The Solitaire

There are places in the galaxy where the light of sentience does not shine.  Rare shadow worlds which have, whether by design or simple coincidence, gone unexplored by the many star-farers of the modern age.  Only the ancient, semi-mythical Species III could claim to have total understanding of their home, and when they left there were some secrets they inevitably took with them.  Secrets which, in some cases, even a thousand centuries of study and exploration have not yet been recovered.  

The star known to the Terran reservation world Croatoan as “Herald’s Torch” is one such secret.  It has long been known to interstellar navigators, and geological records of its three small planets were provided by its Von Neumann probe when it left the system to participate in the millennial war against the mad Custodians, but it has never been explored.  There has been no need.  It is a dead system, and possess scant natural resources.

Thus, when a small Custodian troopship detected a weak 3-tech signature coming from the star’s proximity, the sector’s military leaders were curious enough to order the ship to dispatch one of its hypergrenadiers to investigate.  This, in turn, was noticed by the Successor navy in the vicinity.  Custodian hypergrenadiers represent the pinnacle of military technology, and they knew their enemies would not commit one anywhere without good reason.  Thus they turned their own instruments towards the Herald’s Torch and were likewise astonished to discover the 3-tech signature.  Following this revelation, scant seven seconds after the signal’s initial detection, they dispatched an agent of their own from the only Successor world close enough to head off the hypergrenadier: Croatoan.  Thus it was that a young Terran, known only by his codename, “Silent Operator,” and his sentient starship the Borogove entered into Alter Space bound for the suspect star.


Four weeks later they retranslated into Basic Space a thousand kilometers of one of the system’s three tiny planets.  The 3-tech signal had long since ceased its emanations, but there was no question that they were in the right place.

Holy shit, the Operator conveyed to his ship via their closed psychoneurotic network.  Look at that.  Incredible.

The Foo Fighter agreed immediately, and registered its own awe at the sight before them.  It was something that had only been found seven times before in 100,000 years, something neither of them had ever dreamed they would discover: a derelict 3-tech starship.  A vessel once used by Species III themselves, drifting broken and shattered in a loose orbit around the Herald’s Torch.  It was backlit by the sickly light of the star, and a cloud of nearby ice particles caught the light and shimmered about it like a halo.

Predictably, the first thing the Operator noticed about the ship was its size.  It was immense.  Before its destruction it would have been easily as big as Croatoan’s moon, though it had since broken into six distinct segments.  Like all 3-tech relics, every square inch of its surface was adorned with fantastically detailed artwork depicting the natural beauty of the universe; a stunning wealth of complex, wonderful detail that an unaided human mind would have been all but unable to comprehend it.  The billions of tiny masterpieces along the hull gradually came together to form several larger images, which in turn produced even larger.  The Operator knew the reverse was true, as well, that the imagery would have been worked into the ship down to a microscopic level.

It’s old, the Borogove said, its slightly more complex intelligence having been able to take in the derelict’s appearance and move to more practical concerns eighteen full milliseconds before the Operator.  Very old, indeed.  I can’t be too sure, because its systems are almost entirely powered down, but it does not even appear to represent the technological apex of the Species III civilization.

The Operator, merging his mind with that of the ship to receive its sensory information as his own, could only agree.  The age of the ship, which he and the Borogove estimated to be at least a billion years old, answered one question but posed another, more puzzling one.  Though the ship was a scientific marvel unmatched by any other race to ever walk the skies, it had not been built according to the last known 3-tech templates.  This meant that it was mortal.  Whereas the last known generations of Species III spacecraft had such an intricate array of defenses and safeguards as to be rendered functionally immune to damage, the hulk before them had obviously run across some problem even it could not overcome and had been destroyed.  What that force could have been the Operator could not begin to imagine, but the evidence was right before him.

But why didn’t they salvage it? he asked the Borogove.  This was the new question the ship’s presence had raised.  It was assumed that, in its unfathomably long history, Species III had lost a great many ships all across the galaxy, and the lack of such wreckages was assumed to be a result of subsequent recovery.  This was consistent with the almost complete lack of 3-tech relics in the galaxy; their near-complete disappearance from the galactic stage was almost as impressive as the miracles they had worked while they had stood upon it.

They must have had their reasons, the ship replied.  As to what they were, I would not feel comfortable even forming a hypothesis without further investigation.

I agree, said the Operator.  Let’s go have a look, shall we?  Head for the central core.  

The ship complied immediately, crossing the vast special distance in moments under the power of its reverse-engineered antigravity engines.  Cruising easily through the artificial asteroid field the derelict’s debris had created, the Borogove scanned and passed by two of the six splintered pieces before it found the segment containing the central reactor.  It was tiny, no larger than a grain of sand, but they both knew it had the capacity to more than meet the ship’s enormous energy demands.  They were called Genesis Reactors on Croatoan, because they funneled energy directly from the distant Big Bang of a neighboring universe.  This one was obviously active, but only just.  It appeared to be on a standby mode, using only a tiny fraction of its potential power.  Even so, it was giving off enough energy to rival a small star.

It appears undamaged, the Operator noted.  Unless there are micro-fractures in the containment field that we can’t detect from here.  I’m going to go take a closer look.

The Borogove signaled affirmative, and the Operator slid easily from within its spherical hull.  The shock of transition from the liquid filled interior of the ship to the cold vacuum of space hit him immediately, but his enhanced physiology compensated immediately and he moved forward on his own power towards the reactor.  He stopped when he was still thirty meters away, not wanting to push his personal defenses to the extent that would be needed to approach more closely.  He knew that he could approach the reactor directly if the situation truly called for it, but from his knew vantage point he knew that would not be necessary.

I know why they didn’t salvage it, he said to the Borogove.

Do tell, the ship replied, intensely curious but willing to indulge in the Operator’s showmanship.

Because there’s life in here, the Operator answered, with obvious relish.  The heat from the reactor, and the moisture from all these the ice crystals, they’ve allowed for unicellular life to evolve here.  Maybe something more complex, too, who’s to say.

Amazing, the Borogove said.  And virtually unprecedented.  You believe, then, that Species III discovered the beginnings of life here and refrained from recovering their vessel to avoid disturbing its progression?

Sure.  It’s totally consistent with everything we know about them.  They had the utmost respect for life in all its forms, which is why they were so careful about where they colonized.

That’s very true.  But if this has been here for so long, why did the system’s Von Neumann probe make no mention of it?

The Operator was about to answer when his forgotten rival, the Custodian hypergrenadier first dispatched to investigate, answered for him.  Before the Borogove could even warn the Operator about the energy spike it had just detected one deck below them, the alien warrior had come crashing through the deck to strike the Operator a mighty blow from its three snakelike tails, sending him careening through the hull of the ship and back into the void before he could even gather his senses enough to cancel his momentum.

That’s why! the Operator fumed, even as he brought his body up to full combat readiness and headed back to engage his enemy.  Because the probe didn’t want us fighting over it like we do over everything else.

Driven from the Genesis Reactor by the implied threat of the Borogove’s weapon systems, the hypergrenadier met the Operator in mid-flight outside the ship, the two crashing together in brutal melee for fear of damaging the derelict further with their antimatter weapons.  The Borogove moved to assist its partner but was itself forced to disengage as the Custodian’s ship, a distinctive triangular wedge designed with utility and firepower in mind, joined the fight.  

Alone now against two powerful adversaries, both of whom had probably been fighting the Successors for untold thousands of years, the Operator was swiftly outmaneuvered and overwhelmed.  In seconds he was forced to retreat away from the derelict and into open space.  The hypergrenadier gave chase, heading him off in short order and, with no further danger of collateral damage, hit him head-on with a massive antimatter beam. With its opposition disabled or in flight, the hypergrenadier turned its attention back to the 3-tech hulk, confident it would suffer no further interruptions.

*****

The Operator awoke seventeen days later lying in a deep crater on the surface of the Herald’s Torch largest planet.  As his cerebral systems gradually reactivated he realized that, after the Custodian’s blow had sent him into an uncorrected freefall, he must have eventually been snared by the planet’s gravity and reeled gradually into its atmosphere.  He was half-sorry he’d been unconscious at the time; it must have been a rather spectacular crash.

He attempted to rise to his feet only to discover that he no longer had any.  The damage inflicted upon him had been so great that his defensive and regenerative systems had been forced to focus inwards to salvage the vital organic areas in his torso and head.  This meant that he now possessed only a single functional arm and one leg down to the knee.  More disturbing was his grossly impaired cognitive ability: he was now scarcely able to think faster than a full biological, with only limited access to neuronet databanks.  All of which was very bad.  

“But,” the Operator croaked through burnt vocal cords, “it could have been much worse, too.”

You’re awake, came the Borogove’s words, uploading into his brain with tortuous sloth.

“Yes”, the Operator answered, now unable even to communicate over the neuronet without vocalizing in person as well.  “But that was way too close for comfort.”

I must confess I thought you were a goner, the Borogove said, trying to keep its tone as light as possible.  It was a great relief when I detected your regeneration systems at work on the planet’s surface.

With some difficulty, the Operator managed to rise into the thin, acidic air on the power of his cellular gravity nodes.  Rising out of his own impact crater, he looked around and saw only dull gray earth stretching out in all directions under a cloudy sky.  As he stared into the distance he could barely tell where one ended and the other begin.

"Well I’m mobile", he reported.  "But sure as hell not in fighting shape.  What’s our friend up to over there?"

Since your skirmish, the hypergrenadier has concerned herself solely with the exploration of the derelict 3-tech vessel.  Neither she nor her transport have made any aggressive actions against me, so long as I have stayed outside a certain perimeter.  I have sent for reinforcements.  Two more agents should be arriving within a month.

The Operator sighed and slowly drifted to the cool, sandy ground beneath him, holding himself up now with one arm.  This entire situation had become extremely undignified.  

“Well”, he began, “I guess now there’s nothing to do but wait for the cavalry.  You just stay there and keep tabs on the Custodian, I’m going to let myself back into another healing coma, to see if I can’t at least – wait … wait.  Borogove, can you feel that?”

Negative, the ship answered.  What is it?

“The 3-tech signature, the one we were sent her to investigate, I just felt it again.  It was faint – very faint – but unmistakable.  And it was coming from somewhere else on the surface.”

You’re sure?  It could be a phantom signal caused by the damage you’ve suffered recently.

“Yes, I’m fucking sure!” the Operator snapped, rising unsteadily back into the air and heading as fast as he could (which was not particularly fast at all, compared to the speeds he was used to traveling) towards the source of the signal, which he estimated to be about 600 kilometers away.  “I’m going to disengage our psychoneurotic link while I check it out, just to be sure it doesn’t get intercepted.”

Acknowledged.  Good luck.

The Operator guffawed at that and disengaged the link.  He was bored at first, as the hours between him and his target crept by, but before too long he’d seen enough of the planet’s surface to be intrigued.  While he had fallen into the middle of a bleak gray desert, the landscape gradually became more hospitable, and as night fell the Operator came across the first evidence of life.  It was a simple shrub, little more than a central stem and a few drooping branches sporting dark blue leaves, but it was life nonetheless.  What was more, his remaining sensory enhancements confirmed it was a distant descendant of the crude bacteria he’d seen inside the derelict.

“The plot thickens,” he muttered to himself as he passed it by.  Despite the toll it had take on him, Herald’s Torch was proving more intriguing by the moment.  It had offered him something all too rare in this age of the galaxy: a mystery.  There were unknown things here to be discovered, and part of him thrilled at the luck which had allowed him to do the discovering.

As he went along the Operator began to pass more and more of the little blue shrubs and, after he’d been going for six hours, he found himself moving parallel to a modest blue forest of primitive coniferous trees.  Tiny insectoid creatures buzzed between them, and once or twice he swore he saw something larger flash across his field of vision.

Given the mounting evidence to suggest it, the Operator was not at all surprised when he came across a small piece of wreckage from the derelict above.  This particular scrap looked to be a simple piece of the inner hull, but it confirmed his suspicions that bits of the vessel had, over the ages, made their way through space and onto the planet’s surface.  Bits which, at some point, might have contained samples of the unicellular life he had seen on his arrival.

The Operator spent a long minute holding the small piece of alloy in his hand, staring down at it with an idiot grin on his face.  He might have gone on like that even longer had not the 3-tech signature abruptly begun emanating again.  Dropping the wreckage and flying ahead (faster now, as fast as he dared go), the Operator drew inexorably closer to the signal.  

Finally he came to a small field, covered in moss, nestled between the forest and a modest sized lake.  Strewn about the field were machines of varying ages and complexity, all of them apparently constructed from pieces of the derelict.  Most of them were very simple and without any clear purpose, though a few appeared designed to complete simple tasks (the Operator thought he could identify a dryer or heater of some kind, as well as a powered saw) and their construction belied a wonderful intelligence and creativity.  The Operator’s jaw fell open as he took in the sight; realizing full well the implications of the eccentric devices.

Implications which were quickly realized as fact, as a lone figure slithered gracefully from the forest with an crude metal cane clasped in a tightly wound group of manipulative tentacles.  It had twelve small eyes arranged in “V” formation on what might have been its head, and as soon as they caught sight of the Operator the creature froze in its tracks.

“Hey,” the Operator said, holding up his sole functional arm to show that he was not carrying any weapons (which wasn’t true, of course, but the gesture’s implication of nonviolent intent was).  Upon hearing him speak, a pronounced shiver ran through the creature’s long, lithe form, and it spun about to head back into the trees.

“Shit,” the Operator muttered.  He looked down at himself and found he couldn’t much blame the other being for running.  He was in a wretched state: scarred, burned, tattered, and generally horrible.  “It figures my only chance at first contact would be horribly fucked up somehow.”

The creature was still watching him from the tree line, apparently scared to venture forth again but too curious to withdraw entirely.  Casting a worried glance at the sky, the Operator let himself settle down to a sitting position with his ruined legs stretched out in front of him.  He hoped that doing so would make him appear less threatening, and perhaps coax the creature out from its hiding place.

The plan worked, though it took much longer than the Operator would have liked.  The sun was rising again, marking the end of his first short night on the small world, and the light seemed to give courage to his companion.  It slithered cautiously forth on a powerful tail and approached him, hesitating only slightly now that it was committed.  

As it drew nearer the Operator was able to get a better feel for its size and shape.  As made sense for a low gravity planet, it was much taller than a human, but it looked very frail indeed.  It had five of the tentacle bundles which served as hand analogues, and it wore a thin garment made of some sort of animal furs.  From what he could see of its exposed body, it was covered entirely with what looked to be feathers but which the Operator imagined were probably more closely related to antennae.  Its eyes had no lids, but they were covered with thick membranes of some sort, and he couldn’t make out any ears or nasal cavities anywhere on the thing.  Nor could he find a mouth of any kind.

It stopped when it was still a fair distance away, and the Operator wondered if it perhaps thought he was an easily spooked animal of some kind.  It stared at him for another few minutes, then pointed with one of its tentacles at a piece of 3-tech debris on the ground.  The Operator smiled and pointed at it as well, then at himself, then at the sky.  The creature seemed to understand, but it looked (so much as he could interpret its body language) completely flabbergasted.

Once this initial introduction was completed, the creature did not seem to know what to do with the Operator.  It just stood there in front of him, staring.  Taking the initiative, the Operator gestured again towards one of the jury-rigged contraptions, back at the creature, and then towards the landscape in general.  The being apparently understood, or at least he hoped it did, because it turned around and began to walk away, casting backward glances at the Operator to see if he was following, which he was.

It led them back into the trees, to a small clearing where it had constructed a makeshift hut for itself out wood and 3-tech alloy.  Inside were more little gadgets, some little wood-carved structures which might have been furniture, and an item for which whole worlds had destroyed themselves: a 3-tech podship.  It was about half the size of the Borogove, and its hull was opaque rather than transparent, but it was unquestionably an iteration of the same technology.  Terrans had called them Foo Fighters when they’d first seen them, but the ship design itself had been in use since before Terra itself had even cooled.

“So there’s that mystery solved,” the Operator whispered.  The creature (he ought to learn its name, he realized, to think of it as “creature” was clearly insulting) had been attempting to wake bring the ship back up after untold eons of dreamless, un-powered, sleep.

The being was now again unsure of how to proceed, but the Operator knew exactly what to do.  Floating carefully past his host, anxious to avoid startling it (him? her?), and to the dormant pod, he reached his hand out gently to rest it on cool, lifeless shell.  The effect was immediate as the pod siphoned the bio-energy from Operator’s myriad cybernetic systems and gradually came to life.

“Good morning,” he said to its artificial intelligence as he felt it rouse weakly back to consciousness, his English words translating into the universal pseudo-language used by all 3-tech A.I.

In reply, the pod sent a polite request that it be allowed access into the neuronet through the Operator’s own connection.  He agreed, though he knew the risks posed by a foreign intelligence rummaging around inside his head in his weakened condition.  He shouldn’t have worried: as soon as the pod realized the extensive trauma he’d suffered it pulled out immediately after gathering enough information to gain a vague understanding of the current state of the galaxy.  

Gratitude, it said.  Also: apologies.  I not comprehend extent you hurt.  

The Operator nodded and privately marveled at the capacity of the A.I. to take such a massive upheaval of its conception of reality so gracefully.  Not that it had much choice, he realized.  If Species III had ever solved the riddle of time travel, it was not something they’d not allowed to fall into the hands of the galaxy’s subsequent inhabitants.

& this 1? it asked next, and the Operator turned again to his host, who was staring at him with intense curiosity.

“Not sure,” the Operator replied.  He fixed his eyes on those of the inquisitive alien and beckoned for it to come closer, and to rest its “hand” on the surface of the pod just as he had.

“Come on, it’s activated now,” he said, though the words were wasted on an uncomprehending mind.  “You did good with your tinkering, but now I’ve used the jumper cables and I think you’ll have more luck.”

The being slid closer and, with some reluctance, did as the Operator suggested.  It relaxed immediately, its head lolling to one side while the featherlike structures all over its body drooped slightly.  

Interesting, this 1, the podship said to the Operator.  No symbionts.  Using teacher/ambassadors.  Take time.

The Operator nodded again and let himself sink to the dirt floor of the hut.  Leaning back against one of its ramshackle walls, he reengaged his psychoneurotic link with the Borogove.

What the devil are you up to, Operator? it asked him immediately.  The original 3-tech signature is back.  The hypergrenadier has been ordered to investigate it as soon as she has secured the relevant pieces of the derelict.

“Great,” the Operator said.  His legs were starting to bleed, there was a faint hint of pain from throughout his entire body, and his functioning mental channels were going black one by one.  He was beginning to seriously worry that he was dying.  "How long?"

A week, perhaps.

"And when’s our backup getting here?"

Three weeks, perhaps.

At this the Operator allowed himself a mordant chuckle.  "This just keeps getting better and better.  Do everything you can to distract and delay them from getting down here.  I wouldn’t ask this of you, mate, but this has just got a bit bigger than you and me."  

Why?  What have you found?

"I don’t know if you’ll believe it, but there’s sentient life down here.  Evolved from what we found on the ship.  One of the locals has recovered a 3-tech podship, and he’s been trying to reactivate it with other bits of wreckage he’s collected.  That’s what caused the initial signature the Custodians picked up.  I just brought it back to life and its using nanites to establish communication with the life form I found."

I understand, said the ship.  I will do everything in my power to keep them away from your location until reinforcements arrive.

“Thanks,” the Operator said, but this time the words were not carried to his ship.  His brain, struggling to hold itself together, had just withdrawn power from the psychoneurotic link to keep more basic information gathering and interpretation systems running.  He worried that, at this rate, he wouldn’t even be able to communicate with the podship for much longer.  He told it so, and it advised him to rest until any further developments required his attention.

“Good idea … mate,” he replied, finally allowing himself to succumb, at least temporarily, to peaceful oblivion.

*****

Wake up.

The Operator woke up.  His eyes snapped open, but nothing changed.  There was only darkness.  And the pain was worse.  

“Oh, fuck,” he snarled.  “This won’t do at all.”

With practiced application of will he was able to exert control over the usually unconscious process of managing his body, which he used to reroute power to his ocular nerve.  The effort cost him his hearing and another nosedive in processing ability, but it was worth it.

He was outside now (further evidence in his own decline; he was suppose to wake up immediately if anything tried to interact with his body), and the podship was hovering above him, with the alien hermit resting comfortably inside.  He had no junction suit and no synchronization implants, but nonetheless he seemed quite comfortable inside the ship, which had filled itself with synthesized pilot fluid for the first time in ages.

“Lookin’ … good,” the Operator said, managing a feeble thumbs-up.

Gratitude.  I and this 1 travel reality now.

“That’s great, you guys.  I’m really happy for you.”  The Operator smiled and rested his head against the trunk of the tree they’d propped him up against.  He rested there for a moment before his explorer’s nature got the better of him.  “What is he?” he asked the ship.  “Where are the … the rest of them?”

Negative, the ship replied.

“What?  He’s the last one?”

Negative.  This 1 is the only 1.

“Well how do you like that?” the Operator said with a weary grin.  “You see something new every day on this job.”

This 1 has gratitude as well, Silent Operator.  This 1 grateful you came.

“Well tell him I’m glad I came, too.”

This 1 thought long, concluded other minds exist.  Rational conclusion, logically inferred from technology.  Additionally: vague remembering other 1 like 1 before.

“Smart guy,” the Operator replied, though his attention had shifted towards the growing pool of blood he was sitting in.  This, and the fact that he could only pay attention to one thing at a time, terrified him.  “But wait,” he said, looking up.  “How could he possibly learn enough about machines to even begin to know how to reactivate you?”

Race memory, the ship answered.  I fell [1000 years] before.  Understanding took 16 generations.

The Operator laughed then, a nervous giggle welling up from his gut. “That’s amazing.  Jesus, the things this universe comes up with,” he chuckled again and shook his head.  “Hey, incidentally, I’ve come up with a name for him, if he wants to here it.”

This 1 honored.

“How about ‘the Solitaire.’  It makes sense, right?  That could be his species designation, too.  What’s he think of that?”

This 1 agreement.

“Groovy.  So when are you leaving?”

Now, though possibly not.  Insane Custodian comes.  As does good Custodian.

The Operator was about to ask what the ship meant when he felt a sonic boom overhead and looked up to see the hypergrenadier dropping down from the sky, with the Borogove close behind.  In an instant they were on the ground, the hypergrenadier focusing on the Solitaire and the Borogove, but ignoring the Operator almost completely.  There was little reason not to, the Operator had to admit.  But now that his enemy, the enemy who had likely killed him and who now stood to destroy or enslave the wondrous new life he’d just discovered, was right in front of him he couldn’t stand idly by.

“Borogove!,” he screamed.  “Remember Mara’s Fountain!”

If his ship replied he had no idea, as he poured every last ounce of his energy into his combat systems and charged headlong towards the hypergrenadier.  It detected the sudden energy surge and turned to face him, but the Operator was nonetheless able to hit it in the flank with all his force.  It recovered in an instant, but an instant was all the Operator needed to grab hold of its central tail and generate a powerful, localized, gravity well around them with the same technology he’d been using to keep afloat since he regained consciousness on the planet.  Now he could only wait and hope the Borogove knew what he was getting at.

Which it did.  As soon as the hypergrenadier was pinned, in the split-second before it could swat the Operator away like a mosquito, the ship narrowed its psychoplastic hull into a thin lance and charged.  Forming a dense bead of antimatter on the foremost tip, it struck with maximum force at the Custodian’s chest, burrowing through armor and defensive fields and piercing its central nervous system in one go.  The hypergrenadier crumpled like an abandoned marionette, stone dead.

The Operator lay next to it, breathing shallowly through lungs barely able to filter the atmosphere anymore.  His senses were gone now, as was all brain function but that which he’d been born with on Terra three centuries before.  Not wanting to die without knowing how this drama played out, he managed to cajole his left eye into temporary functionality just in time to see a tiny, shining dot in the sky pick up speed and make its escape into the stars.

Then …

*****

A voice – a real, spoken, soothing female voice – called him back to awareness.  “How are you feeling, Codename: Silent Operator?”

“Remarkably well,” he replied, as he took stock of himself.  His body was fully repaired, lying on a soft silk New Damascus bed, safely back in the naval headquarters on Croatoan.  Better yet, his mind was back to its old self, and he flexed it eagerly, spreading his consciousness throughout the myriad avenues of the neuronet.  He knew without looking that the voice he’d heard belonged to Carmine Red, one of his colleagues and closest friends.

“You sure made a mess of yourself that time,” she said, giving him a wry smile.  “You’re lucky the Successors don’t use money, or you’d be up to your eyeballs in debt for all that hardware you ruined.”

“Yeah, well lucky me,” he said.  Then, impatiently switching to headmail, What happened?”

The Borogove stabilized you and waited until Indrid Cold and Codename: Vagrant Darter showed up to reinforce you.  The three of them worked on you until it was safe enough to bring you here, then we did the rest.

And the Solitaire?

He made it into Alter Space in the ship you reactivated.  We don’t know where he is now.  There’s actually been some worry about that, do you think he’ll be okay?

The Operator’s lip curled up in a slight smirk.  Carmine, that creature labored generation after generation for a thousand years to get that ship up and running, just because it was curious about what it was.  And until very recently in their racial history, each Solitaire assumed that what it perceived was the limit of reality.  Now it knows there are other minds out there, untold trillions of whole new realities for it to explore.  Plus, it’s got a good chaperone.  It’ll be fine.

“Good point,” she said, before extending her hand in invitation.  “Now, would you like to join me for dinner?”

The Operator kissed the offered hand and flashed Carmine a lecherous grin.  “I’d love to,” he said, and the two of them made their way out of the cold military building and into the warm, teeming streets of New Damascus.