The things around us that do not change may be of the greatest efficiency, but least capable of refinement. All their options are burned into design and instinct. They react swiftly and without thought.

These ancient vessels appeared extremely efficient. We could only hope they were truly dead.

* * *

Audacity carried us farther downstar. The magnitude of the Precursor structures overwhelmed all. Compared to this system’s artifacts, Charum Hakkor seemed a primitive village. And yet wherever those great interplanetary bridges stretched, ancient ships—Forerunner ships—gathered in disciplined rows, as if still on alert, still watching, waiting.

Chant-to-Green stated clearly what we were all thinking. “These ships may be older than any recorded language. We have only a vague idea what Forerunners were like then. The most ancient records have long since disappeared.”

Those had likely been eras of digital storage, the least enduring and the most subject to centralization and disastrous failure.

But we had much larger concerns.

“We need to select a likely-looking vessel and find a way to board,” I said. “It isn’t impossible these ships came here on a similar mission.”

My crew soberly assessed the implications.

“We’ll send monitors,” I said.

Clearance was not convinced. “Our machines are less likely to be recognized than one of us,” he pointed out. “We have changed less than they have.”

“Did they even wear armor back then?” Chant asked.

“Unknown,” I said. “Builders keep the deepest rituals. Something Keeper knows might stretch back to those times. Ancient phrases, meaningless today.”

“I was just beginning that degree of induction,” Keeper said, uncomfortable once more at being singled out. “Other rates have traditions and rituals, too.”

“Warriors were purged of their rituals during the civil wars,” I said. “As for Miners…” I looked to the one Miner in our crew.

“Also lost,” Clearance said. He glanced at Keeper. “Builders suppressed them.”

“Lifeworkers have never accepted the greatness of the past,” I said, hoping to forestall debate about who did what to whom. “There was never an age of perfection.”

“You say that, even in the face of this?” Keeper asked as we passed over a sweeping segment of star road. Extremely light, immensely strong—and totally unresponsive. Star roads surrounded the inner worlds like a highly attenuated bird’s nest. “Half the mass in this system was converted to Precursor constructs. It’s like being inside a huge puzzle.”

“Greatness is not always measured by size,” I said. “The smallest lives rule.”

“I wonder what our ancestors thought, seeing this,” Dawn said. “Maybe they came here to worship.…”

But none of us could be convinced that so many ships represented an attempt to reach out and show appreciation.