“It’s simple,” he says, his wide blue eyes bright, his scraggymeagrespidery hands fidgetfussgustsearching. “When you look at it right. They’re not wrecks. Not broken. They are—they are a message we don’t know how to decode.” Noor smiles falsely and sipslurps her tea, tuning her ears to the Varday module’s music. “Why else would they be here, in the path of our expansion? Ready for us to find? For us? Why else would the doors have been left open?” The metal humtunesongwail: solar plants, atmospheric regulators, gravitational spin. “And who, well, who else? There’s no one else, no contact, no trace—”

Whenever she went to a surface now she couldn’t sleep until she’d worked out what was missing and turntwistspinwhirled the sound of her pod to engine. “—so it must be us!” His face is pride and revelation. “It’s either us in the past or us in the future. And really, you know, that’s the same, I mean—” She takes his shabbydisordered slates, looks through his hopeless calculations, through her feet, through the floor, through the strata of Varday’s skin, through the quiet wrecks held in tow, to deep space and deeper. What sounds she’d find out there, what waves.

Higgie the Codd clocks aff

Sheu snecks the monietors wan by wan,

fer the plant tae idle the sleepan oors.

Sheu lillilus tae her machines,

her aald face in ivry gless

– but no, yin’s no her face. Sheu blenks.

A karl sportan some kinno helmet

(but maed o some kinno metal? an glessless?)

is skirlan – but silent. He chairges the screen.

A flist o Light. Sheu shuts her een

but feels the sair lowe trou her lids.

But eftir a spell sheu peeks an than

thir notheen thir. Nae willan Light,

nae flegsome man. Sheu skites ootbye

an slams the doar, an waits ahint hid,

an sings a peedie bit looder, looder

as the hivvy clankan an crashan inbye

at isno the weel-kent tick o the plant

mairkan hids time, but soonds instaed—

no—ya—no—but—

like steel brakkan steel, a draem o a sword.

Higgie the Coder clocks off

She turns off the monitors one by one, for the plant to idle the sleeping hours.

She lullabies to her machines, her old face in each grey mirrorglass

– but no, that’s not her face. She blinks. An older man wearing a kind of helmet

(but made of a kind of metal? and without glass?) is shrieksqualling – but silent. He charges the screen.

A rushrageboastbang of Light. She shuts her eyes, but feels the harshdireoppressive flameglowflickerflare through her lids.

But after a short while she looks and then there’s nothing there. No wildwandering Light,

no terrifying man. She slidebounceshoots outside and slams the door, and waits behind it,

and sings a little louder, louder than the heavy clanking and crashing inside

that is not the familiar tick of the plant marking time, but sounds instead—