I felt a tingle of anxiety down my central spine.
I was walking through the grasslands near the savannah, to join Quipu and Lirilla. And as I approached Quipu, I saw his heads flick uncontrollably, for a just a moment. And I noticed an excited light in his five pairs of eyes.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, puzzled.
“Something’s happening-” said Quipu One.
“-with the ship,” said Quipu Two.
“How can you tell?” I asked.
The heads replied, babblingly:
“The engine noise.”
“The force of artificial gravity.”
“The clarity of the light.”
“The density of [Quipu used a word I could not fathom].”
“You can detect all that?” I asked.
“Perhaps we have collided,” said Quipu One, “with an object in space-”
“Or been attacked by,” said Quipu Three.
“Some other vessel,” said Quipu Four.
“The light is degrading; the power sources are being diverted. The Hell Ship is in trouble. One way or another, it is experiencing some kind of appalling catastrophe,” said Quipu Five triumphantly.