It’s tall, but that only exaggerates the curves of its limbs, the strange set of its spine. A pair of wings rises from its shoulders, tips curving around to meet each other in the middle above its head like a giant halo. Its face reminds me of Hail’s Spirit: smooth and unnerving, with the lightest hint of features underneath.

It lost a chunk of its chest in the impact that claimed its forearm. Directly behind it, there’s a hole in the Lighthouse-wall, clouds swirling out beyond.

“What do you think it is?” I ask.

Hail breathes deep. “Where would you like me to start?”

“It’s a shell,” says Salt, matter-of-fact.

We look at him.

“Care to explain?” asks Hail.

His Decatur rolls a hand over at the joint, spins it around on top of its wrist. “This machine is base-human. Arms and legs, fingers and toes, almost all in proportion, but exaggerated.”

“We don’t have wings.”

“We weren’t built for flying; we made ourselves again, with wings on our backs. There’s still something of us in the design, it’s just hidden under things that are made to fit a purpose. We don’t understand that”—he nods at the statue—“or at least, we shouldn’t...”

“But we understand purpose.” I see it now. The wings, the thrust-vectors down the sides. The hull bulged where a cockpit might be. “I bet if we went around, we’d find the engines.”

I can feel him smile at me. “A shell’s a shell, even if the bones aren’t the same.”

“What is it doing, then?”

We glance at Hail, but she holds her ground.

“A shell is made to fly and fight. There’s as much ‘purpose’ as you’re ever going to get. What’s it doing? Just standing here and staring at nothing?”

“Watching,” I say, without thinking.

It’s in the pose, stance wide and weight spread across its feet. It’s in the set of the wings, like the statue’s getting ready for take-off. It’s in the angle of the sword; low, not attacking, but ready.

It’s in the set of its head, straight and level, looking at something.

At the Eye.

“And waiting.”

“CAREFUL.”

But Hail waves him off. “We’ve been over it, Salt.”

All over it. No trace of explosives, no sign of radiologicals. Sigurd’s little capsule has skin so thick we had to ramp our augurs to the limit just to keep them from bouncing off. Every reading came back with the same blurry circuitry, and the flicker of a tiny power source in the middle of it all.

The Spirit edges closer. “Unless there’s anything else you’d like to suggest?”

Salt hesitates, but we all know how this is going to go.