tlE-la nodded. "Theorize away."

"Until I figure out how, if at all, we can communicate with it," he said, "I think we ought to shift our focus slightly."

"How so?" gEl asked. The biologist raised his voice somewhat, having stepped several yards away from everyone else, likely to avoid spreading his developing bronchitis, assuming it was something that could spread.

"If we can't communicate with it, we should at the very least try to understand what kind of intelligence it has," EUe said. "Is it truly sapient? Can it think? Does it have emotions, or is it an unfeeling machine? If either the Impactors or the drones do have emotions and experience metacognition—self-awareness of their own thoughts—we could then try to find some common psychological ground, and hope that a means of communicating with them might grow out of that."

"That's a question, EUe," tlE-la said, "not a theory."

EUe shook his head. "While I was in there, I kept thinking back to harriers."

"The invisible soul-eating demons of legend?" gEl quipped.

"There's nothing legendary about them," EUe said. "The harriers were very much real."

"Where are you going with this?" lU-twO asked.

"I'll admit, " EUe said, "since becoming a Gatherer, I haven't really been keeping myself up to date on the latest discoveries in runetics, but—in my time, at least—the most common explanation of what harriers were was that they were a life-form native to not-light, perhaps one that had evolved within it—a kind of not-life, you might say. The dreamshards killed not-life in the same way that boiling water kills germs. This would also explain why the harriers haven't returned: as far as we know, there isn't a lE for the concept of extinct species suddenly returning from their non-existence."

"Go on," lU-twO said.

"I think the vessels might be not-life," EUe said, softly.

lU-twO shot gEl a wry glance. "What say you, clam-bird?"

The biologist scowled, folding his wings against his back. He coughed. "To my knowledge, modern science has yet to find any definitive proof that this 'not-life' of yours exists."

EUe nodded. "It was the same back in my day. Still, there were enough hypotheses floating around that we could at least conjecture what not-life might be like, approximately." The Gatherer locked eyes with the biologist. "Living things live by exploiting the flow of energy from one place or form to another."

"You think I don't know that?" gEl groused.

"Hypothetically," EUe continued, "not-life would do the same, only with not-light and communions, instead of ordinary matter, and since lEs are more pronounced in louder displays of not-light, like active communions and living things, which would explain the legends' attestations that harriers preferred to eat communions and thinking minds; those would have been the most 'nutritious' offerings."

"Could they have been automatons of some kind?" tlE-la wondered.

"No." EUe shook his head. "The harriers couldn't have been automatons."

"Why not?"

EUe crossed his arms. "I did my dissertation on runetic automatons."

"If I recall, didn't your résumé say you worked at a plastics refinery?" gEl asked.

EUe frowned. "I took the job to build up enough of a nectar reserve for myself and my family so that I could devote my time to research. I know an automaton when I see one, and—trust me—these Impactors just aren't that. They aren't. The not-light within an automaton is arranged… modularly. Their not-light webs are broken up into distinct components, like organs in a body. Each component engages a specific communion. One module might give the automaton a form-lE, or perhaps bind it to the material of its physical substrate. Others would determine its behavior, which means specifying outputs and reactions to be made in response to particular inputs. You can make a wheeled toy move out of sight like a beetle darting under a rock for safety by establishing a communion with Uehea and one of any of the many gods of motion. Then, whenever it gets exposed to a bright light, it moves, and only stops once it has reached a sufficiently dark place. That behavioral routine isn't complex enough for the possession of a soul to be a requisite for it."

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"And why can't the same be true of the Impactors?" lU-twO asked.

"I've seen them modifying themselves, changing their modules, you might say. And more than that," EUe added, "I'm about as convinced as you can be that the Impactor I was in was just as frustrated by the communication barrier between us as we are. I swear, this thing wants to talk to us. Badly."

"Just be careful not to project your emotions onto it."

EUe clicked his tongue. "Uka-yen would have said the same thing to me, you know?"

The mathematician nodded approvingly. "Great minds think alike, I suppose."

gEl coughed again. It looked like his bronchitis was starting to set in. "Have you considered the possibility that this could be some kind of whacked-out alien biology that's utterly unlike anything we currently know of?" he said.

Though EUe was all but certain that the Impactor and the intelligence behind it weren't biological in nature, he didn't bother to contradict gEl. That would likely lead to a fight, and that was the last thing anyone needed. The plain truth of it was that EUe genuinely didn't know if biology could even remain stable over long periods of time during which it was constantly exposed to such high levels of theophanic energies. Look what the dreamshards did to Gatherers, whittling away at their life force!

lU-twO shook his head. "EUe, you still haven't explained how this theory of yours is of any use to us."

Obviously.

EUe was nervous. He didn't like being the bearer of bad news. So he tried to ease the others into it as gently as he could. He didn't want to get anyone's feathers into a tizzy.

"They're replicating."

"Anyone with eyes can see that!" gEl said.

"No, that's not what I mean."

"Then tell us," the biologist replied.

"Universal Replicators," EUe said. "Uka-yen first introduced them to me during one of our lunch conversations, over a bowl of mealworms and some zUzU Fresh. The idea was this: instead of taking the great pains and risks needed to send people into space to explore the final frontier, why not send an automaton? Obviously, most automatons tend to have a finite shelf-life, especially when they're being constantly exposed to the hostile conditions of deep space. So, why not make an automaton that makes more of itself? That's what a universal replicator is: a machine that exists to make more of itself, spreading itself across the cosmos in the process." EUe shook his head. "Uka-yen was adamant that the Ecumene should never attempt to build universal replicators."

"Why not?"

"What if something goes wrong…" lU-twO said, nodding in stark understanding.

"Exactly," EUe replied. "It could become like a cancer, devouring everything in its path, producing more of itself without end until nothing else remains but itself. And if someone made a universal replicator as a weapon, to defeat a mortal enemy?" EUe didn't bother to elaborate further; his bristling feathers said all that needed to be said.

"Do you think that might be happening here?" tlE-la asked.

EUe turned to the crater in the distance. The sun had set behind the hills, gracing the clouds with many splendid colors.

"I don't know," he said. "But I have to find out. And if these things are replicators, or weapons, or… something… pray to Ela-tU that they have emotions and consciences. That might be our only hope of escaping mutually assured destruction." He turned to face the hill where the Impactor lay. "After I eat, I need to get back to work."

"What have you been doing, exactly?" gEl asked.

"In order to understand what a particular web is asking the Gods to do," EUe explained, "you have to examine the various messages and sub-messages that were built into it. If push came to shove, engaging each of the webs' different threads in partial communion one at a time might let you figure out what the components were, and deduce some of their primary interactions. I have a gut feeling that this is the way to do it, it's just…"

"What?" lU-twO asked, softly.

"I can't figure out the pattern." EUe let his head droop. "Just to see what would happen, I tried letting myself loose." He brought his hand to his chest. "My dreamshard implant gives me all the energy reserves I could ever need, so I don't need to worry about overtaxing myself."

"And what did you try?" tlE-la asked.

"All the basic elemental lEs. I fired frost and fire, I lighted illusions, I lashed with lightning. To round out the coverage, I used waves of force, and whipping winds, crushing pressure, a deafening sonic boom, and a lot more."

"So, you went all super-soldier on it?" gEl asked.

"How did the Impactor react?" lU-twO asked.

"That's the thing," EUe said. "It didn't. I launched a fireball at the wall, one big enough and hot enough to kill all three of you in one fell swoop, and it did nothing. Then, a couple communions later, it made the Scream display. That's all it did. Just Scream and Scream and Scream. You have to understand, I've analyzed countless webs in my career. I've modified them to repair deficiencies, I've checked for quality control, I've reworked them to meet changing use specifications, but… I've never had to worry that the web I was studying might be studying me at the same time."

"I suppose there's a first time for everything," tlE-la said, drolly.

EUe pointed at one of the nests. "I'm going to get a slabboard. I need to start taking notes. Then I'll go back and try again, to verify the earlier results and record them for posterity. I figure I'll spend the night working at it, hoping inspiration strikes."

There was a moment of silence.

"So, what you're saying is… you've got nothing," gEl said.

"gEl…" lU-twO chided.

The biologist flicked his wings in anger. "No, don't you dare judge me!" he yelled. His eyes bulged in their sockets. "I left my family for this. I'm spending time, here, trying to understand this fucked-up situation, only I can't, because I'm not smart enough, and then you tell me they're bringing in this old pile of guano to do my job for me, only it turns out that not only is he stumped, but we might just be living through the prologue of the end of the world!"

"gEl, calm down!" tlE-la said. "You're—"

gEl stomped his feet on the dirt. "It's not right, and it's not fair. It's not—"

—But then, with a wheeze, gEl staggered about and fell to his knees and coughed, gasping for breath.

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