Once again, the lights activated automatically as they entered the structure, the three humans rudely shoved aside as the Kaihautu and his retinue forced their bulk into the enclosed space. The alien commander scanned the chamber, his eyes hooded and impenetrable, before focusing his attention on the rostrum at its center. As before, it glowed with faint luminescence as they approached.

“What is this object’s function?” he demanded, gesturing to the device.

Blye was reluctant to answer. Once she did as he wanted, there was no going back, unless by some miracle she could find a way out of this disaster. She had no idea how to manage that little trick, especially since their new overlord had shown his willingness to force her hand by slaughtering those she’d sworn to protect. She couldn’t just stand by and let that happen… which left her with only a single option if she truly wanted to stop them.

If she, Prash, and Amar were all dead, the Aggaaddub would never gain entrance.

But even as she weighed that option, she realized it was a lie. Even with the three of them out of the picture, there were plenty of other Terrans in the Perseus Arm, any of which could be forced to do their bidding if they captured them. Plus, they’d be coming at it cold, with no knowledge or background, making what was already a dismal chance of reversing their fortunes even more disheartening.

Death held no fear for her. She’d made her peace with that prospect long ago. But an empty death, one without meaning, one that did nothing to defend the lives of others, that was an exchange she was loath to make.

So, all that remained was to bide her time and pray she’d find some weakness in the Kaihautu’s armor. As clichéd as the maxim was... where there was life, there was hope. Stay in the game, and wait for your chance.

Grudgingly, Blye stepped forward. “The main structure lies far beneath us,” she explained. “This control activates the elevator that will take you there.”

The reptilian grunted in acknowledgment. “Then do so,” he ordered.

Prash and Amar both stared at her in disbelief. She hoped they’d understand, once she explained her reasoning to them, but for now, she had a mission to fulfill. Checking her pockets, she looked up at the towering alien. “I need a knife,” she told him.

“Why?” he demanded.

“Because the controls require a DNA trigger,” she informed him. “In other words… blood.”

For some reason, that seemed to amuse the Aggaaddub commander. Plucking a dagger from his waist, he handed it to her without comment, though he observed her closely while she held the naked blade. For a Terran, it was closer to a short sword than a knife, but the edge was sharp enough to do the job. A quick slash, before placing her bloody hand on the dais.

Once more, the elevator descended to the lower chamber, far below the surface. Some of the other reptiles looked about nervously, apprehensive in the face of this ancient and forbidding technology, but the Kaihautu merely waited patiently until they arrived at their destination. The darkened passageway loomed before them as Blye stepped off the platform, the lights in this primordial vestibule spontaneously coming to life as the party moved forward. That something as basic as lights still functioned perfectly after a billion years of neglect spoke volumes regarding the Precursors’ skills, though what lay ahead was even more impressive.

As they entered the final vault, or what she’d come to think of as the crypt, Kaihautu Yugha held up his hand and called for a halt. “What is this place?” he asked her, “what function does it serve?”

Blye bowed her head. “... it’s a computer,” she whispered.

He froze before slowly turning to face her. “And how much data does it possess?” he said carefully.

She saw the question for what it was, even as he asked it. The alien commander was planning something, something big, and wanted to know if he could find the answers he was searching for within. Blye had no idea what those plans were, but knew they spelled danger for not only her and those under her protection… but for the galaxy as well.

Keep playing for time, she reminded herself, it’s all you can do.

“I asked it the same question,” she said at last, “though I didn’t understand the response. A great deal is my best guess.”

“... then ask it the location of their homeworld,” he decided, as the other shoe dropped.

Blye winced as the question struck home. Of course he’d ask that; it was the same information she wanted to know more than anything. With a single query, he was threatening to cement the Troika’s hold on the Perseus Arm forever. As she gazed at the raised platform, its resemblance to a sarcophagus seemed even more pronounced.

Part of her wished it were.

The strange siren song seemed to pull at her once more as she stepped forward, climbing onto the platform and stretching out her limbs. She managed a brief glance at her fellow Knights, their faces filled with dread… for her, for the situation, for the helpless refugees now held hostage by the Troika. Blye managed a small nod, trying to reassure them, before settling in and closing her eyes, as the automated voice whispered in her ear once more:

… Connection Established.

This time it was easier navigating through the foggy landscape, as if she instinctually knew her way. The strange noises she’d heard during their first sojourn, she realized now were guiding her towards where the interface was located, almost as if by some form of echolocation. Had the Precursors used that to navigate? she wondered. She knew nothing about them; what they looked like, if there was any resemblance at all between them and Terrans. After a billion years of evolution, they could have looked like almost anything.

The plant-like tendrils awaited her, gently wafting in the breeze, and yet swaying and undulating by their own accord. They rose to greet her, like favored pets eager to welcome their mistress home. As they reached out to her, seeking to join her, Blye once again closed her eyes and opened her mind.

… USER RECOGNIZED. WELCOME, CHEVALIER DEUXIÈME BLYE TAGATA. AUXILIARY DATA ARCHIVE 17Ω-ALEPH9 ONLINE, AWAITING INPUT.

“Wait… you know my name and rank?” she said in shock.

AFFIRMATIVE.

“Okay… how do you know my name?” she insisted.

USER ID DATA WAS DOWNLOADED DURING INITIAL INTERFACE.

She recalled seeing her life play out before her very eyes… memories being downloaded. Under other circumstances, she would have been horrified and nauseated by the invasion of privacy, but Aleph… there was no way she was going to spit out that mouthful of a designation in her own mind… Aleph wasn’t a person. It was a machine, and while obviously a very smart machine, its lack of emotion or self-awareness made it an easier pill to swallow.

“I have a question I need to ask you,” she said unhappily. If there was any way to avoid this, she would have gladly taken it, but there was not. “I need to know the location of the Precursor homeworld.”

The answer came back immediately.

FILE NOT FOUND.

“What?” she exclaimed. “What do you mean, ‘File not found’?”

NO DATA IN MEMORY REGARDING “PRECURSOR”.

“It has to be a mistake!” she exclaimed. “They built you!”

AUXILIARY DATA ARCHIVE 17Ω-ALEPH9 WAS CREATED BY SPECIES HESED’EMEK.

Blye felt an overwhelming urge to smack herself. Of course they didn’t call themselves ‘Precursors’. “And these… Hesed’Emek… they're the ones who constructed and programmed you?”

AFFIRMATIVE.

A sudden thought struck her. “What did they look like?” she wondered aloud.

An image appeared inside her mind. A tall, slender, faintly blue-skinned humanoid, with large alien eyes and an imposing cranial structure, hairless, with a willowy grace that seemed strangely familiar. She gazed at her ancient ancestor, curious about what they had been like. “What would you have thought of your descendants, I wonder?” she murmured, when something caught her eye. Something about the way the figure was built abruptly clicked.

“Aleph... were they... amphibious?” she queried the ancient computer.

AFFIRMATIVE. THE HESED’EMEK EVOLVED TO THRIVE IN BOTH TERRESTRIAL AND AQUATIC ENVIRONMENTS.

That rocked her back on her heels. There were so many differences between them; had she met one in some port she would have called it an alien, and yet there was a shared kinship as well. The same general form to their bodies, sensory organs in the same places… in fact, she was willing to bet they were warm-blooded and bore live offspring as well.

Incredible.

But unfortunately, she hadn’t been sent here to dawdle. Blye hesitated to ask the question, giving the Aggaaddub the location of their homeworld was an unimaginable risk, though if that Sentinel was still keeping all visitors out, maybe it would solve her problem for her.

“Aleph, show me the location of the Hesed’Emek homeworld,” she asked reluctantly.

UNABLE TO COMPLY.

“What?” she said in surprise. “Why not?”

THE HESED’EMEK HOMEWORLD DOES NOT EXIST WITHIN THIS QUANTUM REALITY.

Blye shook her head, struggling to comprehend what it was saying. “Wait… so you're telling me they’re from another dimension?”

AFFIRMATIVE.

This was getting crazier by the moment. “Then how the hell did they wind up here?” she demanded.

SURVEY VESSEL “PATHFINDER” SUFFERED DAMAGE TO SHIP’S QUANTUM SLIPSTREAM DRIVE ON DATE ZED, POST DIASPORA, DURING INITIAL SURVEY OF QUANTUM REALITY F7629J-KL6631Z. SHIP AND CREW UNABLE TO RETURN TO POINT OF ORIGIN.

“You mean they were stranded here?” Blye said in shock.

AFFIRMATIVE.

“And they couldn’t call for help?”

COMMUNICATION BETWEEN QUANTUM REALITIES IS NOT POSSIBLE, WITHOUT ACCESS TO A BETQEDEM GATEWAY.

“And they didn’t have one of those, I’m guessing,” she said cynically.

AFFIRMATIVE.

“So they decided to what… make the best of it?” she speculated.

NEGATIVE. AFTER INITIAL ANALYSIS OF THEIR STATUS, PATHFINDER CREW COMMITTED ALL AVAILABLE RESOURCES TO CONSTRUCT A BETQEDEM GATEWAY.

“They built a gateway?” That didn’t make any sense. “Wouldn’t it have been easier to just repair their ship?”

NEGATIVE. NECESSARY ELEMENTS NONEXISTENT IN CURRENT QUANTUM REALITY.

“What do you mean, ‘Nonexistent’?” she demanded. “They couldn’t find any Element X in the entire galaxy?”

NEGATIVE. ELEMENT UNABLE TO EXIST IN CURRENT QUANTUM REALITY, DUE TO DIVERGENT PHYSICAL LAWS.

“Wait a second… just… hold up.” Blye was struggling to grasp everything Aleph was throwing at her. “You’re saying that the laws of reality in this universe are different than the ones where they’re from? How did their ship even get here then? Hell, why didn’t they all just drop dead when they arrived?”

QUANTUM SLIPSTREAM DRIVE SHIELDED FROM EFFECTS OF DIVERGENT QUANTUM REALITY PHYSICAL LAWS. DIVERGENT PHYSICAL LAWS DO NOT AFFECT STANDARD BARYONIC MATTER, ONLY EXOTIC TACHYONIC MASS.

“So, they could survive here, but not their engines,” she surmised. “If they wanted to go home, they’d have to build that gateway you mentioned.”

AFFIRMATIVE.

Blye just shook her head once more. “How long did that take?” she snorted.

CONSTRUCTION OF A BETQEDEM GATEWAY WAS ESTIMATED AT APPROXIMATELY ONE LOCAL COSMIC ROTATION.

“One cosmic…” Her voice trailed off as she struggled to translate that number into terms she understood. If Aleph meant the time it took for the Milky Way to make a complete orbit…

“... two hundred and fifty million years?” she all but shrieked.

CHRONOMETRY MEASUREMENT NOT RECOGNIZED. PLEASE RESTATE PARAMETERS.

“Never mind,” she shuddered. “Why would it take so long? Didn’t they have the schematics in their ship’s database?”

AFFIRMATIVE. SURVIVING CREW COMPLEMENT OF PATHFINDER LIMITED TO FIFTY-SEVEN INDIVIDUALS. ESTIMATED NUMBER REQUIRED TO RECREATE NECESSARY TECHNOLOGY AND LOCATE ESSENTIAL MATERIALS, 5.48 x 10⁷ ± 16%.

“Fifty-five million?” she screeched, before forcing herself to step back. “This is too much. I’ve gotta stop doing that,” she muttered, before trying again. “Okay, so they needed a lot of time and people to build the gate. They had to have a base, right? Some place where they could coordinate their efforts?”

AFFIRMATIVE.

“Great,” she sighed, “wonderful. And where is that located?”

HABITABLE PLANET DESIGNATED ‘THRESHOLD’, LOCATED 7329 ARCSECONDS DISTANT, -37.4823⁰ x +159.7612º FROM GALACTIC CENTER.

“I don’t suppose you can download that for me?” she asked hopefully. If she was forced to memorize that, it was going to take a while.

UNABLE TO COMPLY.

“Son of a…” she began, only to force herself to take a moment and regain her composure. “Okay, why can’t you download that data?” she asked in calmer tones.

AUXILIARY DATA ARCHIVE 17Ω-ALEPH9 DESIGNED TO INTERFACE SOLELY WITH COMPATIBLE BIOLOGICAL SPECIES. UNABLE TO INTERACT WITH MECHANICAL/ELECTRONIC DEVICES.

“Goddamnit!” she snarled. “You mean if I want to retain anything, I have to memorize it?”

AFFIRMATIVE.

“Wonderful,” she groaned. “The Precursors must have had a photographic memory.” Sadly, she didn’t possess one, which meant they'd have to do things the old-fashioned way. “All right Aleph, can you repeat the coordinates of Threshold over and over, until I tell you to stop?”

AFFIRMATIVE.

She took a deep mental breath. “Okay… start repeating,” she ordered.

Aleph obeyed her command. It took a few dozen repetitions before she was confident she’d retain the information; without something to tie it to, a random number sequence had to be one of the hardest things to commit to memory. She continued replaying it in her mind, even as she turned her attention to another, more important issue.

“Aleph, if I gave you the command, could you wipe your memory?” she asked. If an ancient computer no longer functioned, that was hardly her fault, right?

UNABLE TO COMPLY. MEMORY HARDWIRED TO SURVIVAL DIRECTIVE AZU-1.

Blye winced at the news. “I guess that means I can’t order you to self-terminate either,” she lamented.

NEGATIVE. SURVIVAL DIRECTIVE AZU-1 FORBIDS SELF-TERMINATION.

“... you have no idea how sorry I am to hear that.”

Blye’s eyes snapped open as she took stock of her surroundings. Prash and Amar were immediately at her side.

“Are you all right?” Prash asked her.

“... yeah… I’m okay,” she nodded wearily, swinging her feet back around so she could sit up.

Kaihautu Yugha shoved his way past the other Knights. “Did you learn the location of their homeworld?” he demanded.

She slowly nodded. “... for all the good it’s going to do you.”