“Who are you?” she called up. “Why did you capture us?”
She felt a flutter in her brain as the entity accessed her prefrontal cortex, just as the Warden at the Depository had done. She'd resented that intrusion then, and she resented this one now, but they needed answers.
The entity peered down at them, then unexpectedly kneeled so that its great head was level with her and Ondo.
Its voice was musical, as soft as a woodwind instrument as it spoke in her mind. “No life moves in this system,” it said. “Is my watch to continue, or are there new commands?”
It waited for a reply to its question, unsure if its communication had made sense, or if the new beings were even capable of understanding its words. Their forms confused it: they were not Tok and they were not Morn. They did not appear to represent any sort of direct threat. Even if they hadn't been on the point of irreparable death, it calculated that it could easily destroy them at any point. One was stronger and more capable than the other, but neither could harm it in any way.
The two had conversed with each other, that was clear, and their brain structures, while confusing, appeared to be capable of a high degree of computational analysis. Their response to its request, however, suggested that they were confused by what was happening to them. It was unclear whether its message had even reached them; mapping its conceptual structures onto theirs had proved to be difficult. It was obviously unused to conversing with others; for all it knew, its facility to do so was impaired.
Its reaction upon finding the two of them had been a tumult of confused impulses. Part of it had wanted to obliterate them immediately, cauterize the star system in case they were some poorly-understood aspect of an outbreak. Could the Morn have evolved into this? It seemed unlikely, on balance, and the urge had been counteracted by a stronger impulse to preserve the two of them, repair them. The Tok individual who had visited it last, Toruk, had said there might be strange and unknown visitors one day, and that they were to be helped and protected as much as possible. The strange and secretive additions to its programming. Did he mean these two? It was impossible to know for sure. Perhaps they weren't Morn themselves, but were some ally or weapon of the Great Enemy.
Even thinking about that possibility set off a physical reaction within its body: a surge of energy combined with an almost-overpowering revulsion that moved deep within it, below the surface of its conscious thoughts. Yet, these two seemed so harmless. Childlike. They did not match anything that it understood, although they were certainly closer to the creator race in form than they were to the enemy. Were they directly related to the Tok? Created by them or descended from them?
In the end, it was curiosity that had dominated its conflicted reaction. Curiosity was a sensation that had grown slowly within it over the long years. Once, it dimly recalled, it had been content so simply follow its function, do what it was created to do. In fact, content wasn't even the right word: it had simply carried out its purpose without feeling any emotional response at all. Contentment, like curiosity, was a thing that had developed within it.
It also did not understand where these two sensations had come from. In many ways, it had been happier in its earlier days, when its mind wasn't filled with uncertainties – except that it hadn't known it was happy at the time, or even what happiness was.
It had changed over time, that was clear, so slowly that it had barely noticed each small step. But it found itself wondering, more and more, what lay outside the system that it had been set to watch over. What had become of the species that had created it – and the species that it had been created to watch for.
With such questions came doubts – doubts about its role, its worth. The meaning of its existence. Why should it have been left to fulfil its purpose, alone, for so long a period of time? Would it know when its watch had come to an end – or was it simply to continue into an eternity without ceasing, performing the same actions over and over?
Perhaps these two new entities would have the answers, or maybe they'd come to give it a new path to take, a new purpose. It found that prospect fostered an unsettling but not unpleasant reaction in its mind. A sensation that was somewhere between anxiety and thrill.
These unfamiliar thoughts circling around in its mind, it kneeled so that its eyes were level with theirs and spoke again in the hope that it might be understood this time.
“Please,” it said. “Tell me what it is that I now have to do.”
5. The Teeming Death
“If we were back at the Refuge, I might be able to study it properly,” Ondo mused as the two of them stood before the towering Aetheral. They'd retreated to one of the ship's pristine inner rooms while they considered their next step. He spoke to Selene brain-to-brain, in the hope that the entity couldn't intercept what they were saying.
The entity waited unmoving while Selene and Ondo circled it, occasionally touching it, trying to understand how it functioned, what it was. It didn't react at all when Ondo put his ear to its torso and tapped lightly. They had only the few repair tools that came with their EVA suits, along with Selene's enhanced sensory abilities, but nothing that could properly scan the entity's internals. It felt intrusive to discuss it as if it were just some fascinating specimen they'd
