CHAPTER 13

With arctic summer ending, Tyrathect patrols Flenser’s Hidden Island ramparts, enforcing the Flenser stare to preserve her cover. Internally, Tyrathect rejects the Movement’s cruelty, fears the Flenser memories within her, and resolves to stay long enough to sabotage Steel’s plan to exploit the captured starship across the straits.

From his tower, Lord Steel watches Tyrathect and considers whether to destroy the fragment before other Flenser pieces arrive. He recalls his first visit to the ship: oppressive acoustics, a cargo hold of intact coffins, and the terrifying realization that the “corpses” breathe at an extremely slow rate—hundreds of living sleepers, implying a potential colony and existential threat.

Steel hides his fear, accelerates a new fortress around the vessel, and contemplates the broader stakes: world conquest if he succeeds, annihilation if he fails. He also leverages intelligence from spies within Woodcarver’s domain, turning enemies into an unwitting research arm.

Touring the castle’s lower laboratories, Steel reviews isolation pits that produce malleable packs like the loyal Shreck, then moves to advanced cognitive experiments exploring pack postures and inter-pack linkages. He rejects Flenser’s dream of a singular superior being, preferring specialized creations he can control.

In his premier project, Experiment Amdiranifani—an eightsome bred for mathematical excellence—had been fading into autism until chance placed the captured human, Jefri, among the pups. Physical closeness and mimicry revive the pack and spur it to learn Jefri’s mouth-speech, offering Steel a communication channel.

Concluding, Steel judges the aliens to be refugees rather than invaders, yet their weapons are decisive. He resolves to let Amdiranifani unlock linguistic “levers” over Jefri, then use the ship’s power and new fortress to secure global dominion, even as he weighs eliminating the Flenser fragment.