Shell-sized hatches mark both sides of the passage, but judging by the swollen metal around their locks and the flaking rot around their hinges, there’s every chance we’d need to shoot our way in. Thankfully, we don’t have to.

A line of glow-globes follows the corridor, wired into the ship’s main supply and strung along by hand. They don’t come up to our ankle, but the low-light picks them out easily enough. They lead us past a disassembled shape that used to be a Juno.

Behind it is a door that’s still open from the last time it was used. Avery couldn’t get it shut after he came scratching for our sword.

In here.

Salt hesitates at the sight of the skeletal shell, but a glance over his shoulder gets him moving again. A hollow has just come down the elevator shaft, fast and hard enough to echo.

We slip through the doorway and find a space exactly like the one Avery said we’d find—a bay that used to serve an active population of shells, now down to a pair of bony corpses that several generations of ’draggers have been stripping for parts, cannibalised to keep a single Juno alive and flying.

Another sword-blade rests against the wall, exactly like our own but for the ragged edge that interrupts it barely halfway from its grip. An oilcloth pyramid stands to one side, outlines of crates showing through, an old carbine resting on top, made to fit our hands. Behind everything else is one last barrier—a perfect vault door, covered in dust, but still unmarked silver underneath. It’s the only thing in this place that doesn’t seem to have turned to rot.

This is it, we send.

The other three sign back. They turn around and take up positions around the bulkhead door that used to seal this place off, now jammed wide open. Salt touches the door itself and the hinges sing, make us all flinch at the sound.

Sorry, he sends, but Bor waves it off.

Quiet, she replies.

The three Decaturs settle, waiting for the sounds of their steps and the vibrations of their reactors to fade. They can’t do much about the heat that they’ve built up along the way, not without wind and space for it to drift away, but they can manage something like quiet so long as they don’t move too much and keep their augurs stowed. In here, their ears are keen enough.

They’re coming, sends Hail. Estimate 1.9 K and closing. Unknown number of contacts. There’s a pause, half an eye over her shoulder. Are you sure this is it?

We are. More than anything we can remember.

A plaque rests in the middle of the vault-door, brass on silver, letters finely set into the metal.

2nd MACHINE INTELLIGENCE GROUP

TRIAL 0017

CLUSTER α

Home.

Thirty

THIRTY