*The dialog mentioned a pilot, Clemantine said. *Our pilot? The Apparatchik?
*No. When I hijacked the ship, I found a secondary mind, singular, and subordinate to the philosopher cells. It performed navigation functions when the cells were dormant, so the bridge translates its name as ‘the pilot.’
*You took over its role. You can steer the ship when the cells are dark.
*Sooth. I was able to co-opt an existing behavioral path. Same with the suggestion to go dark. I could have forced it, but I let the cells make the choice. That way, they’re prepared. They understand the strategy. When I wake them, they’ll be ready to fight.
*If it comes to a fight.
Until then, Dragon would be dark and—with luck—undetectable by whatever entity had engineered the beacon. Of course, there was a cost. With the cells dormant, he would lose their close oversight of the Near Vicinity. But he had access to other Chenzeme senses, and he had cameras and telescopes across the fleet. Dragon would not be blind.
In the library, Urban listened as Clemantine explained to Kona and Vytet what had transpired on the high bridge. She concluded, “The philosopher cells expect to come out of dormancy close to the source of the beacon, in position to launch an attack.”
“No,” Vytet said with a look of shock.
Kona turned his stern gaze on Urban. “That’s not what you mean to do?”
Clemantine answered him, sounding irritated, “Of course not. We’re not here to continue Chenzeme genocide.”
A blunt response that made Urban smile. He said, “Going dark is precautionary. I think the beacon marks something dangerous, something stronger than we are—or the Chenzeme would have already destroyed it. But there it is. That signal—bold, taunting. A lure. The bait in a trap to draw in the curious, the unwary.”
“Or maybe the genocidal?” Vytet suggested, her thoughtful gaze resting on Urban. “Maybe it’s aimed at Chenzeme ships. It would have pulled in this one, if not for your guidance.”
“Huh,” Urban grunted. “If that’s so, we’re a prime target.” He straightened his shoulders, looked around their small circle. “Our safest option is to stay dark, continue on, continue our own hunt, and hope it doesn’t notice us.”
Vytet’s avatar suddenly changed in appearance. She retained her light-blue skin tone, but her delicate features became bolder and more stark so that she presented the strong face of a mature woman. “We can’t just pass it by,” she said, her voice now a lower register. “We are here to learn, to discover. That’s the purpose of this voyage.”
Kona looked wary. “And it’s a dangerous choice to leave such an unknown behind us.”
Clemantine wasn’t fooled. A skeptical smile, her fine eyebrows raised: “Urban, when did you ever take the safest option?”
He turned his hands palm up. “I’m older and wiser now.”
She rolled her eyes.
“No, really,” he insisted with a laugh. “Here’s what I want to do. For now, we only watch and listen. Let time pass. If nothing changes, we’ll modify our course. We’ll still keep our distance from the beacon, but we’ll pass more closely than our current trajectory allows. And I’ll send an outrider ahead of us. I’ll take it in close, see what I can see—and hope we get data back.”
“You’re willing to risk another outrider?” Vytet asked.
“It’s better than risking Dragon.”
Kona said, “We should observe it for an extended time before we do anything. Fifty, sixty days at least.”
“Or longer,” Urban answered, amused that Kona could describe such a flicker of time as extended.
To Urban’s surprise, Vytet objected. “Why wait?” she demanded. “If we’re going to risk an outrider, let’s send it now—and we’ll know sooner what we’re facing.”
“Why take the risk of alerting it?” Urban countered. “We don’t know its capabilities. What if it senses the outrider’s reef? What if it extrapolates its trajectory back to us? Better to wait and watch and see if there’s anything we can learn before we risk revealing our presence. There’s time. We just need to be patient.”
At this, Clemantine drew back with a look of exaggerated surprise. “Older and wiser, you say? Maybe it’s true.”
Urban monitored the beacon. As time passed he realized his initial impression had been wrong. The signal was not an endless repetition of the same location data. There had to be, at minimum, some minor machine intelligence at work, capable of precise navigation, because at regular intervals the location data shifted slightly to compensate for relative motion measured against the four guide stars.
Interesting.
The telescope array failed to resolve an object but that meant little. The site was so far away that the beacon would have to be immense and radiating brightly to be seen.
He remained cautious, employing both cameras and telescopes in a constant survey of the Near Vicinity, alert for any sign of an incursion by a stealthed object. He detected none.
He adopted a machinelike patience and waited one hundred days.
Then he engaged the Pilot to plot a new heading, preparing to shift Dragon’s course as he had promised to do—though he left the actual task as an exercise for Clemantine.
For the first time, she took direct control of Dragon’s steerage engines and slowly, slowly, the massive ship slid onto a new trajectory.
Afterward, as he lay with her, adrift in her chamber, bathed in the shimmering light of wall-weed, he confessed, “I’ve been looking over the profiles of the archived ghosts.”
This drew a soft cynical laugh. “Found an old lover among them?”
“Is there one?” he wondered.
“Do your own research, son.”
He slid his fingers across the curve of her cheek. “Vytet wants to go with me to the beacon.”
“She’s planning to go,” Clemantine corrected.
“She’s an engineer.”
Clemantine turned her head to meet his gaze. “So?”
The outrider’s computational strata could support two ghosts, no more.
He said, “I don’t need an engineer. I need an anthropologist. If the beacon is inhabited, it could be an advantage to have an expert on hand.”
A noncommittal, “Hmm,” as her brows drew together, tiny wrinkles gathering between them.
“What?”
“I don’t think an anthropologist from the Well will be able to tell you anything about intelligent aliens, or about our own distant cousins who might have survived the collapse of the Hallowed Vasties. You’d do better to take me or Kona.”
“Someone who knows when to start shooting?”
“Yes.”
Urban nuzzled her small ear, kissed the gold iris tattoos on her ear lobe. “You hate to split your timeline, and besides, I’m going unarmed. We’re here to learn, to map what’s left, establish communications if we can. So I want someone who’s studied other cultures. Riffan Naja is my leading candidate.”
“The commander of Long Watch?”
“I’m thinking of waking him. He’s an anthropologist, has an interest in linguistics, he’s studied the Hallowed Vasties, and he was the first to ask to be part of this expedition.”
“You’re planning to do only a fly-by, right?”
“That’s the plan,” Urban agreed, “because I need to minimize the risk to the outrider. I don’t want to lose it.” But then he admitted, “Depending on what we find, the plan could change.”