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about the civilization occupying that world;the Sh’daar had wiped it out long ago, probably because they felt threatened by any advanced technology.

Perhaps the Consciousness had the same drivers, which triggered a survival-instinct reaction.

“I wonder,” Gray said, looking out into the surrounding starfield, “if any of the original Sh’daar races remained in whatlater became Omega Centauri? Or if the species that migrated to the Milky Way found new worlds and survived?”

“We know, at least, that some members of the Baondyeddi created the planetary computer and virtual worlds within the EtchedCliffs of Heimdall and survived there into the present time,” Konstantin said. “At least until they were destroyed by theConsciousness. We know, however, that within their virtual world, they had drastically slowed the passage of time for themselves.Hundreds of millions of years in the outside universe were only a few years for them.”

“And why did they do that?” Truitt said. “They were helpless when the Consciousness found them.”

“We think,” Konstantin replied, “that they did it because with their time flow altered, they hoped to be less conspicuousto those . . . outside. But it is important to remember that even highly technic species have a limited lifetime—a very fewmillion years at most—before they evolve into something else, destroy themselves, ascend in a technological singularity, orsimply peter out in genetic senescence and internal rot.”

“Or they’re wiped out by something else,” Gray added. “Gamma ray bursters, nearby supernovae, unfriendly neighbors . . . It’snot a particularly friendly cosmos.”

“Lovely thought,” Kline said, her face sour.

“Reminds me of some kids back home,” Truitt said, scowling. “The viraddicts, especially. Dive into recrealities and pull the ladder in after themselves.”

Gray had to agree. A lot of people—the younger set, for the most part—were so caught up in fantasy and adventure universesof their own creation that they rarely came down. The medical community was still divided as to whether the behavior shouldbe classified as true addiction or not, but it was a serious social problem in some quarters.

But was it worse, he wondered, than kids gouging out chunks of their skulls to make room for “drune” extra eyes? That imagestill shook him . . .

“Captain Rand?” Gray called in his head.

“Yes, sir.”

“Take us in closer to the Rosette.”

If there was any evidence of the Consciousness having remained in this universe, it would be there at the heart of this thing.

 

Lieutenant Adams

Moskva, Penrose TRGA

79 light years from Earth

1407 hours, FST

Lieutenant Adams hung in the air, stretched taut, shoulders screaming, sweat dripping from her body. The nanobot infusionin her circulatory system had flooded through her brain, locating all of her cerebral implants, tracing their connections,and infiltrating them like a high-tech virus.

Naked . . . helpless . . . vulnerable . . . you are ours . . .

The computer-generated words had been drumming through her head without stop for . . . how long? She suspected that the emphasis on her vulnerability was a psychological weapon designed to wear down her inner defenses. Nudity was not an issue with her. The culture behind her was quite free and easy with casual social nudity, as it was too with casual sex. She was not embarrassed by it.

But the helpless and vulnerable part . . . yeah, that one was getting to her. Adams admired strength, and she admired self-sufficiency.Someone who was vulnerable was weak . . . and open to attack. She’d learned that much from an abusive boyfriend a few years ago. She’d joined the Navy in part to escapehim, but mostly to demonstrate to herself that she was her own person, that she didn’t need anybody.

Not even Don.

Her interrogator still hadn’t asked her any questions. Instead, the nanobots in her brain had connected with her in-head RAMand were downloading her memory. People didn’t store all of their memory in their implants, but they did store what was important.Classified stuff could be locked behind a code word, and so long as the code word wasn’t accessible, it was fairly secure.

What the Russians appeared to be doing was following patterns of past usage, gathering clues that might help them force theirway deeper into her hardware, compromising the software. She continued to feel this as a solid, steady pressure inside herhead; she wasn’t sure what the physical cause of that discomfort was, but her attempts to fight it over the past hours hadleft her sweat-drenched and weak, unsure of what they’d lifted already, unsure of what was in there that they might be ableto read.

Worse, far worse, she knew that if they studied her neural patterns closely enough, for long enough, even her organic memoriescould be laid bare to the bastards.

Naked . . . helpless . . . vulnerable . . . you are ours. . . .

Damn it! That verbal refrain kept gnawing at her, making it impossible to concentrate! She was afraid her memories, both organicand machine, were dribbling away, easily accessed by her captors.

Suddenly, without any warning, the pressure ceased, and Adams was left gasping, dizzy, completely disoriented.

“Excellent, my dear!” Her interrogator stepped close, grinning, and gave her a ringing slap across one buttock. “I think we have everything we need here. Thank you so much for your cooperation!” He turned to face a couple of guards standing by the door. When had they come in here? “Take her.”

She was lowered to the deck and the magnetic grip on her ankles and wrists was released.

“They’ll take you to a cell, Julia,” her interrogator told her. “You can get cleaned up and put on some fresh clothing. Idon’t think we’ll be needing you any longer.”

And what, she wondered, did he mean by that?

 

Flag Bridge

CIS CV Moskva

Penrose TRGA

1433 hours, GMT

“I believe we got what you need, sir.”

Oreshkin looked up from the data on the Penrose TRGA and nodded. “Indeed, Dr. Fedorov. What did you learn?”

“That the America battlegroup is, as you suspected, commanded by an Admiral Trevor Gray. And that the intent was to proceed to the Dunlop TRGAin Omega Centauri. After verifying that the alien entity there had been destroyed, they were to re-enter the TRGA and makethe jump through to the Thorne TRGA. That’s at the core of the N’gai Dwarf Galaxy some 876 million years in the past.”

“This is confirmed?”

Fedorov shrugged. “With only one prisoner, I could not