She cleared her throat. “Any currently … active?”

“Hard to tell. Doesn’t seem like it.” Falconi zoomed in on the band of debris between the second and third planets. “Check this out. Gregorovich, tell them what you told me.”

The ship mind answered directly: “The composition of the flotsam seems to indicate it’s artificial. It contains an unusually high percentage of metals, as well as other materials that, based off albedo if nothing else, cannot be natural in origin.”

“All that?” said Kira, amazed. The amount of stuff was staggering. There was an entire lifetime’s worth of study here. Several lifetimes’.

Hwa-jung altered the view of the holo as she studied it. “Maybe it was a Dyson ring.”

“I didn’t think any material was strong enough to make a ring that big,” said Vishal.

Hwa-jung shook her head. “Does not have to be a solid ring. Could be lots of satellites or stations put all around the star. See?”

“Ah.”

Nielsen said, “How old do you think it is?”

“Old,” whispered Gregorovich. “Very, very old.”

An uncomfortable silence filled the room. Then Trig said, “What do you think happened to the aliens here? A war?”

“Nothing good, I’m sure,” said Falconi. He looked at Kira. “You’re going to have to tell us where to go. We could spend forever wandering around, looking for the staff.”

Kira studied the projection. No answer jumped to mind. The xeno didn’t seem willing or able to tell her. It had helped them find the system; now it seemed they were on their own.

When she had been silent for a while, Falconi said, “Kira?” He was starting to sound worried.

“Give me a minute.”

She thought. Most of the memories the Soft Blade had showed her of the staff had seemed to take place on or around one of the planets in the system. A brownish planet, with bands of circling clouds …

There. The fourth planet. It had the color, it had the clouds, and it was in Bughunt’s habitable zone, if just barely. She checked: no evidence of an orbiting station. Oh well. That didn’t mean anything. It could have been destroyed.

She highlighted the planet. “I can’t tell you the exact location, but this is where we should start.”

“You sure?” Falconi asked. She gave him a look, and he raised his hands. “Okay, then. I’ll let Akawe know. What are we searching for? Cities? Buildings?”

She continued the list for him: “Monuments, statues, public works. Basically anything artificial.”

“Got it.”

The walls seemed to twist around them as Gregorovich adjusted their course.

“Captain,” said Nielsen, getting to her feet. If anything, she looked worse than before. “I’m going to…”

He nodded. “I’ll let you know if there’s news.”

The first officer crossed her arms, as if cold, and left the control room.

For a minute, no one else talked as Falconi had a one-sided conversation with the Darmstadt. Then he grunted and said, “Alright, we have a plan. Kira, we’re going to feed you images of the planet’s surface. We need you to look at it, see if you can figure out where to land. The planet is tidally locked with Bughunt—they all are—but maybe we’ll get lucky with the side facing us. Meantime, we’re going to head for the asteroid belt. Looks like there’s plenty of ice flying around, so we can crack some hydrogen and refill our tanks.”