Despite her concern, Freyr was actually very interested in seeing how this gambit panned out. Rothian AI technology was obviously very advanced, and she was the first to admit there was a learning opportunity here. “It doesn’t make me happy...but your plan could work. And it’s the best we have so far.” Freyr admitted. “Strap in. I’ll get you the schematics.”

---

The envoys tilted their heads and listened to what Rareth was saying. They chatted together, and then tried to replicate the words she kept repeating. “RAHJAH”. The slightly more cautious villagers soon followed suit, until the entire group were chanting the two syllables. Some of the envoys crept closer, arms stretched out as if to touch Rareth’s armour.

“Sorry to interrupt, but we have an insert queued from base. One Nirann, it seems. Want me to bring them in?” 595, who was acting as the floating resource within the fighting group, came over. She figured Rareth was slightly indisposed. “I’m surprised they haven’t sent more. That could mean they’re having issues too. I think we have things under control here, bring them through.”

Rareth tried to enunciate her name more clearly, but she was not going to dwell on that detail for too long. It was more important that she establish her intentions than that they get her name right. Her translator was still not returning results, but at least things were not going too badly. They had staved off violence so far. It certainly helped that they seemed to be closely related enough that they could look like they were of the same species. Rareth was a giant compared to them and wearing strange armor, but her face was at least familiar to them. To the villager who reached out to touch her, she offered her hand, palm down and with her fingers curled inward so as not to present the claws on her armored hand.

After a moment, Rareth glanced back towards her Human allies, mostly to signal to the villagers that she was speaking to her own companions, rather than them. “I don’t suppose we have anything that could be given as a gift, do we? Something that isn’t a gun? I think that might help signal our intentions.”

Nirann’s appearance was met with a few seconds of signal errors on half of his sensors, along with what felt an awful lot like a headache. Fortunately, a quick reboot of his body’s systems seemed to do the trick. Seeing as he was still not terribly familiar with the Human harnesses, they decided it was best to scan a body in, rather than try to program a new one. Less could go wrong that way. He had uploaded a copy of his neural network into the processor of one of the ship’s security droids. It was essentially a more militarized version of a police bot, so it was built in the form of a Rothian, though it lacked synthetic flesh. Rather, he had an armored outer shell consisting mostly of matte white metallic plates. To give him a bit of extra processing power, he had taken the processing unit on the computer he had appropriated and essentially shoved it into the droid’s storage compartment then quickly rigged it to be accessible to the unit’s internal network. It might not have been a conventional solution, but it would work. It came with enough extra storage space as well to give him a library of knowledge on ancient Rothian civilizations and customs, as well as the technical data the Humans elected to share.

Nirann’s eyes lit up with a soft blue glow once his optics came online. Although, he found himself far from impressed when he started to look around. Even after he switched to low-light vision, the whole area still seemed dark and bleak. Regardless, he did not stay distracted long. He spoke up as soon as he noticed the Human scientists near the transit station. “Okay, I’m here and…this place is weird. By the way, don’t send anyone else back through. The one you did send back…she didn’t look so good last I saw her. Something is going wrong with the transit station, or how it's interacting with this particular simulation, and we need to fix it.”

It did not take long for Nirann to scan the area around them, and with thermal sensors, his scan immediately revealed the crowd of villagers that had descended upon Rareth. “Also, wow, that’s a lot of heat sigs nearby. Is that, uh, something I need to be worrying about?”

Thebes thought for a moment. “Memnon, throw Rareth your knife. Best keep our distance to avoid spooking them.” Memnon wordlessly detached a long utility knife and it’s sheath from his breastplate. “Up high, Datius.” He crackled, chucking it in a perfect arc toward Rareth. “Athena, run circuits of the base. Make sure this isn't a diversion.” Thebes ordered next. The sniper nodded and left the shield wall to walk around the perimeter.

The transit station flashed again behind them as Nirann came in. The assembled Sim-Rothians, including the ones closely examining Rareth’s outstretched hand, instantly recoiled at the light, covering their eyes and squealing loudly. They recovered quickly though, and some of the braver individuals began shouting and pointing around Rareth to the Sacred Band and the camp. They sounded angry.

“Oh crumbs. Is Dr Dlamini alright? Yes. The simulation has been playing merry hell with our equipment. It seems divergence in source code between the Cradle and this place may be behind it... Ah, good! You’ve brought diagnostic tools and spares with you.” Dr Wetherall greeted the droid, eyeing up the carefully arranged piles of cases. He disabled the transit plate before stepping out and picking up bits from the pile.

595 addressed the droid’s other concerns. “Not yet, but the flash from the transit station is riling them up. Surely it’ll be attracting others too, we need to fix that as soon as possible.” Dr Wetherall interjected. “I think the flash is energy misuse. So not only are things coming in slightly crooked, but we’re lit up like the galaxy’s most invasive Christmas tree. Would someone help me move this stuff?”

The light was noticeably bright even to Rareth, but the locals seemed to particularly hate it. Given how dark and dreary this place was, it did not take much thought to figure out why. If they had been here long enough, they would have evolved for low-light conditions, and unlike Rareth’s ocular implants, their eyes could not block out sudden bursts of light.

In place of words, Rareth did her best to wear her emotions as openly as possible in her expression and body language. Many of those were instinctual among Rothians, so if she could not communicate ideas, she could at least communicate a feeling. She showed confusion and concern, then looked back towards the transit station and shouted back to her companions. “The locals really don’t like that light. Maybe try…modulating the shield generator to block energy in the visible spectrum? It will be a small uptick in power usage, but it shouldn’t amount to anything major.”

Rareth’s suggestion would cause the shield to become noticeably opaque, so hopefully that would indicate to the villagers that they had done something about the problem. Until then, Rareth had the knife that Memnon threw to her, and a gift like that could go a long way to convincing them their new guests’ intentions. For primitives like them, knives were common tools used in everyday life, so such a gift would likely be seen more along those lines than as a weapon. Rareth still was not completely sure who was the leader among the villagers, or if there even was one, but she recognized the one that had been most willing to approach her. She laid the knife, still in its sheath, across her palms and bowed her head and she extended her hands slowly forward to present her offering to them.

Nirann raised up his head slightly to try and peer over the ridge down towards the source of Rareth’s voice for a quick moment. “Locals? So you found intelligent life here? Exciting; let’s hope we can get this fixed quickly.” He commented to Dr. Wetherall as he started to assist with moving the equipment. “I brought diagnostic equipment, and also a mountain of data and technical manuals in my memory banks. I know I’m not your usual engineer, but I think we can handle this. I have a lot of reference data from your Cradle, as well as all the readings we’ve been taking from the outside. If we compare our readings, your readings, and the Cradle data as a reference point, we should be able to make the right adjustments to the transit station’s software.”

“Good idea! Lets go opaque.” Dr Wetherall pounced on Rareth’s suggestion. He grunted with exertion while putting the case of equipment down near the interface screen. With his hands now free, he started fiddling with the settings. After a few moments, the transit station effectively disappeared into the darkness for everyone outside the shield.

“Good, some privacy. Yes, your nimble fingers and sharp mind will doubtless come in handy. Pass me one of those holo-pads, would you old boy? Lets see what we can see.” 595 emerged from behind the shield and walked back to the Sacred Band.

She could see Simrothians (as she called them) crowding in close around Rareth again as she offered up the gift to them. Seizing the initiative, one of the larger in their group snatched the knife out of the Datius’ hands. The others jostled him, but he managed to get the knife out of its sheath and held it above his head for all to see.

The other Simrothians backed off slightly, making awed noises and studying the lofted blade. This sound turned to worried mewing when the Simrothian with the knife brought it down and levelled it at one of the other villagers in particular. The target put their hands out in front and began inching away. “Maybe we should take the knife away now.” 595 smirked.

Abruptly, a low BOOM filled the valley like rolling thunder. The ground beneath them shook, and alarm sounds bleated from behind the transit station shield and on the comms mast interface. The Simrothians all screamed as one and prostrated themselves on the floor. The Sacred Band all raised their weapons and took a dozen uniform steps back toward the camp, until 595 could practically touch Thebes’ light blue armour. “Datius - defensive position, now!” The agent barked, drawing her pistol.

"The mast is coming loose!" Dr Ngata shouted. "Grab it! Don't let it fall!" Dr Wetherall yelled.

Rareth shrugged her shoulders with a glance towards 595. “I think if these villagers really wanted to stab each other, they would do it with or without our knives.”

What proceeded was abrupt chaos. Between the thundering sound that echoed across the landscape and the shaking of the ground underneath them, Rareth had already drawn her fusion cannon from her back. She deployed her helmet quickly, then scanned her surroundings, both visually, and with every sensor her body possessed. Rareth started making her way up the hill back towards the others, but she did take note of how the locals behaved. “I’m beginning to think these villagers are not the biggest fish in this pond, to borrow one of your expressions. Look at how they submit themselves; they know what is coming.”

Meanwhile, inside the shield, Nirann raised up one hand and took a hold of the communications mast. Even among a veritable earthquake, his chosen body did not struggle to hold up its weight. While its main purpose was just to be a vessel for his mind, the droid was still a military model. “I got it!” Nirann shouted. “Would it really have hurt you people to make this thing more stable? Wider base? Maybe just make the whole thing a box? What if I just lay the thing down gently on its side? Does it really need to be standing straight up right now?”

“Everybody spread out. I want eyes all around the camp.” Thebes called, stepping backwards slightly more as the Sacred Band fanned out around the transit station. 595 stepped out from behind the team leader’s armour to watch the Simrothians. They lay as one quivering mass on the onyx ground. “What are they so afraid of that they don’t even try to run...” She murmured, looking out across the valley.

“I’ll take your observations on board but i don’t think we can make any design changes to the mast right this second.” Dr Wetherall grunted back at Nirann from the edge of the shield. The part of the mast protruding from it wobbled slightly. 595 could hear a faint hissing sound coming from nearby, growing louder despite the persistent rumble all around them. “The hillside is shifting!” Dr Ngata crackled. “I’m slipping!”

“Saddam, help them!” Thebes ordered. “On it, boss.” The sanguine coloured soldier peeled away from the perimeter and ran into the opaque shield. “There’s a heck of a lot of...something falling down the side of the valley this side.” Carthage called from her position next to Athena. “The earthquake must be causing a landslide. We need to move the mast, or it’s going to fall!” 595 realised. “Yes…please.” Dr Ngata groaned, from somewhere under the mast.

Just then, a deafening, synthetic sound overlaid with that of the shifting, rumbling ground. 595’s suit filtered it down to an acceptable level, but the Simrothians couldn’t. They covered their ears and ululated as a single entity. “What the fuck was that?” Memnon asked, cycling his heavy repeater so it was primed to fire at a moment’s notice. “Wait, shut the hell up and let us listen.” 595 commanded. A couple of seconds later, another different sound caused the Simrothians to wail even louder.

Nirann quickly got both hands onto the comms mast once the shaking started to get worse. A soldier came into the shield to help, which would hopefully be enough bodies to make sure nothing ended up broken. “Okay, yeah, let’s get this thing on the ground, gently. We can put it back up when the ground is less angry.”

Outside the shield, Rareth made it back up the hill and rejoined the others. Her neural implant had managed to fully adjust to the low-light conditions by mixing in ambient light from the non-visible spectrum, so she could see much better than at the start. Still, that did not reveal what was causing this disruption. “If they can’t run from it, I doubt we’ll escape either, unless we get the transit station up. So, we hold. Just be ready, but still don’t shoot until we know we are under attack.”

While they still had no true answers as to what was happening, the sounds Rareth heard did provide some hints. They were not natural; they were synthetic. From some electronic source, most likely. She supposed she did have to allow some uncertainty, as she did not truly know what kind of creatures might be found in a simulation, but it did imply something with more advanced technology than what these villagers had shown. It could be a genuine threat. Rareth had three firing modes to work with on her fusion cannon, plus the micro-missiles. She decided to leave it on its fully-automatic firing mode for now, as it was the most versatile.

“The Cradle never made noises like that.” 595 mused, consigning a quick note and audio recording to her classified internal black box. A particularly violent judder forced her to rebalance her footing. “How are we doing in there, fellas?”

Saddam crunched over and took a handhold on the comms mast next to Dr Ngata, just as the soil underneath the stocky scientist gave way. “Woooaahhhh take it!” Ngata roared, rapidly sinking up to his armpits in the black earth. A deep, v-shaped landslide opened up underneath him, sending a massive stream of material clattering down the side of the valley. Dr Ngata disappeared briefly, until his suit lights came on halfway down the valleyside, still moving fast to the bottom. “Tai! What’s happening?!” Dr Wetherall called from the opposite side. A crackling storm of white noise was the only reply.

Saddam locked into position as the mast tottered precariously on the edge of the landslide, with no Dr Ngata holding it upright. Servos whined in the supersoldier’s suit as he held one of the support feet as well as the mast itself. “Pull it down and towards you from the other side, i don’t have this for long.” He said to Nirann and the lead scientist. He could already feel the ground weakening beneath his feet. “Where is Dr Ngata?” Dr Wetherall asked; his line of sight was almost entirely blocked by the bulky mast. “He’ll be alright, just focus on moving this back from the edge.” Saddam urged both of them.

“Athena, get eyes on Dr Ngata!” Thebes ordered. “Yes sir.” the sniper confirmed, just as the ground abruptly stopped shaking. For a few moments, the only things to be heard was grunting over the shared channel by the people wrestling with the mast, and the frightened whimpering on the Simrothians. Then, one more deafening sound echoed around the valley, which 595 recorded, and a bright burst of light blinded 595’s night vision. She put her hands to her eyes while it adjusted. The Simrothians shoved their faces closer to the dirt.

When 595 took her hands away from her eyes after a couple of seconds, she was looking right at the source of light. Far away, a thin finger of white luminescence reached from the shoulder of a mountain, up into the dark sky. “Look.” She said, pointing to it. “There’s something over there, on that mountain. What's that at the source of the beam?” Gradually, the light dimmed until the surrounding mountain range was shrouded in gloom again, but the source was still clearly illuminated.

“Looks like some kind of structure!” 595 commented excitedly, zooming in as far as she could with her implants. “That has got to be what we came for.”

“I think you might be right.” Rareth remarked as she looked out into the distance. Whatever the source of the light and sounds, it was far more likely than the local villagers to actually give them meaningful answers about this place. They needed to act as quickly as they could, but nothing could be done until they dealt with the problems plaguing their transit station. She had been keeping track of what the scientists had been saying inside the shield, so she knew they were not in a position to move yet.

Nirann dug in his heels and pulled against the tug of gravity to try and keep the mast up on the ridge. He had unrestricted robotic strength in the body he was inhabiting, so he was certainly able to put in his fair share. They made slow progress at first, but after a few moments, everyone holding on to the mast would suddenly find that it felt much lighter. Rareth had moved into the shield and lent her muscle towards their combined efforts. Though, in truth, it felt like she might have been able to do it on her own. In any case, she did not allow time for rest once they had dragged the equipment to safety.

“We need to prioritize getting the transit station safely operational as quickly as possible. Nirann, how long will it be?” Rareth asked directly.

Nirann stood slightly hunched over with his hands on his knees, miming as if he was out of breath despite the fact that his body neither breathed nor fatigued. “I can’t say for sure, but I’ll start running the data through my processors to see if I can close the gap between the object’s programming and what the station expects.”

Still wasting no time, Rareth immediately opened the team’s comms channel to attempt to contact the junior Human scientist. “Dr. Ngata, do you need assistance, or can you make it back up on your own?”

The line crackled for a few moments. “I’m ok, i’m alright.” Dr Ngata replied eventually. His suit lights shone from a huge pile of debris at the bottom of the valley. The scientist got to his feet and looked around. “This earthquake will make it hard for me to get back up right now, though.” 595 frowned to herself. “But...the ground has stopped shaking up here, Doctor.” She sent. “I’ve got a big heat sig in the valley. Dr Ngata, watch out behind you!” Athena reported from the ridge’s edge. 595 ran to take a look.

Through the gloom, she could see a sinkhole opening one the other side of the valley. The earth disappeared in a huge, gaping maw full of small grinding teeth. Leg/arm appendages surrounded this mouth, wiggling in the fresh air. 595 could see three domes that looked like eyes too. This monstrous face rose into the air and faced them as a worm-like head emerged from the soil. A long, thick, ribbed body followed, twisting around several times into the air until 595’s suit measured the protruding height at some ninety three metres. Even with them standing on the valleyside and this thing at the bottom, it’s face looked down on them.

“Woah, hey there little guy.” Dr Ngata said, taking a step backwards.

It was times like this that Rareth most benefited from her training. As soon as the mast was moved to safety, she left she shield to see this heat signature. She was not influenced by her amazement, nor delayed by any uncertainty or doubt. She made swift judgments based simply upon the facts available. The creature had an unknown temperament with an unknown intelligence level. It was a titanic lifeform; if it existed in reality, it would be among the largest known individual creatures. Dr. Ngata, down at the bottom of the ridge, was also dangerously close to its point of emergence. Even if the creature did not directly pay attention to him, collateral damage was a distinct risk. Its mouthparts and large, front-facing eyes were consistent with a predatory nature, which further heightened the risk. Comparing what she could observe with the known abilities and equipment of herself and her allies, she judged that the beast could potentially be of some danger.

Rareth did not hesitate to run and put some distance between herself and the transit station, though she did not move towards the creature or Ngata. Rather, she moved perpendicular to the beast, along the top of the ridge. Once she was far enough away, she stopped in place, alone at the top of the ridge and far from cover or her allies. She spoke through their comms channel to inform the others of her plan, “Dr. Ngata, you are too close to the creature. I will draw its attention to me; everyone else, stay back. Ngata, try to move away from the creature quickly, but without being noticed.”

Rareth left few opportunities to argue with her plan, as she soon began shouting up at the massive lifeform. It was not unthinkable that even such a monstrous beast could still be intelligent, so for now, she did not do anything overtly threatening. Though, she did change the firing mode on her fusion cannon to a single-fire, high-explosive plasma burst, as well as marking potential weak points as targets for micro-missiles. “Are you intelligent? Can you understand my words, or at least that I am speaking to you? We have come here peacefully, but should you attack us, I will be forced to kill you.” She shouted. Of course, Rareth highly doubted that she would get anything even resembling an answer, but that was not the point. All she needed was its attention to give Ngata a chance to get away.

The Sacred band all turned to face the new threat. They didn’t relinquish their circular defensive position around the camp, but a few of the team shuffled slightly to gain an unobstructed sight picture. 595 glanced over at the Simrothians and found a few of them peeking out at the massive worm from behind their hands; all of them were still motionless on the floor. “These primitives, they’re hiding from the worm!” She realised out loud.

Ngata, who was a world-class xenobiologist, looked back up at the ridge. “Right! This thing might sense vibrations, nobody move!” But it was too late, for Rareth was already racing away from the camp; she’d already committed and couldn’t reasonably stop now, it seemed. The giant worm’s whole body quietly adjusted to watch the Datius speak, and after a few seconds a tight beam of sickly green light emitted from the beast’s larger eye. The area around Rareth lit up like a gruesome spotlight was trained on her. The Simrothians hissed quietly, sounding quite stressed, and buried their heads even deeper in the dirt.

“Carthage, get ready. Everyone else - don’t move a muscle.” Thebes cautioned, training his rifle at the worm’s head. Carthage slowly pulled a small tube from her back, which began assembling into a launcher. The silence was palpable. The worm was motionless; making no indication that it understood what Rareth had said. Until a deafening siren erupted in their private comms channel, making 595 jump out of her skin. A voice immediately followed, completely synthetic to begin with, but becoming more human with every word. It even sounded familiar in the last sentence, with the tone changing with each word. “Why are you here? Where have you come from?”

In this case, Rareth was glad to be wrong. Evidently, something had been examining their communications since they arrived, and it was finally getting around to translating them. Whichever language it had learned, Rareth’s translator could understand it, which meant she could respond. “We have come to investigate; to learn about this place and its inhabitants. We come from the physical world, outside this digital world. We came prepared to defend ourselves, but we have no intention to harm you. We have been inside another object like this one and have been attacked, but we would rather speak peacefully. We may be able to help each other.”

As soon as he had been able, Nirann had returned to work on the transit station. He did take a fraction of a second to further modulate the shield so that it would not block visible light coming from the outside. It allowed him to see what was happening outside, though anyone looking in would still only see blackness. If the titanic creature had it sights set on crushing their transit station, he would prefer to be able to see it ahead of time. In any case, the majority of the processing power in his frame were running analysis on two different data sets: one collected from outside the simulation, and the readings gathered inside. They were both being compared to Cradle data to identify the points at which the object’s internal language had diverged from the Cradle so he could make the necessary rewrites to the transit station’s code.

The amalgamated, curiously familiar voice responded immediately after Rareth had finished speaking. “You will stay with me, as honoured guests. The lights will guide your way.” The worm shifted to look at the brilliant speck on the mountainside some miles away. It then trained it’s luminous green lamp on the black shield covering the transit station and comms mast.

“This is not permitted. What is it?” The shield flickered and deactivated, revealing Nirann and Dr Wetherall working fervently together, equipment strewn all around them. Dr Wetherall looked up and around him, a hand raised to block out the harsh hunting light trained on them. "Oh...bugger." Dr Wetherall sighed, nudging Nirann, who appeared so engrossed in his work that he hadn't noticed.

Rareth answered quickly, but calmly. “If it would not normally be permitted, then I would like to ask your permission for an exception. I give you my word that it is of no threat to you. These are tools we need for our purpose here, to help learn about you and this place. There are a few here, with different functions. May I ask what you would not permit in this place, and what you would not want us to have? If there is something you would rather not be here, I can make sure we do not bring anything like it in the future. I feel that I should ask these sorts of questions now, before we go further, as I do not know your customs, and I do not want to accidentally offend you.” She explained, trying to be as diplomatic as possible, without either lying, or giving away too much at once. Most crucially, she wanted to learn more about this thing and what it expected of them.

Nirann had noticed the events unfolding around him, given the sensor suite in his frame, but it was true that he certainly did not act like it. “I know, I know. Just keep working and leave the giant worms to the giant worm experts. I think I might be close to some answers here.” He responded to the Human.

Intrusion alarms began wailing from both the comms mast and transit station. “Foreign access detected, commencing emergency shut down” An automated voice chirruped. “No, no, no, stop that!” Dr Wetherall shouted, running for an interface to frantically try and regain control. ”Parasites that use my power and break the sanctity of my ecumene are not permitted." The voice boomed in their heads.

Dr Wetherall slammed his holo-pad into a mount on the side of the transit station and pointed an accusatory finger at the beast. “Now you listen to me. I don’t care if you’re a giant worm, you don’t get to sniff my tech willy-nilly, alright? That’s not the way to make friends; I’m warning you. Turn our transit station and comms mast back on right now!” 595 held a consolatory hand up from where she stood transfixed, motioning the beetroot-faced scientist to be quiet. “Dr Wetherall, please! Let’s all just relax for a moment, okay? We don’t want to piss this thing off.”

“Yeah Richard, shut up!” Dr Ngata crackled, from down at the bottom of the valley, looking up at the titanic worm’s face as it studied the whole camp. “You will come and speak with me personally.” The voice intoned again, and the worm looked to the light in the distance once more, before returning it's gaze to the assembled interlopers.

Rareth would have interrupted the scientist, had 595 not already done so. An emotional, panicked response was far from what they needed at the moment. Fortunately, for most of the Humans, they were able to keep cool heads and maintain their composure. Rareth, as their de-facto spokeswoman so far, spoke back up in response to the entity. “So it is not allowed to use your power? I understand, I will make sure anything else we use, we can power ourselves. We will do as you say and come to speak to you in person. Do you want all of us to come to you, or may some of us remain here? I promise they will not use your power. I would like for them to send a message back to where we came from to explain what is happening. Otherwise, there are others back in the physical world that may disturb us before we have finished speaking.”

Nirann felt that he was on the same page as Rareth, as an idea had come to mind for him shortly after they lost power. Stepping up alongside Dr. Wetherall, Nirann placed a metal hand gently on his shoulder. “Calm down; we can deal with this. What are the exact power requirements for this thing again? This frame of mine has a pretty good fusion core inside it.” He said before establishing a connection with Wetherall’s holopad. “Just help me finish off this analysis. I still have all the data we’ve been collecting, so we shouldn’t need to turn it back on to write a patch. When it comes time, we can power our equipment here off of my fusion core, apply the patch, then we’ll have our way back home.”

“You will all come, quickly. No messages, not yet.” The voice replied. It was evening out now, becoming one musical, androgyous voice rather than a jumble of several. 595 jumped in. “We haven’t brought any methods of transport quicker than our feet. How far is that place?” She pointed to the spot of light. ”I am approximately thirty nine of your ‘kilometre’ measurement units away, following the best possible path. You must be vigilant.” The voice replied promptly, without elaborating. The agent followed up immediately. “Why must we be vigilant?”

“There are variables beyond my direct control.” 595 thought for a moment before asking another question. “Are you, the form looking at us right now, coming too?” There was a slight pause this time. “No. this one will stay here.” 595 shared an ominous look with Thebes and then Rareth. The agent signed something in between ‘I don’t understand’ and ‘I don’t like this’ using military sign language.

---

“An adroit suggestion, old boy! The transit station uses a lot, but we can probably make it work.” Dr Wetherall whispered to Nirann, having turned off his internal comms system in the hopes of gaining some privacy. He pulled up some schematics on another holopad and began cross-referencing power consumption with limits set by the fusion core.

Rareth too shared the unspoken concerns of the Humans, but she could “read the room”, as it were, and they had little choice but to play along for now. Even if they could kill this worm, it would ruin any chance of a peaceful resolution. This creature clearly had the power to attack them here and now, which, if anything, would be the safe option for it. If what it was saying was true, and they were going to meet it in person, then it would only be putting itself at greater risk. Hopefully, they would be able to reach some understanding with this being. Being able to question an intelligence from within the object could potentially teach them more in a few minutes than Humanity had learned about the Cradle in centuries. At least in terms of the objects’ functions and purpose.

“Very well; we will do as you ask and come speak to you. I take your words to mean that we may need to defend ourselves against anything that may attack us. We will be ready for it.” Rareth answered before turning back towards her allies. “Let’s get everything packed up here, then get moving. Try not to leave anything behind. I am getting the impression that we should not allow the local villagers to access anything of ours.” She said, gesturing towards the Simrothians.