The central ship docked into the outer ship flawlessly, and the elevators connected from both sides. This was demonstrated firstly when the left elevator clicked open with an excited ding, as if it had been uncertain the group that left that morning would ever return and was now incredibly relieved. Dusty and Cassie exited, the latter springing forwards to survey the others.

"With two hours to spare! You have to tell me how you did it!" Cassie exclaimed, stopping by Pechi's shoulder to admire the horn they'd returned from the clutches of space. "I'm going to go out on a limb and say that's a seraph horn! Wow, I heard seraph body parts glowed, but they really dazzle! So, did you fight him face to face? Are we going to have to go back to get the rest? Wait, wait, wait. Dusty's going to kill me (sorry Dusty!), but how'd you deal with the natives? Did you ever figure out why there were so many signatures?"

All four of the Sentients who had just returned from the underworld froze.

"S-so many?" asked Pechi.

Dusty managed a nod, though he didn't look happy about it.

"I thought t-t-that you only got t-t-t-t-" Pechi paused and steadied herself. "You got that the planet was empty! You were the one wh-who made fun of me!"

"I fixed an issue with the radar after that," Dusty responded, curtly.

"You cou-couldn't have fixed it beforehand? It would have been a nice b-b-bean of knowledge to have when we first got there," Pechi's whole body spiked up.

"So I've been running a little behind on repairs. I could have fixed the heating, saving us from certain death, or I could have fixed the bioradar. I think one of those things is a little more important than the other, don't you? Anyways, Cassie and I thought we'd be able to comm you, but the ranges on here are atrocious. I'll be trying to fix them, but you can blame this garbage ship for everything and anything that goes wrong in the future." He looked over towards Pechi, who was silently fuming. "Don't look so sour. You should know that a working machine never lies, and even if we're using 'working' as a relative term, I'm afraid I'm going to have to take the machine's word over yours any day."

"Really! I think I know who's getting turned to stone next," Benn sniped.

"What?" asked Dusty.

Pechi looked to Benn, as if she was going to answer this, and then proceeded to turn her gaze to Alexa, who just looked up as if she didn't know either of them. The question passed over to Tabai, who sighed. "So, I'll be the bearer of bad news?"

Cassie let out a nervous giggle. "What bad news is there?"

Tabai shuffled.

"You give it," Alexa pressed.

"Is it so bad?" asked Dusty.

Pechi looked anxious. "I-I th-thought it went well. What are w-we worried about? W-we all already knew about G'ana's petrification probably being a s-s-seraph deal."

"You got confirmation on that?" Dusty asked.

"We got a whole world of stone statues like G'ana down there," explained Tabai, collecting herself. "We're not the first Sentients to go after this seraph. We're not even the hundredth set of beings, in general, to go after it. There's a whole planet of the seraph's previous victims down there, and if you 'fail' it's trials, you turn to stone and likely forfeit your life."

"Trials?" Cassie's ears perked. She was taking it well, or at least appeared to be, but her legs were definitely shaking. Benn's eyes flicked back up. That was all it would take to scare her, then? It at least further discounted her as being the one who had murdered G'ana. Oh yes. G'ana. Stone or not, Benn was certain G'ana didn't 'lose' on her own, and losing definitely didn't imply being slashed through the throat prior to petrification. If only there was some type of deduction she could be doing right now with reliable results, something less petty than just looking into the others' eyes and deducing if they were telling the truth or not... Sentients were terrible, and Benn felt like a fool.

"Nine planets," Alexa explained, as if she were talking to pups. "The signal from down below lets up. Dusty, if you search the area again, where does the seraph energy come from now?"

Dusty, who was close enough to the cockpit, tapped something onto the screen and confirmed, "Second world. Few million legions off."

Pechi cooed, "Oh, uh, I don't know, D-Dusty, you might want t-to adjust that w-wh-when we get there."

"Stop," Dusty growled. "There's a way out of this none of you are seeing. We just turn around the ship. This ninth should be enough to power the barrier back home, for, say, one more reign? We do that, and tell them to mark this seraph down as one of the ones we're not going to cross."

"Gravity w-w-well? Spacetime irregularity?" asked Pechi. Benn pretended that all of what they were saying wasn't far over her head, but it helped, potentially, that she was more invested in the end result than their blather. She was still watching Dusty and Alexa for a sign of weakness, although Tabai was equally suspect, just because no one should reasonably be so nice unless they wanted something from you. She did have her alone, earlier, and nothing happened then, though she could have killed her... was that proof of her innocence, or a premonition of Benn's death?

Alexa explained, "Our engines should be able to get around that. Once we're out, we're out."

"With how much of our g-gas?" Pechi stuttered.

Alexa looked Dusty's way. "Enough," she said.

Dusty nodded. "Are you all good with this, though?"

"Are you really asking?" asked Tabai.

Dusty looked offended. "Yes, otherwise, I'd save my breath."

"W-we're going to die here," Pechi said. "L-let's bounce."

"Agreed, for what it's worth. Cassie? Benn?" asked Tabai.

"I hope you all get demoted for unprofessionalism as soon as we get home," Benn said. With the group's eyes still on her, she snarled, "That's a yes! Pull the thing around!"

Cassie sighed. "I don't like this, but I don't want to go against consensus that badly. You all make good points."

"So it's settled," Dusty said. "Alexa, you can do the honors."

Alexa moved the handles on the dashboard back and the whole ship wheeled around. The motion was slight from the protection of the interior, but there was still a deep thrum that echoed through the entire craft. Alexa looked back to the group and announced, "Don't expect anything from this." She left the ship on autopilot and turned up the elevator, shooting away from the others.

Benn looked over the assembled party, loathe to stay and even more loathe to follow. "Suspicious," she managed.

"Everything's suspicious with you," Cassie said, "I saw how you were leering at me during the meeting. I didn't hurt anyone. Alexa and Dusty didn't hurt anyone. G'ana made a mistake. I know that seems impossible, but seraphs are tricky beings. They're a lot smarter than us, and sometimes, it turns out we're less prepared than we thought we were."

"I didn't ask for your interjections," Benn said, "but thanks."

"Sorry," sighed Cassie. "While we're speaking, though, can you please pick up tomorrow's schedule? You haven't been following it at present, but I really think--"

"I'll pass." Benn entered the elevator opposite the one Alexa had taken and shot up towards the outer ring. She found herself outside of G'ana's room and snuck in, to where the petrified Canira still lay on the floor, blood and all. It evoked an unexpected pity in Benn, but the fear from the first time she'd ever seen the body was still stronger. The emotion buzzed like a fly between her ears, permeating her skull, and as she bent down to G'ana's side, she whispered, "Don't worry. I'm going to handle them for you. Even if no one else believes me. Even if everyone else on here wants to go blind."

The next day, she returned. There were suspicious pawsteps down the hall, with no one on the other side to have made them when she opened the door. She said at dinner that there was likely an invisible murderer aboard the ship. No one believed her. She got a chiding from Tabai.

The morning after, she was in the room when she heard Tabai talking about new dragon transmits. No one was willing to admit they'd been collaborating with the scaled fiends. It seemed obvious someone on this ship was a traitor. Benn did not press this, but she leered at Alexa, who glared back. Tabai told her to go to bed. Tabai was not her mother. Benn was not amused.

While Benn was training in the afternoon, Cassie entered and left, suddenly, without explanation. Perhaps it was because Benn was kicking the bag repeatedly against the ceiling, but it also might have been because no one was letting Benn on in the ship-wide conspiracy. Were they collaborating with the seraph? The dragons? Webs of thought filled Benn's head, flimsy sinew between pillars of number and rational thought. Angrily, she stalked the corridors,

thinking of the last time the dragons had called them.

Of course they wanted more than to ask them for help. Dragons didn't ask for help. They were coming after them to kill them, and they were going to turn around any day and fly directly back into the open paws of that trap.

Benn was so furious she wanted to kick the entire world into pieces. Her leg twitched violently and she hit the bag again, once for her impending mortality, and something clattered outside.

Benn rushed out, nose twitching. "What's your problem?" she asked, only to find Dusty sprawled against the ground with dozens of wires pulled out of the ceiling above him. The door to her room shut without her permission, than opened again. It was probably an assassination attempt.

Dusty sniffed. "Just messing with something. I apologize, but as you can see, the economization of wires here is poor... it does follow some important Tabulan principles as laid out by Mercurel, who was one of the first of the Table's members to deal with biological principle in design... I actually think this might be entirely coincidental. With Omnian structure, be it ship or building, it lives and breathes, but this ship doesn't, so I don't think there's any incentive to create--" he paused. A deep wariness filled his expression. "At least it seemed like you were happy to listen earlier."

"I wasn't here earlier," Benn objected. "You're knocked in the head."

"I'm serious," Dusty pressed.

"Don't try to play mind games with me. I'm over all of your team's garbage. None of you can faze me anymore with these... these tricks. Tell Alexa if she wants to murder me, she should just do so already--"

"--Literally never going to happen--"

"--and don't quote old Canii and expect that I understand or care who you're talking about," warned Benn. "You're going to be really disappointed."

"I'm always disappointed. It helps me prepare to be less so when good things happen," Dusty sighed and shook his copper head. "Well, I guess the strategy would work better if good things happened frequently, but they don't, so I digress."

Space stretched out between them. The comms system rung with Alexa's husky voice, barking out a quick "Come down." before receding into silence.

Dusty looked out towards the elevators, then turned, coolly adding, "And by the way, these 'old Canii' are masters of the craft. They're the most incredible builders the multiverse has ever seen, and they're the reason someday, foreign hunks of junk will give way to an Omnian interdimensional fleet, if only we keep up enough energy to keep the barrier from having to go rigid. They find innovation in tradition, magic in nature, and they come along once in a dozen generations, so it's not as if I'm going to find someone better to follow over the course of my life time. Frankly, given your disposition, I'd recommend you find better role models, too."

"Thanks. That was almost not condescending, and then you immediately lapsed right back into talking down to me," Benn sniped.

"It's not hard," Dusty said under his breath.

Benn stepped on his back paw with all the pressure she could exert. "I know you hate me," she said, her eyes gleaming as they stared up into his.

"Nothing I say is going to make any difference on your opinions," Dusty said.

"Then why are you talking to me at all?" asked Benn.

"I am a really, really large fan of the sound of my own voice," Dusty replied. He entered the elevator.

Benn waited for it to go down and come up again before entering behind him, still scoffing at the total lunacy of her on-board companions. When the six of them were down there, together, she found herself at the back, even though Tabai was looking at her like she wanted something... Benn's running theory was that Tabai was secretly some variety of Nyuhenge spy, which meant, of course, that she had probably done the actual slitting of G'ana's throat, which is why the marks were so strange. Then she'd shifted back to report to Dusty and Alexa, who were talking with the dragons. Cassie was sometimes involved in all this, too, but Benn hadn't really pinned down if they were bystanders or not. Anyways, they were annoying, and being on a ship with them alone, when all this was over, sounded like grounds for mission abortion by way of suicide.

"Please stop staring at me like that," Cassie pleaded from the back.

Alexa cleared her throat for silence. The whole group looked up, and the Canis lifted her head, as if to display her massive horns. She continued, staring at the ceiling, "We're not moving."

"Why not?" asked Cassie. "How could we not be moving?"

"Our speed is constant, but our displacement has been approaching zero. Space is stretching around us. That's all," Alexa said. "Gravity well's being difficult. We can waste all our fuel or we can concede defeat."

"Figures," Tabai said, regretfully. "We'll forfeit, if need be. Suppose the seraph snatches this one."

"We did our best," Dusty agreed.

Pechi shook her head. "S-sorry for g-goading you into this. Mi-ight have been a little too-- too-- what's the word!-- right, optimistic myself."

"Optimism's for chumps, Pechi," Dusty told her, reassuringly.

Pechi glared in his direction. "Y-you lead a s-s-sad life."

An almost friendly banter broke out, just as an upbeat jingle rose from the screen. Alexa said, "I guess I'm going to deal with the dragons again. You all can leave if you want, but it'll just be me, acquiescing to turning around, and them, asking for our ninth, because I guarantee you can't go onto the next planet without it."

"Pass," Cassie chirped. "You all have stuff to do, don't you?"

Benn had not followed the plans since they got on board.

"Thanks for the reminder. I'll be with Pechi if anyone needs me, devising strategies for seraph-charmed natives, assuming that they're not all obsidian when we get there," Tabai said.

Pechi nodded.

"Got repairs to work on," Dusty said.

"You're behind," Cassie agreed.

"Shut up," Dusty muttered.

Benn snapped, "You're going to let Alexa handle them alone? What if she's conspiring with them?"

"Benn, you are the only one who believes Alexa would act like that," sighed Tabai.

"What am I supposed to believe? Nothing that's happened so far makes any kind of sense!"

The group looked to each other in that, oh, Benn's raving again, kind of way, and Benn imagined kicking everyone's faces in, but really, she was just tired and felt small. At least they weren't making remarks about her species, right? That had just been the one time, but they also... they had to hate her. She felt a boundless rage well up inside her, unquenchable, and tried to return to that smooth ground of professionalism that had inhabited her, like a ghost, what seemed like years ago back home.

"I'm going upstairs to train," she said, and went to sit over G'ana again.

She counted evidence against her companions for as long as she could, noting every out-of-place twitch, every off-mark comment, and every single time they had done something incriminating just as she walked into a room, let alone how they always seemed to get out of her way or try to avoid her contact, like they were hiding something. Benn made a new backbone to the universe, step by step, strong enough to hold her up.