Those other objects…
So far, no one had called them out directly. It was as if they were all in tacit agreement to discuss the most familiar objects first.
“Let’s get a projected position for the inner planet,” Vytet said.
A broad, bright crescent appeared, much larger and closer to the star than Tanjiri-2. The inner planet had been a gas giant in close orbit. If it still existed, it would have been clearly visible at the time the image was recorded.
“So it’s not there,” Pasha concluded.
Kona spoke up for the first time. Pasha had not noticed him before, standing in the shadows at the far end of the first row. “How the hell do you take apart a planet?”
Riffan answered from the back of the room. “Honestly, I hope we never figure that part out.”
This earned a low general chuckle.
“Still, it’s a question we have to ask,” Naresh said. “It’s gravity that holds a world together. Even if you could shatter a planet, gravity will pull most of the matter back—”
“But surely they manipulated gravity,” Shoran interrupted.
“Yes,” Vytet said. “There is no other explanation for it. They developed something as unexpected as the reef, only on a massive scale.”
A giddy laugh from Riffan. “Ah, but if we are going to entertain impossibilities then there are other explanations. Perhaps they’ve manipulated time, or opened seams between parallel universes, allowing disruptive forces to bleed through, or maybe they’ve folded the fabric of space to create brief tidal forces strong enough to tear worlds apart.”
Several seconds of silence followed this outburst. “Uh,” Riffan said, sounding deeply embarrassed. “I’m joking, of course.”
A scattering of laughter, but not from Pasha. She clenched an armrest, pondering the terrible possibility that some aspect of Riffan’s joking explanation was true. What had been done in Tanjiri System was so far beyond their own science it might as well be magic.
“We are resolved to trespass among the ruins of gods,” she said, not caring if anyone heard. Then she lifted her chin and spoke again, this time at good volume, determined to push the conversation forward. “Can we discuss the other objects?”
This request silenced the gathering for two full seconds. Then everyone started talking at once.
Aside from the occulted star and the now-double planet, the image showed a generous sprinkling of faint, widely scattered points of light that together defined a flattened ring like a halo encircling the star. Nearly all the points were outside the orbit of Tanjiri-2.
A few structures, shadowy but limned in light, could be seen among the points.
The structures were large. Immensely large. So large, they made Tanjiri-2 look small.
Pasha counted thirteen megastructures visible in the image, each with a unique shape and none with a neat design. They looked like wreckage, ruined fragments fused together in the kinetic chaos that had followed calamity. Some lay horizontal to the plane of the ecliptic, others towered above it, their silhouettes suggesting long, drawn-out conglomerations of curved panels, partial spheres, rods, stair-step beams, and broken discs. The glittering points of the halo sparkled around them.
One megastructure appeared to be crowned in a wisp of white mist. Pasha imagined atmosphere still bleeding out of a broken habitat… but centuries had passed since cataclysm. More likely, the gravity of the megastructure allowed it to hold on to a fog of fine dust or frozen molecules of air.
“Aren’t we still missing matter?” someone asked.
Another: “My thought too. Surely there is not sufficient matter in that halo to account for all the matter that must have been used in the cordon at its peak.”
Naresh said, “We’ll do the calculations, but I suspect you’re right.”
Hours later, Pasha emerged from the night-dark pavilion into real night. She felt giddy with excitement. Lifting her face to an artificial sky bright with projected stars, she twirled like a child, laughing.
Tarnya laughed with her. “It’s wonderful, isn’t it?” she said. “To know it’s not all dust, that something is out there.”
“I’m a horrible person,” Pasha confessed in a stage whisper. “What we saw in there was the shattered tomb of millions, billions, maybe more… but it’s amazing all the same.”
“The ruins of gods,” Tarnya teased. “Who knows what we’ll find there?”
Pasha pulled up abruptly, her ardor cooling. “If we go there.”
Tarnya frowned. “What do you mean?”
“The last time I checked, our course was set for a close pass of Tanjiri System, like the close pass Urban made at Deception Well.”
Both queried the library, confirming this. The fleet was not on course to enter the system.
“I think we were only waiting for confirmation that something is there,” Tarnya said, waving at someone. She looked at Pasha in apology. “I need to speak to Bituin.”
“Go ahead. We’ll meet later.”
People were leaving the pavilion in small groups, chattering and debating with each other. Pasha looked for Urban, but did not see him. Maybe he had left early.
She checked the personnel map. It showed him at the cottage he shared with Clemantine. She arrived there to find the gel door open, the living room glowing with soft light. Urban was inside, half-reclined on the sofa, watching her with an unnerving fixed stare as she crossed the patio. This annoyed her. She wondered what game he was playing.
But when she reached the threshold, she saw his eyes weren’t tracking her. His face looked vacant, giving her the unsettling impression that although his avatar was present, he was somewhere else.
But even if that was so, surely some part of his mind, or a submind, monitored what passed around him?
She called to him from the threshold. “Hello, Urban? Can we talk?”
To her relief, his eyes shifted at the sound of her voice. He sat up. His gaze focused on her, and a slight, cynical, lopsided smile appeared on his face.
He said, “You want to talk about Tanjiri, don’t you? Come on in.”
She straightened her shoulders and stepped inside, striving to present a strong, confident front. “You’ve seen the new imagery. We have to go there. This is why we came.”
His smile widened. “Is that what the ship’s company wants? Is there consensus on that?”
He was teasing her, payback for her criticism of him that first day. She answered in a neutral voice. “I think we were all too excited to discuss it.”
“Well, you’ve got time.”
That was true! There was so much time left to endure before they got there.
“It’ll take even longer than you’re expecting,” he said. “We’ll have to dump velocity as we get close. Go in slowly.”
“Understood. And we’ll need to take the time to carefully map every object. But it’s worth it, isn’t it? We’ll never know the truth if we limit ourselves to a fly-by, standing off at a distance that keeps us safe.”
“We’re not safe,” he reminded her.
She shrugged, unwilling to play word games. “I think we should spend time in this system. It’s why we came.”
Chapter
24
Urban’s ghost streamed in from the returning outrider, Elepaio. Rejoining with his core self, he possessed the memories of both timelines. He had been present when Griffin was captured, the outriders rebuilt, the gee deck finished, the ship’s company resurrected, and a consensus reached to keep Tanjiri as their first destination. He had also been present at the Rock when the marooned entity spoke to him. Both pasts equally real and already integrated into the totality of his experiences.