“Oh, there’s no way they achieved it,” said Naecia. “They had no means of cataloguing the subatomic makeup of the Electra craft or its occupants. They’d wrapped it all in wire. I believe they were experimenting – attempting to gather their data with some type of rudimentary interferometer in the form of a highly conductive antenna. Perhaps a basic form of quantum illumination. They understood the Fray but lacked the means to gather and communicate the necessary data.”

“And how did their experiment turn out?”

“I don’t know,” she answered. “I only had the one moment. That was it. Maybe the twins saw more than I did, but it was enough for them to write the stacking algorithm and conduct tests. Maybe they would have been the first to successfully move mass if they hadn’t been killed.”

“For the purpose of my next question, let’s assume all of this works,” said Aptat. “How does one navigate? Is there a separate map machine or does one just wish upon a star?”

“Sort of that, yes.”

“This is insanity,” said Oush. “Like that time I agreed to a title bout with Phlegmula of Smeglax. She’s still champion.”

“So long as it is sufficiently specific, I believe that the operator just – yeah, thinks it. We’re dealing with the Fray. It would make sense that thought is its language.”

Aptat approached Naecia and gingerly removed the diadem as if the slightest touch would deflate her brain.

“What does it say?” she asked.

Aptat did a quick check of the readings. “It’s fine,” they answered. “Carry on.”

“Fine? What does that mean?”

The stringhunter contemplated the diadem, then brightened. “You have nearly eighty-one percent remaining coherence. Better than I’d expected, to be honest.”

“Eighty-one?”

“You might have left some of yourself behind, but only a small portion.”

“Nineteen percent!”

“You have a big personality! It’s barely noticeable. Your coherence was bleeding down. I’d say you’re lucky. The diadem stanched the evanescing.”

“What does that mean?”

“In practical terms,” said Aptat, “I think it means you shouldn’t ever go back into the dredge. And your recall for trivia when playing boardgames is going to suffer. Beyond that, we’ll just have to see.”

“Once the machine has catalogued all of the data,” said Oush, “how do you get it all into your head so you can think it into the Oblivion Fray?”

Naecia was still trying to cope with the news that she was roughly twenty percent less the person she’d been before, even though she’d gone into the dredge prepared to lose one hundred percent, if it came to that. She addressed Oush, “You’d need an interface.” She gestured for the axon diadem, which Aptat surrendered. “Something like this.”

Izairis raised an eyebrow.