It was talking now about Chel, the Chelgrians and the Caste War, Kabe knew. He turned and looked at the machine as the people moved away in the steady, ghostly light.
“You could always do nothing, Tersono,” he told it. “Though such a course usually brings its own regrets.”
I am too glib, sometimes, Kabe thought, I tell them too exactly what they want to hear.
The drone tipped back to make clear that it was looking up at the Homomdan, but said nothing.
Winter Storm
The hull of the ruined ship bowed away on all sides, curving out and then back, arcing overhead. They had fitted lights in the centre of what had become the ceiling, directly above the curious, glazed-looking floor; reflections glowed from the glassily swirled, distorted surface itself, and from the few stumps of unidentifiable equipment that protruded above it.
Quilan tried to find a place to stand where he thought he could distinguish what it was he was standing on, then switched off the suit’s field pack and let his feet touch the surface. It was hard to tell through his boots, but the floor seemed to have the feel of what it looked like; glass. The spin they’d given the hull produced what felt like about a quarter gravity. He patted the fastenings securing his bulky backpack.
He looked up and around. The hull’s interior surface looked hardly damaged. There were various indentations and a scattering of holes, some circular and some elliptical, but all quite symmetrical and smooth and part of the design; none went all the way through the hull material and none looked ragged. The only aperture which led to the outside was right in the nose of the craft, seventy metres away from where he stood, more or less in the centre of the spoon-shaped mass of floor. That two-metre-wide hole had been cut in the hull weeks ago to gain access after the hulk had been located and secured. That was how he had gained entry.