By the second month, the amber skeleton of the ship required more than just structural integrity; it required a source of life. A hull without lift was merely a coffin of high-density wood, and Mark refused to rely on the slow, drifting Windrays that defined the traditional clans.
To achieve the maneuverability he envisioned, he needed a beast with fire in its veins and a surplus of lifting gas.
Txon, the hunter, led the party into the "Gasping Vents," a treacherous region of the canyon where the air was thin and the ground exhaled plumes of hydrogen-rich thermal gasses.
There, they sought the youngest and most aggressive Medusoids—creatures that fed on the rising heat and possessed a raw, untamed energy. With a precision that spoke of his lost status as a master scout, Txon used a weighted bola made of spirit-tree vine to capture a gargantuan sapphire-blue Medusoid. It was a primal force of nature, its bell nearly thirty meters across, pulsing with an angry, electric light that illuminated the canyon for miles.
They towed the beast back to the Deep Shade, tethering it above the amber hull like a captive god. The air around the ship hummed with the creature's bioluminescent discharge.
[NEW HARDWARE DETECTED: UNIDENTIFIED BIOLOGICAL LIFT ENTITY]
[SCANNING NEURAL INTERFACE... COMPATIBILITY: 92%]
[INITIATING VASCULAR INTEGRATION]
"This is where the science ends and the bond begins," Mark warned his crew, his voice low against the constant thrumming. "We are going to merge the ship's circulatory system with the creature's. If the connection fails, the shock will kill the Medusoid, and the feedback will likely fry my nervous system."
Mark spent the next fourteen days in a trance-like state at the ship's primary helm. He sat cross-legged, his Kuru connected to the ship's central node, while Sänume and Kìreysì worked on the physical tethers. They grew thick, pulsing vine-tethers—biological arteries—that connected the Medusoid's gas bladders directly to the ship's internal "vascular" system.
Through the System, Mark guided the growth of the Neural Umbilical, a cluster of spirit-tree fibers that acted as a high-speed data bus between the pilot, the ship, and the lift-beast.
[ESTABLISHING TSAHEYLU LINK: PILOT > SHIP > LIFT-ENTITY]
[DATA STREAM SYNCING...]
[CALIBRATING VARIABLE BUOYANCY ENGINES]
The sensation was overwhelming. Mark could feel the Medusoid's hunger, its primitive fear, and the slow, rhythmic expansion of its gas-sacs. He began to "tune" the creature's metabolism, using the System to trigger specific enzyme releases that altered the chemistry of its lifting gas.
[METHANE/HYDROGEN RATIO: 1:4]
[PROPOSING INTERNAL PRESSURE GRADIENT FOR RAPID ASCENT]
"You are not just tethering it," Kìreysì remarked, watching as the sapphire light of the creature began to bleed into the amber wood of the decks, following the paths of the newly grown veins. "You are giving the ship a heartbeat."
Mark didn't answer; his mind was occupied with the complex physics of the Pressure-Gradient Reservoirs. They had hollowed out chambers within the double-helix hull, lining them with a gas-tight resin.
When Mark willed the ship to rise, the System signaled the Medusoid to pump gas into these reservoirs, making the hull itself buoyant. To dive, the gas was compressed back into the creature's bladders, increasing the ship's density.
By the end of the second month, the Star of the Sea was no longer a static object. It breathed. When the wind howled through the canyon, the ship didn't just rattle; it groaned in a low-frequency resonance that felt like a purr.
Mark checked the final diagnostic as the ship hovered three inches above its moorings, held down only by the weight of the exiles standing upon it.
[LIFTSYSTEM STATUS: ONLINE]
[HEART RATE: 12 BPM]
[IDLE BUOYANCY: POSITIVE]
[VASCULAR PRESSURE: STABLE]
The exiles stood in silence, feeling the life beneath their feet. They were no longer building a tool; they were raising a titan.