason that the clerics no longer have a hold on Wazdog. The psionic bond was cut. Oddason doesn’t understand how that is possible and asks a technician who keeps an eye on the alien ship’s trajectory: “He’s not in the containment layer yet, is he?”
“Not yet, sir,” the technician says, pointing at a flight path on a Nekraeytian screen.
“Wazdog, is everything alright there?”
“Yes, but I cannot get them all out, sir. The doorways are closing fast.”
“Listen, Wazdog, we have a problem. This ship you’re on. It’s blocking astral projection.”
“What does that mean, sir?”
“We cannot get you off the ship. Not you, not the cargo, nobody.”
“I understand sir. What should I do?”
Oddason looks at the bishop and asks if there is nothing the bishop’s clerics can do.
The bishop shakes his head and bites his lip.
“Listen Wazdog, we cannot get you off that ship. You have to crash it. You have to crash the ship.”
“Yes sir, but what about the cargo?”
“If you cannot save the cargo… You must sabotage the cargo.”
“Kill the cargo?”
“Yes.”
“Aye, sir. But sir, the ship is fighting my presence. The holes to the upper and lower chambers are mending. I’ve removed four males now. But the others are still attached.”
“Do it fast then.”
“Yes sir.”
Wazdog jumps out of the upper cavity to the alien corpse and breaks off one of its legs, then runs back and climbs up into the room again, where he uses the creature’s severed talon to stab each of the males into the heart. But the chamber’s door is mending ever faster. He almost gets trapped as he jumps through it, back into the main room.
“Sir, the males are dead but I cannot get into the female cargo hold. It’s already closed shut. I’ll need to use explosives, sir.”
“We will send you a signal when you enter Earth’s orbit. If you can, hide somewhere in the far end of the snout. You might survive.”
“I will set a timer on myself. If I don’t survive the crash, my body will explode. If I survive, I will stop the timer.”
“Yes. Very good. No evidence.”
“Sir, I’m going to set the bombs now, sir.”
“Good. Very good, soldier. May Jaromil be with you.”
Radio silence.
Oddason’s second in command: “Well, you heard the man! It’s time to pack our stuff and get out of here!”
“Let’s hope he doesn’t get caught,” Oddason worried.
“Don’t worry sir,” said Oddason’s second in command.
“He’s approaching the moon, sir,” a technician warned.
“When he’s about to land, send him the signal. And you! What are you still doing here? Evacuate now. We’re leaving.”