but continued to strike itself until finally, with a burst of ermine fluid, the limb was cut free from its body and fell. Kara dove out of the way as shards of wood exploded into the air. The severed appendage stretched across the length of the deck. A salty smell pervaded the air, like the sea but older somehow, and rank. Kara and Taff approached cautiously, along with the remaining members of the crew. Kara saw Captain Clement glare in her direction, as though this had all been her fault from the very beginning. Taff drew back the pocket of his slingshot. The limb began to move. It wasn’t the movement of something alive, exactly, but the pulsating shudder of an object containing living things inside it. A spider sack full of hatching eggs. A corpse ballooning with maggots. From within the shells, creatures emerged. An older crewman who had gotten too close found T56t
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