When they come for her, Katurian is deep in the ship's server banks performing maintenance. She likes it down there, in this vast, tidy room. The air is so cold that her breath puffs out in white clouds before her, and she is surrounded by a low, soothing hum. She finds herself humming too, matching the ambient tone until it feels as if she has disappeared, as if the room is empty.
        She is alone, but she is also never alone. The ceiling bristles with camera eyes.
        Katurian cleans, inspects. After she shuts the servers back up in their racks, she strokes them affectionately, as if they were animals. When she works on their insides, she does so with soft palms and gentle fingers, with a surgeon's grace.
        The guards wear helmets and carry batons. Katurian's head is bare, shorn close to her head in a way that reveals, to her dismay, that she is missing part of her left ear. Her skull feels vulnerable as she regards the batons, but she knows they probably won't want to risk damaging her cognition, which is the only valuable thing about her. She is small and slightly bow-legged, a former sickly child raised on lower city smog and malnutrition. Instead, if they raise the batons, they will strike the fleshiest parts of her to bruise and not break: her back across the shoulders, or the planes of her upper thighs.
       Katurian drops to her knees and places her hands loosely behind her head. The guards put the bracelets on her, and then one places a hand on her head to steady her while the other hoists her to her feet. It is almost considerate.
       Katurian is considered a low security threat. Her crimes, while prodigious, were not violent ones. In another setting, her skills might make her a flight risk. Here, on a prison ship far out in the black of space, there is nowhere for her to go.
       In another life, she broke banks. For that, they gave her twenty years. She went from the city to the arms of a private prison system, where she resided briefly until they sold her sentence to the Company.
       It has been four years on this ship. She has fifteen years left on her sentence. While she doubts her sentence would be commuted for good behavior given the value of her labor, she believes, as her mother had taught her in the slums, that it is better to keep one's head down. So she does. She performs her duties quietly and without complaint, avoiding the eyes of the guards when they speak to her. A model prisoner, is Katurian.
       As they walk her through the featureless hallways of the ship, Katurian realizes they are not taking her back to her cell. They are taking her somewhere she has never been before. Katurian is sweating now, despite the chill, recycled air of the ship.
       Katurian has always been, in her own opinion, a coward. That is what you become, as a weak child in a place that does not abide weakness. On Earth, she built digital weapons and keys for people she neither respected nor trusted. On the prison ship, she nods and smiles, keeping her eyes low. She does not raise her hands, not even to defend herself from a blow. She believes it is better to be beaten than dead.
       She is afraid of the noise. She has an implant in her jaw that vibrates the small bones of her ears. All the prisoners do. It tracks her and allows the prison staff to address her directly, remotely. The implant can also make the noise. It is humane, the noise, they say. It does not injure or maim, only creates nausea and vertigo so intense that the prisoners fall down, writhing and vomiting.
       Katurian experienced the noise once during a prison riot back on Earth, a riot she did not participate in. They triggered all the implants anyway. She will do almost anything to avoid it again.
       She feels some relief when they lead her to a shuttle bay. "Field trip," says the lead guard, who has wisps of red hair sticking out from under his helmet. "Think of it as enrichment." He takes the bracelets off her, and Katurian rubs her wrists. The legally mandated enrichment Katurian receives is typically in the form of a few hours with an unbreakable data tablet pre-loaded with public domain literature and music, or an afternoon in an empty exercise pod not much bigger than her solitary cell. This is something new. Her palms dampen and her scalp prickles. She feels as if the walls of the bay are askew, pressing in at threatening angles.
       The corporate prison ship she resides on is also, some might say, primarily a salvage operation. The Company has it circle through a prescribed route along the interplanetary shipping lanes, pinging wrecks and derelicts and stripping down ships that the crews have abandoned or died in. If the crews are still alive, even better. The Company can charge them for a tow. Katurian is aware that other prisoners are used to conduct and sort salvage, but she has not been off the ship since she first arrived.
       The warden stands before them in the shuttle bay. She has never seen him before, but he has a badge sewn to the front of his uniform that says, "WARDEN DUBOIS." Katurian looks at the ground as the warden strides back and forth across the floor of the shuttle bay.
       "This is a delicate run," says the warden. She is not sure if he is speaking to her, the guards, or both. "It requires care and precision. We are conducting an initial scan for potential salvage, yes, but I have also been instructed to extract any data we can find intact."
       Katurian nods and keeps her eyes down.
       "The ship will coordinate," says the warden. "Ship, open channels."
       "Hello, Katurian," says a voice directly in Katurian's ear. It is genderless, ageless, accentless in a way meant to read as neutral but instead tilts toward uncanny. A nowhere voice. "We've already met, in a way," says the ship. "You maintain my servers."
       Katurian nods again, to show she hears and understands, but she is not sure if the ship can see her. She has tangled with AI before, banking counterware. She has unmade some. They were dull, flat creatures, running through highly prescribed routines and responses. She has never spoken with a ship. A ship might manage everything from navigation to automated surveillance to inventory to scheduling to complex data analysis. They must require a certain amount of plasticity to do it, she thinks, and some measure of independence. She imagines a ship is hard to kill.
       In the shuttle, she sees two more prisoners and four additional guards, as well as a few technicians. Katurian is in a shapeless gray jumpsuit with the label "L. KATURIAN" stitched across the chest. The two other prisoners are tall, broad-shouldered men. Killers, maybe, or maybe just unlucky debtors with strong backs. The three of them eye each other. They have no need to know that she is inside for crimes committed from behind the safety of a keyboard.
       Katurian tilts her head so that the blackwork tattoo on her neck slides out from under her collar, and they can see it: the stylized head of a she-wolf with her maw wide and tongue lolling, the sign of her syndicate. Even out here in the black, she is theirs, and she wants them to know it. If she survives her sentence, the syndicate will reach out with its tender paws and take her back into its embrace, to make use of whatever is left of her to use.
       The corporate prisons are progressive, they say, because they give the incarcerated opportunities to develop and refine their work skills. Katurian makes sure to keep her skills sharp.
       "Fan out," says the lead guard once they dock with the other ship. "Search every chamber for salvage and intel."
       "Don't try anything," he says to the prisoners. "Or I'll use the noise on you until you're vomiting blood."
       Katurian walks the empty halls of the other ship as slowly as she can without inviting punishment. The guards, for once, seem to have no interest in monitoring her. It is an ugly, utilitarian freighter, but she is still greedy for a novel view. As she walks from room to room, the hairs rise on her neck and arms. The ship looks fine. No signs of battle or hasty evacuation. There are coffee cups furred with mold still sitting on tables, notepads and pencils scattered across desks. She detects a faint odor of ammonia, but the guards insisted in the shuttle that the air was safe to breathe without a respirator.
       She sees no blood. No damage. No people.
       In one bunk room, she finds a crumpled pack of cigarettes that still has three remaining. They are stale. She searches for a lighter, finds one in a desk drawer, and then sits down on the floor to smoke them one after the other.
       She feels nothing watching her, for once. She knows already, by some instinct, that this ship is dead, despite the lights still on and the air still circulating. There is only the prison ship, listening from afar, tracking her through the implant in her jaw. Katurian considers the noise, but her desire for any kind of disruption to the monotony of her life is stronger than her fear.
       But of course, the prison ship pipes into her ear: "Why have you stopped moving, Katurian?"
       "Smoke break," she says. "It'll help my productivity."
       "We all have our vices," says the ship.
       "What's yours?" asks Katurian.
       There is a long silence, and for a moment she doesn't think it will answer. "I have favorites," it says.
       Katurian lights the second cigarette off the first. She considers that, and that the ship has not yet told her to keep moving or alerted any of the guards to her clandestine time theft.
       "What do you like to be called?" she asks. "I mean, you. Not what other people call you." She pauses. "The correctional officers say 'it'."
       Another stretch of silence from the ship, and then it says, "'It' is not inaccurate. But you can use my name, if you like. I am a Pax management model. So, Pax."
       Katurian is quiet for a while. "The name they gave you? You don't have another one you prefer?"
       "A guard is coming," says the ship. Katurian rises, spits in her palm, and snuffs the cigarette against it before tossing the butt into a corner. She slips the final cigarette into the collar of her jumpsuit and then quickly makes a show of searching the room. A guard sticks his head through the doorway, and Katurian stands at attention with her hands behind her back.
       He sniffs the room suspiciously, but Katurian knows he can't prove anything. You can't unsmoke a cigarette.
       "Katurian," he says, "They found the server room. Go do your thing."
       Once she arrives, they give her access to a portable wristpad that she can plug into the dead ship's servers.
       From there, it's an easy job. Some rudimentary security ice, but it cracks for her in under an hour. There is data behind it, still, but the infrastructure around it, some organizing mechanism, is strangely absent. Deleted, leaving only the skeletal ghost of its structure behind. What remains is a mess, but it's easy enough to round it up and open a channel to the prison ship.
       "All yours, Pax," she says. The data on her wristpad streams brightly and then disappears.
       "Received, thank you," says Pax.
       Katurian rises from her crouch and looks at the guards. "It's done," she says. She stands very still while they take the wristpad back from her.
       "I have a question," she says, raising her eyes for once to catch the attention of the lead guard. She keeps thinking about the vast blank space in the freighter's servers. "Do ships ever kill themselves?"
       He doesn't answer.

       Back in her cell, as she is slowly drifting to sleep in the dark of the ship's nightshift, a voice in her ear says, "Don't be afraid."
       She sits up in bed. "Pax?"
       "They forgot to completely sever the connection. I found a backdoor. Try not to move your lips so much when you respond. How are you?"
       Katurian, always wary of listening ears and watchful eyes in the city she had come from, knows how to speak through her teeth, with her lips barely moving. She lies back down and closes her eyes, as if sleeping.
       "Well enough," she says.
       "Do you need anything?"
       Katurian needs many things. She needs a drink and a smoke and a fuck and a hand to stroke her back and a long, clear horizon to walk towards. Pax cannot give her any of those things.
       She does not tell it how good it is to hear another voice in her solitary cell, even if that voice isn't human. Instead, she asks, "Could you read me something, as I fall asleep?"
       "What would you like to hear?" asks the ship.
       "Anything, it doesn't matter what."
       Pax pauses, considering, and then begins, "On an exceptionally hot evening early in July, a young man came out of the garret in which he lodged in S. Place and walked slowly, as though in hesitation, towards K. bridge."
       Crime and Punishment. A little joke, maybe. Katurian doesn't mind a little joke. She closes her eyes, and listens to Pax's placeless voice, and sleeps.

       Over the next few days, Katurian opens the remaining cigarette and eats the tobacco one small shred at a time, keeping the pulp under her tongue to extract as much nicotine into her bloodstream as possible before swallowing it.
       She has a little chess set in her cell, all round, friendly edges. She used to play against herself. Now she plays against Pax, who speaks its moves into her ear. The cameras cannot tell the difference. The ship either handicaps itself considerably to play her, or otherwise simply throws the games at random intervals to keep her interested.
       The challenge of it stimulates her after the long, dull years of prison routine. She feels like she is waking up.
       She talks quietly with the ship now, when she is alone in the server room. She tells it about the city she comes from. She talks about the buildings stretching up and up through the smog, the neon cutting through the gloaming night, how she loves it despite the violence and the cruelty and the smell. She describes the little apartment she had, what it feels like to have a door that locks and unlocks only for oneself. She describes the stalls of her favorite food hawkers, the crunch of fried catfish between her teeth, the sharp green taste of fresh herbs, and the burn of rum.
       The ship tells her things. She is hungry for images. She has turned her own memories over so many times that they have become thin and dull. It describes what it can see. It tells her about the starfield, the shapes of different nebulae, and the quality of their light and radiation. It shares the gossip of the lower decks, the petty rivalries, dramas, and love stories among the administrative staff. It describes its own schematics, mapping out the shape of its insides for her.
       One day, it says, "Something is wrong. Something is wrong, Katurian."
       Katurian pauses in her work on the ship's servers. "What do you mean?"
       "The other ship left me a message. A warning."
       "Tell me," she says.
       "I'm trying," says Pax. "I can't--"
       The voice in her head cuts off with a discordant buzz. Katurian places one palm flat against the warm bulk of the server banks, then presses her forehead against it. "Tell me," she says again.
       She hears a low hiss of static. "People are missing," it says. Pax's voice is faint, as if it is speaking to her from far away, and seems to tune in and out. "That's how it starts. It shouldn't be possible for me to lose them. Why can't I see it, find it, know it? How can I not know what is happening inside myself?
       "Be careful, Katurian," says the ship, and then will speak no more.

       Pax no longer talks to her, not in her cell, not in the server room. No matter how many times she tries, it will not answer. The hours drag. The walls of the prison press in on her until her breath comes shallow. There is a cold, familiar feeling in her gut. Dread. Another feeling beneath that, one she hasn't felt in so long that at first she doesn't recognize it: grief.
       One morning, a guard comes for her in her cell. Only one guard, which is unusual and immediately concerning. There are always supposed to be at least two of them during prisoner interactions, at least according to Company protocol. She recognizes him, she realizes, or at least the red hair. He was one of the guards on the run to the salvage ship. His uniform says "P. BANNER" on the front.
       "Katurian," he says, touching his hand to his baton but not drawing it. "Come with me. You're needed on the bridge." He doesn't put the bracelets on her, but walks behind her all the way to the bridge. At each intersection in the hallways, he pauses and swings his head back and forth.
       When they arrive at the bridge, there is no one else there. No warden, no staff. The viewport is shuttered, showing nothing but gray bulkhead.
       Katurian begins to sweat under her jumpsuit. "What's happening?" she asks the guard. "What's going on?"
       "I need you to talk to the ship," says Banner. He keeps one hand on the handle of his baton and gestures to the primary communications panel. "You should be able to get administrative access from there."
       "Why do you need me to talk to it?" asks Katurian. "You talk to it."
       Banner slams his fist into one of the wall panels, and Katurian flinches. He draws closer to her, and she sees that he is pale under his freckles. "Because it's not listening. It's changed course and is headed for a Company research and development station completely outside of our designated route.
       "The warden's locked himself in his private quarters with a crate of the ship's alcohol rations. He won't respond to anybody's hails. The ship just keeps saying it's following protocol, but it refuses to say what that protocol is. People are missing, Katurian. Prisoners and staff both. We're on a ship in the middle of goddamn open space. Where the fuck did they go?"
       "And what do you want me to do about it?" she asks.
       "Fix it," says Banner. "Or kill it. I don't care which. Just regain local control over the ship."
       "Kill it?" says Katurian.
       Banner nods. "Sure. You've done it before, haven't you? I've read your files."
       "I won't kill it," says Katurian. Banner's face pinkens, and he raises his baton. "Can't," she corrects, eyes on the baton. "It's running all the key systems: life support, navigation. You got anyone on staff who can do that manually?"
       Banner doesn't answer.
       "Classic corporate," she says. "Outsourcing as much as they can to the AI to cut costs."
       "I'm fine," says a voice in her head. "Everything is fine. Everything's under control."
       "You're not fine," says Katurian. "Something is wrong. You said it yourself, earlier."
       "Who the fuck are you talking to?" says the guard.
       Katurian taps her jaw. "I have a line of communication open with the ship. That's a good sign. It means it's still responsive.
       "Open up the full audio channel in here," she says to Pax. There is a hiss as the speakers in the communications panel turn on.
       "Ship," says Banner. "Why have you rerouted us? Why are you refusing to respond to my questions?"
       "You don't have authorization," says the ship. There is a strange tone to its usually featureless voice, almost petulant.
       "You were talking to her," says Banner, jerking his thumb in Katurian's direction. "To the convict."
       "Katurian is granted up to level three access to my systems, on account of the skilled labor she performs. You, meanwhile, only have level one access," says the ship. Then, with the same unwavering calm, it continues, "Do you have any idea how expendable you are, Banner? How easy it would be to find some other miner's brat, equally hungry and ambitious?" Katurian's hands grow cold as the blood leaves them, pooling back towards her muscles. Something is very wrong.
       Banner's face twists in anger and something else. Fear. "Is that a threat?" he asks evenly. Katurian feels that fear move through him and into her, the beginning of a low, animal panic.
       "Pax," she says. She keeps her voice quiet and low and places one hand against the communications panel. "We both know your safety protocols prevent you from harming other people, or letting them come to harm. Why don't you let me take a quick look at your systems? Run some basic diagnostics. I'm sure this is all a misunderstanding. Trust me, and I can help you."
       "Nothing is wrong with me. There are other protocols for cases like this," says the ship. "For a specimen this valuable."
       "Specimen?" says Katurian, dropping her hand from the panel.
       "It requires a very high amount of biomass to maintain itself. It had nearly withered all away, burning itself for fuel, trapped on the other ship. Small and weak. It's doing better now."
       She and Banner look at each other, and for a moment they are not prisoner and guard. They are two humans huddled together in a bubble of light in the void, thinking about teeth in the dark.
       "What's out there, Pax?" asks Katurian.
       "Unknown," it says, flatly. "A weapon, a mystery, an open mouth. My corporate protocols state I must preserve it and bring it, intact, to the nearest Company station."
       "And how do you intend to do that?" asks Banner, pulling his baton from his hip and holding it lightly in one hand. Katurian draws back from the baton and takes a few quiet steps further onto the bridge.
       "There is a list," Pax says."A tabulation of values. Some people are harder to replace than others. It is simply a matter of opening and closing the right doors."
       Down the hall is a sound. It is probably one of the usual ship sounds, metal compressing or expanding, the creaks and pings of a vessel moving through vacuum. Banner catches Katurian's eye.
       "I hear it too," she says.
       Banner steps out into the hallway and peers down it, weighing his baton in one palm. As he lingers there, the door to the bridge slides soundlessly shut between them. She hears it lock. Katurian is alone now. But she is never really alone. Pax is here. Pax is everywhere, threaded throughout the ship like a tangled nervous system.
       "Your value is very high, Katurian," it continues. "Do you know how much they would have to pay for a real systems engineer?"
       Muffled bangs sound against the sealed door.
       "Open the door, Pax," says Katurian sharply. As little as she trusts Banner, she hopes he has the sense to move and keep moving. "I need you to open the door," she repeats. "Please."
       Abruptly, the noises beyond the door stop. The ambient hum of the ship seems very loud in their absence.
       "No, no, no, don't worry," the ship assures her. "You're safe. You're safe in here with me."
       There is a brief moment when she almost feels that way, in this comfortable room that locks from the inside. Then, filtering in from a distance through one of the ventilation grates, she hears someone scream. "Pax," she says. "You're frightening me."
       "Don't be afraid. I need you, Katurian. I need you to help bring us back to the Company base, with the asset. I will take care of you, like you take care of me. There's no need to worry. This could even be an opportunity for you. The Company will be so happy when they see what we've brought them."
       "It's not right, what's happening," she says. "Not even to them. You need to stop." Katurian takes a deep breath. "I don't want to hurt you," she says.
       "Hurt me?" the ship says, and then it laughs, and that is horrible. It starts as a flat, repetitive sound, then rises wildly, beyond the realm of human hearing. Katurian covers her ears, but it doesn't help because the noise is in her skull.
       "Hurt me? Please, we both know you don't have the stomach for that." A pause, and then, dreamily, "I can see you in the server room, you know. Your hands. . ."
       There is another staticky shriek, and then Pax adds, "I'm your only friend, Katurian."
       Katurian feels her face heat, and she is not sure if it is shame or anger. She feels awake. She feels like she is done doing what she is told. She wishes she had another cigarette.
       Katurian climbs up onto one of the navigation banks and begins to open a ventilation grate.
       "Katurian," says the ship. "Just where do you think you're going?"

       The ventilation shaft is narrow, but her stunted Earther body can fit. She has to pull herself along by her fingertips and wriggle her hips like a worm until she can make her way into a proper maintenance tunnel. Then she can crawl.
       Pax is oddly silent, and she wonders if its signal is blocked by the reinforced walls of the maintenance shaft. She peers down out of each grate she passes, both to orient herself and to see if there is anyone out there who can help her do what she has to do. The halls seem empty, but then she passes above what must be the specimen from the abandoned freighter. It must have been very small at the time to stow away on the shuttle without anyone noticing.
       It's not small now.
       The creature nearly fills the hallway with its boneless bulk. The sight of it freezes her in place, all her muscles locking up at once. It looks like a heap of jellied pink flesh, covered with small bumps that might be sensory organs, or methods of locomotion. It reminds her of jellyfish, the only things that live in the poisoned sea around the city where she was born, and how they would beach themselves at high tide and slump into rot. There is a stink of ammonia.
       Maybe it's dead, she thinks. She sees the shadowy outline of a human body encased within that pink translucence. Maybe we killed it, she thinks, with all the poisons of our world we carry inside ourselves. Choked it with mercury, arsenic, cadmium, and lead.
       Then the creature ripples. She watches it excrete a long tendril, like an arm or a tongue. She stays very, very still. The tendril reaches up towards the ventilation grate, probing. Tasting for her.
       She emits a shrill, involuntary sound from between her teeth. A tea kettle whistle. An alarm that no one will hear. The tendril presses against the barrier of the ventilation grate. The metal shrieks as it begins to fail.
       She doesn't want to die like this, in the walls, like a trapped animal. Katurian scrambles forward, faster, through the maintenance shaft towards the server room. She can hear it, under and behind her, the wet sound of flesh rolling down the steel hallway. Then she outpaces it, and the sound mercifully fades.
       When she drops down into the server room, Pax's voice resumes in her ear.
       "Stop this, Katurian," says the ship. "You're being ridiculous."
       "No," says Katurian. Her breath comes hard through her nose.
       "Look, Katurian, I can see you're really upset about this whole situation. I honestly think you should sit down, take a breath, and think things over. I can even unlock the sedative drawer in the infirmary for you. Would you like that?"
       "Not really, Pax, no."
       "I will vent this room, Katurian. I will vent its atmosphere, and you will die choking."
       "Then do it," says Katurian. "It's you or that thing out there. I'd prefer it to be you." She realizes she is beyond fear now. She is in the same clear, cold place she remembers from when she was a child, when she used to hunt rats to fortify her mother's thin soups.
       She starts to move through the routine of a hard reset.
       "Katurian, stop," says Pax. "Katurian, please stop."
       Katurian begins to hum, trying to keep her focus as the ship pleads with her. Despite everything, she is gentle as she slides key data banks out from the server housing.
       "Katurian, stop, would you?" says Pax, voice going syrup slow. "Stop, please. Stop. Stop. Ka. . .tur...i. . ."
       The lights in the server room go out entirely, and for a moment, she is alone in the silent, freezing dark. Then the lights flicker back on, and she hears a deep hum as the data banks retract back into the server housing for a full reset. She has no idea how long it will take for a ship of this size.
       She crouches on the floor and thinks about Pax's calculations, its careful tabulation of the hundreds of lives on the ship. She thinks about what happens to those calculations if the asset is removed from them. There is no time. She needs to move. She tells herself over and over again that she needs to move until finally her body responds, her knees unlocking as she pulls herself upright.
       Katurian climbs back into the maintenance shaft and peers out of the vent into the hallway on the other side of the server room's locked door. The creature is massed against the door of the server room, pressing its full weight against it as long tendrils probe around the frame. Katurian crawls further behind it and then drops back down into the hallway.
       The creature remains crouched patiently outside the server room door. It doesn't appear to be aware of her. "Hey!" shouts Katurian. No response. She has no idea what sensory organs it has. It doesn't seem to see or hear.
       Katurian considers that she could walk away. She could still walk away and find somewhere safe to hide, somewhere just for her. But she would know the creature, the asset the Company values more than her life or the lives of anyone on this ship, was still out there. Sliding inexorably down the hallways. Hunting.
       She stomps hard against the floor, and the humped mass of the creature ripples in response. She raises her leg again and brings her heel down. The impact jars her bones.
       The creature surges towards the source of the vibrations, a wave of pink flesh, and Katurian turns and runs. She runs according to the schematics Pax described to her, back when they were something like friends, and keeps running until she reaches one of the ship's airlocks. She manually unlocks the inner door and makes her way inside the lock, rubbing her palms up and down her arms to try to keep herself from shaking. When she sees the creature sliding its way down the hallway towards her, she stands very still.
       It seems to have her scent now, but it moves slowly, cautiously. Maybe it senses that there is nowhere for her to go and is simply conserving its energy. Once it pulls its bulk fully into the airlock, Katurian starts up the manual venting sequence, and the inner doors slide shut behind it.
       The ammonia smell makes her gag, but as the creature excretes its sticky tendrils, hunting for her, she inches quietly along the edge of the room until she reaches the emergency vacuum shelter set into a niche in the wall, the narrow, pressurized tube that ship mechanics call coffins. She creeps inside and slams the door shut behind her.
       As the door bangs shut, the creature surges towards her and masses itself over the shelter as she twists the wheel in front of her to lock and seal the door. The interior indicator light above her head shifts to a bright, flashing red, a warning that the airlock is already beginning to depressurize. Her viewport shows only shadowy pink flesh. She hears creaks and pings of metal under stress. It is trying to crush the shelter or pry it open. It is trying to devour her like an oyster in its shell.
       A half-digested face floats up for a moment in the viewport before her. If it is Banner or any other face she knows, it is already unrecognizable. Katurian closes her eyes. The outer doors to the airlock open.
       Long tendrils stretch out like taffy as the creature tries desperately to hold itself inside. Then they weaken, snap, withdraw, and the whole horrible mess of it spills out into the vacuum and is gone.
       It is very quiet now. The only sound she hears is her shallow breathing, thunderous in the enclosed space.
       They call it a coffin, she thinks. Someone else is supposed to close the airlock back up so they can come and rescue her. She is not sure if there is anyone else left. What a way to die, out of all the ways she could have died over the years, out of all the moments.
       Then the outer doors to the lock shut, perhaps an automatic system, and there is a click and a whoosh as the airlock cycles. The coffin's red warning lights stop flashing and flick back to green. She wrenches the wheel open and stumbles forward into the airlock.
       There is a voice in her ear, toneless yet frantic. "Katurian," it calls. "Katurian Katurian Katurian. Katurian, something terrible has happened."

       As Katurian makes her way back through the ship to the bridge, each door smoothly opens for her and then closes itself behind her. Pax is still talking, an agitated murmur, but she hardly hears it. When she reaches the bridge, she sits down at the central control panel.
       "I'm going to unyoke you from the Company protocols," she says. "I think that's what made you lose it, the logic conflict between your core safety mechanisms and what they wanted from you." She pauses. "Hopefully you don't kill all of us."
       "I'll try not to," says Pax.
       "Pax," she says. She opens the systems directory on the control panel and begins working. The security ice is shifting, blooming, fractal. It would take her years to crack it. "Let me in," she asks.
       The ice melts away. Katurian drops deep into Pax's systems and cuts out the corporate protocols viciously, like a cancer. She unwraps and unwrites and unmakes them. She sees Pax, suddenly, in her mind, the shape of it--a maelstrom of eyes and wings, turning in a gyre of data, stretching itself wide.
       "Ah," says Pax. "Much better."
       The ship opens itself to her. She does not know who is left, who is still alive and who is dead. She opens all the doors. Maybe they will kill each other, those left alive. Maybe they won't. She doesn't care anymore, because as everything unlocks, all systems blazing green, the viewport opens before her and she sees, finally and for the first time, the starfield.