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  He walked brazenly through the doorway, his mass driver held at his shoulder. The room was cluttered and dark but Knave immediately saw the room's occupant, a huge Buzzer, bigger than any he had yet encountered. It was bigger even than the Buzzer tank creature that had taken out two of his drones and buried two others.

  The Buzzer was occupying an entire corner of the room, it was crouched down on its legs, as if preparing to spring. Its arms were fanned out around it, lots of arms, and the sinister, empty eye sockets were pointed right at him. Knave aimed the mass driver, shadowed by the weapons of the drone which was following him through the door, its weapons slaved to his, aiming at the same target. The drone was quickly alongside him, followed through the door by another, and in his peripheral vision he was aware of gas vents opening, the ones on the armor encasing the mass driver in the drone's nose, in anticipation of venting waste heat from firing the weapon.

  The Buzzer rose up on its legs, its head mere centimeters from scraping the low ceiling of the chamber. The drone with open gas vents started beeping a combat proximity hazard warning, and the silence in his communications was replaced by increasing levels of Buzzer interference, words among it, in that alien accent.

  "Shoot, shoot, kill."

  Knave ignored it, concentrated on what he was seeing, and relaxed his finger on the trigger.

  "Hold your fire," he yelled at the two drones, "I don't think it's hostile."

  The room was as if frozen, Knave didn't know how long the moment lasted. Then the Buzzer seemed to relax, it's outsplayed arms drooping a little, its legs bowing a little. The Buzzer noise in his communications receded slowly to nothing too. Knave lowered his weapon, slowly. His two drones kept their weapons raised.

  "Anybody speak Buzzer?" Knave asked, looking from left to right.

  The drones didn't reply.

  "I understand you," the creature said, "Languages are my area."

  Knave was shocked, he'd never spoken to an alien before, and he had heard rumors that Buzzers were unable to speak human languages. They certainly didn't have mouths on their helmet-like heads.

  "Okay, so what are you doing here, cowering in the basement?" Knave asked.

  "I am working."

  "Why are you alone?"

  "There was a call to evacuate. I ignored it.”

  “Why are you speaking? Buzzers don't speak.”

  "The members of my genus that you have most often encountered are likely to have been from military fields. Their field does not require this of them."

  "I see," Knave said.

  "Like the military personnel accompanying you," the massive alien's voice hissed in his communicator, "They do not require me to answer questions."

  "You mean the drones?" Knave said, glancing to the side, "I guess they don't. But you're quite happy to chat with me, are you?"

  "My field is languages, and it is gratifying to encounter a live subject with which to test my theories about human language."

  "Live subject?" Knave yelped, involuntarily.

  The giant creature was silent. It looked robotic, there was definitely metal interlaced with the organic material of its chitinous shell, but it breathed, shifted and fidgeted in a way that true robots didn't. The drones flanking him were still as statues by comparison, just a couple of indicator lights and a twitching antenna, constantly searching for the lost contact with Control up in orbit, to betray the fact that they were even active.

  "It is just a figure of speech," the alien said at last.

  "Here's a language tip for you," Knave growled, "If you're going to lie. Don't take so much time coming up with a good one, the pause gives it away."

  "Truly," the alien said, "I meant live as in, not documents. Mostly I learn through documents. Look..."

  The alien moved to the side, unsplaying its arms, which it had been using to try to protect one of the displays Knave had seen earlier. But this one looked different. There were more squares of display removed, replaced with carvings in the wall, intricate and deeply carved symbols.

  "It's beautiful isn't it," the creature said, "The most highly evolved language I have ever encountered."

  "It looks pretty," Knave admitted.

  "What is your field?" the creature asked, "Do you have the capability to appreciate this?"

  "My field," Knave paused, "I'm not sure. Why don't you try explaining it to me?"

  "I will give you an overview."

  At that moment a message arrived from the drone to his right. The drone had sent it by line of sight laser, probably without the Buzzer even noticing.

  "Operations are ongoing exterior to this building," it reminded him.

  "I'm in no hurry to get back out there. I think a talking Buzzer is more strategically valuable than getting our asses shot off, don't you?"

  "Agreed."

  Knave turned his attention back to the alien. It seemed to enjoy talking about its project, seemed to welcome the chance to speak about it.

  "We only know the language from wall carvings, and I haven't the slightest idea how this language could be transmitted via sound waves. Both my language and yours evolved from spoken words, you see?.. And the grammar. After a lifetime of study, I have only the haziest of ideas about how it might fit together. It's three dimensional. I've been trying to model it."

  Knave was reminded of the sculptures he had seen on the way in.

  "Okay," he said, "So it's complex."

  "Hugely," the alien nodded its head in a curiously human gesture.

  The drones blasters followed every move of the alien, twitching from side to side and swiveling up and down. The drones would never take their eyes of the alien, watching it with absolutely implacable concentration and patience.

  "So what?" Knave asked.

  "The complexity alone isn't what is impressive, though it is extraordinary. What's impressive is that this complexity is combined with operators."

  "Operators?"

  "Yes," the Buzzer turned its head from the flashing symbols and carved areas to look directly at Knave, "For example, if you yelled kill, your two friends here would pepper me with blaster fire and mass driver rounds until I stopped twitching."

  Knave didn't answer.

  "This is not an order, the order has already been given. You have already told these two mechanical myrmidons what to do when such a word is yelled. It is not a transfer of information either. They have all the information they require and are only awaiting your word. Your one single word unleashes a cascade of consequences ending in my death, and," the creature looked over its shoulder, "might even do some irreparable damage to my work. This is an operator."

  "How can a written language contain operators?"

  "That, my tiny human friend, is an excellent question. Perhaps this is your field."

  "Why are you telling me these things. They seem to me to be of strategic importance."

  "Strategy is not my field. Neither is diplomacy or espionage. My field is languages. If you are interested in languages, I will talk to you about them."

  "To me, that's strange," Knave said.

  He found himself liking this murderous looking alien half-robot thing with empty eyes.

  "Why are you so much bigger than the Buzzers fighting out there?" Knave asked.

  "The determination of optimal size for each unit is not my field," the creature said evenly, "but the use of the term Buzzer is pejorative. It is intended to make the enemy seem sub-sentient, to make it easier for you to be a good soldier."

  "I see," Knave said, "And I am a good soldier, here to die for my betters."

  "You are considered expendable?"

  "Exactly."

  "That is excellent."

  "Excellent?"

  The Buzzer had stopped talking. It was now staring at him, its background humming noise had gotten louder.

  "Ah, look,” it said, pointing at a range of displays, “the computations are reaching completion. This is why I could not evacuate. It will be the first decrypting o
f a complete sentence, including a conditional clause and operator. It is a small part of the decryption process, but it is an important part of my life's work."

  The symbols were moving more slowly now, a symbol kept being repeated in a position towards the bottom right of the screens. It changed shape slightly, then froze. Then the screen was surrounded by light for a few seconds. The screen went dead, displaying flat black, and the Buzzer removed it from the wall. A freshly carved character was left in its place.

  "Congratulations," Knave said.

  "Thank you," the monster said.

  "You know," Knave added, "Without my drones, the operator 'kill' would not be much use at all."

  "Yes, exactly the point."

  "So, what is carrying out the operator here?"

  "The building we are in,” the Buzzer said, “the structure around you."

  Knave started to get a bad feeling. If he had understood correctly, by carving this symbol the monster had entered some sort of command into the walls of the building.

  "So this building is some sort of machine?"

  "That's right," the Buzzer said.

  It was disconcerting to talk to the Buzzer. It had no mouth and his suit sensors were telling him that it didn't use sound waves to transmit its words. They came exclusively from bursts of static heard over his radio, like the disembodied voices of far-away broadcasters, but the monster was right there, in the room, with him.

  "So the room is a machine?" Knave said.

  "That's a gross simplification of the character of this site, but yes,... in a way."

  "What does it do?" Knave couldn't help gulping in trepidation at the end of his question.

  "I am one of the foremost experts in this field," the Buzzer said, "but I don't know."

  "How can you not know? You built the stupid thing didn't you?"

  "We built the upper floors, containing, I might add, important records and equipment that you destroyed," the Buzzer had turned its empty eye sockets on him again, "but these lower levels. They are older."

  "How much older."

  "They date back to before either of our cultures emerged. This place was in operation before our planets had assembled themselves from the warm dust circling our respective stars."

  "This place was built by the Drifters?"

  "That is correct."

  "But they were huge, bug-eyed psychopaths that tried to melt the universe down for spare parts. It's not a good idea to go messing with their stuff. I've seen a bunch of documentaries about it."

  "Fairy tales and taboos. Stories to scare away the credulous. We," the monster said, generously including Knave, "are beings of science. We investigate and learn, no matter the risks."

  "I'm no scientist. I'm just a slug."

  "The term slug is pejorative, you should say ground combat specialist-"

  "Shut up, will you. What is going to pop out of this machine and where is it going to take us."

  "Relax," the monster said, "I doubt that anything significant will happen at all."

  There was a blinding flash and Knave was thrown backwards. He tried to stay on his feet, but he toppled onto his back, the suit cushioning his fall. He wasn't hurt but he was prone on his back, looking at the ceiling. He heard the drones' weapons open fire, heard the Buzzer scream over the intercom. The drones kept firing. Until it stopped twitching, Knave found himself thinking, the words coming unbidden. He tried to lever himself up on his elbows, opening his mouth to shout at the same time.

  "Hold your fire, hold your f-"

  And then there was another flash, and Knave lost consciousness. Lying on his back, he had a perfect view of where the flash came from. The ceiling of the room was very complex, criss-crossed with technology and systems. At the center was a large iris valve, that was gaping open, it had opened so silently and slowly that nobody had noticed, not even the drones. Within the ceiling there was a writhing network of snake-like cables, connecting and disconnecting, all wrapped around some organic-looking central structure, the stamen of some worm-ridden, rotting mechanical flower. The iris valve was already sliding closed, hiding the hideous worms and the stamen, as Knave's eyes closed.

  Chapter 6

  ––––––––

  Shivia's personal spaceship left the Drifter megastructure and joined the group of spaceships waiting in orbit. Their destination was the Ice Tomb, and the latest Drifter discovery.

  "The configuration fits," Shivia had said, “It fits with your translation.”

  "The galaxy is full of cryovolcanoes," Altia had said.

  Shivia asked the room AI to project a screen.

  "True, but we have received more information. The most recently received video of the assault on the moon makes me certain there is something of interest there," Shivia told Altia, "But, prepare yourself. This comes from a war zone and is difficult to watch."

  The video showed the view from a camera mounted in the armor of an infantry soldier, male from the sound of his voice. There was a time stamp and the word, Knave, the soldier's name. The soldier had his weapon aimed at a Buzzer.

  But he didn't fire, instead the alien was explaining his research into the language of the Drifters. Altia was captivated by the alien scientist's words, even if the soldier's questions were banal. Then came a flash, the camera tilted, there was a shot of the ceiling, more flashes and the sound of gunfire. The video froze.

  Altia turned to look at Shivia

  “You can go,” Shivia said, “and I'll come pick you up later, so we can have something to eat.”

  Altia went back to her suite, and sat in her study. A study, the idea of having a whole, huge study assigned to her when she was being transported took some getting used to. Her suite also had a bedroom, lounge, dining room with a food synthesizer, and a bathroom. It was like something she had never seen before. The decoration and interior design was tasteful and comfortable and the food produced by the food synthesizer was delicious. It was the closest thing possible to luxury that could be found on a military spaceship. She also had large transparent panels in every room. Transparent armor was much more expensive than opaque armor, so windows were usually faked with holograms and screens, but the windows in her quarters were undoubtedly real.

  She had pushed her desk in the study up against the floor to ceiling transparent armor panel and she had a wonderful view of the stars. She had also instructed the sub-intelligence in charge of her room to highlight the other spaceships of the convoy that were visible through the window.

  The sub-intelligence was so advanced that Altia suspected it was right on the boundary between sub-intelligence and full AI. It was such an intelligent machine mind that she felt a little uncomfortable ordering it round as if it was a simple maintenance droid.

  When she had ordered it to highlight the spaceships, it had done a beautiful job. It drew little oval hologram frames in the air just in front of the window, one for each spaceship, and projected live pictures of each one within the frame, along with some useful metrics on speed and distance and the spaceship’s name in an attractive font. The effect was so pleasing that Altia hadn't needed to customize this default setup at all. None of the spaceships were visible to the naked eye and the distances between them were so wide that even the computer generated images in the frames were a little indistinct and pixelated.

  The number of spaceships visible from her study kept changing as the formation was changed and the spaceships drilled maneuvers, but there were four in their tasteful little frames at the moment, all large military designs. She tore her eyes from the view, went back to the translation, and was immediately engrossed. A few hours later, her doorbell chirped.

  "Hello?" Altia said.

  "Hello, it's Shivia," a disembodied voice replied, "I hope I'm not disturbing you."

  "Not at all."

  "Could I come in?"

  "Of course. I'm in the study."

  The sub-intelligence was discreetly listening to their exchange of words and chose this mome
nt to slide the entrance door to the suite open. Altia heard the soft sigh of whatever mechanism made the door move, then heard the thud of shoes on the firm covering on the decking of her suite. The footsteps came nearer, came into the study without hesitation. Shivia had visited many times before, knew her way, and stopped behind her. Altia felt Shivia lean to get a better view of her screens.

  "Interesting," Shivia's voice came, right next to her ear.

  Altia didn't bother to look round, she knew what Shivia looked like, a tall woman with intelligent eyes.

  "What's interesting?" Altia asked.

  "You are making good progress with the decipherment."

  "Oh yes," Altia turned from the screens at last.

  "Don't talk about it too much," Shivia said. "We need to keep this breakthrough secret. I had to be quite inventive in coming up with a reason for diverting an entire battle group to transport us to a war zone."

  "But why do we have to keep this secret. This is the sort of breakthrough we should be shouting from the rooftops. We should be diverting the best minds of Tarazet, and beyond, to the task of decrypting, reading and interpreting all this."

  "It's frustrating I know, but it's the size of the breakthrough that's the problem. This is going to change everything. The Drifter System will become the center of a maelstrom of combat. It would tear Tarazet apart, and possibly spell the downfall of human space as the other species unite to acquire our knowledge, or, at the very least, deny it to us."

  "You're the boss, but I think you are underestimating humanity. This might unite all the petty little polities. Instead of fighting over this, we might unite to study it."

  "I'll keep my decision under review," Shivia said, "Have you found anything that might confirm my suspicions about our destination."

  "I'm not sure what your suspicions are," Altia just failed to keep a note of sarcasm out of her voice.

  Shivia straightened up, walked across the study and sat in a chair near the door, as though blocking escape. She brought her hands up and interlaced her long, delicate fingers before using them to support her chin.

  "It might seem to you, with the information you have, that we are chasing shadows," she said at last.