“Okay, so, what have you worked out?”
“I can tell you what the markings on the wall of the outer chamber mean. The Radiant Dragon did most of the pattern-matching analysis as you returned: the lines and symbols are a representation of the path you took through metaspace to reach the system. They're a map.”
“A map to a place that's only visible when you get there? That's crazy.”
“It might not be a map per se, so much as a stylized representation. Perhaps it was an approach warning system that lit up as ships followed the route through metaspace. That's obviously complete speculation. But the inference is clear: the route through Dead Space passed to me by Aefrid came originally from the builders of that construction.”
“Or they got it from someone older still.”
“I did think that the layout of the plinths might follow the same pattern, but they do not appear to. So far as I can tell they are scattered at random. Or perhaps with simply no concern for symmetry.”
“What do you make of the whole site? Is it an abandoned Concordance installation, or a target they attacked?”
“I'm not convinced Concordance were ever there. The dating is very unclear and there's no proof of their presence. Galactic history prior to Vulpis's Day Zero at the start of the Omnian War is too much of a closed book. That said, there are certain architectural similarities between the buildings you found and other Concordance structures – including, if I'm not mistaken, some of the Cathedral ships. But then, if this Depository is a Concordance artefact, it only adds to the mystery of how they achieved so much, became what they became, so quickly. Why they built this place and then why they abandoned it.”
“You must be able to get something from the images I captured.”
Ondo ran his hands through his hair, a gesture that meant he was struggling through some complex problem. “There's a mass of data here, but so far there's no context to it that I can work out, no order. It's like the objects on the plinths you found: each is fascinating in its own right, but I have no idea why they were laid out as they were. We simply don't understand the organising principles involved. I still hope to reveal something, but I'll need time.”
She sipped at the hot Korv to straighten out her mind, get her thoughts flowing. It was slowly having an effect. The artificial sphere of her brain, she noted, also started to function with more acuity. It was an emulation, the stimulant molecules in the drink could have no effect on her biomechanical components, but it was an impressive effect. “Perhaps it's random. If I went back, I might see different objects.”
“Hard to see the point of that.” His lack of sleep and his frustration was making him cranky. She was used to it.
“The cataloguing mechanism is broken,” she suggested. “Objects might be arranged by the Warden device, which is clearly not in good shape.”
“Perhaps.”
“What did you make of that moving object? The cross-shaped insectoid thing.”
“My best guess is that the stasis field on that particular plinth is malfunctioning, allowing time to flow once more. The creature or machine within is therefore able to resume its movement, which suggests the damage to the site must be relatively recent.”
“We should go back before the mechanisms deteriorate further, let you study those artefacts and the Warden close-up.”
He frowned. He'd clearly considered it. “At some point that may well be the logical step to take. I confess, I'm itching to go. But for now, there's too much I can learn from the data you recovered. We have to consider the risks of returning. Then there's the Dragon.”
“What about it?”
“The ship's systems appear to have suffered some impairment from the journey. I'm reluctant to risk further damage.”
She had the clear impression that his mind was only half on their conversation. He was talking to her but looking at the bead. She turned to leave.
“Oh,” he said to her back, “I meant to say. There is something I can tell you, some data that came in from the network while you were away.”
Ondo had a transgalactic communication network of his own. It was slow and flawed compared to Concordance's. The enemy appeared to be able to send messages to any system or ship with no latency, and Ondo, by contrast, had a swarm of several thousand metajump-capable drones that each ran a regular route around planets of known interest. They blinked into existence in each system, pulled in telemetry from the nanosensors previously left behind, then moved on. Periodically, their routes took them to a collection point in the dark of interstellar space where they, along with other drones, passed on what they'd learned to the next higher-up devices in the hierarchy. Slowly, data was accumulated until it could be brought to the Refuge. By then it might be weeks old, but it gave Ondo a comprehensive, if flawed, view of wider galactic events. He was always behind the curve but knew far more about what was going on than anyone else – apart from Concordance.
“What is it?”
“It's about Kane. You said you needed to understand what made him do what he did.”
She still needed answers, something to make sense of events on Maes Far. The slump of her father to the ice, the fan of spraying blood, played through her mind's eye one more time.
“Tell me.”
“I looked into his background. He came from a planet called Migdala on the periphery of the central mass. It happens to be a world I keep an eye on as a potential flashpoint. Some interesting information came in about it. There's been bubbling rebellion on the planet for some years, so far successfully suppressed by Concordance. They
