Pylo loved Tunie as her best friend and the ship which carried her far away from annoying problems. But there were consequences to said carrying that she really could do without. Such as having to brace or hang against the incredible crushing press of her acceleration.

And most importantly the exhaustion, the starvation inducing strain this put upon her musculature. There were not a lot of things that really strained pylo when they were doing local, slow burns. And the exchanges needed to handle most ports and their linguistic problems was likewise hardly taxing in most cases.

Pylo mostly delved as deeply into their various numerous cultures and lexicon as she did just for the thrill and excitement of it. But it’s not like she needed too in almost all cases.

Her cortices burned so good when she actually had to be involved in an uplift. But even that was nothing that requires CONSTANT maintenance. And sirens were BUILT for that.

This was very explicitly not what she was meant for. Oh sure she and any of her close sisters could probably live on that stupid rushing beast of a thing that was terra. But it was not COMFORTABLE.

Pylo was significantly slowed down during the burn times in her managing of the ship chores. Her every fibre ached under it, she was a clumsy idiot compared to the mindless motiles, and even they suspended many less critical tasks during these times.

She spent a lot of time soaking in hot soup baths of nutrients tailored to have the exact same average density as her tissues, suspending her mass in the liquid cushioning and drinking heavily of the otherwise sickeningly rich grist. She knew that the flavor was not the best for her in most situations, but when she was under such constant physical strain she needed those calories no matter how sickening it was. The relief from the constant starvation was nauseatingly euphoric. So despite her misgivings she forced herself to keep many hundreds of the things setup in alcoves and pockets and interstitial passages between Tunie’s holds.

She also made sure she always took at least a quick dip in them to restore herself. Going without was much worse then the bloated and over-fed feeling immediately after.

And the less said about how she could not always take her prefered routes without slipping and having Tunie’s bulk heads slam into her the better. She had mercifully avoided doing that when one of the terrans or ▙◀ could see. But the burn period on a real trip like this were very long and she just knew that it was only a matter of time.

When she wasn't moving between the holds (gracefully and not at all stumbling, bruising or scraping herself), dragging herself along and trying to keep on task before the force feeding of a fresh restorative bath (Bland mix grist slurry that it was), or occasionally checking on the infuriatingly adept and graceful terrans (just because they lived being pressed down like this all the time was no reason for them to show everyone else up like that!) She favored a lot more time then was strictly necessary in Tunie’s epidermal shock absorbing gel.

The place was full of currents and ripples and pressure waves that with practice a siren could ride and coast after a fashion, squirm and slip and generally be cushioned and supported against the endless pressing grind of her friend’s drive.

So it was while going over this flowing swelling jelly, just a few body lengths away from the outermost skin and then the cushion and flutter of Tunie’s great feathers and the endless storm of minute impactors. There was something off here.

Strictly speaking Ship shock jelly was incredibly inert. Meant to absorb and distribute energy after the f’teropods softened an impactor enough that actual physical matter could be trusted to flex and strain fast enough to redistribute energy.

It also helped to soak and flex the epidermal hulls with high powered springs when feather deflections managed to transfer shocks through their roots. Tunie’s skin was in many ways the most incredibly flexible portion of her body and although it rarely was necessary it was vital when needed that it remain so.

Ugh, the way she keep thinking facts like this to herself when within resonance range of ▙◀ with the protocols on was really annoying, even if it presumably was useful some way or her subconscious wouldn't be doing it. And there it went again!

Pylo missed it being quiet and peaceful in her own mind.

Either way something was not right here! And that meant that something might be wrong with her friend. They were under acceleration and at the start of that too! Tunie would not appreciate any distractions right now.

But this one of the many features that allowed her friend’s skin to function was the proper fluidity of the gel that Pylo had been swimming in.

And it was not as smooth as it once was.

There were crystallizations in the molecules. Not strictly unheard of, but these were in ordered cascading webs and sticky lattices. They were not YET an issue, disparate and sparse. Spread through the roiling swells and compression up and down Tunie’s length.

But something had acted and changed her friend’s chemistry.

Pylo swam and tasted and considered the fluid. It was clean and sterile as ever, chemical inert like a noble gas, not an atom was incorrectly settled into its matrices as far as Pylo could taste. No hints of errant structures.

No waste compounds from a physical infection, no proteins or viruses or unexpected carbon or volatiles, no errant assemblers of silica or any other known solid life form. But structure and happenstance had left wakes in the system that were so unlikely as to be impossible.

So some kind of resonance entity then, probably a parasitic Spirit of some sort. Wait how did she know that? She must have subconsciously asked some subsystem of ▙◀ again. Ugh. Yup and the logs confirmed it.

Pylo pouted... ugh! Terranisms too!? Between the aggregate micro-polity and the terran mannerisms she was shaping up to be a mess! What next? Was she going to start obsessing on debt assessments like the clerks?!

Focus, her friend’s health was at stake. Resonance creatures were a tricky thing to deal with. They tended to less spatial locality and more associative similarity. And if they were a breed that could live or at least utilized the mostly uniform fluid of Tunie’s shock gel that was going to be even more annoying.

There was a lot of gel to go over, and it was all more or less uniform.

...

Well at least she had an excuse to spend more time inside the cushioning jelly.