Rogers frowned. That was a lot of artificial intelligence working on intelligence. Did that mean that the intelligence was artificial? Now he was just confused.

Nearby, a pair of starmen second class were chuckling by one of the new propaganda posters that had shown up, this one an unintelligible depiction of a hulking, dual-headed mythical creature sitting atop what appeared to be a mountain of chocolate bars. The caption read, IT’S SO GOOD. SO GOOD.

Rogers saw his work, and saw that it was, indeed, good.

“It doesn’t just look like routing information, though,” Deet said. “It looks like access information, too. Like it’s pointing me in several different places at once. I can’t make it out, and I can’t access the network to test it out.”

“That must be lonely,” Rogers said. “Not being on the network for so long.”

“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard in my life,” the Viking said, taking a bite into a SEWR rat without even taking the packaging off first. She chewed up a wad of plastic and spit it out. “Droids can’t be lonely.”

“These are Froids,” Rogers said.

“Yeah,” Deet said. “We’re Froids. But, no, Rogers, that was the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”

Even the Viking chuckled.

“Fine,” Rogers said. “Screw me for trying to be compassionate to a nonhuman. What if we were to plug you into the network? Would you be able to figure it out then?”

“Maybe,” Deet said.

“Why?” McSchmidt asked. “What’s bugging you about it?”

“I don’t know,” Rogers said. “Call it my distrust of droids. What do you need to plug into the network?”

“Just a regular power cable would be fine, I think,” Deet said. He beeped. “That’s the way it’s been everywhere else I’ve been connected, anyway.”

Rogers turned around to where the squadron of droids had been plugged into the mess hall’s power outlets for “lunch.”

“What about there?” He pointed.

“That’ll work,” Deet said. He looked around as though suspicious. “I’m not sure how the other droids will react.”

“EXPLETIVE the other droids,” Rogers said. “Besides, they’re already done eating. It’s not like you’re going to go steal someone’s food. McSchmidt, why don’t you let Deet here borrow your datapad so that he can look into that code? Maybe it’ll help us figure out exactly where the intelligence is coming from. If there’s some sort of sensor error, this would be a good way to find out about it.”

McSchmidt, still looking doubtful, slowly handed the datapad over to Deet, whose Frankenbot body ambled all the way across the dining hall to stand next to the elongated table. Rogers watched him, thinking. If there was something wrong with the sensors, or something wrong with the intelligence, then the whole Thelicosan invasion was a mistake—or a lie—and all the changes they’d been making to “prepare for war” would just become inconveniences.

Deet stood by the table for a long time, not doing anything. Through the echo of the cavernous mess hall, Rogers heard a frustrated beeping noise.