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And then the signal began to fuzz and break up.
 Recon One, another voice said over the channel.  This is Ops. We re losing
your signal. Do you copy?
Alexander heard a reply, but it was garbled and broken.
And then the image was gone, replaced by hissing static.
Damn& .
A QCC link could send comm signals across twelve hundred light-years, from the
Ontos to Hermes, in an eye-blink& but the Marines in their armored suits were
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dependent on conventional radio to get their data streams back to the Ontos.
The relays they were using should have kept them linked in no matter how deep
into the asteroid they went. Evidently, something else was blocking the
signal, most likely some sort of alien shielding technology.
And that might be accidental, or it might be the closing of a trap.
 Cara, Alexander snapped.  Open a channel to Admiral Taggart, please.
 Aye, aye, General.
Taggart must have been waiting for the call. His voice came back almost at
once.  I m here, Martin.
Time to roll?
 We ve just lost contact with our scout team, Liam. I need the full fleet over
there, ASAP.
 We ve been monitoring the op here, Taggert replied.  The ship captains have
all been brought on-line already, and we re ready to move.
 Let s do it, then.
 I ve just given the order to proceed through the Gate.
Alexander had wanted to hold back on passing through the Gate until they were
more certain of how they would be received, until contact with the aliens was
established, but it was too late for that now.
They were committed, and Alexander was not going to abandon those men on the
other side.
e( ) + 1 = 0
ið
RFS Alpha
Aquila Space
2209 hrs GMT
Sensors imbedded within the access corridor kept the e + 1 = 0 apprised of
where the three alien
(ip)
probes were as they descended from the surface. Communication, however, was
not possible. While the e + 1 = 0 could sense the closest analog in terms of
sensory input actually was taste the internal
(ip)
communications of the three, there was as yet no way to derive meaning from
them.
Indeed, the watchers were having some difficulty now determining whether the
intruders were organic beings or if they were robotic extensions of some sort.
The intruding automatons shared characteristics of organic beings and
machines. To e + 1 = 0 senses, (ip)
they appeared as interpenetrating patterns of n-dimensional solids and complex
surfaces that were bound by complex tensors and their associated scalar
fields, radiating heat and occasional bursts of heterodyned radio noise that
may have been attempts at communication.
After several moments, the watchers monitoring the aliens approach assumed
they were autonomous probes, possibly robots, possibly engineered bioforms in
protective armor and under the control of
 Chesty and  Evans, the alien intelligences in the ships still outside.
Blocking the probes radio links with Chesty had not incapacitated them,
demonstrating that they were not teleoperated machines.
It was equally possible, however, that these three were biological constructs
analogous to the e + 1 =
(ip)
0 s own sigma forms, life forms bioengineered eons ago to allow them to extend
their reach into alien environments.
A major problem remained, now, in establishing communication with the beings,
whatever they were. The e + 1 = 0 could feel the flow and surge of internal
virtual worlds riding some of the emitted RF
(ip)
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noise a clear point of similarity between the two distinct sequences. If there
was to be communication, it might best be effected through a shared artificial
reality.
But deriving common ground, even a virtual common ground, was going to be an
incredibly complex and
difficult task with the limited number of axioms that could be assumed. To
build a valid model, the e + 1
(ip)
= 0 desperately needed more data.
Then, as the e + 1 = 0 watchers continued to observe the three alien probes,
other monitors raised an
(ip)
alarm.
The Translation Ring, orbiting slowly at the outer rim of the e + 1 = 0
Collective, had just opened& and
(ip)
more alien tensors ships, apparently, though the forms were difficult to
integrate within e + 1 = 0
(ip)
concepts, were now coming through.
Recon Sword
RFS Alpha
Aquila Space
2210 hrs GMT
 Hold up, Marines, Eden said.  We ve lost signal. I m not reading Ops
Control!
Warhurst checked a readout.  The relays are functioning, sir, he said.  Must
be some kind of shielding.
 Should we turn around and go back? Galena wanted to know.
Eden considered this.  No. We re here to make contact. Let s keep going.
But& watch yourselves.
The passageway was a cylindrical tunnel 3 meters wide plunging almost directly
down into the heart of the asteroid. The gravity was so slight that the
descent was easy, a matter of guiding themselves forward by pushing along the
walls, or with short, tightly controlled bursts of gas from their jets.
Warhurst was wondering when they would find an airlock. The entranceway had
opened directly into this tunnel from the hard vacuum outside, and they were
still in vacuum as they continued moving deeper.
And deeper. The rock was only about 12 kilometers across. How much deeper were
they going to go?
And then, without warning, the tunnel opened into a large, a huge chamber, one
with polished walls that shone in the Marines suit lights. That chamber was
filled with rank upon rank upon gleaming rank of polished-silver cylinders,
each 3 meters long and 1 meter thick and with rounded end-caps, each imbedded
in a tight-packed tangle of conduits and plumbing.
 My God, Warhurst said.  What the hell have we found?& 
System Outskirts
Aquila Space
2315 hrs GMT
The Xul sentry probe had waited, silent, unrecognized, for a long time& ever
since the vicious series of actions resulting in the extermination of Species
3119.
The ancient Hunters of the Dawn knew this star system as 1901 002, the second
system of Galactic
Sector 1901, and it possessed an inherent importance simply by being one of
those rare and far-scattered suns possessing a Gateway.
But System 1901 002 was important also because, once, it had been part of
Species 3119 s small but troublesome collective. The extermination of Species
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3119 had not been as serious a problem as the genocidal war against the
Associative, half a million years ago, but it had still given We Who Are cause
for serious concern. Somehow, despite all of the Xul s technological
resources, Species 3119 had evolved an extremely advanced and deadly
technological base, one capable of exploding stars.
Even the largest hunterships of the Xul could not withstand the flood of [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]