do a gravitational survey in order to make sure they were on the right track. Everything had lined up relatively well—putting all the gravitational influences almost exactly where the Nataré data put them, accounting for the millennia that had passed since the Nest had been abandoned inside the Web—everything except their destination. Their treasure map’s X, the Cave of Wonders, did not have the gravitational influence the map insisted it should.
There should have been, at a minimum, a star system. But all they’d found was this small wandering rock.
How could that be? Had a collision or some other calamity displaced the mass the Nataré had noted? Did it mark something unnatural? A fleet of alien ships? The fleet the Nest had once belonged to, that had long ago vacated the parsec?
And if the map had meant to point to something other than the planemo, then that meant their time here would amount to little more than a geological side-trek, and the surface beneath her feet was of no more importance than any other. Nothing but a cold rock. Inconsequential. A cosmic red herring, steering them away from their true purpose.
What did that make her career, her department? Misguided? Overblown?
She remembered stories about Earth scientists losing all their funding and credibility in the search for Atlantis. There were even crackpots who’d said the Atlanteans were still alive, just hiding.
That wasn’t what she’d been doing all these years, was it? Searching for Atlanteans?
“Here looks like a good spot for the first post,” Aziz said, waving Ivan over.
They were triangulating spotlights this go-around, and setting up the perimeters of their dig site. They’d become exoarchaeologists soon—using ground-penetrating radar to check for buried evidence, shoveling aside layers of dirt and stone and ice not touched by so much as a breeze in this perpetually frozen nightland.
It wasn’t a job they were meant for, not in the same way other clones were destined for their positions after the DNA reevaluations on Earth, before Infinitum’s inception. Theirs was a small, hodgepodge group. Originally, study of the Nest and its contents had fallen solely to the engineers, but, in time, it became clear the convoy required a new department, one focused on the creatures, full of people who could decode the fundamentals of Nataré culture, biology, and data.
Clones had been siphoned from bioengineering positions, which included medical staff and food processing staff. Communications had given up a line or three, as had computing, education, and SD drive maintenance. And, of course, Caznal’s line had been taken from engineering.
Now, the copper-colored jumpsuits of the Nataré scholars were one of the rarest uniforms among the crew, second only to the server caretakers’ sand color on Hvmnd. They wore it as a point of pride. Caznal saw it as a symbol of evolution: the evolution of purpose, of understanding, of their focus and dedication.
When each of the three teams was set, Caz activated her puppeteer implants, calling to the autons.
Three of the robots emerged from the shuttle’s storage hatch, unfolding from their compact travel positions, with legs slung over their own dislocated shoulders. The autons were an Earth invention, humanoid in form, dexterous in movement, with tensile strength and lifting power far beyond any machine in existence when the convoy was first launched.
Caz couldn’t see them at this range, but she could see through their “eyes,” and they could sense the weak infrared signatures emanating from the humans. She directed one to aid each set of three.
They relied entirely on her instruction, with no will or executable programs of their own. Each auton’s sleek black helmet of a head contained an active neural network, which her implants communicated with. Theirs was a hybrid of human and elephant brain tissue, without its own sentience, but with the speed and nuance only biological computing was capable of.
Scratch that. I.C.C. could match brain banks for reasoning, intelligence, and empathy any day of the week. It was the only truly artificial intelligence currently known to humanity.
But I.C.C. was confined to its body—the convoy. It was of no help down here. Especially with no hands of its own.
She used the autons to work in mirrored tandem, each coring a hole for, and setting up, the spotlight poles. While she directed their labor, others packed up the core samples for testing on Holwarda, and drew a detailed guide-grid for the area.
Few people in the convoy currently knew how to manipulate the autons—especially with her level of skill. The robots weren’t needed on a daily basis, so most of the artificial forms were held in reserve on Bottomless II, with appropriate neural networks being cloned only a handful at a time. Eventually the time of the autons would come, when the convoy was ready to set to work on their Dyson Sphere, but for now, most remained on lockdown.
“Ready to start mapping the grid area,” Ivan announced when Caz was nearly done with the hard labor.
“Everything calibrated?” she asked.
“All’s a go, sir.”
“Then have at ’er.”
The last thing Caz would have to hook up was the generator. She retrieved it with the puppets, as Ivan and Aziz made a slow, straight path across the ice. The Nataré team had picked a two-by-two acre area as their starting point. On the next away mission they’d bring down more of their colleagues, who’d expand the perimeter while they got to work on the first dig site—provided the GPR found anything worth digging up.
“Okay everybody,” she called when her work was done. “Floodlights coming on in three, two, one.”
As the lights snapped on, revealing the glittering fractures in the debris-covered ice, her teammates took turns crying out theatrically at the loss of their night vision.
“Yeah, yeah, all right,” she laughed. “My eyes! The goggles do nothing!” She started to send the autons back—their job complete—when one caught a faint glint in the distance. It was a reflection too dim for human eyes to catch, brassy in color—very unlike the glimmer dancing off the ice.
Without a word, she sent the single auton to investigate. It bounded over the surface, sliding a little as it met the downward slope of a small crater, shards of stone tumbling around its mechanical feet. Then it was up the other side, and Caz focused one of its external lights on the curious spot.
It was definitely metallic, jutting up from the slight rim at an outward angle. It extended maybe a foot above the surface, perhaps the result of the impact itself—ore melting under the heat of friction, splashing upward and then cooling quickly as it encountered the frigidness of space. There were similar nodules around its base, all angled, these no more than a few centimeters in height.
But as the auton came upon them, she realized the cylindrical, if nonuniform, shape was familiar.
Could it—?
She hadn’t let herself hope—still didn’t want to. Fighting the thrill of anticipation, she ignored the weakness in her knees and tried to still her heart as it fluttered wildly.
It could be nothing. It’s probably nothing, she told herself as she jogged in the auton’s direction, only to settle into a walk. It took a lot of willpower to force herself to move slowly, deliberately attempting to look unbothered. No use drawing the others’ attention. Not unless it turned out to be something worth the diversion.
But Ivan noticed her shifting attention, saw her initial run off into the night.
“Sir?” he asked, pausing his trudge behind the GPR skiff as she moved past him.
She didn’t answer.
“Caz?” Aziz prompted. “Caznal, what—?”
The breathy echo in her helmet grew louder as she directed the auton to dig. She had to see, had to know right now.
The