*Translating.*
Translating, he thought—and almost, for an instant, caught an understanding of this nonNewtonian movement across space.
Bandicut blinked at the shadowy . . . ship, or space station, whatever it was, against the fiery galaxy. Half the Milky Way was blocked by it now, and he seemed to be flying directly into its galactic-light shadow. Any chance he might have had to perceive its shape or dimensions was gone; he was too close now. Its form vanished into darkness to his left and his right. He thought of L5 City, humanity’s largest self-contained structure in space, and knew somehow that it was a toy compared to this. On impulse, he flicked on a forward-pointing spotlight. Its effect was invisible; the thing was still too distant. And yet it felt as though he ought to be able to reach out and touch it.
His heart pounded, as he began to pick out some surface detail: just a fine spiderwebbing of lines, and vague shapes, all of them black, but some blacker than others. For an instant he thought he glimpsed a winking light from the shadows. The spiderwebbing slowly resolved into a very broad, shadowy, sectional layout of surface structure. Some faint illumination was coming from somewhere behind him, perhaps the light of other galaxies. Idiot! he thought suddenly, and switched on the window’s light-augmentation. The view brightened, and more detail emerged from the shadows: architectural sections within sections within sections. There was an almost fractallike quality to the dark, sculpted complexity. As patterns grew, they revealed finer patterns of equal complexity.
/What is it?/ he whispered, rubbing his wrists. /Is this the translator’s home? Or Charlie’s?/ Apparently the stones were too busy flying, because they gave no answer, except:
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