Medical tenders drifted alongside, hosing some kind of sealant into the living ship’s mighty wounds. The injured Spline had been allowed to join a flotilla of its kind, regular ships of the line. Living starships the size of cities are never going to be graceful, but I saw that their movements were coordinated, a vast dance. They even snuggled against each other, like great fish jostling. Dakk murmured, ‘Some of these battered beasts have been in human employ for a thousand years or more. We rip out their brains and their nervous systems - we amputate their minds - and yet something of the self still lingers, a need for others of their kind, for comfort. So we let the distressed swim together for a while.’ I listened absently. The yacht docked, and the captain and I were piped aboard the Torch. I found myself in a kind of cave, buttressed by struts of some cartilaginous material. The lighting had been fixed, the on-board gravity restored. We wandered through orifices and along round-walled passageways, pushing deeper into the body of the Spline.
