“So has this just ended now?” said Saori.

“No,” the decider said, “the war has been over for some time. But reconnecting with all our outposts has been a long and difficult task. Our resources are much depleted by the war. This particular outpost was not considered a priority until—”

“Until you got the message about Alyssa turning up,” said Iona.

“When we understood what was happening I was dispatched to investigate and revise protocols accordingly.”

When none of the humans reacted to this the decider spoke again.

“I repeat my apology: I am sorry for your incarceration and take full responsibility on behalf of my ancestors who failed in their definition of the protocols. I have revised the protocols. The drones will give you every assistance to return to your own planet. They will convert one of the haulage chain vehicles into a ship capable of making the journey.”

Iona stared at the tabletop. The decider was giving her exactly what she wanted. She couldn’t have asked for any more.

“Is there anything else I can do?” asked the decider.

There were many things Iona wanted the decider to do, but she didn’t think it could do any of them.

The decider apologized, saying it had a lot of work to do, assessing the various mining and processing operations elsewhere on the planet. It left the humans to absorb the knowledge their lives had been derailed by a mistake, a miscommunication. The entire civilization they’d built was an accident. None of it meant anything.

14

THE NEXT DAY, AFTER the decider had departed on its tour of the colony, something new appeared on the plain near the spot where the old decider, the dead decider, looked down from its sphere. Iona went up there to look at it.

None of the figures queried her presence. There had been a marked change in the figures’ attitude toward them following the decider’s intervention. Before, they had tried to pretend the humans didn’t exist, though without neglecting them to the point where they died. They weren’t sure how the humans fit into their framework. But now the decider had established how the humans fit and so everything was different. A group of figures now attended to the humans’ needs to an almost oppressive extent. All the humans really wanted was to get out of here. Which was what the new thing on the plain was for.

The thing was one of the trucks that made up the figures’ haulage line. It was a plain, gray, boxy object, about twenty meters high and sixty meters long. Four large thrusters were mounted on the rear end. The other three sides of the object were featureless, and although Iona couldn’t see the top she was willing to bet it wasn’t much more interesting. One curious detail was that it had rails on the bottom like a sleigh.

It was designed to carry nothing but consignments of minerals. It was entirely automated: nothing living had ever traveled in it, or at least nothing larger than a stray insect. It was filthy and had clearly been in service for some considerable time. Iona understood that the figures had the wherewithal to manufacture new vessels when a truck failed to return or broke beyond repair, but at present they did not have the materials in hand and would have to mine them, which would take time. Converting an existing one was much faster, they assured her. Looking at the aged crate that sat on the plain, Iona wondered whether she might prefer to wait.