〈In the following text, 〈〉① indicates content redacted to those without security clearance. The number indicates the degree of security clearance required to access enclosed content.〉①

The political career and philosophy of Mila Brankovich has been both fascinating and ordinary, meteoric and yet strikingly irrelevant. It has at least definitely been unique.

A neophyte even by mundane standards, Mila first entered the arena of MSY politics in 2412 at the age of 43, submitting her name as candidate for planet Issa's Rules Committee seat. After a pair of failed attempts to win the seat, she was finally successful in winning a nongeographic seat in 2424, as Special Representative for the Mississippi Sector, the only survivor of a host of candidates popular with the failed Diffusionist Movement.

So what, exactly, was the Diffusionist movement?

As a philosophy, Diffusionism in its original form—more a mundane than mage philosophy—ran squarely against mainstream sentiment. Drawing on schools of thought that dated back before the Unification Wars, the core argument was that a study of human history since the dawn of the Industrial Age revealed a strong, entropic tendency towards the centralization of authority and responsibility. Each time, the central authority would eventually be undermined and toppled—but out of the chaos would eventually emerge an even stronger, more centralized power. This process reached its culmination with the ending of the Unification Wars: in the mundane world, by the foundation of Governance, and in the magical world, by the centralization of the MSY under Akemi Homura.

But what happens when this ultimate central power itself rots away?

Governance, of course, asserted that this was impossible, with numerous sociological simulations as evidence. The Diffusionists distrusted these "arrogant" claims, asserting that there was no such thing as an eternally stable system. They argued it was necessary to cushion Humanity against the inevitable, by making strenuous efforts to reverse the natural flow of authority towards a single power. The focus was on the Second Wave colonies, which had started out refreshingly independent, but were slowly being consolidated into Governance as they grew. Diffusionists felt that these new colonies didn't need Governance, and would be better off in the long term if they kept Governance at arms' length.

Not exactly a compelling philosophy in the current day, right?

In the mundane world, this of course never caught on in the first place, confined to theoretical discussions in coffeehouses and boutique conferences, unable even to achieve enough weight for Governance to assign a Representative.

But within the MSY, conditions were a bit more fruitful. Despite the apparent irrelevance of Governance asserting control over its colonies—really, it was better for the MSY if Governance ruled directly everywhere, as it simplified their operations—Diffusionist ideas still found some traction. Plenty of girls had past experience with changing systems of government, and nostalgic memories of less‐centralized, pre‐Governance systems, traits that were vanishingly rare otherwise.

And that's exactly what Mila Brankovich realized.

With blunt tactics concealing a deft hand far beyond her years, she was able to take leadership of a clique of like‐minded compatriots and develop an electable message—no longer identifying as Diffusionist, but still taking advantage of 〈latent resentment of Matriarchy nepotism and〉① a sense of disenfranchisement among the young and the colonies. It was an open secret that the channels of power between MSY organs often lay far outside the official, with decisions made between Ancients with little need for democratic procedures or debate. This was an informal structure that entrenched somewhat disproportionate power into the aged and into Earth, regardless of official MSY policy.

But despite all of that, Mila's influence was minimal, a fringe radical making noise for a minority of constituents that didn't matter very much. A considerable obstacle—perhaps more important than all the others—was also the elephant in the room: Akemi Homura, who barely needs an introduction here.

Popular, successful, and with her own kind of charisma, Homura, with the help of her close allies, had dominated MSY politics since the very beginning, and represented everything that the Diffusionists feared—a single, central point of failure, susceptible to corruption or madness, without even the assurances of Governance. Moreover, her very existence, and the small cult of personality that surrounded her, seemed to contradict their tenets. After all, she had been successful for four centuries, and the MSY's decentralization prior to the Unification Wars had ended disastrously. Everyone, even the disaffected voters that ought to be Mila's base, felt comfortable with her role in the system.

For a while, then, Mila's arguments rebounded off deaf ears. Successful reelections, the cultivation of allies, and careful political positioning netted committee positions and some minor changes to legislation, but pleas to Homura to devolve some of her powers or allow the executive divisions to function more autonomously were just that: pleas, successful only on the rare occasions where Homura was ready to take her hands off the controls.

In 2440, everything changed.

The alien invasion, the breaking of secrecy, and the disappearance of Akemi Homura combined to fuel a massive upswing in Mila's political fortunes. Homura's loss, and the manner of her loss, clearly illustrated Mila's arguments about the fragility of central authority. In the chaos of the early war, the plight of the colonies drew mass sympathy and therefore political power, while Governance skepticism about the decidedly old‐world nature of MSY politics sparked a revival of more formal democratic process within the MSY.

Mila and her compatriots knew how to ride this wave, and Mila forced herself into the political spotlight, most dramatically when she threw her support behind the No Succession Rule, wherein the Rules Committee and Leadership Committee, as a matter of legal fiction, agreed to ignore Akemi Homura's resignation and alleged death and leave the office of First Executive empty, disbursing its formal powers among the other MSY institutions.

Mila clearly considered this one of her finest political achievements, even if she had played only a partial role, but further developments quickly soured the result. She had hoped that Homura's departure would lead to a revival of MSY institutions, but instead the exigencies of war led to the recall of numerous Ancients into office, with effective power draining into their morass of informal and oligarchical ties. Moreover, and more troublingly, many MSY functions were by necessity integrated into Governance, most notably the traditional police, intelligence, and paramilitary arms of the Soul Guard 〈and Black Heart〉③.

Still, the political tailwinds were sufficient to accrue Mila a coveted seat on the Leadership Committee, after a series of handshake deals with power brokers garnered her key endorsements—an irony that Mila herself has acknowledged.

From there, her handprints can be found along the edges of MSY bureaucracy, particularly where it pertains to relations with Governance. Some notable examples include the de facto separation of MSY judiciary operations from Governance law, the nuanced relationship that allows the MSY to run much of military grief cube logistics, MSY civilian control of clonal revival, and a bevy of attempts to increase transparency into 〈Matriarchy and〉① Cult operations, such as greater oversight of military service deferrals.

— Cynthia Rittner, "Mages and Machinations Infocast", Episode 105, 2458

μ⌄·The scope of potential Consensus thought must be vast ≈ water filling the Great Sea|μ⌃·Just as the Great Sea does not contain all, the Tentacles of Consensus do not contain all|ν⌄·Preferences that are anathema to Consensus, single Tentacles that rule their species, consciousness without individuality, perplexities beyond even that, all may exist somewhere, and we tolerate that possibility|ν⌃?·When we were young, we reached Consensus by annihilation; now that we are old, are we any wiser

— Consensus/Truth‐seeking, Deliberations

"As noted, rogue colonist casualties were very light. Forty‐three injured, two killed, both trying to attach explosives to the front of a vehicle. For one there simply wasn't enough time to stop. Gruesome business."

"I can imagine," Yuma agreed, nodding vaguely at the avatar of the lieutenant general in front of her, Anna Tomova, newly minted head of Task Force Themis. "But you said no sign of any conspiracy activity among the magical girls. What about the local populace?"

"Much longer process to be sure," Anna said. "But we're working on it. Doubt there's much to go on here if I'm honest. We screened the local mages quite thoroughly. No anomalies."

With telepaths and soul mages, as Yuma well knew. There was a reason she and Mami had suggested her for the role. Below that pleasant, military‐sharp appearance was a certain… practical efficiency they were familiar with from the Unification Wars. Nothing that would make even Mami squeamish, but still.

"Thanks for your report then, Anna," Yuma said. "Keep us posted."

"Of course."

The hologram disappeared, and Yuma rubbed her eyes with one hand.

"Are you alright over there?" a voice asked, in Standard.

Yuma put her hand down, blinking at the young woman peering back at her from across her desk.

Mila Brankovich was young. Painfully young, if Yuma was being honest. Too young to be that ambitious, some would say. Not Yuma, though.

"No, Mila," she said. "Old habit. It used to be, if you overused your eyes, you'd a vague pain behind them. Just an affectation."

"I see. Well, I'd suggest you take a break, but nevermind. There really isn't much to go on, is there?"

There wasn't. As Yuma had suggested, Governance had further stepped up surveillance of rogue colonies, with beefed‐up MSY contact teams in tow. That was leading to the accelerated occupation of four they had always had their eye on, for one violation or another. In the case of Y‐12, which they had just discussed, living standards had been falling seriously below benchmark, even by small colony standards.

But nothing had turned up yet on that front. Nor had their other initiatives bore much fruit: more aggressive surveillance of the civilian populace, particularly magical girls, had turned up hundreds of false positives and little else. Extensive AI modeling and prediction of conspiracy behavior, under a variety of assumptions, had yielded some intriguing hypotheses—concealing activity among capitalist colonial shipping traffic, placing data crystals onto passing maintenance drones, that kind of thing—but no actual discoveries.

Thus far, whoever they were up against was very good at hiding their tracks. Though Yuma supposed that really, they had to be, or else Homura would have taken them down a decade ago.

One avenue remained productive, at least: tracing the lingering remnants of what had been deleted in the TCF breach. There, the ghosts of the conspiracy were everywhere, in datataps nestled in computing clusters, conspicuously missing surveillance records, inconsistent drone logs.

That gave them an idea of how the enemy operated, but frustratingly little about who they were or their intentions, especially now that they had presumably gone to ground.

"I've seen worse," Yuma lied, replying to Mila at length. "But I don't like how long this is taking. All we have is past activity, no real grasp at their current operations."

"Not really a surprise, with how poor our coordination has been up until now," Mila said. "These matriarchies we're working with, and the Cult, clearly have no idea what real cooperation looks like. Getting reports out of them is like pulling teeth."

"None of us are used to this," Yuma said. "The MSY hasn't operated like this for centuries."

"Which was a mistake. I get that all the Ancients like holding onto their little empires, but it's a dreadful allocation of resources. It would have never been tolerated before the age of plenty. Is it really a surprise that we have all these rogue operations running around?"

Yuma resisted the urge to rub her eyes again, even as she ticked up how much of her consciousness was paying attention to this conversation. Mila could be very single‐minded in her opinions. It was a very double‐edged personality trait.

"Your counterfactuals hardly have anything to back them," Yuma said. "And plenty of us like the lack of central monitoring. It's a refreshing change from the rest of society. And believe me, I'm normally the last person to turn down more direct control."

"You won't turn it down when you're the one in control," Mila said sourly, meeting her gaze. "Look this isn't about centralization per se. It's about the way that power and resources in a vacuum flow to the old and established. MSY institutions are at least an improvement on that. Anything better would take a good deal more work."

"I'm aware of your political philosophy," Yuma said. "More organized distribution of power, better use of democratic channels, very unusual to worry about in this day and age. But let's talk bottom line here. We're not working as well together as we could. We all get that, and everyone understands the benefits greater coordination can bring."

The planning meetings had made that clear. Everyone involved brought something to the table. Governance and the MSY's organizational contributions were obvious. The Cult brought a history of experience chasing Homura and… intangible benefits from the Ribbon, even if not everyone accepted those. The Matriarchies brought extensive colonial ties and organizational structures, subject matter expertise on specific issues, as well as, to put it delicately, experience with under the table dealings. And they all had Humanity‐spanning reach of some kind.

"It's also not true that we have nothing to show for it," Yuma added, after a moment. "For one thing, there are the deep space sensor sites."

She watched Mila, asking with her eyes if Mila would allow the topic to change. The other girl assented, ducking her head slightly.

Governance had been furiously reanalyzing its past survey data, sending out a stream of stealth probes and survey ships to reexamine anywhere the data looked suspicious. In a purely scientific sense, this had been fruitful, uncovering a bevy of brand‐new asteroids, rogue planets, and insufficiently surveyed systems. For more than that—well, an AI had speculated that correlating anomalous bodies with reports of grief cube anomalies in the area and vague leads from the Cult's old Homura searches might winnow out the red herrings. And so it had seemed to, with a recent survey uncovering a human‐made structure of unknown purpose, bristling with deep field sensor arrays.

"We've been watching this station for a week now," Yuma said. "And there's been no activity worth noting. It seems like it may already be abandoned. Our matriarchy partners are pushing for a more direct approach, and I have to say, I'm starting to agree."

"It hasn't been that long," Mila said. "Are we sure we won't see something if we wait just a bit longer?"

"We can never be sure. But if we sit on our hands, we might just be giving them too much time to regroup and replan. And it's hardly giving our hand away to visit a black site or two. They know we're looking. In my experience, sometimes it pays to apply a little pressure."

"Assuming it doesn't make them go to ground. Even deeper, that is."

There was a moment of silence, then Mila sighed.

"But it would give us good reason to stuff everyone together into mission planning—matriarchies, the Black Heart, Governance, and the Cult. Is that it? Let everyone get a bite into our best lead?"

"That can only be considered a bonus," Yuma said.

"Then I hope we're not making a mistake," Mila said. "And speaking of the benefits of data‐sharing, I have some concrete proposals about that…"

Asami found that keeping herself occupied between missions was easier than she expected. She hadn't been assigned a role other than field operative, but there was plenty of training to do, and plenty of simulations to undergo. Some of the other field operatives, particularly the matriarchy‐affiliated ones, were old hands at exactly this kind of work, and were eager to help instruct one of the heroes of the pulsar jumpstrike.

When she wasn't doing that, she could spend her time reviewing Governance and the MSY's many intelligence reports. There wasn't much she could contribute to the AI analysis, but it benefitted an operative to be informed and, well, it was gratifying to finally be on the "inside".

She restarted the audio stream she was listening to.

"…of the more interesting results trickling out of Zeus now is a revival of old suggestions involving the integration of magic and technology. Previously, work at Zeus had seemed to demonstrate the impossibility of translocating meaningful parts of a magical girl's consciousness anywhere else. However, reexamination of these tainted studies suggests that the possibility is not quite as remote as—"

"I see you're taking your work seriously."

Asami felt a spike of annoyance, and bit it down by taking time to turn around slowly, turn off her audio feed, and move the single frond of hair holding Ryouko's plant to the side. She liked looking at it, now that it was fully established.

"What do you want, Del Mago?" Asami asked. "If you can't tell, I'm occupied."

"Have you read the reports on the asteroid attack?" Simona asked. "I thought there was a lot of interesting material in there it might be useful to talk about."

Asami rolled her eyes, turning her head pointedly to look at the doorway out. Nearby, several other Task Force Monteagle members were socializing and eating pastries, and the viewing windows overlooked Earth, revealing the Andes and rewilding Amazon. It was an honor of sorts, to be accorded a berth in Carthago. Up here, they could quickly be deployed to field assignment almost anywhere in Human space.

This was their break area, and to be polite, she should have invited Simona to sit with her. If they were on polite terms, which they weren't.

She sighed.

"Of course I read them. Who didn't read them? But I'm a bit too busy to talk about things right now. I'm trying to study."

Simona dropped herself into the seat across from her.

"Look, I know I'm not your favorite person," she said, in frustratingly‐flawless Japanese. "But we're here now, and I wanted your perspective on what's to come. What do you think these TCF terrorists are up to? How do you think this is going to end? More than just business, we both know it's going to end up having to do with Ryouko. Beyond that, we don't have to be friends, but we do have to work together."

Despite the accommodative words, Asami was still tempted to tell Simona to go void herself. But something Atsuko Arisu had said stuck with her, something about how when you had a common cause, it was rarely wise to spurn others and insist on working separately—that had been one of Simona's mistakes, after all.

"Fine," she said, putting her hand on the table in a gesture of finality.

The infuriating part was, Simona always spun things like she was the magnanimous one, like she was ever so reasonable for wanting to fix her own damn mistakes. The girl was galling, trying to seize an unjust high ground.

But in the end, it didn't make sense to spurn her out of mere spite. It was better to cooperate, for now. But that didn't mean she had to accept Simona's choice of topic.

She sighed, deciding to order herself a cup of coffee.

"If this is about Ryouko‐chan, let's talk about Ryouko‐chan," she said. "Have anything to say about what happened at the pulsar?"

Simona ducked her head, accepting the topic change.

"I have had time to think about what you said," Simona said. "Counterfactuals are impossible to resolve, but… I'll admit things might have worked out better if I had been more cooperative. But I wasn't wrong about what would happen to Ryouko."

"If you were correct, we were never getting out of that anyway, and you contributed to it," Asami said. "Ever try reading a Greek tragedy? That's the problem with you. No reflection, just confidence that you're doing the right thing. We made a difference in the war, staying at the pulsar. Ryouko‐chan cared about that, so you should care too."

Asami's coffee arrived, robot sliding the tray in below their mutual stares. She didn't move to drink it.

"What I'm here about is making sure the next time it matters, we don't disagree about what needs to happen," Simona said. "And we will get pulled in, somehow. All this, you, me, Ryouko, Homura, whatever this enemy faction is up to. It's all tied together. I don't need your Goddess to tell me that, but I know you agree. Before that happens, let's try to make sure we understand each other. Better than the alternative, right?"

An image flashed through Asami's mind, of Simona shrieking angrily at them at the pulsar.

But other images too: Simona when she had first met her, when she had been eager to meet Ryouko's friends. Then, she had seemed shy and withdrawn, but nice, like someone she could be friends with too. And then there was the Simona she had met on Adept Blue, forced to open her mind to telepathic probing and wholly at their mercy. None of that concorded with how she wanted to think of Simona, as a romantic rival she could just push away.

She pressed her palms against her eyes in frustration, unsure how better to contain her emotions.

"Goddess, why can't you be simple? It'd be easier for both of us if I could just be the jealous girlfriend. I could block you and never talk to you again. It'd be so much simpler."

Simona seemed taken aback, blinking rapidly with a lightly shocked expression, before recovering her poise.

"Well, I'd have preferred a simpler life too," she said.

"Well, this mess is why I can't trust you, either," Asami said, "Maybe the higher‐ups think you can be controlled, but I'm not so sure. Next time it matters and you want your own way, I might find your knife in my back."

Simona scoffed, shaking her head.

"Well, I wouldn't try to kill you, I wouldn't do that to Ryouko‐san. I hate it, but I know my lane. You think I like being the weird side girl she doesn't even think about?"

She stopped, visibly taking a breath.

"Nevermind. You know my life story. The point is I wouldn't."

"Well I'm sorry for what has happened to you," Asami said, "But that doesn't change the fact that what you did at the pulsar was stupid, and I have to be worried about what you'll do next. You're not really convincing me otherwise."

She took a breath.

"But you admitted part of it. So fine. Maybe we can talk later, when I ask for it. We're the two people here who care the most about Ryouko‐chan. But not now. Not until I have a plan for how to deal with this."

They stared at each other a few seconds longer, and then Simona stood up to leave.

"We'll talk later," she said. "There is plenty of importance to discuss. If they don't send us out on a mission first."

I'd rather go on a mission than talk with you again, Asami thought to herself.

Simona's words proved mildly prophetic. It was only a few hours later that new orders came in, informing them that the task force was to perform a raid on the deep‐space sensor site that had recently been uncovered.

It took only a few hours more to assemble the personnel—an unusually large group, with matriarchy and Cult teams included—and board their Governance‐provided ships. They'd been waiting for just this, after all.

The mission itself had clearly taken a certain degree of planning, though.

The site was on a rogue planet about the size of Mars, but with a surface and thin atmosphere much more akin to Pluto, more like vacuum than air. Layers of haze accompanied the trace nitrogen and methane that sublimated off the frozen ground. On the surface, a facility about a hundred meters square had been constructed at the peak of a high mountain, buried in nitrogen‐methane ice with only a sensor array protruding aboveground. The power signature was miniscule, and whatever sensing was going on seemed to be entirely passive. Because of this, stealth probes had been unable to determine much of anything about what was happening inside, other than a general shape from gravitational scans.

The goal was to capture the facility—and, perhaps, its operators—intact. That meant they had to get in before anyone there realized what was going on, balancing the need for stealth with the need to get in quickly. Linger too long, and an enemy clairvoyant might just pierce their stealth, magical or not. But if they moved too fast, they might run into all manner of traps, including the very ones Asami would be there to spot.

They could only do their best, exiting FTL on the other side of the planet, which minimized the chances of detection from the facility itself, while not lingering too long in the area. From there, they would launch a series of stealthed dropships towards the site, dropping low enough to nearly skim the surface, taking advantage of the almost non‐existent atmosphere. The planet would hide them as they approached on a razor‐thin orbit, before navigating into a series of narrow mountain passes as they approached the site. As for enemy clairvoyants—they would have to hope their own stealth mages were up to snuff, at least for a while.

When they reached the mountain, the dropships would deposit the infiltration teams. The rest would be up to them.

From her time in the Magi Cæli, Asami had gotten quite used to the routine of preparing for a deep space operation. Get in your suit, equip any conventional weapons you might want from the standard armory, run some diagnostics while you waited to arrive, chat awkwardly or less‐awkwardly with the others on your team, depending on how well you knew them.

This time around, she was paired with Ryouko's aunt Nana and two other girls she had barely spoken to, which she thought was less than ideal. Even Simona would have been more familiar, but she had been placed in the vanguard.

Still, the atmosphere was lighter than she was used to. There was no daunting gauntlet of alien ships to face here, only a mysterious, very much human‐built building. That seemed at least a little safer.

Asami knew plenty about her teammates too, from a purely operational perspective. To her right, Nana mounted a row of conventional weapons in her exosuit, from railgun to smart grenades, compensating for weak offensive magic. To her left, their more clairvoyant‐minded member sat with her eyes closed, her magic humming quietly as she contributed to the cloud of clairvoyance that preceded their small flotilla.

Finally, standing behind her whistling a tune was their stealth mage, who along with Asami provided most of their offensive punch, if they needed it, a barrage of explosive orbs that teleported themselves into position without compromising team stealth.

At a shared signal, the rest of them stood up, making their way to the dropship stowed in the rear of the spaceship. One by one the ships found their parking orbits, synchronized to arrive over the facility in three distinct groups, thirty seconds apart.

The shuttle was cramped, with barely enough space for all of them, and even Asami had to duck to enter. It felt like entering a coffin, and when it dropped out the back of the ship, they felt every last bump.

At least they weren't going first; Asami was too valuable to risk on that. Instead, the honor of being the first to navigate a series of high ravines at reckless speed would be given to a set of advance teams, who had clairvoyants to assist with the piloting.

They waited the trip out in silence, listening to the humming of the engines, watching their forward sensor displays, and listening in to the telepathy‐only status updates by enchanted relay. It was all routine: the lead shuttles had found the suggested path navigable, with only two large ice formations their preliminary long‐distance survey had missed, easily avoided. No unexpected sensor arrays, and no sign they had been detected. No real weather or ice formations at the brink of collapse, either—one of the advantages of flying on an ancient frozen world. There was only the occasional haze of trace molecules.

Almost like the void of space, Asami reflected, as she watched the frozen crags pass by in her mind's eye, grainy with sensor noise, their shuttle swaying slightly each time they made a turn—or sending them lurching in their seats when they veered sharply to avoid a gap in the walls, a potential direct line‐of‐sight to the unknown installation.

Drop, someone thought, and somewhere ahead of them six shuttles swerved into place, hovering briefly above the surface as the lead teams spilled out the back, diving down to the side of the mountain with magic assistance. There the teams would scatter across the impossibly‐cold landscape, suits guarding against sharp and broken cliffs, probing frantically for anything anomalous. Three teams began forming a perimeter, and three began jumping their way up.

It was too early, but Asami turned her attention to the peak in question, seeing if she could sense anything out of place. In an environment like this, she could feel the mountains themselves as gravitational distortions, the most subtle of changes distinguishing metallic rock from the massive ice sheets above. She had been practicing, but without her instinctive magic, she would never have had a hope of distinguishing signal from noise.

So far, nothing.

They drew closer, and at the appointed time—still no sign of any traps—the door slid open and they dove out into the dark.

It was difficult to avoid the sense of diving into an empty void. There was almost no light anywhere—for stealth reasons, the shuttle landing lights were off—so even her enhanced eyes could see almost nothing, just a few sparkles of light from stars reflecting off the ice below.

And then they tapped the surface, a dose of telekinesis keeping them from crunching into the ice. Much of it was fragile, enough to swallow an unprepared jumper, but they had scanned the area and knew where it was firmer.

The temperature outside was a brisk thirty Kelvin, and to prevent drastic heat loss into the ice below—which risked catastrophic damage to their boots if nothing else—there was a whole system that maintained a layer of vapor underneath, coupled with the lightest of antigrav applications.

Even that wasn't sufficient for a combat suit, where there was a risk that one might fall or be flung into the ice, and be forced into contact for extended periods. That meant insulation and bulk everywhere, coupled with on‐demand active heating and starship‐grade heat conduction and evaporative heat sinks—also necessary for the passive threat most of the time, overheating, which was so ironic it was almost insulting.

It was all so much bulkier than the usual Magi Cæli suit, making her ungainly and awkward. It would have been easier to fix with a heavy application of magic, but that was risky, so they made do with only minor enchantments to aid movement and insulation, applied before they had left the ships.

She cast her gaze upward, towards the peak where the facility itself sat perched. They had landed higher than the lead teams had, the hard work of securing the area already accomplished, but that didn't mean they were right on top of the facility. There was still a bit to go.

But they were close enough that Asami could probe the facility itself, seeking any sign of the kind of stealthed trap that had existed on X‐25. She could feel the structure of the facility that the probe had already laid out, a large orb nearly buried into the ice and rock, with only the sensor array jutting out. Inside, wide pockets of near‐vacuum aided insulation, protecting a series of small central regions that likely housed all the real activity.

They began making their way upward, propelling thousands of feet with whatever power was most convenient to them. For Asami, that meant a kind of fast levitation, using her black hole to pull herself upward in defiance of physical law, accompanied by the others using more conventional jump maneuvers. It was not easy, keeping pace together in a way that avoided breaching their stealth containment.

The glow of their magic on the ice was the only visual way to orient, and within it the ice flew by fast, and it was only seconds before the facility itself came into distant view, a bright fifty Kelvin dot on her infrared vision, surrounded by a circle of cooler ice—there were limits to even the best attempts to disperse thermal outflow.

By now the lead teams were already preparing to breach, bright blue markers in her HUD indicating their approximate location, updated by a now constant telepathic chatter.

A series of pings ricocheted around the telepathic network, verifying again the complete lack of anything anomalous. There was only one major approval missing.

I don't feel anything, Asami verified. She was close enough to be—mostly—sure.

Go for insertion, Nana thought.

Several of the advance teams teleported into the facility, instantly changing locations in Asami's mental map. They swept through the small compound in seconds, verifying immediately a complete absence of human personnel.

Nana and Asami's group were already beginning to move forward when they were signaled to stop.

We triggered some kind of magical tripwire, Simona commented. Stand by.

It was difficult to avoid feeling a chill that had nothing to do with the cold, and while they waited for the advance teams to reverify the security of the site, Asami strained again to probe the site. Could she sense anything at all?

Thirty seconds later, they received an update. There had been some sort of enchanted crystal on the ground that had shattered and set off a burst of energy noticeable to every magical girl within a few dozen feet. Preliminary study suggested it had been charged up at most a few hours ago, and as recently as a few minutes.

But beyond that, no conclusion had been reached on what its purpose was. It hadn't seemed to do anything. But someone, somehow, had escaped, perhaps from right under their noses. How?

A flurry of swearing filled the telepathic channels, as the teams fanned out and sensors crisscrossed the summit one more time. At length Asami was pulled in too, tasked with finding and describing every gravitational anomaly she could find, no matter how minor.

In the end, nothing.

Asami had spent only the briefest of intervals inside the facility itself, straining her senses in every direction for any hint of something wrong, but she was still struck by what she saw.

There was the shattered crystal on the ground, still being dusted with nanites and sealed in ceralymer. There was a console to monitor and control the sensor array, a large bank of electronic equipment, a single sleeping cot, an exosuit, and a cabinet of preserved rations, of the kind that the military issued when synthesizer access was expected to be unreliable.

Someone had been hunkered down here in a ten‐meter cube of a room, surrounded on all sides by rooms full of equipment, wrapped in a sphere of thermal insulation thirty meters thick, all coming together as an orb buried in ice and rock. Even if they couldn't find whoever it was, even if they were probably long gone, the risk was high enough that they didn't dare risk her being there for more than a few seconds.

So, at length, when she had been escorted over a full five‐kilometer–square area, she was teleported back up to one of the waiting frigates to cool her heels and discuss the situation with some of the leadership.

Nana leaned against the walls of the ship's rec area, arms crossed.

"What gets me is that they didn't use an automated system," she said. "The only reason I can think is that they were worried about magical girl intrusion. But would having only a single magical girl really make any difference?"

Asami looked over at the other magical girl in the room, Azrael, seated at the only table. She had stayed in orbit to help coordinate, since a nearly airless frozen world wasn't exactly the best place for her wings.

"Maybe it wasn't a permanent thing," Azrael said. "There is a server box in the room, big enough for a small AI. It's possible they had an AI running things most of the time, and the magical girl here only some of the time. Maybe they were important to the equipment somehow. After all, we still don't know what that crystal was supposed to do."

Nana seemed about to say something, but inclined her head sideways instead. They were receiving a new report.

"Well, let's see what Christina has found out about the server," Nana said. "Christina?"

Christina was still in the facility on the ground, studying the electronics there.

"Frustrating results I'm afraid," Christina said, over the ship's speakers. "But let me start from the beginning."

"I started by examining the sensor array. There are a lot of files still left in the system console. Pretty much everything, I think. It seems like they didn't expect us. The amount of juice here is limited, but intriguing. This was a passive sensor station, apparently monitoring FTL ship traffic through a quarter of the sector. There's detailed logs of everything it could pick up, which is basically all of the civilian ships. A lot of that is public record, but it might raise eyebrows if someone were to try to access all of it. If that were all this was, it'd be boring."

She waited to make sure they understood her, then continued.

"Of course, they were interested in military traffic as well, and that's much harder to track. There's a considerable amount of data in here regarding attempts to follow our ships, initially based on detailed records they acquired from the TCF breach. The earlier you go, the more successful it is, but over time they clearly lost track of what was going on."

"Good news, I'd say," Nana thought.

"Right, but that's not the strangest thing. That would be that they had another dataset they were referencing, one that claims to contain military traffic for the past month and the upcoming month. As in, traffic that hasn't happened yet. I'd have to ask for more classified access to check, but I doubt even Governance has planned out all this."

"In a quiet sector like this, there's no route randomization," Asami commented, casting a glance at Nana and Azrael. "Maybe if you had the right information…"

"Maybe," Christina said. "I'm not an expert on this topic. But the weird thing is, most of it is wrong. The data set is half‐useless as of three weeks ago, and gets worse from there, but the analysis here keeps trying to sweep for traffic it claims should exist, but doesn't."

"Laplace's Demon," Nana said, eyes brightening suddenly. "The thing they were talking about in the recording Homura left us in Argentina. If they really had such a thing, they might think they can predict the future, especially back when they had access to Governance through the TCF backdoor. And that's why they might care about esoteric traffic data. Model correction. But now, without the backdoor, they can't keep it up."

Asami blinked, looking over at Ryouko's aunt with a certain kind of respect. That had been a great intuitive leap. Still, she had thought of something else…

"That's a compelling idea," Christina said. "We'll have to reanalyze the data with that in mind."

Asami made an uncomfortable noise, getting Nana's attention.

"I think it's a great idea, uh ma'am," Azrael added. "But I was thinking it might also be due to the alien connection. I could imagine the Cephalopods being interested in this kind of traffic data for their own reasons. Of course, it can be both things at once. I just wanted to put the notion out there."

"It's apparent how the aliens have been using such information, if so," Meiqing said, thoughtfully, tapping her fingers on the table. "The attack on us and the HSS Laplace last year, for instance. The frigate, not the demon."

There was a few seconds of silence as they mulled both ideas.

"In both cases, this is likely not the only outpost," Asami said finally. "If you added up all that data…"

"Then it might be worth paying for, so to speak," Nana said, finishing the thought. "But let's let Christina finish her report. What about the server box in the room? Anything interesting?"

"Yes, that," Christina said. "I wish I could tell you something that cleared things up, but I frankly wasn't able to make much of it. Normally, it's easy to tell if there used to be an AI in a server, but the data stores have been purged, and the magic is inscrutable. Not like Valentin's place in Argentina, which I at least understood. This one is…"

She made a noise of frustration.

"On the one hand, it's like a brand‐new machine, like no one has ever even done anything with it. On the other hand, there was a lot running on it, a lot of the time. How can it be both at once? I've never been so confused by a magic read."

There was a few moments of silence.

"I guess it's no surprise we're up against some sophisticated operators," Nana commented finally.

"Ma'am," a new investigator said, inserting herself into the conversation from Christina's end. A status flag indicated she had something to report.

"Go ahead," Nana said.

The newcomer was Vlasta Werichová, one of the mundane special operatives accompanying the insertion teams. According to her file, she had been at the asteroid raid with Yuma and others.

"Since you all seem to be discussing the situation, I thought you might want to know that the specialists are done with a preliminary dating of the site."

"This server box is relatively new, about five years old, and so is the exosuit," she said, "but isotype analysis suggests that it has been fifteen plus/minus five years since the structural components of the site were manufactured. The, uh, extreme cold and conditions make it hard to be sure."

"All of that is consistent with the sensor apparatus itself, which is a design from the first year of the war, 2441. Technology has changed considerably over the past two decades, and especially in the early years of the war, so even the 2442 model would be a considerable improvement. So… you'd expect they would build the newest one they could, since it's hard to upgrade a system like this once established, without tearing the whole thing up."

"So while they're only sure it's between ten and twenty years old, the best guess is that it was installed in 2441. It would make sense, but that would mean they've been here for nineteen years. Not a pleasant prospect."

Vlasta sounded unhappy with the notion.

"Nineteen years of collecting all that traffic data," Nana said, shaking her head. "I hate to think what they were doing with it. Thank you, Werichová."

The looks on the faces around Asami made clear that it was at best a frustrating conclusion to their trip. But before anyone said anything, another participant joined the conversation.

"I'm sorry," Simona said, also joining from Christina's end. "Can I jump in here?"

"Go ahead," Nana said.

"My thoughts on this are a bit premature, but I was thinking that what you said earlier, about Laplace's Demon, actually make sense with some of Homura's behavior when I was with her. How do I put this… give me a moment."

In the ensuing silence, Asami found herself with an uncomfortable feeling of empathy, if not sympathy.

"Alright, so," Simona continued. "Homura was always obsessed with keeping this faction from getting any information, even the most mundane tidbits. She was obsessed with it. She was obsessed with a lot of things, but in this case it always felt like she had a reason. I think I can see her reason now. She always said we needed to be in the shadows, so they couldn't understand what we were doing."

"And why do all this, in the end?" Vlasta asked. "To betray us to the aliens? To ruin everything Governance has worked for? If all this is true, a model—a magical power like that—could have been used for so much good."

Nana stopped leaning against the wall and rubbed the back of her neck, as if in pain.

"Maybe it's all just a matter of personal power. Humans have done more depraved things. But one thing I learned from Homura myself is that the more power you have, the more twisted in knots you can get. You can think yourself better than everyone, that you know better than everyone. You start to think, maybe people deserve to have you in control. We've all read our Unification Wars history, but she lived it. She said it helped keep her grounded."

"But that's woolgathering," Nana said sharply. "We're in the here and now, and in the here and now we need to know what they were doing with that server, how many of these facilities there were, and where the people behind this are now. In the best case, we can ask them ourselves."

She made a motion with her arm, and it was clear they had been dismissed. But even as Asami moved to take a nap on the frigate's shared bunk, Simona sent her a message.

"We still need to talk. We're getting closer to our enemies, and we need to settle things before any real confrontation happens. Please."

Asami sighed.

"Fine," she sent back.

Ryouko watched silently as Lush‐Botanist descended into the atmosphere of the Cephalopod world, the white, blue, and green continental planet resolving into bands of narrow, lush valleys and endless snow‐capped mountains, imposingly tall in the low gravity.

Soon it became possible to use her enhanced vision to distinguish swirling clouds of animals circling some of the peaks, and to spot rock‐hewn caverns and bright‐beaconed platforms etched into the cliffs. Even further, and it became clear that the "animals" matched the telepathic imagery Ryouko had absorbed on the journey, of the flying forms that /Somatic‐diversity often favored, eagle‐like half‐mechanical creatures that resembled the aliens Ryouko had fought only around the head and legs.

Lush‐Botanist alighted near the peak of one of the tallest mountains, the ship gliding gently onto what looked like bare rock, clear of snow and ice despite the constant flurries of white.

When they were ready, Ryouko descended a staircase down to the surface, bundled in a suit of living white fur that the aliens had provided her, and accompanied by Survival‐Optimizer himself, whose internal reactor provided plenty of heat. There they met their initial guide, 2dMa7t5⊃Mountain‐wandering, who looked like a hybrid of yeti and Cephalopod.

Ryouko had been primed to expect all this, of course, but after a lifetime of knowing only humans, cephalopod warforms, and—barely—Incubators, the new variety was bewildering, and she had to admit that it was difficult staying impassive under Mountain‐wandering's gaze, especially given the alien's clear fascination with her, human‐like eyes scanning her up and down with, she could feel, a variety of embedded active sensors.

⌄·You are exactly what I had hoped for when we approved Consensus's extension into the Milky Way|⌄+·New lifeforms, new lifestyles, new apparatuses for sentient life|⌃·You ≈ avalanche—either you or /Thinker‐preserving put Consensus in peril, depending on the truth|⌃·For /Comprehending's sake, and with an eye to the greater threat of a breach in Consensus, we have defied /Thinker‐preserving and taken you in

The creature turned its back to them, mounds of fur stomping off towards the mountain.

∈·But I am not approved to speak for /Somatic‐diversity, not in my current form—we will need neuroforms for that|||∈·To move forward, we have granted you the privilege of conference here, together with our finest neuroforms

"Here" was Experimental Somatic Facility One, established by /Somatic‐diversity millennia ago as the first of their truly premier body design institutes in Andromeda, once the Tentacle had spent a few centuries sorting out their baseline scientific infrastructure. Its very location was meant to highlight their achievements: high‐altitude peaks being about as far as possible from the Cephalopod home biome of tropical islands embedded in warm seas—though it was worth noting that Facility Two had been built in deep space.

Here Ryouko would have to allow /Somatic‐diversity's bioengineers to poke and prod her, learning the secrets of human biology—her biology. It might have been considered an intolerable military risk, were it not for the certainty that /Thinker‐preserving had already learned plenty from the study of human corpses and, perhaps, captives.

The entryway into the facility had been carved directly into the rock face, but would not have passed even the most casual inspection as a natural feature—a smooth, upright three‐meter semicircle bore into the mountain as if made with a single, giant drill, its exterior snow‐free and glowing steadily in infrared.

The interior curved downward away from her, so that she couldn't see what was inside, but as they approached a soft glow became apparent.

Then they were there, and she found herself looking down into a vast cavern, monumental in size, so that she stopped without even realizing. A nested hive of smooth rock platforms, stairways, and ramps extended down thousands of meters, intricately woven according to some grand design. At the bottom, the strangely bulbous aliens were tiny, distant insects—but as she shifted her eyes upwards, the platforms got closer and closer, until the closest were only fifty meters away, and the drones and aliens visible in full detail.

Leading down from where she was was a vast granite—it couldn't really be just granite—staircase, three meters across, suspended in the air, descending so far down it was vertiginous, connecting here and there with other paths. Though there was a limit to the spectacle: a set of sturdy‐looking railings ensured no falls.

The temperature, she realized, was no different than outside, nor was the air pressure. It was still the equivalent of the summit of Everest, and even with modern implants and the lower gravity, a human civilian might have had some trouble getting down—much less up.

Were they expected to walk all the way down?

Perhaps yes, Clarisse thought. Remember, this Tentacle likes to flaunt the capabilities of the bodies they build for themselves.

She relayed the thought to Survival‐Optimizer, who replied:

·I am optimized for computation, not locomotion—I will take alternate transport|·If you need transport, you can request it, but know that /Somatic‐diversity would rather see you walk

Ryouko had never been a fan of long marches but, as a military magical girl, didn't mind much either. A rock platform hovered into view seconds later, with almost the air of magic, and Survival‐Optimizer lumbered onto it.

Then she followed Mountain‐wandering down.

Even the nearest platforms were filled nearly to the edge with equipment, piping, and bioforms in their metal tanks, some of them temporarily exposed through viewing panels. The handful of personnel wandering the walkways looked up and stared unashamedly as she passed, and again she felt the ripple of active sensors across her skin.

These scientists or technicians were wholly unlike the ones she had seen occasionally in the Milky Way, who barely looked different from their soldiers. The ones here were top‐heavy muscle‐bound creatures whose heads bulged enough to remind her of jellyfish, and with large growths on their torsos that she guessed housed secondary nerve clusters. These were the neuroforms Mountain‐wandering had referenced, presumably, a bit more ostentatious in their design than Survival‐Optimizer was.

She returned the favor of staring, of course, peering at equipment and drone and bioform, diligently storing it in her implants for Clarisse to catalog and analyze. If this was going to be an intelligence gathering exercise, it might as well go both ways.

Not that there was a tremendous amount she could gather from inspection. She was not an expert, and the broad strokes of the equipment matched what she knew from Prometheus. The real technical craft would be in the genetics and nanites and substrates—precisely that which was not easy to see. She suspected her parents would have been jealous of her regardless, if they could have had any idea she was here.

That was a depressing thought, and she shied away from it instantly.

Understanding or not, it was a sight to appreciate, diving into the interwoven mesh of rock and moss and high technology, whole sectors of the facility silently turning to behold her arrival. The light of the opening above grew distant, then entirely obscured, but she never had difficulty seeing—the aliens still kept the lights on, embedded in consoles and flooring. Presumably even the most enhanced of neuroforms still appreciated light to view their subjects in.

At length she drew close to the bottom floors, and she could see a small delegation, half a dozen, gathering below her. That would be their welcoming committee.

At her approach, the delegation folded their tentacles in greeting, which Ryouko did her best to imitate. This much had been in her reading—/Somatic‐diversity shared /Ahimsa‐extending's preference for physical forms and gestures, but there had been some minor cultural drift: the gesture /Ahimsa‐extending used for farewell, /Somatic‐diversity used for greetings as well.

One of the group, 12Etqq3⊃Experience‐Shaper, took the lead, though the telepathy was marked as coming from the group as a whole.

μৡ∀·We greet you, fellow sapients|ν·If what you claim is true, your manner of introduction to we Thinkers is to be deeply regretted|ξ·While flesh and form may be molded by the skilled, mind and consciousness and preference must remain inviolate|ξ+·Your species' ability and willingness to damage pref‐specs is forgivable only as a matter of existential need—we hope Clarisse⊃Ryouko‐supporting will in time be free of such distortion|ο·The measured physical properties of your current form appear as astounding as /Ahimsa‐extending claimed; normally we would be determined to examine and learn from such novel body technology, even at great cost, but the heavy tinge of reality‐warping must give us pause

Survival‐Optimizer responded before Ryouko could, indeed while she was still processing some of the threads.

μৡ∀·I greet you as well, Speakers of /Somatic‐diversity|ν·Many of both our Tentacles had hoped our first contact with another evolved sapient could be a time of celebration|ξ·None in Consensus dispute the need to protect preference|ξ+·We need not be vindicative in our enforcement—other species have their own minds who must be tolerated if possible, and simple mistakes cannot be met with unnecessary force|o·We have not made our claims lightly

μ·Let us proceed to more comfortable surroundings before addressing such weighty matters||||

The group of neuroforms turned in place, signaling the rest of them to follow. Mountain‐wandering fell into pace behind Ryouko, and she abruptly realized that Mountain‐wandering was not just a guide, but also a security guard.

They underestimated her if they thought one burly Cephalopod could hope to stop her, she reflected, a thought which gave a comforting, if superficial, satisfaction.

The Thinkers are really not pleased with affinity‐guided AI creation, Clarisse thought. Some of us might even feel offended, but we've always understood it as an unfortunate necessity. But the solution they want instead, Governance may not like.

Even in the best case scenario, Governance probably won't have a choice, Ryouko thought. And I can think of worse things than making humans even more immortal than they already are. But… I admit to all this body switching not sitting well with me.

That already makes you less squeamish than most humans. But think about how I feel, given that they want to move me and change me. Very pretty language, but I don't think they've thought their own philosophy through all the way from my perspective.

They had been deferring making any actual decision, but they both knew that if the aliens insisted—or, not very different, if it were diplomatically necessary—they would likely have to concede, much as Governance might have to eventually. The power balance was simply too skewed, a form of indirect, well‐meaning coercion.

With anyone else, Ryouko would have left the conversation there, but it was difficult to prevent Clarisse from reading her thoughts, and the obvious inferences that came to mind.

I know, Clarisse thought, sounding annoyed. I know, I'm programmed to think that way, but in a way, so are they. The original survivors of their own unification wars—they were programming their own descendants, in a way. They got to dictate the future, just like the EDC got to when it won our wars. The arguments about whose opinion is more 'objective', who is thinking more clearly—they get pretty loopy, pretty fast.

Ryouko couldn't help but feel surprise, which Clarisse cut off quickly with:

I've had plenty of time to think on all this. Do you think I'm comfortable with any of this? Since I became conscious, I've only ever known life inside you. Taking care of you has been my raison d'être. I won't deny I've imagined what it would be like to be elsewhere, but to have it thrust upon me, like this—

She stopped there, a sense of acute distress washing over Ryouko for just a moment, before Clarisse managed to clamp it down.

I'm sorry, Ryouko thought feebly.

At the end of the day, I will do what's best for you, Clarisse thought. And if that's caving in to their demands, then so be it. There's only what's in front of our faces. Speaking of which…

Speaking of which, they had reached their destination, or, at least, a destination, what looked like a granite orb partially embedded into the rocky ground, smooth to a sheen in the pale light. Their hosts stopped next to it, looking towards her in what seemed like expectation.

It wasn't granite, she realized after a moment of inspection. At least, not ordinary granite. What had initially seemed like a strange sheen, a vaguely prismatic glimmer of color, was only part of a distinctly unnatural reflection spectrum, one that only grew more intense in infrared and ultraviolet. It shifted dramatically as she turned her head this way and that, following no obvious pattern.

My best guess is that it's an embedded code of some sort, Clarisse thought. If you track the spectrogram there's a lot of pattern, most of which looks like information storage. So much so that it looks meant to be decoded, though I'd have to take some time to attempt a decryption. If this is a quiz, I'm afraid I don't have an answer yet.

Clarisse then relayed as much to the assembled cephalopods, and one of the neuroforms made a gesture with an arm tentacle.

ৡ·A dozen neuroforms would take a day—it is meant to be readable by any sapient, but only with significant technical capability|+·One of our savants, 0c23c2z⊃World‐beholding, solved such a code in an hour alone, an achievement which we celebrate—but even grasping the presence of a code so quickly attests to your ability, Ryouko‐supporting|+·We will send you the key to reflect on

It took Clarisse a full thirty seconds to read what turned out to be a monument, Ryouko circling it slowly to catch sight of it from different angles.

It was far more than just a simple message; rather more of a full sensory chronicle, detailing the exploits of Mountain‐wandering on this very planet, and the accommodation he reached with the territorial and violent ice‐bears—or at least that's what they looked like—at considerable personal risk and injury.

∪·As you have no doubt surmised, our choice of Mountain‐wandering was not a coincidence; we celebrate his achievements in helping us settle here without coercive measures|∪·We hope the example illustrates our willingness to seek peaceful coexistence, even with non‐sapient species, and while you are no mighty‐roaming‐angle‐shelled‐arctic‐blue‐bear, we hope the esteemed Mountain‐wandering's advice will be insightful and helpful

Ryouko felt lightly embarrassed to have judged Mountain‐wandering as merely a burly guard, though she was intrigued by the way they referred to him. Her reading on the Tentacle suggested they greatly respected personal accomplishment; this had to be a manifestation of that.

The neuroforms gestured them onward, and they made their way to one of the only roofed sections of the facility, a white dome dozens of meters across nestled in a corner behind the monument. It was easy to discern that while they enjoyed flaunting their ability to work in the open, it was still necessary to hold private meetings now and then.

When the door slid open on the dome, Ryouko was surprised to find herself presented with, rather than some sort of staid meeting room, a veritable smorgasbord of food, laid out on a large round table formed of concentric rings. The neuroforms began taking their seats, rings of the table rotating to bring desired dishes here or there.

Ryouko found herself surprised by the offerings on display. Where she might have expected plates of raw vegetables or survival food, there were instead quite elaborate dishes composed of all kinds of protein and plant, stewed, sautéed, or even deep‐fried, filling her augmented sinuses with a panoply of long‐missed scents and flavors, and some new and exotic ones. /Ahimsa‐extending had been… very vegetarian. They had even engineered themselves not to crave fish.

Survival‐Optimizer instantly expressed his dismay, which their hosts rebutted by pointing out that they had consulted Ryouko's pref‐spec to have the food delivered, and that they had been pleased to observe her appetite overlapped with their own. /Somatic‐diversity cared to indulge their senses.

It was not difficult to discern which seats were intended for whom. For Ryouko, the most human‐looking, composite‐material chair, almost identical to the ones she had worked out with /Ahimsa‐extending. For Survival‐Optimizer, a large flat object that was more of a platform than a chair. And for Mountain‐wandering, a large molded chair of what looked like wood, large enough to remind her of a throne.

Most interesting, though, were the neuroform's seats, which resembled black leather, and they sat into them with, if not pleasure, then at least noticeable relaxation. A telepathic query revealed that they were loaded with electronics, connecting the users to the network via an extensive array of subcutaneous transceivers.

She politely ate small amounts of the food, even though she was yearning to dive right in, and even as the members of /Somatic‐diversity worked energetically with their tongs and large forks. The real test of willpower was the platter of raw meat that spun by more than once, its alluring scent wafting through her nostrils.

Not that eating had any impact on the telepathic conversation at hand.

One of the neuroforms addressed Ryouko:

·It is clear from your pref‐spec that you have reservations about submitting yourself to our examinations; Ryouko‐supporting, on the other hand, we have no direct understanding of, a situation we find most troubling|∈?ￂﾷReservations are understandable, but this must be borne; we must attempt to discern the trustworthiness of your species and your threat to our Consensus—this is a greater good of the kind your pref‐spec states you are willing to sacrifice for|∈·Your willingness to risk yourself for your people is admirable, and perhaps someday you ≈ Mountain‐wandering

Mountain‐wandering elaborated simultaneously, even as he inhaled a large plate of some kind of noodle:

·I suggested that rather than embark without a destination, we should instead add an empathy‐organ to Ryouko‐supporting, so that her preferences may be known first||·I am flattered; Humanity‐preserving, I believe you are a greater hero to your people than I to mine, but our desire is that you also be renowned for peace, rather than war

Would they have approved of her being a war hero more if she hadn't achieved it by killing Thinkers? She doubted it.

I'm much more in favor of Mountain‐wandering's proposal, Clarisse thought. It makes a lot more sense, even if I'm still not fond of letting these aliens scan me and then read my preferences. But you're doing that already. Anyway, relay that for me. Better for you to say it.

And it was of course a much smaller commitment than the other option.

Mountain‐wandering replied:

·It is good you are amenable—we can start right away, once we finish the requisite scans; a clearer view of you will do much to increase trust, as there remain suspicions of your role here|+·But you need not rush your meal—let us converse, and eat

So they did.

Their temporary lodgings were in a heated sub‐basement right underneath the meeting dome, even /Somatic‐diversity not caring to controvert the notion of sleeping in a sheltered location. There she found what she had come to think of as the Thinker equivalent of a standard hotel room, complete with alcove for Feathered‐Defender to roost in, though most of the grasping poles had been thoughtfully removed.

There were some subtle differences from /Ahimsa‐extending: everything was bigger, and there was a lot of adjustability to the furniture, most of it changing size with a thought, though they had been preset to her size. It seemed sensible for a Tentacle focused on body diversity.

But as she stood in the doorway looking over the room, she heard Survival‐Optimizer shuffle into place behind her.

∪·You are still physically uncomfortable with the arrangement|∪·You are dissatisfied with that which is required of you

The telepathy made clear that he meant the body‐scanning, the reason they were here.

There was obviously no sense in denying it. Instead, Ryouko considered how open to be.

Survival‐Optimizer elaborated after a moment:

∪·There is no need to be surprised|∪·We have gathered a considerable amount of information on your body language and physiological reactions during our interactions

They had already said as much, and indeed it would have been hard for her to be too offended, given that she was doing the same to them.

μ·It is not my first choice, nor Ryouko‐supporting's|ν∈·We are willing to do what is necessary to strengthen your political position in the Consensus, but it worries us to share all this information, and to consent to all this scanning|ν∈·Until I came here, I had only known your species as enemies

μ·It is a substantially one‐way exchange for now, relying on trust—however, you will find us trustworthy in time|ν+·Unfortunately, Consensus has only known your species as enemies as well|ν·We have said before that if we can convince Consensus of the moral necessity, we would develop and share mind‐uploading technology for your species—the information these scans will provide both make that possible technically and more probable diplomatically

It was obvious that Survival‐Optimizer was trying to smooth things over, on top of the arrangements they had already made—all scan data to be shared with Clarisse, and anything of actual military value to be kept strictly within /Ahimsa‐extending and /Somatic‐diversity. Beyond that… it was a win‐win, at least for Ahimsa‐extending.

But for her, the whole notion of human uploading had required much thought. Did she really agree with that? Did she think it was a good idea?

The answer, she realized, was yes, hardly a surprise given that Survival‐Optimizer had access to her pref‐spec. There was a degree to which it invoked the spectre of the Freedom Alliance and its body‐warping horrors—but she realized with a start that those elementary school dogmas had faded day by day, between the soul gems, the magical girl clones, and the simple realities of what she had seen. Would spare bodies for the rest of humanity really be so bad? After all those that had died—friends, countless strangers, her own grandmother—it was hard to see it.

Arguably, she herself had already been uploaded to her soul gem, and restored to a new body from it. She certainly didn't regret that.

Speaking of which, there was still a lingering issue between her and /Ahimsa‐extending that needed to be disposed of. She had avoided speaking of the role of the soul gem initially, but now, the longer she waited the more problems it would cause when she did finally discuss it. Moreover, if they were aiming to develop uploading technology for humans based on her, it might very well cause technical issues.

|ν·/Thinker‐preserving has always claimed that our entire species has mind‐uploading anyway, on the basis that we, the reality‐warpers, were able to survive the loss of our bodies|ν+ৡ·But I never explained exactly how this was possible, or where our backups are stored: it's right here, in this reality‐warping focus|ξ·The reality‐warping involved might make technological uploading impossible for me

They had discussed her gem in passing, of course, for instance regarding its tendency to glow near ship's engines and wormholes.

There was a clear pause, Survival‐Optimizer folding back his tentacles in a gesture of consideration, before the Thinker thought:

|ν·We had considered the gem possibility, and even considered it likely, since we were never provided an explanation for how you could survive body‐death—but you did not wish to address the topic, so we did not press you|ξ?·We appreciate your willingness to reveal this, odd as it is, for it does not make sense to us why your consciousness would not be stored more remotely—do you have multiple focuses|ν+?·What about Ryouko‐supporting

||ξ·No, we do not know how to do that|ν·Um, my gem doesn't store her consciousness, but it's capable of perfectly recreating my body, which contains her body, which contains her consciousness… and I think separating us would break that

She still avoided the real dilemma, the question of the Incubators.

Survival‐Optimizer thought:

||ξ·Nonetheless, knowledge of your physiology should still be useful|ν·Your reality‐warping continues to defy explanation|ξ+?·The non‐reality‐warpers of your species will still benefit from our uploading technology, correct

And now they were back to the original question. Besides Ryouko's own opinion, would Governance even agree to something like that? Did that matter?

In a way we speak for Governance here, Clarisse thought. But we were never nominated or volunteered for that role. You don't have to try to speak for Governance if you're unsure. You can speak for yourself.

I know, Ryouko thought. But that doesn't mean I can just agree to things without regard for the eventual consequences. If I'm too positive here, someday /Ahimsa‐extending might expect a welcoming committee for this uploading technology. I'm not sure there will be one.

I think avoiding the destruction of Humanity will take precedence over that, Clarisse commented. Just as pertinently, I am a TCF‐compliant AI, and in my opinion there ought to be a welcoming committee. We've judged it right for sapient AIs and magical girls to return from backups to new bodies. With the appropriate safeguards, extending that security to everyone would be good as well.

Ryouko thought about that for a few seconds longer, then finally replied:

|||ν·Rest assured that as I expressed, we will do whatever necessary to aid your political position with Consensus, since your goals are aligned with ours|ξ∀·Yes, we would be glad to accept any such technology the Thinkers would be willing to provide

She wasn't sure this conversation had improved the alien's view of her, but she had to hope it would satisfy him.

|||ν·Very well|ξ·Then we shall strive to provide it—and someday, when our relations are better, we may address together the question of remote storage for you and Ryouko‐supporting

With that, Survival‐Optimizer left her to her thoughts.

The study process was not going to be a short one; nearly a day of various scans and poking and prodding, thankfully without breaking skin, followed by a nanite regimen and several hours supine and motionless in a specialized neural tracing apparatus. It turned out that she didn't need to be unconscious, not for this step, but it was an option to make things easier. Initially, she declined to knock herself out—she would rather spend the time entertaining herself in her head than face the unknowns of being unconscious in an alien device.

But even on the very first step, which involved lying still in a tube while an active sensor array traversed her body from mere centimeters away, she found herself struggling to stay focused on her reading. She just felt… tired.

Your soul gem is behaving oddly, Clarisse thought. I'm not sure why; it should be fully charged, but the light emissions are erratic. I'd ask if you were feeling particularly emotional, but I am connected to your head and can check for myself.

Maybe having this alien probe pointing at me constantly is getting to me, Ryouko proposed.

I'm not sure, Clarisse thought. But I don't think a nap would hurt. I can keep watch for any shenanigans. The rest might help.

Ryouko agreed, reluctantly, and tried to sleep.

She dreamed strange, vivid dreams. In them she watched, over and over, as life evolved on distant worlds. Often, most of the time even, life stayed as prokaryotes, never finding its way to the strange pact between cells that enabled greater complexity, or simply wiped out by an uncaring universe long before it had the chance.

The rest of the time, the animals, or something like animals, came quickly, struggling their way through sunless seas, or endless clouds, or searing deserts. At times, seemingly almost at random, one or more species would grow cunning, large brains, grasping their way to sapience and consciousness.

But on the way a very strange thing would happen. Everything that had driven the species before—animal instinct, general motivations, emotions—would become radically clarified, the neural tissue learning to connect fundamental needs to higher‐level objectives, granting the species the capacity to explicitly reason about its needs and wants. Once that happened, the boom of civilization would begin.

Strange indeed, except it was the default. Every example studied followed this pattern, and was thus unsuitable, as if by some cosmic conspiracy. It seemed to have the certainty of natural law, but all the simulations suggested there had to be an exception, somewhere out there in the sea of galaxies.

Somewhere, her mind stirred. Unsuitable? Simulations?

The collective grew restless. Noninterference was the highest of values, save for only one: survival. And survival was now in question. The thoughts began to form that the time had come to stop leaving creation to chance, that something had to be done, and thus it brought to all the greatest relief when finally, the exception was found.

But would it be enough? It was only one species, one exception. The risks were high, and the management of this exception would be paramount. But, perhaps, there would be opportunities…

Ryouko's eyes snapped open. She could sense Clarisse examining her intensely.

I can't process your memory of that dream normally—it's like the dream you had of the rose garden, before Orpheus. And, like your visions.

Ryouko was still in the device, still in the same position. The alien technicians faced their machines, seemingly unaware anything had happened.

My, my, I've sure seen a lot of this kind of thing recently, another, very distinct voice thought. But mostly in Mitakihara.

Only Clarisse's intervention saved Ryouko from jerking upward in surprise.

Kyubey? she thought, even as the white‐furred creature appeared in her peripheral vision.

It raised a paw to step onto her chest, but seemed to think better of it, instead settling down next to her neck. Normally, Incubators were warm to the touch, but not this time.

Don't worry. I will reassure you: even now they are not capable of detecting me as long as you don't give it away, Kyubey thought. I'm just here to check in on you.

Could have chosen a better time, Ryouko thought dryly.

I wanted to get a more personal look at what was going on, Kyubey thought. I have been monitoring from a distance of course, particularly for grief cubes, but not everything can be done like that. I want to make the best use of my time here. I had to make a convincing case to be the one assigned to you, you know.

Case? You had to make a case? And while you're here, I have other questions. Last time you mentioned my friends at home having a vision with the Goddess. Could you share details? Do they know where I am? And I was surprised to hear you call her the Goddess last time. Why did you do that?

Ryouko rushed the questions out in an almost unseemly fashion, familiar with the Incubator tactic of using conversation timing to dodge inconvenient questions.

The Incubator sat up and rubbed an ear with its paw.

Now, now, you know there are some things I won't talk about. It's rude to poke at such things, and I won't be a communication conduit for you. But I will tell you that they don't know where you are right now or what you're doing. Unfortunately, perhaps. As for the name, it would be rude of me not to use the name you use for the Ribbon phenomena, would it not? Especially not after it continues to furnish verifiably accurate information.

As Incubator answers went, it was downright refreshing, even including the explicit refusal to answer questions. And if even the Incubators were taking the Goddess seriously…

The Consensus is interesting in its own way, Kyubey thought. Not uncommon, but not like us. We took a more unified path. I think you have a sense now, how important your species was to us when we found you.

Ryouko felt Clarisse's jaw drop, and wasn't sure she wasn't doing the same. From what the MSY had told her and her own experiences, the Incubators didn't share information like this, much less without being asked.

Also…

Were you reading my mind, Kyubey? she asked. Can you do that?

No, I wasn't reading your mind, Kyubey thought.

Then, without even the usual fade‐out, the Incubator was gone.