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Conflicts of the last progenitors

Bullets train their guns on the sixclaws, but the circling creatures are already enmeshed with the Bios: there are no clear shots.

A sixclaw SLAMS into Neredth, knocking her backwards; Lo-Cheun pales as he watches the creature dig a pincer into his wife’s neck and a second into her shoulder.

Lo-Cheun runs toward Neredth; terrified, she presses her palms against its black, crenulated shell and shoves with all her strength; the creature’s tightly clamped pincers tear open her shoulder and neck. She MOANS, topples over and SPLASHES into the water, spraying blood in dual gouts.

Abacus drops to aid her.

Two of the five creatures rise into the air, clear of the Bios and Bullets; a series of j-gun reports (CH-CHAK) turn the crustaceans into broken pottery.

The Second Frenchman CRACKS the handle of his j-gun into the sixclaw that attacked Neredth;

51.

the creature thrusts a pincer into his mouth. The sixclaw yanks at his tongue as if trying to ring a bell; the man GAGS.

Rectangle dives and lands with a SPLASH beneath the sixclaw clamped to the Second Frenchman’s tongue, angles the barrel of his j-gun into the creature’s underside and fires, CH-CHAK. The bullets lance through its carapace into the magenta sky; the sixclaw closes its pincer; the Frenchman SHRIEKS and falls back, blood from his cloven tongue filling his mouth.

Neredth’s attacker SPLASHES dead into the water beside her.

The two remaining sixclaws escape into a hole in the ground, SPLOOSH-SPLOOSH.

Abacus lifts Neredth’s head above the surface and reaches-with a trembling hand- into his medkit.

The stunned Bullets watch their ranking officer SPLASH to his knees in the crimson-tinted water beside his wife.

LO-CHEUN (CONT'D)

Watch the perimeter, not me!

Abacus rubs coagulant putty into the white, bloodless gash in Neredth’s neck; the beige clay hardens, sealing the wound.

Lo-Cheun checks her pulse; his face hardens.

The wroth Chinese man looks away from his wife’s pale face; his eyes light upon the pulpy, shattered remains of the sixclaw that killed her. The creature’s blood swirls amidst Neredth’s like gray oil and red vinegar.

The bullets that Rectangle shot (through the sixclaw) into the magenta sky thirty-six seconds ago return to the surface of Option-1; the rounds SPLISH-SPLISH-SPLISH-SPLISH-SPLISH-SPLISH-SPLISH into the water three hundred yards away.

INT. GLASS-DOMED AMPHITHEATER - MOMENTS LATER

Less than two-hundred people watch the live broadcast from Dragonfly Seraph-9, an aerial shot soaring across the landscape toward the three cruciforms. (Sven and Mlissa, seated beside each other, watch from the ninth row.) The panorama splits into five images: a shot of the Australian’s badly scorched face; a shot of the Second Frenchman- his face covered in blood- convulsing in the water (held by Zria and the First Frenchman); a shot of Lo-Cheun cradling his dead wife in his arms; 52.

a shot of two shattered sixclaws; a tight shot of a dying sixclaw’s gray eyes dripping ochre fluid.

In the amphitheater, manifold GASPS emerge from open mouths amidst worried and frightened faces.

Heinrich, seated alone in the rear of the amphitheater, looks at the carnage upon the screen: he has no visible reaction whatsoever.

INT. LUMBAR HALL 3B - MOMENTS LATER

GRAYNOSE, a diminutive Biobranch Senior wearing three stars and an extra hollow star, is a fifty-two year-old man with big eyes, silver-brown hair and a Fleischwerk proboscis. He walks up the hallway, yellow lights gliding over him like molten gold. A male two-star Bluebranch OFFICER approaches him, carrying a gray folder; he bows fifteen degrees before Graynose; the small man does not slow his pace.

GRAYNOSE

Walk with me.

The Officer strides beside the little man.

GRAYNOSE (CONT'D)

Let me see them.

The Officer opens the folder and from it removes a glossy sheet of black plastic spattered with luminous white dots.

OFFICER

This is the starboard view, when we first arrived. Here it is

yesterday.

The Officer flips to the next sheet: he points to a black spot.

OFFICER (CONT'D)

Two stars are missing. After she

noticed this, Elysabeth began to

monitor the quadrant.

The Officer flips through twenty pages depicting a zoomed-in portion of the starboard view. Along a straight line, stars twinkle in and out of existence.

GRAYNOSE

Could be anything. A meteor,

another glacial drift. It’s

completely beyond the reach of this galaxy’s sunlight?

53.

OFFICER

Yes.

GRAYNOSE

Where is this interstellar mass

now?

OFFICER

We don’t know.