Incandescence

The gene fragments they'd found in the rock gave some tantalizing hints of the kind of proof-of-metabolism signature that the parent world's atmosphere might contain, though as ever there were uncertainties; these rock-dwelling microbes didn't have to be typical, let alone dominant on the planet as a whole, fifty million years later.

Rakesh said, «We need to make direct observations of our own.» The workshop had facilities that would allow them to construct a reasonably powerful telescope, but they lacked the raw materials to make anything big enough to analyze a planetary atmosphere from hundreds or thousands of light years away. They would need to travel further; they had no choice.

The console's main menu did not include any category for travel. It occurred to Rakesh that Lahl had never explained to them precisely how she'd got the message through to her hosts that she'd spent as much time as she could with the meteor, and wanted to move on.

After exploring every option pertaining to the habitat itself — including the ability to remodel the bathroom on command — Parantham finally realized that selecting a star on the map enabled a sub-menu with the unassuming option «Go to star». Choosing this did not change the map's viewpoint or magnification; rather, it caused the map to inquire politely, «Are you sure you wish to travel to this star?»

Rakesh said, «No, we're not sure yet, but thank you for asking.»

Parantham said, «Travel how? By what method? How long will it take?» The map remained silent. She re-invoked the option and the map asked again if she was sure, but it remained unresponsive to her requests for details.

Rakesh said, «Try some more stars, see if the option's always present.» They worked their way through a hundred candidates. In every case, the map claimed to be able to take them there.

«Does this mean they're all on the network?» Parantham wondered. The eavesdroppers out in the disk had only succeeded in mapping a small part of the Aloof's network, near the edge of the bulge. The nodes there weren't closely aligned with particular stars, but the known ones were certainly spread more thinly than the stars themselves. If the Aloof really did have receivers at all of the places where the map said it could take them, then either this was the best-connected region in the galaxy, or they had receivers at every single star in the bulge, period.

Rakesh said, «I doubt it. More likely they've just automated the ability to add new nodes.» Out in the disk, getting a receiver built at a new location was a major endeavor. First, you needed permission from the custodians of the local material resources. Then you had to organize the logistics of sending spores to construct the receiver itself. The technology had been streamlined over the millennia — with the need for eavesdroppers to chase the spillage of the Aloof's data around the inner disk providing a substantial boost — but it still wasn't something you did casually, just by pointing at an obscure star on a map and leaving the rest to insentient software.

Parantham said, «I've often wondered if the network we've mapped isn't merely a kind of decoy, which they built to make us think we understood them better than we really do.»

«You mean, not at all?»

«We've been telling ourselves that they use the same general communications technology as we do. Gamma rays modulated with data packets. Encryption keys separately distributed. All very cozy and familiar, as if it were the only conceivable way.»

Rakesh couldn't argue with her skepticism. Convergent technology was one thing, but in the Age of Exploration travelers had been amazed by the myriad ways other civilizations had found to solve identical problems, at least as often as they'd been startled to find their own culture's inventions eerily mirrored. «You think they were the ones who eavesdropped on our network first, and then they decided to build an imitation of it, as a sop to our curiosity?»

«As a sop to our curiosity. As a honey pot to lure us in. I don't know about their motives. But it wouldn't surprise me if all the 'traffic' we've been seeing over the last three hundred millennia has just been gibberish, and the Aloof's real highways are completely invisible to us.»

Rakesh said, «I don't know if that's good news or bad. Do you think they're going to let us ride the real highway?» He was past the point of feeling vulnerable, but he couldn't decide if it was somehow demeaning, or simply exhilarating, to imagine being whisked across the light years by a process he didn't even understand.