“I know,” Kerrigen said, the evening after Miran’s confrontation with Nin in the undercity, as they walked the terrace outside Patriarch Hari’s estate in central Hisshou. The estate was situated at nearly the highest point of Hisshou’s central mountain that shared the same name. The palisades that wrapped it were lined with rolling rows of shrubbery, a site uncharacteristic of the barren world beyond the outer fence. A dozen or so dogs of varying sizes and breeds ran about, some followed behind Miran and Kerrigen as they walked, bumping into their legs while others were out on the lawn, grappling for balls as they were endlessly tossed and retrieved by one of Hari’s servant bots.

  Miran was concerned by Kerrigen’s nonchalance. She had filled her in on their voyage into the depths of Eidao and their attackers. It wasn’t until Miran arrived at the point in her story that mentioned the water supply that Kerrigen finally elaborated.

  “I know,” she said, “I mean, I suspected.”

  “I don’t understand,” Miran puzzled.

  “For a few weeks, we have had unverified reports of a new strain of disease circulating among the citizens of Ganon and in amongst a few isolated ships of the flock. Those citizens in orbit have since been brought down to ground, all of which have been isolated until we can discern the cause.”

  Miran wasn’t sure what this had to do with the water supply, though she felt she knew where this was going. “And have you–” she asked, “figured out the cause of all this?”

  “I believe, with your discovery, we have.”

  Kerrigen stopped, looking out at the wide expanse of city beyond the garden. Miran did the same. The city extended nearly to the horizon in all directions. Miran could make out Eidao, her apartment, Soren’s hospital, and then the district that hid the secret tunnels beneath it, only to see it all fade into the rusted sands far into the distance before dropping out of sight.

  “You see,” Kerrigen continued, “Patriarch Hari is the one that initially brought this to my attention. My own experts had even missed it, classifying it as just another strong flu, like those that naturally arise upon recontact of flock and ground dwellers. The disease, whatever it is, starts slow with a fever, then a small amount of skin discoloration. Though, when Umar himself started similarly exhibiting symptoms, my doctors and I finally gave it proper notice.”

  Miran considered this, her thoughts on bruising instinctively drifting to Soren and to Davina.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Kerrigen said, reading her mind, “And I don’t think this is related to Soren’s malady.”

  “And our attackers?” Miran asked, “the citizens we encountered in the tunnels were deranged, transformed into something not quite human, with bruising like what you describe.”

  “It may be related,” Kerrigen admitted, “though from what you and your old flock mates have told me, those cases each began off-world. Soren, on Bordeaux’s Folly. And your attackers, these infiltrators, began even before this all started.”

  “Nin Bonwade called them spectres,” Miran corrected.

  “That may be…” said Kerrigen, “It is concerning the level of contact this Nin has had with you. I mean no disrespect, but why has he chosen to contact you?”

  Miran shrugged. “Perhaps because I was Matriarch when this all began? Or maybe he just wants to see me struggle.”

  “Whatever it is, I find it hard to believe that this one is ruler of those ships out in the black. To have such firepower at his disposal, only to let it linger and lie in wait?”

  “Might be he’s waiting for something to happen before he and his Ghede chase us down,” Miran suggested.

  “And that’s the name we were given for our enemy?” asked Kerrigen, “probably best we keep that to ourselves for the time. No sense giving them any sort of publicity lest they come to believe they are affecting us with anything aside from this disease.”

  Switching subjects, Miran felt she needed to ask if they were able to discern the fate of Davina Kide’s elderly grandmother.

  “Found dead in their shared quarters,” Kerrigen said, “Seems the girl did it personally. Small finger impressions were left on the woman’s neck.”

  “It wasn’t the girl. It was Nin Bonwade.”

  “Either way, this one can influence our minds. Any way you cut it, that is frightening,” Kerrigen said.

  “It’s a small mercy Podallan didn’t have to witness any of this. He would take this as a loss,” Miran considered, “what happened to him – to his body?”

  Kerrigen sighed, “After news of the disease began to spread, some overzealous officers decided to have him cremated instead of taking any chances. I’m sorry, Miran, he was a fine officer.”

  Miran considered that. To have a man, so young and in the prime of his life, cut down as he had and forgotten as he had been… Miran was starting to wonder whether the posting of Chief of Flock Security, or maybe it was the Ogunye family themselves, was cursed.

  “You said Patriarch Hari is showing symptoms? Is it safe for us to be here?”

  Kerrigen shook her head. “I was led to believe that this flavour of disease, much like Soren’s, was noncommunicable. Your insights from the tunnel depths only solidify that claim.”

  “So they’re spreading things in the water then,” Miran said, matter-of-fact. “Do we know how far it’s spread?”

  “No. Incubation of the disease is a matter of weeks, so it’s likely many are just yet to show symptoms. Our infected have been safely isolated and are being well taken care of. Umar himself, who has graciously offered his estate to us, is resting through the worst of it in his quarters. Eidao has seen the worst of it, but I’ve enacted strict water sanitation protocols going forward. Hopefully, that will be enough to stem the tide. In a few cases already, we have seen full recoveries aside from a touch of lingering bruising.”

  “So that’s it, we’re to wait it out?” Miran questioned. “Seems like a wash of a plan by the enemy to infect us only a little. The transformation we saw on Bordeaux was far more dramatic, producing horrors in a matter of hours.”

  “And that’s the difference here,” an unfamiliar voice interrupted from the bay doors opening out onto the terrace. Three people walked towards them, of which only one Miran recognized. The woman who had spoken was short-cropped amber hair and a firm face wrapped in a tight medic’s jacket. With her, a person in an environment suit marked with the Mobius Charters logo and an opaque sunshield visor walked in stride with a sheepishly grinning Tolly Ignacio.

  “Tolly!” Miran said, moving to her. The two wasted no time, wrapping their arms around each other and squeezed.

  “Hi, Miran,” Tolly said through compressed lungs.

  “Doctor Gaul, good of you for coming in such a timely manner,” Kerrigen said.

  “Who’s your friend?” Miran asked Tolly, ignoring the doctor and instead focusing a stare on the suited figure beside her.

  “This is Oscar, Tolly said, gesturing to the suited man who nodded acknowledgement, “and this–”

  “I am Doctor Gaul, geneticist and epidemiologist, or Nora if you prefer, Matriarchs,” Nora spoke for herself.

  “Just one Matriarch in these parts,” Miran clarified. Tolly looked confused.

  “I gave up the mantle shortly after you departed, Tolly,” Miran explained as Tolly wordlessly grasped Miran’s hand in consolation. “A story for another time,” she said.

  “Miran, I’m so sorry to hear about Soren,” Tolly said, squeezing her hand. Tolly’s pain was evident, and Miran had to fight to keep her own at bay.

  “Kerrigen, you knew they were coming?” asked Miran.

  “I was contacted by Doctor Gaul following their entry to the Ganon system through our pickets,” said Kerrigen. “I invited them here after Tolly told me you had reached out to them for help.”

  Miran had only reached out to them just over a day ago. Their timing on arrival was suspicious, it being clear to her that they must have already been in transit before receiving Miran’s message. Though Miran admitted, she couldn’t complain about their sudden fortune.

  “Tolly, Oscar, and I have had a long trip,” Nora said, “though I am under the impression you are eager for some answers?”

  “We are,” Kerrigen admitted. “I’ve taken the liberty of setting up a lab in the estate, along with bringing in any and all samples of interest. You can thank the master of the house, Patriarch Hari, once you’ve had a chance to settle in.”

  “Thank you, Matriarch,” Nora said, and Miran could notice a subtle unfamiliarity with the word.

  “You’re not from the federation, are you, Doctor?” Miran asked.

  “A keen eye,” Nora acknowledged, “I’m a Terran, through and through. Though it’s been many months since I’ve been in Sovereignty space.”

  “I’ve known only one other of your government, though I’m afraid they were lost on Bordeaux,” Miran said.

  “At this point in my career, I don’t believe my government would take me back if I wanted it,” Nora admitted.

  “Well, you’re far out past the edge of the map now,” said Miran. “Even still, the Federation welcomes the help.”

  Nora nodded, satisfied.

  “And your friend, Oscar, was it?” Miran turned to him, “What is your connection to this?”

  “It is, miss,” he said in a thick mysterious accent loosely veiled by the static of the suit’s external speaker. “And I owe these fine ladies my life.”

  “Why the suit, Oscar?” Miran prodded, uneasy with this man’s anonymity and his closeness with Tolly. Oscar braced an answer only to be cut off by Dr. Gaul.

  “Oscar, my lab assistant, has an autoimmune disease,” answered Nora rather sharply, “rendering him susceptible to contagion in unfamiliar locales more so than the rest of us. Removing it may result in his death unless carefully acclimated over time.”

  Miran was satisfied with that, though admittedly still a little concerned with his connection to Tolly. She felt still responsible for the young woman to some degree, though it was clear that the horrible past Tolly had suffered was fading into memory. Her bringing any of it up now might ignite a flame best left dormant, Miran considered.

  “Come then. You and your team have much to do. I will lead you to your lab and to your quarters,” Kerrigen said, shepherding the group back through the bay doors.

  Miran took a while, staring out at the land below, at the dogs playing, and at a dust storm as it roiled in the distance. The storm moved as a giant, trundling across claimless land as lesser beings hide within their anthills. Her feet, resting on the terrace floor, held her high above the city, far removed from the outer city districts, and she caught herself wondering whether the dust storm could even reach them at this height.

  A week passed. Miran, invited by Matriarch Kerrigen, sat herself between Rissa and Kerrigen on the observation theatre benches overlooking a closed cleanroom. On the floor below them, Tolly helped Nora walk their guests through an examination of several samples, one of which was a body. Miran had been apprehensive about whether she could stomach being in the room. For when Kerrigen had told her that it would be Soren’s body that Dr. Gaul would examine, Miran’s sorrow threatened resurgence. But with Tolly’s words of comfort and her new friend Rissa’s company, she felt she could stomach it.

  There was no shock or confusion on neither the Doctor’s nor Tolly’s faces, even through their medical face shields. Miran suspected that they knew something intimate about the disease and were for some dramatic effect or a sense of uncertainty, they chose to withhold. In the corner, Oscar sat. Still locked away in his envirosuit, he looked like an ornament as he withered in rigidity. His stillness was so uncanny that Miran found herself forgetting his presence only to rediscover him when he shifted a listless leg or stretched an arm.

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  Seeing Soren’s lifeless and now desiccated corpse splayed out on the operating table, Miran fought her anger down. Her lament for the slow march of his loss was worsened by his lack of funeral. Usually, a man of his honours would be sent off in a great deal of ceremony. Whether it was due to his dereliction of duty, which seemed so distant a memory now, or his status as a potential vector for disease, he was passed over for the honour.

  “What do we know?” A harried, impatient Umar Hari said over video bulletin dialled into the cleanroom’s wallscreen. He was in his stateroom’s bed. Sweating from fever and fighting coughing between words, the first signs of bruising were beginning to show.

  “What I can say for certain is that this Captain Djucovik’s disease is not a mutation of the disease we see circulating amongst the population,” Nora answered, stepping away from the body.

  “We suspected that already,” Kerrigen answered.

  “I wasn’t able to discern much of anything from the cremated remains of Chief Ogunye,” Nora added, “I wish you’d waited for our arrival before going ahead with that.”

  “What of the spectres, the infiltrators that affected my flock on Bordeaux and here again in the tunnels?” Miran asked, trying to keep her eyes clear of Soren’s corpse. Tolly noticed this from her place on the floor and found a sheet to cover the worst of it.

  “We know that the mystery surrounding the infiltrators runs deep,” answered Nora, “And we know that this began far before The Cattleheart’s respite in Valen.”

  “This implies that the transformation is unstable for spectres. Also, that Linden Kide was living with Handen and his daughter for some time as a spectre before his disappearance,” Tolly added.

  “You mean to suggest that Handen was unaware that his husband was infected? If so, would that mean Linden was also infected? I met the man. He seemed plain to me,” Miran said.

  “I would have to assume that he was infected, though maybe not yet activated as was their daughter, which you inevitably discovered for yourself. It may be that he was not yet showing symptoms, or that he simply lacked the trigger for the pathogen to be activated,” said Nora.

  “From the level of degradation seen in the bodies discovered by you and your team in cold storage, the gestation period of the phage puts the initial transformations at nearly a year prior.”

  “A year?” Kerrigen said, stunned.

  “You called it a phage?” asked Miran.

  “A bacteriophage, to be precise. A clever virus that shows markings of deliberate design.”

  “This phage is responsible for what transformed our citizens into Ghede spectres? Then what about Soren?” Miran pressed.

  “You used this word, Ghede. Where did you learn this word?” Oscar asked through his suit's intercom.

  This threw off Miran; what interest did this man have? Better yet, what interest did he have in Soren’s body?

  Nora called the man over to Soren, lifting the sheet and pointing at a section of twisted, sallow flesh. The envirosuited man grabbed hold of it, unperturbed by its horrific appearance. Oscar considered it for a while, consulting his suit’s terminal.

  “What is it– what did you find?” asked Kerrigen.

  Rissa’s hand found Miran’s knee in apprehension.

  Nora leaned into the man, the two discussing something. And by the stern look on Nora’s face and the overt concern on Tolly’s, Miran was starting to get anxious. The man stood upright, deliberating over what Nora had just proposed to him.

  “Oscar. Please don’t,” Tolly said, a measure of fear in her voice. Miran could see a flow of unspoken tension between the two of them. Nora’s own concern was lesser but still evident.

  Oscar held up a hand in a gesture that showed her it would be okay. “I would ask that you judge me not by my appearance but by my conduct,” he said, raising his hands to his helmet. Unbuckling and opening the seals, he lifted the helmet away.

  Kerrigen stood from her seat, her outrage evident, as disquiet rebounded about the room. Over on the wallscreen, Patriarch Hari emulated the anger, sitting up in his bed wincing through pain. Miran remained seated, considering her next words carefully. Rissa’s hand on her knee let go as she retreated into herself.

  The entire operating theatre was crawling with uncertainty. Before them was a man, riddled with the same bruising and disfigurement as Soren’s, though long since healed over and faded behind scar tissue. His hair had returned, unlike Soren’s. In firm contrast to Soren, he was, however, conspicuously alive.

  “Speak. And do so quickly,” Miran pressed.

  Oscar breathed in scrutiny of that task before him. Miran could see a man, if he was a man, standing in defiance of everything she knew Soren had suffered through. A man at the tail-end of Soren’s torment. And yet he spoke, walked around, lived. He wasn’t a thoughtless husk like the Ghede spectres. But he was Ghede, wasn’t he?

  “I can see your apprehension from here,” Oscar said, “but please know that I mean you no ill.”

  Miran stood to place her hand on Kerrigen’s shoulder, advocating calm.

  “Let me explain,” started Oscar as he placed his helmet on the operating table at Soren’s feet. “I asked you, Miran, what meaning Ghede held for you. For this is what I am. I am Ghede, as is the foe that waits on your doorstep. Though, that is where our parallels end. We are a people from a world unknown by your federation, a people that – much like the fair Doctor has left her own – I have left behind.”

  “What does this have to do with the phage, the ships, and the spectres?” asked Miran calmly.

  “What you call phage is a well-known mechanism amongst my people; a transformational tool. This phage serves the purpose of both ritual and proliferation. It is a way of growing our numbers.”

  “You use the phage to reproduce?” asked Kerrigen, bewildered.

  “In simplest terms, yes. But the phage you see before you, and in fact, the one experienced by my friend Tolly here were far removed from what the phage should be. Seldom used, the phage is meant to be carefully constituted, tailor-made to pick a diminutive portion of a target population, remodelling them as Ghede.”

  “That’s horrific, Oscar. If you’re angling for understanding, you are a bit south of shore,” said Miran.

  “I do not intend to make light of Ghede practices. I tell you this now to illustrate that the phage you encountered on Bordeaux’s Folly, and the one that you see before you now, are not the same as that in common use. The calamity you see now leaves an indelible scar on the intention of all Ghede.”

  “Horrendous!” screamed Patriarch Hari on the wallscreen, “Admitting to murder isn’t an excuse in the face of mass genocide!”

  Miran held a hand with matriarchal authority, silencing the fuming man despite her station.

  “You talk of a new virus and an old, of a separation from what is and what came before. My question is, what has changed– why are you here before us telling this story now?” she said.

  “I am who I claim to be,” Oscar said, “Though I see proper introductions are owed. I am Oscar Malis, son to Ti Malis, Crown Paramount of all Ghede, the crux around which all of my kin flow.”

  “You’re a prince?” asked Tolly, who now seemed as blindsided as the rest of the observers.

  “Apologies I did not say so sooner,” he said, turning to her.

  “The Ghede do not have princes as you know them, for no Ghede can historically bear children. My title is thus, Son to the King. I am an anomaly, the first natural-born in centuries. Many among Ghede find my existence blasphemous, and so I have been cast out. But not before the treachery of Nin.”

  “Nin Bonwade?” Miran asked.

  “You know this name also?” Oscar said, astounded, “Tell me, have you spoken with my brother?”

  “He’s your brother,” said Miran flatly.

  “Adopted. As custom dictates. You see, each King nearing the end of their long reign must name an heir. The heir is chosen carefully from a choice population, inducted into our ways and carefully moulded in a process taking months. The end product is a chieftain, a master of Ghede, able to bend my people to their will. Nin Bonwade, or the ninth vessel of his brood, who was not always known by that name, is one of these.”

  “What about you, if your king can control everyone beneath them, surely you must be under the same thrall?” Kerrigen asked.

  “And here lies the circumstances of my expulsion,” Oscar said, “A natural-born son can, as providence would have it, abstain from bending to their king. It is for this reason that my brother engineered my exit from our court despite my weakened father’s disapproval.”

  “And so you stand here, vindictive?” Miran asked.

  “He stands here in your service,” Nora interrupted, “As do I. As does Tolly. We have risked much coming here to decipher this mess.”

  “The doctor is right. I am at your mercy,” he said.

  “This is absurd! Arrest this beast,” urged Patriarch Hari.

  Miran looked at Tolly, who, besides the uncertainty surrounding Oscar’s present security, she seemed to trust him. “I think we should listen,” Miran said. “Tell me, what is the purpose of the outbreak we witnessed on Bordeaux?”

  “I admit I was not party to those that released that hell upon you and your people,” Oscar said. “Though, from the sample of your friend Soren you were gracious enough to send Tolly off with, I hypothesised that the purpose of that phage was to simply make soldiers; many of them. Examination of this body just confirmed it.”

  “Those things, were soldiers?” Miran asked, remembering the swarms that had worked their way up through The Spire.

  “Those things were monsters,” Tolly said under her breath.

  “Drones, actually,” Oscar corrected. “The lowest of the low, husks under complete control of battle commanders.”

  “The black suits,” Miran uttered in realisation. “Those men in black battle armour, they were like you?”

  “Not like me. Some are given command of drones, yes. But they are as much slaves to the lie, slaves to those above them as the drones are to them.”

  “A truly hierarchical society,” Nora said, “Fascinating.”

  “And the disease you see now? That is another attempt, a tinkering at creating not soldiers but something more,” said Oscar. “These phages, as I have made clear, are not of the formula envisioned by our progenitors. They are a twisted, malformation of Nin’s own making.”

  “Can he do that– change the recipe and tell the phage to cause that much devastation?” asked Miran.

  “With help,” Oscar confirmed.

  “And what of Soren, he didn’t become one of those drones?” asked Tolly.

  “A simple mutation. A random occurrence over several hundred thousand permutations. With so many new drones, naturally, a commander would need to be selected,” he said.

  “Soren was going to turn into a black suit?” Miran asked.

  “Something more. At a level more akin to myself, in fact. A pupa that was halted before it could become a moth. Regrettably, he died because you and he fought the transformation with such vigour.”

  Miran fumed, “You’re saying it’s my fault Soren is dead?”

  “Oscar...” Tolly pleaded.

  “It is my hope that my candour in this will not be misconstrued, in which case I admit that yes, intervention is what killed him. Of course, should he have not contracted the virus at the outset, this matter would be moot,” Oscar said, “Tell me, where could he have contracted it– was it in the city of which you spoke, Tolly?”

  “It may be,” Tolly admitted, “or somewhere in the wilds.”

  “And what now. Are we to just let this current disease play itself out?” Kerrigen asked.

  “I cannot say for certain, but given the period of gestation and the fact that no citizens have been reported to have undergone any visible transformations to date. I would recommend utmost caution,” said Nora.

  “We’ve already begun releasing those that have recovered from the fever. You’re telling me they may yet turn into monsters; these drones?” asked Kerrigen.

  “It is unlikely that what you see arise will be anything akin to the drones, nor the spectres you are familiar with. It is apparent that Nin is meddling, trying to improve on the form,” Oscar said, “It seems likely to me that my brother is selecting for intelligence, breeding an army yet unseen of the Ghede.”

  “Worse than drones or spectres?” Rissa asked, breaking her isolation. “How do we prepare for something we don’t know?”

  “I’m afraid I have shared all the insight I can on this,” Oscar said, “What we must do now is elect our next actions.”

  “Stopping the transformation is our top priority,” Miran said.

  “In that, I agree,” said Oscar.

  “What of the ships?” Kerrigen interjected, “our enemy still waits on the horizon.”

  “They wait for you to weaken,” Oscar said. “And I’m averse to admit that the damage has been written in stone.”

  “You’re saying –what– this phage is unstoppable– that we should just lay down and let it take us?” Miran spat, indignant. Her fear of seeing another soul suffer Soren’s disease boiled in her gut.

  “Regrettably so,” Nora admitted, “From what Oscar has explained, it stands to reason that we are now in the remediation stage of this epidemic. It is time for damage control.”

  “The doctor is correct. Cut off the finger to save the hand,” Oscar agreed.

  “But you said stopping the transformation would kill the host, just like it did with Soren!” Miran said.

  “But more you will save, should you act with diligence. Save the unaffected from the horrors that threaten to sprout in their midst. No one else has to die,” said Oscar.

  “This man is a criminal, an admitted murderer of herd citizens!” Hari barked through coughing fits. “I’ve dispatched my guards. You will be held accountable… mark my–”

  Patriarch Hari’s words were cut short as he dropped his terminal, killing the bulletin.

  “Umar!” called Kerrigen, as she tried to reach him on her own terminal. The call went unanswered.

  Before she could open another bulletin, The Patriarch’s men arrived at the cleanroom door, which they quickly realised had been locked from the inside. After a few willful knocks, they moved on, bursting in to face Miran on the observation level. The same monosyllabic thug entered with two others.

  “Don’t look at me,” Miran said, reading the man’s objective, “I don’t have a key.”

  “I locked it,” admitted Nora. “I had a notion that this may not have gone over well. I was right.”

  “Speak, Oscar,” Miran said, “You said no one else has to die. What did you mean?”

  Oscar considered the men who were there to haul him away for a moment before speaking.

  “We cannot save the infected, as I have said. Nor will anything short of orbital bombardment cleanse the city entirely. What I offer is a countermeasure. A toxin tailored just as the phage is, to stop the change in its tracks,” he said.

  “Stop genocide, with genocide?” Rissa said, agog.

  “How do we even consider something like this?” Miran said, sitting back in her seat. The three men milled about, uncertain what to do. The monosyllabic one looked down, checking something on his terminal before raising his gaze back to Miran in alarm. Without another word, he and his escort hastened out of the room.

  “Where are they going?” Nora asked.

  “I think I have an idea,” Kerrigen said, tapping rapidly on her terminal. “Miran, we have a problem.”

  Kerrigen cast her terminal over to the wallscreen. It was a feed from The Dream, an orbital projection of Eidao. “There, do you see it?” she said, narrowing in on the feed.

  Moving through the otherwise empty city streets were a host of bodies. They moved not with the clamber of drones but with a steady determination. Much of the host bore tactical gear, body armour, or simple construction kit. Miran could make out various weapons in their hands, from rifles and sidearms to fashioned spears and polearms. As they moved through the streets, confused citizens who crossed the horde’s path were cut down, unaware of the danger they posed. Rissa and Tolly shrieked as a man was hewn from his own hips in protection of his family.

  Miran felt it, the nightmare happening again. Listless was the room around her, the silence uncanny when compared to the carnage outside.

  “The transformation has begun,” Oscar announced.

  “We are too late,” Kerrigen said, admitting defeat.

  “No,” said Oscar, looking to Nora, “Grant us three hours. Then you will have your cure.”

  Nora nodded.

  Miran knew that it was impossible to set a hard time limit. Maybe it was their insistence or the hopelessness of the past few weeks repeating themselves, but she no longer cared. She hated the Ghede, hated Nin Bonwade, for inflicting this calamity. Her hate even extended to the man down in the cleanroom before her; a man Tolly seemed to have placed her trust in. Miran owed no one any such trust. She saw a horror before her, horrors in the streets, and the stars themselves littered with horror. All she could do now was anything but this.

  “You get us the cure, then what?” Kerrigen asked. “How do we get it into the bodies of those monsters that now tear through Eidao?”

  Miran considered that. She thought back to the moment of quiet she had earlier that week walking the terrace, staring out at the green lawns. There was only one threat more crippling to life on Ganon, only one thing more invasive than the monsters that flowed through the streets.

  “We use the dust storm,” she said.