“I'm not sure that's a risk I'd run.”
“The measures we take when we return to the Refuge. The approach protocols. You must have tried something similar on them. You must have attached nanosensors and bugs to their ships in the hope of tracking them through metaspace.”
“Many, many times. I've flooded every monitored system with probes, attempted to embed them into the structure of Cathedral ships and Void Walker vessels, but I've never heard a single response from any that jumped out-system. They clearly have protocols of their own, or else they use some bug-sweeping technology that defeats mine.”
“Either we chase this new lead, or we go back into Dead Space and attempt to find out more from the Depository, take some of those artefacts, study the reader device. We could interrogate the broken Warden entity and persuade it forcibly to give up its secrets.”
“I think the battlefield is our better option. There has to be a high risk of jumping into an ambush if we return quickly to the Depository system. We don't know that Concordance didn't spot you.”
“And the longer we delay, the more time we give Concordance to unleash another Maes Far.” It was an argument they'd had more than once. The problem was that they were both right in their own ways.
“We may only get once chance to fight them; we have to be sure we get it right,” said Ondo. “There's also the effect that the journey through Dead Space had on the Radiant Dragon. I monitored its profiles as you returned from Migdala; it does not appear to have recovered from the damage – I might even say trauma – of making the journey as fully as I thought it would. Did it report any system stress to you during the journey?”
“It remained as irritatingly implacable as ever.”
“I don't want to repeat the manoeuvre through Dead Space until we've properly understood the effect the last one had on the Dragon. My readings suggest that the impairment of its systems is something akin to psychological harm.”
“I carried out a full diagnostic as we waited to approach. It's fully functional.”
“Did you observe anything out of the ordinary in its behaviour at all?”
She considered. “A couple of moments when it stuttered, didn't respond instantly. Like, a shudder running through it. Then it carried on without trouble.”
Ondo considered. “I agree that the Dragon is operational for any normal run, but I don't want to expose it to Dead Space again so quickly.”
“Have you worked anything out about that blue star?”
“Nothing beyond the plain fact that it shouldn't exist. It was a red dwarf that has exhausted more of its hydrogen than is possible given the age of the universe. I have no idea how that happened.”
“Maybe your astrophysical model is wrong.”
“That's always a possibility, but this is the only such anomaly I've ever found.”
“Don't you want to go there and study it in detail?”
“Naturally, but I'm not convinced that will help right now. Despite what you may think, I am desperate to reach the end of the road and find some answers.”
“The thing I can't understand is why Concordance lets Migdala have its carnivals, why it allows open dissent in the streets. They obviously have the power to put a permanent stop to that.”
Ondo frowned as he concentrated on peeling a triangle of flesh from her left cheekbone. “The more answers we find, the more questions we uncover. We know they sometimes look for ways to maintain their grip without resorting to widespread slaughter, although that's hardly Godel's style. Even the shrouds: they're terrible weapons, of course, but wouldn't some overwhelming detonation be quicker and easier? Why don't Concordance deploy more shrouds if they want to send everyone flying through the sacred wormhole?”
“They want to draw events out, show the galaxy the slow horror.”
“I suppose that's all it is,” conceded Ondo.
“You think there's more to it.”
“I think we're witnessing factional infighting within Concordance. My suspicion is that Godel was despatched to Migdala as a warning to her, as much as anything. Primo Carious is no fool. Godel would no doubt have loved to have built a shroud or obliterated a continent or two, and I suspect Carious is exerting his control over her by stopping her from doing so. He's humiliating her.”
“She's not going to like that.”
“Which probably explains her overreaction at Senefore, when you were nearly killed. She will claim that she had no alternative when it came to restoring order.”
“If I were her, being whipped into line would only make me more determined.”
Her statement appeared to amuse Ondo, but he said nothing.
“Do you think she's a threat to Carious?” Selene asked.
“We simply don't know how a new leader emerges from among the First Augurs. We don't even know how many First Augurs there are, or how people become one. Publicly, they claim divine Omn appoints the person who is to be the new Primo, Omn's new interlocuter with mortal beings. I suspect that what actually happens is more mundane than that, possibly a lot bloodier than that. My guess is that Godel would go to any length to seize control of the galaxy, just as Carious did before her. But perhaps there are divisions there we can exploit.”
He stepped back to consider her features, relaying images from his eyes into her brain for her to see. Her face was back to normal. She reactivated her facial motor controls, flexed her jaw a few times to get everything working, then spoke out loud. “Tomorrow, I'll take the Dragon to this new system and see what I can find. Are you going to drop your research for a while and come?”
She knew what his answer would be without him needing to reply.
She translated into the system half a billion kilometres from its sun. She caught no metaspace signatures other than her own, no indication of recent Concordance activity. She set about seeding the system with monitoring devices. Spotting the remains of shattered starships, especially after
