Ornament is gone, but something else is out there,” Borden says, kicking off a ribbon, rotating around her abdominal axis to search what she can see of the sky. “Not the mover. Don’t see that anymore.”
We can barely make out a dim pair of gray fans, subtending several degrees of the big sky. Ship is either very close, or the fans are very large.
“That must be the transmitter,” Kumar says.
“What are those?” Borden asks.
Possibly even more surprising, smaller vessels have departed from our monster ship and move toward the gray fans. They’re too far away already and too small to make out details.
“Are those Antag ships?” Ishikawa asks.
“Don’t think so,” Borden says.
“This thing can make other ships?” Ishikawa asks, almost hopeful.
“No surprise,” Tak says. “They taught us how to build Spook and the centipedes, right?”
“Are they doing maintenance or dropping off supplies?” Jacobi asks.
“Maybe they’re delivering tapes for broadcast,” DJ says. Bilyk, who regards Ulyanova and Vera, when they’re around, as if they inhabit some sort of movable nightmare—friends he no longer knows—goggles at this.
“You still don’t get it, do you, man?” DJ chides him.
Bilyk shakes his head. “We are for movies?” he asks.
“Yeah, for movies,” DJ says.
“Anybody notice we’re no longer necessary for anything?” Ishida asks, her voice small. She’s keeping close to me, as if I can supply some sort of comfort, or at least a solid center.
I wish.
Kumar joins Borden and they almost touch the crowns of their heads as they spread out along a ribbon, trying to survey everything that can be seen—a long, narrow slice of sky way beyond the sun, the bridge of stars cutting across the slice, cold and steady—just the same as when we departed. Parallax nil despite our journey.
“When are we leaving to find the fighters?” Tak asks Joe as we move off from the ribbons, back to the cubbies.
Joe makes a face. “When we’re through with these fucking leaps and sleeps,” he said.
“We don’t make our own schedule?” Tak asks. “What if they move before we do?”
“You want to go blank, up against a monster?”
Tak kicks away, disgusted.