was a weird feeling, seeing these alien artifacts from the inside. It felt as though she could extend herself into any of the gifts, becoming a part of them, mentally flexing here and there to examine and explore any aspect of the items contained within them. As her pov moved between the cracks in those spaces, she found that the gifts weren’t as clear-cut as they appeared from an outside perspective. The Surgery, for instance, revealed to her that it could construct another I-suit to replace the demonstration model that had been appropriated by Cleo Samson, Rasmussen’s mission supervisor. Furthermore, the dimensions of the I-suit could be customized to almost any setting. That raised possibilities Lucia found particularly exciting.
The more she explored the gifts, the more proficient she became at using them, effortlessly jumping between each of the spindles to further her understanding of the knowledge she found. Having examined a piece of art, for example, she could jump to the Library and find information on the species responsible for that piece of art, then cross-reference that information with star charts from the Map Room that would pinpoint the system or systems occupied by them. From there it would be just a quick trip to the Dry Dock where, had there been a hole ship available, she could have traveled to that system and witnessed the species firsthand.
That none of these species visited by the Spinners existed anymore, thanks to the Starfish, weighed heavily upon her after a while. It was depressing to think that so many lives, so many diverse cultures, had been wiped out forever. The longer she explored, the more depressed she became, until soon she felt totally exhausted and found herself needing to rest.
In no time at all, Lucia had returned to the confines of the Dark Room. With her mind expanded to the degree it was, it seemed as though an entire year had passed, when in truth it had only been a couple of hours—but she felt like an entirely different person than she had been at the start. She’d learned things, seen things, experienced things that had given her a new perspective on life. And yet she had still only touched the surface of everything within the gifts.
They were the most incredible things she’d ever seen, and she had managed to touch them. She alone had seen the awesome and beautiful mask the Gifts hid behind from their side. And it was a sight more wondrous than anything she could have imagined. The marvels of the Map Room rotated in her mind as she floated in the darkness, trying to absorb the information she had just accessed.
The gifts orbiting Sagarsee were the same as those deposited on all the other Earth-like worlds in Surveyed Space. It was a simple arrangement repeated on dozens of worlds. Only where physical conditions forbade it did the pattern vary. Around Hammon, where a dense cloud of orbiting rubble left over from a disintegrated moon posed a threat to geosyncronous orbits, the gifts adopted a rosette arrangement well out of danger. Sol had noted a different arrangement again in the system of Vega. There, the gifts had been built inside the core fragments of a disintegrated gas giant, where Frank Axford had built himself a sanctuary. And although these had been effectively hidden from view, the Starfish had still managed to root them out and destroy them.
That the gifts could be destroyed set Lucia’s mind spinning. They contained such a wealth of technology and knowledge; their very nature spoke of advancements far beyond anything Earth had ever achieved. Neither human engrams nor Yuhl/Goel had managed to damage one nor even get close to seeing how one worked. Yet the Starfish effortlessly reduced them to slag heaps, to clouds of energetic dust.
Humanity, she was beginning to understand, stood between the benevolence of one superpower and the destructive wrath of another. They were refugees in an incomprehensibly vast war, doing all they could just to
The more she explored the gifts, the more proficient she became at using them, effortlessly jumping between each of the spindles to further her understanding of the knowledge she found. Having examined a piece of art, for example, she could jump to the Library and find information on the species responsible for that piece of art, then cross-reference that information with star charts from the Map Room that would pinpoint the system or systems occupied by them. From there it would be just a quick trip to the Dry Dock where, had there been a hole ship available, she could have traveled to that system and witnessed the species firsthand.
That none of these species visited by the Spinners existed anymore, thanks to the Starfish, weighed heavily upon her after a while. It was depressing to think that so many lives, so many diverse cultures, had been wiped out forever. The longer she explored, the more depressed she became, until soon she felt totally exhausted and found herself needing to rest.
In no time at all, Lucia had returned to the confines of the Dark Room. With her mind expanded to the degree it was, it seemed as though an entire year had passed, when in truth it had only been a couple of hours—but she felt like an entirely different person than she had been at the start. She’d learned things, seen things, experienced things that had given her a new perspective on life. And yet she had still only touched the surface of everything within the gifts.
They were the most incredible things she’d ever seen, and she had managed to touch them. She alone had seen the awesome and beautiful mask the Gifts hid behind from their side. And it was a sight more wondrous than anything she could have imagined. The marvels of the Map Room rotated in her mind as she floated in the darkness, trying to absorb the information she had just accessed.
The gifts orbiting Sagarsee were the same as those deposited on all the other Earth-like worlds in Surveyed Space. It was a simple arrangement repeated on dozens of worlds. Only where physical conditions forbade it did the pattern vary. Around Hammon, where a dense cloud of orbiting rubble left over from a disintegrated moon posed a threat to geosyncronous orbits, the gifts adopted a rosette arrangement well out of danger. Sol had noted a different arrangement again in the system of Vega. There, the gifts had been built inside the core fragments of a disintegrated gas giant, where Frank Axford had built himself a sanctuary. And although these had been effectively hidden from view, the Starfish had still managed to root them out and destroy them.
That the gifts could be destroyed set Lucia’s mind spinning. They contained such a wealth of technology and knowledge; their very nature spoke of advancements far beyond anything Earth had ever achieved. Neither human engrams nor Yuhl/Goel had managed to damage one nor even get close to seeing how one worked. Yet the Starfish effortlessly reduced them to slag heaps, to clouds of energetic dust.
Humanity, she was beginning to understand, stood between the benevolence of one superpower and the destructive wrath of another. They were refugees in an incomprehensibly vast war, doing all they could just to
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