Akane looked doubtful, so Suzuka puffed up her cheeks, sulking. “Hey! You don’t believe me, do you? Well, seeing is believing. Lemme show you the studio! C’mon!”
Suzuka vanished into the darkness. She knew the way even without light. Akane and Sachii hurriedly followed. They walked through an open area for a while, but then Suzuka ducked into a hole in the wall. One just wide enough for a human to pass. Akane put her axe against the wall and followed her in.
The stench grew stronger. It smelled like fish guts dumped in a trash can and left there for months. The putrid odor made her nose burn.
“Tah-dah! This is my studio. I made it all myself!”
Suzuka seemed super proud, but the room was barely large enough to fit the three of them. The walls were made of constantly quivering flesh, with a large number of thin cables running into them. It was a gross spectacle; just looking at something like this was enough to make you unwell. The cables went through some instrument panels to a microphone. Next to the mic was a screen, showing a black and white image of the space vegetation. Must be a view of outside.
“If I sound into this mic, the space fish moves.”
Suzuka put the mic to her laryngeal sac, vibrating the aether. The room rocked. On screen, the vegetation was moving. The fish was turning.
“See? Amazing, right?”
“Damn! Amamiya, let’s kill this old lady and steal this ship!” It was a shame she’d left the axe behind, but if they both attacked they could probably take her bare-handed.
“Ha ha, you’re so young! But even with this, the Turbulent Sector won’t be easy. I can get you an even better ship.”
“You weren’t a hero of the Seiyuu War for nothing! Senpai, did you hear that? You just threatened to kill her and she wants to give you a ship! How generous! You truly are a goddess amongst women.”
“Aw, you’re making me blush!”
“I mean, that sounds great, but... Why would you do that?” Akane asked.
“Well, I gotta treat my fans right. And...” Suzuka touched the skull on her head.
“Oh, are those bones... your coupling partner? Erieri? I mean, Erina Shiranui-san?” Sachii was acting like a kitten drunk on catnip.
“That’s right. Erina hated that nickname, you know.”
“Wow, I can’t believe I’m seeing Erieri’s bones! Can I touch them?”
“Of course! Just be careful.”
If she let them go on like this, they would clearly talk forever. Akane coughed. “Um, Suzuka-san. Do you have any food? We’re sort of starving.”
“Oh! Yes, sushi! Let’s eat some sushi!”
Sachii’s hands rattled the skull precariously, but Suzuka stopped her.
“If you’re hungry, just grab some flesh off wherever. I dunno if you’ll like it much, but it’s definitely fresh!”
Recovering the skull, Suzuka sliced a piece off the space fish with a knife and handed it to Akane. It was tough meat, and it smelled. A pattern of dark blood-filled veins rose to the surface, which did not exactly whet the appetite.
She forced herself to take a bite.
Awful! It tasted like seaweed grown on an abandoned veranda in filthy aquarium water that then evaporated until the flavor was extra concentrated. This was simply too much. She spit it out immediately but the taste wouldn’t leave her mouth and she felt sick.
“Woah... Is it really that bad?”
Suzuka seemed shocked that Akane had actually spit it out.
“I kinda like it!” Sachii said, nibbling on it like dried squid. “It’s certainly distinctive!”
“You’re insane.”
It’s way better to keep eating human flesh than eat another bite of this, Akane thought.
Fortunately, the food problem soon resolved itself. After eating it for a few days, the taste of the space fish no longer bothered her. It was just a matter of getting used to it. By the time they reached the Free Seiyuu colony where Suzuka lived, she wasn’t exactly addicted to it, but it had definitely become a viable provision in her mind. In some ways it was an ideal food, containing both the nutrition and moisture humans needed to live.
In front of the space fish were some massive, long bones. About ten meters thick, and fifty meters long, these huge bone logs were all linked together, with a number of curved rib-like bones running off to the sides. They were the bones of a really, really long sea snake-like creature.
“We call this place the Whale Bones. It’s not just a Free Seiyuu colony, it’s also the heart of an ecosystem.”
As they drew near the Whale Bones, they could see tents made of skin between the bones. They must be living on the inside, where the air was.
“That’s the port.”
The fish was headed to the end of the rib bone Suzuka was pointing at. People in space suits were moving across ropes strung between the bones. Space fish of all sizes were swarming around. The fish Suzuka controlled pulled up between them.
“Right, ladies!” Suzuka called. “Space suits on, and let’s step outside! Pick your ship!”
All three went outside.
“If you’re headed to the Turbulent Sector, how about this one? Tah-dah! It’s a space whale!”
The ship Suzuka recommended did not look like a whale. At best, it looked like someone had crushed a hippo flat. Like an upside-down dustpan, it started with a flat head, got even narrower, and ended in a crescent moon-shaped tail. It drew an extremely simplistic figure, with not even another fin anywhere. On the head was a single gigantic elliptical eye and countless smaller eyes assisting it.
When they told Suzuka it didn’t look like a whale, she just shook her head.
“Tch, tch, tch. You fools,” she said. “Look at that tail fin again. Space whale tail fins lie sideways. By moving that up and down they change the aether flow into propulsion. That’s exactly like whales, but that’s not the only amazing thing about it! Go ahead, touch it.”
Akane and Sachii reached out and touched the space whale’s skin. It was very hard and extremely rough.
“In the turbulence, flat surfaces actually offer up more resistance than uneven ones. The rough bits make little eddies, and those eddies made the flow slide past, preventing larger whirlpools from forming. Oh, and its flesh is like a sponge, full of little holes that let the aether pass through. So there’s not much resistance from the aether, either. With one of these, you can fly in the Turbulent Sector, too.”
“And you’ll just give us something this great?”
“Sure, sure. I like helping people out. That said, in return, we will take the ship you came on. It might just be trash to you, but there’s valuable resources on there for us.”
“I’m just so grateful I was able to meet you, Suzuka-san! What a glorious day!”
“Amamiya, let’s get going.”
Akane dragged Sachii away from Suzuka. She was glad for Suzuka’s help, but worried she was hiding something. If they were gonna get the hell out of dodge, it was better to do so soon.
“Right... Suzuka-san! Thank you so much! I hope we meet again!”
Sachii waved until they were inside the hatch in the space whale’s anus.
“Bye! Sacchii and Akkanee!”
The anus quivered and shut, and Suzuka was out of sight. She might be a hero of the War for Seiyuu Independence, Akane thought, but damn she was bad at nicknames.