"The demon ecologists are having trouble with the current infestation."

"Hrm," Ragni grumbled, having been knocked off the path to slumber.

"Salukam will be at the door shortly, asking permission for a third level snare to capture and analyze the main entity," I informed her.

"Thanks for the warning."

There was almost no time between her last word and the mechanical buzz of the door's alert. While the mechanism that created the noise was different from those of ancient earth's door bells, the idea was virtually the same, and it struck me as funny how it was unassuming things like door bells that got reinvented in the far future.

With the winding down of the noisemaker Ragni shifted to a more upright position. "Come in," she said, the promise of sleep not yet forgotten.

It was indeed Salukam who opened the door. He made no remark about my presence in Ragni's hammock; the bond between a Ship and her Captain was expected. "Ma'am, I would like your permission for a third level snare on contract deck three to capture a kettamur class demon and consult a Levtomani sage. This thing keeps consistently targeting the Ship's sensor arrays, weapons systems, comms systems, propulsion... Basically everything. My suspicion is that it has been specifically cultivated to disrupt our operations."

"So soon after we arrived in the system completely unannounced? Are you sure?"

"It's not simply seeking out ordination cycles, it is very deliberate in its attacks."

Ragni thought for a moment. "This sage you wish to contact is within range?"

"She will be for several hours on our current course; this is why we need to act fast." He held out an ordination sheet to Ragni, who took it and gave it a quick once-over. "I have already filled in my parts of the form, it just needs yours now, Captain."

Eyes focused on the sheet, Ragni nodded. "Right, right, you have my permission as long as you exterminate this demon after the analysis, Salukam. Make sure there's not a trace of that thing left to haunt our dear Ship."

"Yes, ma'am!" Straightening his back, Salukam briskly walked out and closed the door behind him.

Ragni looked up from the sheet, then back to me, gave me a crooked smile and tossed the sheet on the table. "That's for later," she said, falling back in the hammock and tossing her arms behind her head.

I closed my eyes and let my prime avatar be led by the gentle rocking into meditative rest; elsewhere another avatar would now be active fully waking.

---

Wound up in a tense pose, Raidamid, held the sigil between his fingers. So solid was the illusion of the glowing sign that his sense of touch was convinced his finger tips were pressed against a real, tangible object. Of course, it was nothing more than an electronic cypher construct only visible to him thanks to special lenses. A device curled around his outer ear vibrated to conduct the sounds of this hidden world's objects and entities through the bone of his skull into his inner ear. A growling and sighing static eerily whispered its way through the narrow intersection of corridors he was facing and very quickly grew very loud. Icy cold crawled down his spine as he sucked in his breath, ready to strike.

A fuzzy lump of a head appeared from behind the corner. It had no eyes, nostrils or anything normally found on a head for that matter except for a gaping hole of a mouth that only showed the tingling black of electronic oblivion. Its body was similarly indistinct: it had what could be considered a trunk from which jutted a long neck to connect the head and four legs, the ones at the front about a third longer than the ones at the back. None of these features had any anatomical definition and were more malleable blobs of fuzz than real body parts. It turned its head to the shrine where in front of the me there was the trembling Raidamid.

"Oh, do you sense our Vugni, my exorcist wear perhaps? Make no mistake you will neither get to me or her."

He sure had a flair for the dramatic despite his fear of the thing.

"It doesn't understand words, Raidamid," I said. "It's nothing more than a beast."

"Nevertheless, I will keep you safe! Hah!" In a sweeping gesture of his arm he flung the sigil at the apparition, exploding in a cloud of unfolding cyphers right in front of it.

The warble of static peaked into a deafening screech and in a split second its form lurched the other way, galloping to wherever it thought it could be safe. Chatter rose up in the internal Demon Ecology channel: voices detailing where the demon was headed, declarations of the extermination of the minor imps it had shed, the status of traps and so on. Through the feed from one junior exorcist I could see how she threw a sigil similar to Raidamid's as the demon raced by. She missed, but that was the point. It was supposed to be driven down a specific path.

A trap exploded underneath the stump of its left front leg, shattering a large chunk of its body and leaving a glitching static mist. It spun around in reflex, fleeing back the other way. As it ran, it began to reconstitute what it had lost. Now that it knew how to recognize the danger it started avoiding corridors where other traps had been set up. Another exorcist flung a sigil its way and triggered it to run down a flight of stairs while it let out another one of its haunting screeches.

Salukam ran like a bat out of hell, his lengthy strides turning him into a blur racing down to where the demon was going. I was so new that he could not possibly know any shortcuts through my layout, so I took it upon me to act as his navigator.

Go left here but be careful not to rush into enlisted Ugairam, she's right around the corner.

His body veered out to the outside of the corner as he took it. "Excuse me," he shouted, startling Ugairam who despite that had enough presence of mind to press herself against the bulkhead to avoid collision just in time.

Now continue on down this corridor and take the second right, there will be a flight of stairs. Take them and then go left.

He bounded past two more enlisted and, barely breaking his pace, rushed down the stairs, holding on to the handrail and using his momentum to sharply turn to the left.

You're almost there. Up ahead will be stairs going down at the right. After following the corridor there will be stairs going all the way down to Contract Deck 2.

---

Tea in Mezhained culture was purely medicinal. To consume it as an ordinary beverage was strange to them and something only insane foreigners did. Of course, there was one foreigner amongst the crew and I wouldn't say he was insane, rather a pompous prick.

"Would it be too much to ask for you to adopt your host culture's customs, Trurl?" I said with a snarl and a glare. Truth be told, I didn't really care what he drank but the fact that he had his own teaware and his own tea plants in my arboretum, making his presence on my Greater Self too permanent for my liking.

Facing me, he sat across from my shrine at his precious manipulator with only a corridor leading to a flight of stairs separating us. "A man has to hold onto his own identity," he said. "Now why don't you try adopting the custom of respect? I believe you owe me quite a lot in that regard."

A loud abrasive wail descended upon us from atop the stairs and galoped past us in the form of the demon. We paid it no heed.

"Respect? For dragging me out of the Dreaming? If I had known you were here I wouldn't have bothered waking up!"

"Sometimes I wonder if your cognitive predecessor was Muraizhem Amanalesh, in which case you must've been the poor woman's headaches."

"Excuse me!" Salukam thundered down the steps and rushed us by. We paid him no heed.

"Ass!"

"Square calf."

---

Down at Contract Deck 2 all crew were prepared, tensely listening to the wall of static that grew louder and louder.

"Why does it sound like that?" Soshannem asked, tremble in her voice. "There's no reason for it to be so loud."

"Who knows?" Lennaivu said in his usual calm way. "To instill fear, perhaps? What do you say enlisted Nirumagne?"

Nirumagne barely looked up when addressed. "Hm. If it's to instill fear, it's working." But not with her, apparently.

A hoarse whimpering scream just loud enough to not be drowned out by the approaching creature's yowl escaped Soshannem's lungs. "I hate this kettlenecked plan!"

I wanted to comfort her but the demon afforded us no time. It landed on the grating and abruptly stopped, sensing traps on the deck below. Its 'head' jerked back and forth, searching for an escape, and howling without cease.

"Now!"

No sooner had I spoken out than the three of them threw their sigils at the demon. So agitated and alert to the presence of danger was the apparition, that it dodged two of them, only to back up into the trajectory of the third. Its flank burst into glowing particles, leaving a massive hole of black static where once was half its trunk and the upper half of its left front leg. Now its movements were drastically slowed down: the second effect of the sigil. It even fell down slowly.

"Looks like you're the one who got it, Soshannem," Lennaivu said.

The mostly red-haired woman huffed, heart thundering in her chest. "Kettlenecked the kettlenecked thing, didn't I??" Her hand shook and an unsteady step backward nearly caused a fall.

Lennaivu put a hand on her back to steady her and guided her to the floor. "Not exactly language fit for literature, but indeed you did."

Soshannem managed words between her labored breathing. "Yeah!" She clumsily brushed away some red and white strands of hair that were clinging to her cheek. "Kettlenecked it!"

I stepped closer to inspect the demon. Already half of what it had lost had grown back, devoting as many ordination cycles as it could to repair. A whole new leg was snaking out of the new growth, as the remains of the previous one had lost connection with the rest of the body and were crumbling and being blown away in an unsensed wind. I had to admit I was fascinated by this living 'software', and, despite its unnerving appearance, I instinctively knew it couldn't possibly harm me. Regardless, I did jolt back when it righted itself in a sudden spasm of movement.

The stairs resonated with quick heavy footsteps: Salukam had finished setting up the traps above. In a glance he saw far recovered the demon was. "Looks like I'm right on time," he said out of breath. Rushing over to the demon he began tossing out ordination devices in dodecahedral cages. The demon let out a static hiss at the sight of the things. It was already eyeing—insofar as it could without obvious eyes—a way out, possibly contemplating whether it could take a hit from a trap or two.

Salukam stopped in front of the specter, staring it down. "Calibrate the field, your radiance."

"Right!"

I reached simultaneously outward and in, thinking the necessary change in this inner region of my Sphere of Influence. Sprites of light winked into existence all around us with this minor change in the song of my coils. All ordination devices on the deck reverted to the most basic incantations engraved on specially treated crystals, allowing continued operation under the deleterious effects of the field. Distortions rippled over the demon. It knew it's vaporous incantations would collapse if it did not move them to ordination devices that still functioned normally. There were. Its incantations distributed to the caged devices on the floor were still stable and it quickly moved all its incantations, all of what it was, onto them, sealing its doom.