Chapter 88: The Speech

Alpha - Gorylkin’s Xeno - had approached the edge of the platform. The other members of its species had frozen. It was impossible to tell whether the clicking sounds - which echoed deeply through space, occasionally repeated by its listeners - represented a few simple words of appeasement or a long, condensed discourse of sublime ideas, but it did not last more than ten seconds.

And all the Xenos resumed their activity, perfectly ignoring the humans present. Granted, it was difficult for them to ignore the immense Alecto, but for the time being they merely busied themselves hauling up their ships and finding them room higher up.

Alpha, its task completed, silently placed itself behind Gorylkin.

“I’ve been running every possible scenario through my head and I can’t understand how you managed to make them come,” admitted Andreï to Pallas. “Did we invent a system faster than Drift?”

“The Entangled Gate brought back by one of our allies in his Ozy, you know, the old one...?”

“Miltiades? You secretly installed an Entangled Gate aboard the Alecto?”

“By order of Ravzan.”

“To ... intervene if the situation required it, right?”

“Precisely.”

“What a stupid waste of a precious resource. And that’s why you were so serene in our darkest moments. You had a joker.”

“Do not be mistaken, I am always serene, captain.”

Konrad exclaimed that it was high time they eat, drink, and sleep, and the captain ordered a team to carry out a full reconnaissance of the area. They did not dine together around a single table; instead, each went their own way.

Ada introduced her new companions to Andreï: Salman and the Abandoned.

To the first he said:

“If you have Gorylkin’s trust, that’s all I need. Welcome to the Starfleet, though the term ‘resistance army’ would be more accurate.”

And Salman saluted him. To the second, the Xeno, he shook a tentacle and then declared:

“Have you been offered an alliance pact with the HS?”

“I imagine it’s informal, but Ada has kept me informed of your internal troubles. As a Xeno, since we must keep your term, it seems natural for me to side with those who intend to preserve you.”

“Ordinarily we are more formal than this, but in these times of internal disorder, my word will suffice, and the LE units aboard bear witness to it. As of today, the Abandoned, a civilization of collective spirit, becomes an ally of the HS. May each aid the other in its moments of need.”

At that, Stewart - a man so thin one wondered where his muscles were - head of protocol aboard the Alecto, had the octopus sign a few digital documents by pressing a tentacle to them.

Meanwhile, a nutrition bar in one hand and a flask in the other, Andreï was guiding Ada toward Doux Soleil’s workroom.

“How are your studies going?”

“I have a lot to do. For instance, coming to save your skin.”

“Every day, you must study. Even on days of rescue. How far have you gotten with prime numbers?”

“Well ... density.”

“That’s a good argument, yes, density.”

Ada didn’t reply, so he continued.

“Last time I told you what all the experts think: the distribution of prime numbers is a problem meant to elude us, just as we will never see the infinitely small with the naked eye - there exists no tool, even an abstract one, to see, to understand. Perhaps our brain itself lacks something. This mystery, and others we’ve dragged since the dawn of mathematics, like P = NP, are all in a sack we call the Fundamental Structure. We know it exists, but it will forever remain invisible to our eyes. But you see ... prime numbers can be approached from many angles. We know, to a very precise percentage, by which digit the next one is likely to end. We have many analytical approaches, like density. It’s as if it were an invisible being in a dark room, and from time to time, we touch it. So does that invisible being truly exist?”

He pushed open the study room. A square chamber, one wall opening onto a bay window through which one could see the Xeno city and its great leafy canopies. Another wall held a whiteboard, a large LE unit capable of printing, and, on a wheeled platform, Doux Soleil - a large brown mass, like a heap of damp soil, upright, more or less swaying. Beside it, a Xeno resembling a wasp. Both greeted the captain and Ada as they entered. The latter signed in stellar language with the dexterity of a linguist.