“We know some. We know one can travel extreme distances through-out our galaxy. If it connects all that space, it logically follows it could connect even more. Perhaps we heard nothing of an invasion because the Bern are preparing their attack from within hyperspace. Perhaps they’re building structures similar to this one. Perhaps, when they attack, it’ll be from every possible vector at once—”

Edison’s eyes flashed, his fur bristling with all the signs Anlyn had come to recognize as him having an idea.

“That explains the most confounding variable! They do not calculate it necessary to be here because they can return at any time of their choosing. Instantaneously. Setting up in hyperspace is synonymous with setting up everywhere. They are here, by all practical military measures. More crucially, their raid could target Bishar and the Great Rift from hyperspace with less effort than from these obsolete stations. Perhaps—”

“These are a lot of ‘perhaps,’ coming from you.”

“Perhaps,” Edison said, smiling. “And perhaps we should forget the prophecy and our previously stated mission of peace. Transmitting word back to the Circle becomes direr, or ascertaining the Bern fleet’s location and effecting an ambush before they diverge along too many vectors to defend.”

“I don’t know,” Anlyn said. She looked out the glass, mulling it over. In the distance, the armored wall of the Great Rift could be seen, the gold glimmering like a nearby star. It felt strange to see an object residing in her own galaxy while her home was so impossibly distant and inaccessible.

She looked at the foreign design of the ship they had become stranded in. Massive and black, with menacing barrels and rocket pods, its fear-some demeanor hid its toothless condition. She looked down the hull at the strange squiggles adorning it.

“What’s its name?” she asked Edison.

“Increase specificity.”

“The ship,” she said, pointing. “What’s it called?”

Edison gazed out with her. “The Exponent,” he said.

“The Exponent,” she repeated. “How coincidental is that?”

“I believe ‘ironical’ is the correct term. Exponent is a mathematical notation for enormous numbers, and we are but two. It also pertains to rapid growth, and barring advances in xenobiology, such is statistically unlikely for us.”

Anlyn smiled and shook her head. “That’s what I love about English. So many words have multiple meanings, the reader ends up injecting some of their own. Like the Bern Prophecy, for instance.”

Edison grunted. “That’s what I loathe about the language. English can be imprecise when wielded improperly. It leads to conversational derailments such as this.”

“I don’t see a derailment—I see a detour. And where you see a math-ematical notation, I see a deeper meaning, a coincidence that’s hard to ignore.” Anlyn turned and faced her love. “Exponent can also mean a person who brings forth a new or great idea. Like maybe the one you just had about hyperspace.”