Ravana's Shadow (9) (Patreon)

Sending a mission across Surya under such tight time pressure had so many different aspects, so many moving parts, that Kit couldn't possibly keep track of them all. Her citizens practiced disciplines that she had never learned, with scientific understanding or physical capacity they could not easily explain to her.

That was fine—Kit didn't have to understand everyone, so long as she knew they were all moving in the same direction. It was the common goal that really mattered. She trusted her colonists. They would not take advantage of her ignorance, but correct it wherever required.

Including her assistant.

That night's meeting was nothing special compared to all the others. They were talking about fabrication of various parts for the Neophyte, and how they could save time by assembling in many parallel paths, using a technique she'd never heard of to build out of modular parts when they were done. Kit could not comment on any of that, only accept the advice of her skilled colonists and do what they thought was best for mission success.

It was rare that Jay would be the one to make her wait, though. "You told me to look into the records, for... for Ravana. Remember?"

She did, vaguely. During that first meeting, when they'd all been focused on the exciting things. Everyone wanted to talk about how they would overcome the technical challenges, how they would build it in time and cross the incredible distance with such little preparation. What she'd asked Jay to do was almost an afterthought. Kit nodded slowly. "Did you find something?"

"Well… no." He tapped his tablet, and the display clicked back on. He gestured, banishing Sadie's careful diagrams of fabrication order and logistical synchronicity. Instead, the screen filled with an image of Ravana. The asteroid had been captured here in very high resolution, showing detail Kit rarely saw. There was a metal cylinder emerging from one side of it, the unmistakable outline of a habitation drum.

"We don't take sky surveys very often," he said. "There was a time we cared about it more—a long time ago. Before my generation was recruited." 

He hadn't been recruited, of course. If that was true for any member of the Institute's population, it might have been Kit herself. Everyone else had been fabricated, printed from Forerunner's records, all those minds stored away in his ancient database. Kit had told the Institute the truth—that Mara had no cities, no civilization except for themselves. The lives Forerunner erased from their memories had not happened on this planet at all.

"Anyway, there were still automated scans of the system. Forerunner watched all the other transponders, in case one of them succeeded. A successful Pioneering Society colony would rescue us, even if it meant we probably wouldn't keep living the way we do."

Kit nodded along. She moved her chair closer to his, staring at the screen. There was something he could see here, something that Kit hadn't noticed. What was she missing? "That makes sense. It did seem... weird, that there was never anyone around to come and rescue you. This system has all kinds of moons and stuff, a dozen different transponders like Ravana. But not even one of them succeeded, except us."

And even that wasn't a guarantee. They were alive right now, but they'd hardly blossomed into some successful, expansive society. If something changed, future explorers would find only frozen corpses on Mara. "I don't know why," Jay said. "That's too big for me. I can only do one thing at a time. Well, two things. I'm still your assistant. But I've been looking at this too."

He gestured at the screen again, insistent. "This image was taken from before the colony collapsed. They were still building, apparently successfully. It was the most advanced any colony in Surya had ever been. Then—"

He tapped the screen, and it changed. All the lights along the asteroid were gone, and something had ripped a hole straight through the side of the habitation drum. Scorch marks covered the habitat, reaching outwards from within.

"That's how it looks now," Kit said. “I've seen those pictures. Burned, lifeless. No more systems running. No more satellites orbiting. A husk."

Jay nodded solemnly. "A lot of people died in there. And I'm not... I'm not saying they didn't. But something's wrong."

He gestured, and the screen changed. Beside the image was a steadily scrolling chart, showing various levels of... something. Beside it was another image, a round picture of something she should've recognized.

Surya, their brown dwarf. "These are Surya's emissions. Unlike the other colonies, we track these very closely. Star can't even sneeze without a dozen sensors knowing about it. Kinda important, since radiation is one of the few things that can kill us."

He gestured again, covering the images of Surya and Ravana with a pair of timelines. "Here's when the Ravana colony failed. It doesn't matter how fried their Forerunner is, these are our pictures."

Kit stood up, walking over to the screen. Part of her wanted to call back one or more members of her team. She wasn't exactly sure who—maybe Sadie? Was this a security thing, or more of a science thing? But if she did that, it might make Jay think she didn't trust him. So, she didn't call them back, yet. "Looks like that's a window of... fifty years? Forerunner didn't take pictures very often."

"They were not required," Forerunner said. "Ravana was a newer colony. It would likely take thousands of years before it grew large enough to offer assistance. Many colonies fail in that time, or else diverge so far that their citizens are too dangerous to trust. I left an automated subroutine to monitor the colony, that was enough."

"It means a large margin of error," Jay said. "But it's not the colony you should look at, Director. Notice Surya's output?"

She nodded. "I don't know how to read your chart, but it looks flat to me. They got killed by a flare, didn't they?"

"That's what they told us," Jay said. "And it's still possible. Ravana is entirely obscured by Surya for brief periods in its orbit—from our perspective, obviously. There could be stellar activity on that side, somehow focused enough that we did not detect radiation bleeding around its perimeter. The odds of that are... low, Director. Astronomically low. Surya isn't active. There's barely any fusion going on inside."

Kit paced slowly around the screen, taking in its every detail. Finally, she made her way back to Jay, and settled into the chair next to his. "What do you think it means, mouse?"

He met her eyes, folding both arms confidently. "Either Ravana is the unluckiest Pioneering Society colony that was ever founded, or—Garrick is lying to us. For some reason, he doesn't want to tell us the truth. Why would that be?"

If I pressure him to tell me, he might just stop talking to us. He could revoke our permission to go on a whim, and I'd be powerless to defy him.

Forerunner had made that much clear to her, anyway. Pioneering Society colonies were governed by Forerunners, all of which would obey the same precepts—even if they came at the expense of the colonists they loved. He wouldn't let them fly to Ravana and take its mass, even if it meant every child of Mara dying in the ice. But maybe there were backup plans—other ways to explore this direction of reasoning, now that she'd considered it. 

Something to think about for later.

"I don't know," Kit finally said. "But I know who I want investigating it." She took his hand in both of hers, holding it up to her chest. "See what you can figure out about Ravana. Their Forerunner is a corpse, I'm sure it already told us what it thinks is true. But if I can't get Garrick to talk, we might have to figure it out on our own."

Jay looked down at his arm, body going pale. "I'm not an... investigator? I think that's what they call it when someone does a job like this. I'm not one of those."

She stood up, tugging the mouse to his feet with her. "Are there any investigators on Mara? Anyone in the staff?"

Jay frowned, then picked up the tablet and skimmed it. After a few seconds, he shook his head firmly. "There are lots of kids smart enough. But no one has that job. We never needed one."

They probably would've figured out what I did. All the Institute's lies would come apart. "And one of those is you," Kit declared. "You don't have to rush—I know helping me takes a lot of your time. But investigate. It might not matter why they're lying to us—maybe they're just embarrassed. Maybe they're guilty. But if it's something dangerous to us, I want to know about it."

Jay nodded reluctantly. "Only if you add another soldier to your mission. I know you want to be training them the whole time. There's... one, right here." He turned the tablet towards her, showing a single name, and a photo. Chase Pine Marten. He'd chosen to pose for his photo in a uniform of some kind, though Kit didn’t recognize any of the symbols. Not the same as wherever Wren came from.

"I'll investigate. But if you're gonna go anyway, I don't want you to bring another scientist. I want someone who can keep you safe." He sniffed, lowering the screen. "I used to think you were the best fighter in the world. You would just blow up anything that tried to hurt you. But that's not how it works. You need him."

She didn't argue the point, obviously. Kit hadn't been military. The days of every explorer coming from a branch of the service were over in her lifetime. Her job was to be a survivor, and a scientist, and maybe an engineer. "He has ears in his picture. Does that mean he's a citizen already?"

"Yeah." Jay nodded. "From the early generations. Not sure why Wren wanted a soldier back then. But even if he hasn't done any fighting for a long time, he's still better than Sadie." He winced, glancing back at the door. "Don't tell her I said that?"

"I won't." She patted his head. "You're a mouse, she's a cat. I get it. Work this out with Forerunner. I'll talk to Chase once he gets upstairs—if he's willing, I wouldn't mind having a jarhead for Ravana."

Jay tilted his head to the side. "What's a—"

She opened her mouth to reply, then stopped herself. "I... don't actually remember."