Eyes of the Void (The Final Architecture, #2)

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

It had been ripped in half. Ripped. In half. Right the way down its four-metre height. The two long sections of shell were still attached at the lower end, where the great gut-length of its holdfast tail was writhing and whipping mindlessly. The upper edges of each dangled from the hooks, while strung between them was a hideous opened fan of alien anatomy. Olli had never particularly wanted to know what went on inside an Essiel, but now she had the whole textbook right in front of her. None of the specifics of it were recognizable, but the sight was familiar enough in the general: tubes and pipes, torn sheets of great glistening membranes, bulging sacs and a webwork of bluish capillaries. Fluids that were yellow or black or silvery, though surprisingly little actual spillage. She was trying desperately to be clinical about the whole thing.