John glanced up where Ian was pointing. It looked like a more organic version of the ceiling strats on Moya, and he had to hope it was just as strong -- at least strong enough to hold two grown men. Mentally crossing his fingers here. "If we gotta try that, you'll have to go first."

The gun was going to slow John down and he wasn't at the point he felt comfortable ditching it, so there was that. Besides, he figured worse came to worse, he could give Ian some cover. A few of the conduits throbbed overhead as something pumped into the core. With all the sounds Stacy made and the fact everything here seemed to breathe, it made it harder to keep track of what was Stacy being her normal self and what was that thing coming at them again. John was on red alert.

"Think we'd better figure out what it's supposed to do before we make another field trip," John said. He nodded toward the center of the hub, where there was a long column of what looked like glowing flesh growing up. "That leads up to the core, right?"