The Ghost saw it first, which was the only reason Max had time to process the information before his body decided to do something unhelpful about it.
He was watching through the sensory link — the dual-feed he had spent the last few hours getting comfortable with — when the northern passage entrance changed.
Not the light. Not the sound. The texture of the darkness changed.
Something that had been in the passage wall had decided to stop being the passage wall.
Thirty meters of it.
He did not move. He sat in the hold of the ancient Septur ship and looked through his own eyes at the porthole's green glow and through the Ghost's eyes at the clearing outside, and what he saw through the Ghost would have produced a significant physical reaction if his body had been given any input into the matter. He did not give his body input into the matter. He watched.
