The dampener pulse did not make a sound.
Caleb felt it in his teeth. He felt it under his sternum. He felt it along the silver lines in his ribs. The silver went quiet for the first time in eight days. The pulse he had been feeling every three seconds stopped. The room stopped with it.
The marks stayed dark.
The seal had not begun to close.
The window was open.
The piece in Caleb's lower right rib moved.
He felt it leave the bone. A small, smooth, unhurried slide that did not hurt. The Mimic had set the piece into the rib eighteen weeks ago. The piece was leaving the same way it had come in, through the lower channel Tali had built into the bypass for exactly this minute.
The piece traveled along the rib, down to the abdominal wall, across, and up. It reached the chest cavity. It traveled along the sternum. It exited his body at the hollow of his throat, like water leaving a sink.
He did not feel pain.
He felt cold.
