“She came out of the bulge without entering it.”
Rakesh said, “I see.” If that was true, it was worth a degree of notoriety.
“The inter-network traffic report from the node she’d claimed as her entry point finally reached the node where she’d emerged,” the messenger explained. “It took a while, because she’d told the truth when she’d said there’d been a temporary shortage of encryption keys linking the two. When that shortage was remedied and the two nodes compared data, it was clear that she’d lied about her origins.”
Parantham said, “Does that really mean she never went into the bulge? She might have entered at a different point, and the data just hadn’t been brought together for matching, the last you heard.”
“That wasn’t literally impossible when I left Darya-e-ghashang,” the messenger conceded, “but even then the remaining opportunities for that were slim. It’s widely believed now, around much of the western inner disk, that the Aloof created her: that they used their knowledge of all the unencrypted travelers they’ve been able to study over the millennia to manufacture a plausible citizen of the Amalgam, and then they sent her out to do, well. who knows what?”
“So where is she now?” Rakesh asked.
“Nobody knows. There is no record of her departing from the node where we met her.”
Rakesh laughed. He was not convinced that Lahl was anything but an ordinary traveler who preferred not to leave behind detailed records of her movements; perhaps her story about the synchronization clan had been a cover for something more complicated and nefarious. And even if she really was a messenger from the Aloof—whose lack of social skills might have led them to phrase their request for a “child of DNA” to investigate the meteor in this mildly dishonest fashion—was that anything to worry about?
“I’m glad that you decided to share this news with us,” Rakesh said, “but it’s not going to change our plans. I don’t approve of deceit, but Lahl’s basic message was genuine. Has Parantham told you about our discoveries?”
“Yes.”
“So what should we do? If the Aloof meant us harm, it’s already too late to prevent it, and the very fact that you’ve reached us to pass on these suspicions makes it seem even less likely that they do.”
“I didn’t come to warn you about the Aloof,” the messenger said. “I came to warn you about the Amalgam.”
“Oh.” Rakesh felt a real twinge of unease now.
“Unencrypted, unauthenticated travelers taking the short cut through the bulge have always done so at their own risk. It’s not just a question of what the Aloof might do with them; the receiving nodes on the other side of the bulge are actually under no obligation to embody, or re-route, unauthenticated data. Since the days of Leila and Jasim, and the first wave of excitement when they discovered the Aloof’s network, it’s been the common practice for the people of the inner disk to make exceptions for data taking the short cut. With rumors spreading that the Aloof aren’t dealing with us openly—that they’re manufacturing impostors and spitting them out into our networks, to act as spies and saboteurs—that easy-going policy is being questioned.”
Parantham said, “So when we’re finished here, and the time comes for us to leave—”
“It might not be as simple as you expected,” the messenger said. “The Amalgam might not be willing to take you back.”
14
“Thirty-three,” Roi counted, vigorously waving her back left leg, followed by her front left leg.
“THIRTY-THREE!” the hatchlings replied in unison, mimicking her actions precisely.
“Thirty-four.” Roi waved her back left leg, then her middle left.
“THIRTY-FOUR!” echoed the hatchlings.
“Thirty-five.” Back left leg once, then once again.
“THIRTY-FIVE!”
“Thirty-six.” Roi leaped off the floor as high as she could, struggling to wave her front right leg twice, clearly and distinctly, before she touched the ground again.
“THIRTY-SIX!” The hatchlings couldn’t jump as high as she had, but they were all nimble and energetic enough to repeat her gestures before they had even begun to descend.
Roi rolled over on to her back, exhausted. The hatchlings, of course, copied even this unintended flourish. They really were infuriating sometimes.
“I’m getting too old for this,” she rasped to Gul.
“You just need to spend less time at the Null Line.”
“Maybe.”
While she rested, Gul took over the class, pouring a fine colored powder on to the floor and scraping furrows in the shape of simple words. As Roi watched the hatchlings copy him, her tiredness and irritation faded. She knew it would be a joy to teach these children, to bring them to an understanding of the world.
It was also a daunting responsibility, but she believed she had grown better at the job. She had tutored seven groups of hatchlings so far, and from the last three groups she was sure that everyone had left her class with a clear understanding of the basic facts about the Splinter. They would carry that knowledge with them throughout their lives, and spread it among their team-mates.
The great tunnel that Bard had planned, to unbalance the force of the wind and drag the Splinter to safety, remained unbuilt. While Bard, Neth and a few dozen others continued to survey, and recruit, and try their best to explain the tunnel’s purpose to the people of the sardside whose factories, storerooms and grazing areas they wanted to turn to rubble, so far they had failed to recruit a workforce large enough to make a scratch in the rock, and the locals remained largely hostile to the whole idea. Roi couldn’t see the situation changing while the threat of the Splinter descending into an unstable orbit around the Hub remained an incomprehensible notion to most people. She suspected that it would take at least two generations for Zak’s vision to permeate the culture to the point where everyone could understand the danger, but at least she and Gul, and a dozen other teams, were nudging things in the right direction. Move the people, and the rock might follow.
The hatchlings completed tracing the words for “left” and “right” and began smoothing the powder into its blank state again, ready for the next word. Suddenly the weight changed, and Roi, Gul, hatchlings and powder were flung high into the chamber. An instant later, the Incandescence brightened, sixfold, thirty-six-fold, searing everything into invisibility.
Roi thought: This is the end. So soon. No warning, just death—
She struck the floor, right way up. After a moment she flexed her legs cautiously; she was sore from the impact, but she had not been injured. She heard the hatchlings mewling in distress beside her; still blinded, she instinctively chirped out words of comfort and reassurance. “Everything is fine! We’re safe! Don’t worry!”
As her vision began to return, she could see that the walls around her still bore an afterglow from the burst of light, a lingering radiance far stronger than anything she’d witnessed before, even at the garm-sharq edge. She could feel the rock creaking ominously beneath her. Was the Splinter about to be broken in two? Or was it on the verge of plummeting into the Hub? This was not how she’d imagined either disaster beginning. As far as she could judge, once the disturbance that had tossed them from the floor had passed the weight had returned to normal.
Gul limped over to her. “Any idea what’s happening?”
“None at all.”
“Do you think we should head sardwards?” That was one plan that had been mooted as a response to an impending division: head for the sardside, in the hope that the sardwards fragment of the Splinter would end up further from the Hub.