For a long time, the Wardell did not answer.
Ning stood on the carrier's hull with his hand pressed flat against the scarred metal, and he waited. Around him, the other transports hung motionless in the darkness, and beyond them, the lights of Arrak Station glittered against the black.
Nothing moved. The vast presence beneath his feet had gone very still again, and its faint, slow breathing had stopped.
He could feel it thinking.
He could not hear its thoughts, but he could feel the turmoil in them, a restless, uneasy shifting that spread through the entire structure of the ship. Something was pulling at the being inside the Wardell from several directions at once, and it did not seem to know which way to turn.
Ning waited a little longer.
Then the answer came.
"No."
It was quiet, and very final.
Ning did not move his hand. "Why not?"
