Soma half-closed her eyes sand leaned her head back, thinking. Most of last night was a blur, and that was probably for the better, but she remembered Lingormr dropping the thing into her hand. The feel of it, warm and slick in her hand.

"It's small," she said. "A few millimeters across at most." How Lingormr had managed to find it, she'd never know. "The diagram is accurate, as far as I know."

It was almost absurdly large for something that could cause disease. She'd expected nanomachines--something more difficult to extract from the body, at least. But she wasn't about to complain.