The Black Gate (The Messenger #11) - J.N. Chaney Page 0,73

is not the word I’d use to describe that happening to me,” Jexin muttered.

“Kristin, you were going somewhere with this,” Dash said.

“Oh, right. So all these data are being collected. The question I had is, what happens to it? Is it just stored onboard?”

Dash held back a sigh. He made a note to thank Conover again for tolerating Kristin’s quirks. The guy was unusually patient.

“And the answer to that question, Kristin?” Dash asked.

“The data is transmitted to a point about five hundred light-years away from your current location, in the transition zone between galactic and intergalactic space.”

“And just what the hell is there?” Dash asked. “Do we know?”

“At the moment, we do not,” Custodian replied. “That is well outside long scanner range for even the most distant of our surveillance drones.”

“Okay, well, sounds like a place we’re going to have to visit sometime soon. In the meantime, though, it looks like we’re done here.”

Dash heard no objections.

“We’ll head back. Sentinel, contact Lomas and tell her that we’re coming back with some important data. I want the League involved in decrypting and analyzing it.”

“Understood.”

“And what about this?” Leira asked, gesturing expansively around her. “Are we going to do anything about this ship?”

“Right now, it seems more of a curiosity than a threat. I’d like to harvest it for its Dark Metal, but—”

“You just don’t want to kill all those helpless creatures,” Amy said, grinning.

“You know what? You’re damned right I don’t,” Dash replied. “They never asked to be here, they’re stuck here, living their lives, generation after generation—so, yeah, I don’t want to see them all just die in space.”

“You old softy,” Leira said, offering Dash a fond smile through her faceplate.

As they made their way back to the opening in the hull, their mechs waiting outside it, Leira suddenly chuckled.

“What?” Dash asked.

“I think this is the first time we’ve ever come aboard an alien vessel and not either had to fight our way through it or escape from it just ahead of some horrible way to die.”

Dash watched another of the little bots scramble past. “True enough. Mind you, I hope you haven’t jinxed us, and we’re now going to find an army of something awful waiting for us. If we do, I’ll be holding you responsible.”

“Ooh. Are you going to punish me—”

She broke off, laughing, as an exaggerated sigh from Sentinel flooded the comm channel.

16

Dash crossed his arms, listening as Elois, the Rimworld League xenobiologist, finished her assessment of the data obtained from the Deeper Arkubator. It had been several days since Dash and the others had returned from their long trip into the black. It had taken that long to fully decrypt and translate all of the data.

“In short,” Elois said, “we’ve identified seven hundred and twelve different species aboard the . . . Arkubator? That’s really what it’s called?”

“It is,” Conover said, nodding.

“Okay. Well, seven hundred and twelve is the final count.”

“How many of them originate in the Milky Way?” Dash asked.

“As far as we can tell, none of them.”

Dash looked around the lab. He’d brought Leira, Conover, Harolyn, and Kai, but had left the rest of his Inner Circle back on the Forge. Lomas took the lead, and Dash was glad to see her bloom in the role. He’d decided to do all of this aboard the League’s orbital science station. Along with ensuring that League scientists, like Elois, were involved in all steps of researching the data, he hoped Lomas and her people got a clear message that Dash considered them full partners, allies in the making. Lomas herself had tried to move on from the disastrous defeat of her fleet, but Dash could tell her professional demeanor was a brittle shell over a person who was still very deeply hurt.

“Okay,” he said, “so we’ve got an ancient Deeper ship coasting through the big black, apparently one big experiment in controlled evolution. But none of the species involved come from our galaxy. So is this a threat?”

Kai shook his head. “I do not think so, Messenger. The Enemy of All Life may have accidentally done some good, by preserving life forms of such dizzying elegance.”

“Nothing they do is good,” Lomas snapped back. “They’re vicious, murderous monsters.”

Kai held up a hand. “I don’t dispute that. But even those determined to do the most evil can still do good things, even if inadvertently.”

“Why do you think this is a good thing, Kai?” Dash asked.

“Because they have preserved species that may have actually gone extinct. Many species will