Fayez grabbed her and undid her careful uniform straightening with a hug. “Thanks for not dying, Els.”
Forty-eight hours later, they’d gone through the drill. The ship’s system had analyzed the telescopic data. Elvi had gone to pay her respects to the catalyst the way she always did, and then performed the experiment. The protomolecule reached out, and the data streamed in. The Falcon searching for any change, any effect. This time, Elvi actually let herself sleep in between. Near-death experiences wore her out, apparently, even if she hadn’t been aware of them at the time. In addition to which, this time, there wasn’t much to see.
When they’d finished their analysis, Sagale came to the bridge and braced himself on one hand-hold and one foot-hold. His eyes shifted from one screen to the next, taking in the data streams with an air of pleasure.
“Mehmet,” Elvi said.
“Major Okoye,” Sagale said, and nodded toward the main monitor. Magnified so that it filled the screen, the tiny but massive star was the only object within nearly two light-years of the Tecoma gate. “Tell me that this system is the most important scientific discovery of all time.”
“No,” Elvi replied. “Pretty sure the big green diamond still wins that prize. But it is amazing.”
The neutron star on the screen was too hot to radiate much energy as visible light, but the screen still had to dim it down to keep it from blinding everyone in the room.
“More than three stellar masses stuffed into a ball half the size of Rhode Island,” Jen said.
“What’s a road island?” Travon a
sked. He’d been a Martian, back before they were all Laconians.
“Major Okoye,” Sagale said, ignoring the banter. “Am I correct that this is exactly what it looks like? A single unusable star in a system devoid of other artifacts or exploitable planets?”
Something in his tone caught Elvi’s attention. It had a stiff formality to it. As though he were asking her questions under oath. She felt like they were engaging in some sort of ritual that he understood and she didn’t.
“That’s what it looks like,” she said carefully. “Yes.”
Sagale nodded his massive head at her. The pleasure seemed to radiate from him. “Come to my office in five minutes.”
He pulled himself away, disappearing down the corridor. Fayez met her gaze and lifted an eyebrow.
“Makes me nervous too,” she said.
She checked the data one last time like she was going over her class notes before a test. She had a sense that there was something in it she’d overlooked. It wasn’t a feeling she liked.
“Coffee?” Sagale asked when she arrived. He was floating next to the beverage machine inset in one of the bulkheads of his office. Two drinking bulbs drifted next to him. It was the first time he’d ever offered her anything in hospitality. It made her nervous.
“Sure,” she said so that he wouldn’t notice.
The machine hissed as it injected cups of coffee into the bulbs, one at a time. “Sweetener? Whitener?” Sagale asked, still fussing with the machine.
“No.”
Sagale turned to her and gently pushed one of the bulbs in her direction. She caught it and depressed the bubble on the lid that opened the flow to the drinking tube, then took a sip. The coffee was just right, hot but not scalding, bitter and strong and vaguely nutty.
“Thank you,” she said, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
“I want to extend the thanks of the Laconian Empire for your work on this project. Now that we have identified a system of no utility, we are moving to the military phase of the operation,” Sagale said after a short pause while he sipped at his coffee.
“The what?”
“Two ships are entering this system as we speak,” he said. “They are both uncrewed, and controlled remotely from this vessel. Both are large freighters. One is empty. The other has a payload.”
“A payload?”
“The high consul has been able to use the construction platforms over Laconia to isolate and contain antimatter. The second ship is carrying slightly over twenty kilograms in a magnetic containment device.”
Elvi felt light-headed again. Maybe she was still recovering from her near-death experience. Maybe it was her superior officer telling her that he had enough explosive power to glass the surface of a planet. Probably it was both. She took a moment to get her breath back.
“And why?” she asked.