The unpainted hull of the CORIANDER was possibly one of the ugliest things plying the void. The exterior was virtually covered with clamps, gantries, pods, reels and catwalks. Deep within, Captain Haviland and his Second stared at the sweeps display scanning the CHRISTOS.

Haviland's business was salvage. If he actually dug anything up he would have considered himself a mining operation, but this was not the case. The asteroid belts, long over-mined anyway, were not a source of big profit; Victor Haviland didn't bother digging for his ores. His type scanned space for high grade, floating mountains of rare metals-asteroids containing more of it than the pedestrian ice and iron blobs that commonly peppered the belts then towed them to processing centers.

Heavyset, thick-browed, the steel-gray eyed Captain was an example of a particular abnormal psychology. He was the kind of man who absolutely required a strong leader before him. Haviland was competent, capable, ruthless even, but needed a higher authority before him to be effective, and feel alive. His boss dictated his conscience, his truth, his purpose. Victor was the kind of man who, left leaderless, shut-down. Luckily for Victor, his boss, Gregory St. Croix, fit his needs perfectly.

The ore he found was taken to the St. Croix refinery to be smelted and sold, but not today. Right now, and for some time, he had been interested in shadowing the CHRISTOS, for whatever interested Gregory, obsessed Haviland. This area of the Draco contained much that concerned his boss. The CHRISTOS put his nose up, like a guard dog scenting a thief in a junkyard.

"What the hell is a New Vatican packet doing out here on the edge of everything?" Havilland groused to the Astrogator, who shrugged.

"Prolly a rescue mission. We haven't picked up a distress call, but they did make a bee line for that great lump of lava near Arrakis outside the Draco,where we saw that junked missionary ship. Really gutted it was, nothing to salvage, by the looks. Anyhow, that's my guess."

Haviland glared. "Then why are they still poking around? There are no registered colonies around these parts. They should be chasing back to New Vatica."

The Astrogator shrugged again. "Dunno, maybe we should ask em'," he said with a snicker.

Haviland leaned over the Astrogator and slapped the screen. "Maybe we should. Get Mr. St.Croix on the 'Caster first. Let's see what Gregory wants to do."

****

Brothers Paulis and Tiel were manning the bridge when Joshua entered. "I would like to know about local traffic through the section. Have you spotted any?"

Tiel cocked his head and thought. "It is interesting question. Hard to see anything in space this far from a star, but I understand O.K. Is very light. Warn-off receiver locates very light, what did you say, traffic? We have only one Warn-off point seen lately." Tiel poked some keys and a display lit up.

"Log shows one signal, class II ore carrier in area. It has been on screen for a while now.Is not unusual, is a type of space going ore tug- big one; scavenger class. It has been on screen, last 46 bells, ah," Tiel stopped to do a little math in his head, "two days standard, about."

Joshua asked, "How long..."

There was a repetitive beeping from the board, and Tiel held up his hand. "Your indulgence, Cardinal, Is phone."

A voice emanated from a panel overhead.

"Ore ship CORIANDER here, Captain Haviland of Pan-System Metals. New Vatica packet, we saw you parked over that dead rock back apiece, are you in any trouble?"

Joshua asked Tiel, "Is there any formal reply format for these situations?"

"No, is common band communication, like a chat line."

"Do you mind if I answer this one?" asked Joshua.

Tiel clicked a relay and said, "O.K. Just, talk when I nod."

Joshua cleared his throat,sought a nod from Tiel, and began, "Ah, Captain Haviland, this is Cardinal Joshua of the packet CHRISTOS. We are fine, thanks. Just picked up the remains of one of our poor missionaries for burial...ah, how about yourself? Out here long?"

There was a brief silence from the speaker, then, "Haviland here, your worship. I am just finishing up my tour. Not much so far. We will probably be heading back soon, to Callistro. You people finished up?"

Joshua opened his mouth in reply, but was interrupted by the arrival of Brother Mendel who whispered quietly with Joshua for a second, then left.

Joshua thought, then started again.

"We were thinking of surveying the nearby systems to see if the missionary had found a lost colony, but perhaps you could save us the trouble. Have you mapped out this sector on your ore survey?"

"Haviland here, no Cardinal, we haven't any indication of a colony, the most recent survey isn't even a week old either. We've combed the area pretty carefully, too. It's all vacuum - slim pickings."

"Well then," said Joshua, "I guess we'll pack it in, so to speak."

"Haviland Out."

Joshua signaled to break the connection, then turned to Tiel.

"Get me a packet link to Commander Diocullis through the university of New Vatica library, quickly, please. Also, turn this ship around and start up the FTL field. Set up our current location as the destination."

"Waste power, why?" asked Tiel.

"Just do it, please,something in the nature of an experiment. I will explain later. As for the call, let us just say I believe Captain Haviland is hiding something. Oh, and raise the solar sails."

Both looked oddly at the grand inquisitor's strained features, but began the process. Joshua watched the warn-off screen closely.

For simplicity's sake, as well as a safety precaution in congested orbital patterns when parked, every registered ship contained an emitter beacon that made finding its position easy for others by transmitting its location. Warn-Off was really a misnomer. The display system simply read off the positional data of other ships within a few hundred thousand miles of the receiver and generated a display that corrected for the distance and speed of the reporting objects. Anything further than about fifteen light minutes away was ignored.

Since the signal contained timing as well as location data, it was easy to display a true local activity map, and was better for the purpose than radar, since it was not influenced by reflections or crippled by long return times at space faring distances. The signal was direct, you did not have to wait for a bounce back. You knew where everybody that counted was, who they were, and what their vector of travel was, because the signal told you. Military vessels could, of course, disable the pulse, but it was a mandatory sealed unit on all other ships. This meant the CORRIANDER had been within fifteen light minutes of the CHRISTOS in its travels for a good while, or at least as long as Tiel had been aware of it.

As the CHRISTOS began the strange combination of movements, a change of vector for the CORIANDER registered.

"Is phone again," noted Tiel.

"Ignore it," said Joshua.

****

Diocullus, Dr. Wile, and Joshua sat at a table arranged in the CHRISTOS Lounge. Through the viewer could be seen the slippery shapes of two large man o' war crusader class gun ships, and a number of military lighters, ranging about the distant bulk of the ore scavenger CORIANDER.

"It was a near thing, Commander. Haviland became suspicious, and began closing maneuvers. Luckily, he was to near too use his slip field drive, and was forced to close using mass reactors, standard fare for cargo type ships, since all they do anyway is carry, or tow, in this case, mass. His poking along at sub light speeds gave us time to prepare, which we put to good use,"

Diocullis spoke briefly to an adjutant, who snapped to attention, saluted, then bowed to kiss Michael's ring before departing.

"Yes. Very close work, your worship. The Earth forces are already closing in on the refining station the Coriander is associated with. I will be leaving here to join it. Callistro wasn't really their base of operations, of course. Few of these big mining ships actually operate out of their ports of registry, you realize."

Diocuilis eyed Joshua with obvious curiosity. He had barely managed to avert the disaster on Earth with what he considered a band-aid fix. Even this was due to the information Joshua had uncovered and wired in summary, to the University. Michael had carefully examined all the documents downloaded to the New Vatican library, and couldn't put together the picture Joshua had.

The SONG WEAVER report had talked of strange space phenomena at a place that was along the axis of interest he had discussed with Commander Baine. It also detailed a couple of transmission frequencies. Getting Baine to try out scans on those frequencies hardly even counted as an intuition on his part. Diocullis felt Joshua had assembled his piece of the puzzle from a perspective he inherently lacked.

Michael lifted and revolved his tumbler of fruit juice, then frowned and said, "I hate to turn this meeting into a classic Sherlock Holmes denouement, but my curiosity is insatiable. Brief me on how you discovered this."

Joshua waved a hand."Nothing, really. I was confused as to how all the pieces fit, until I had Brother Mendel run an analysis of some tissue samples from our good, if disturbed and deceased, Friar. The call from the CORIANDER was almost not essential, at that point, just convenient. I was afraid we might find something like the CORIANDER out here. I had gone to the bridge just then to confirm that, or order a search."

"You see, Friar, ah," Joshua scanned one of the reports scattered across the table, "yes, Theomendus it was, Friar Theomendus had a complete lack of certain substances in his tissues like oh, arsenic, which although a poison, is inevitably found in extremely small quantities. Also missing, some very minor but long-term important electrolytes, and minerals, whose absence is known to cause mental anxiety and increased irritation."

If I had the wit to order an autopsy earlier, Joshua thought, I might have put all this together a lot sooner.

"I won't bore you with the list. In another case, we had experienced some strange elemental losses in certain elderly equipment on board the ship. Brother Mendel brought this rather forcefully to my attention in the form of some gallium arsenide based integrated chips that seemed to be missing the arsenide component of their makeup."

Michael looked confused, pushing his head forward inquiringly. Joshua wove his hands in the air as if ordering the beads of an abacus.

"At one time electronics manufacturers made common use of arsenide components in their solid state semi-conductors. In time, this practice was abolished for a number of reasons. Better materials, the environmental dangers and problems associated with recycling these potentially harmful substances, other things. Only a few examples exist anymore, usually in odd bits of experimental circuitry like Arlyis's specialized research equipment."

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Diocullis began, "Why would..."

But Joshua cut him off with a shrug.

"Researchers are inevitably short of funds. They tend to put to use whatever they can get their hands on cheaply. Don't look so aghast, Michael. Arsenic itself is quite widely used in many chemical manufacturing processes,and is still quite a valuable substance.

"Another thing, I'd noted some irregularities in the humor of the staff, possibly early signs of minor chemical imbalances like the corpse of Theomendus exhibited. Jury's still out on that one, haven't had a chance to follow up. The point is, they were largely things you couldn't attribute to say, not eating your veggies regularly, or in the electronics case, decomposition due to age. Most of the substances missing from Father Theomendus were things you wouldn't notice, or test for medically. After all, not finding enough arsenic in the tissues? Who would remark on something like that, even if it were routinely tested for?"

"Beg pardon?" said Diocullis.

"I was just trying to associate a lot of unconnected oddities. I gave up trying to make a logical connection and just built what I had into something consistent.

"It occurred to me Theomendus may have been here, deep in the Draco Constellation area for some time and had been affected. His ship did not contain the mission apparatus all such ships carried to new colonies. Therefore, he had found one,and decanted his kit. He didn't use the emergency beacon, and had disabled the standard spotting transmitter that all ships carry to avoid collisions in space."

Joshua brushed his hands across the table. "But that bit isn't even necessary to know. The important part was that he was afraid, half mad, and had bothered, in what must have been extremity unto death, to rig a radio emitter to broadcast on a band only monitored on New Vatica."

"You will remember," Joshua continued, "the 12-27b report was based on unfiltered scans, picked up when calibrating a radio telescope. Our Friars flew solo, and were trained on Alcomer. He was hiding from something and wanted what he said to be picked up by our research center. Theomendus was educated at N.V.U. He must have known about the constant training scans performed by the university. We know, from examining the ship, that Theomendus was the source of those mad transmissions. The signal was the result of, I fear, a confused interpretation of events. We shall never know the exact details, of course."

Joshua sighed and sat back, musing. "I imagine something like this. The good Friar, disappointed in his initial failure to find a colony world, resets his destination to some point in the Draco Sector indicated in a probability extrapolation worked out before he left New Vatica. One of the low likelihood destinations considered but discarded by the church at that time - a common enough event, one which eventually lead to the abandonment of the program.

Dio looked sharply at the prelate. You certainly did not have this information from me, or the packet I delivered to you."

Joshua waved this off. "I did say imagined, but hear me out. Low on everything but faith, wonder of wonders, he finds one of the lost colonies! He lands and debarks his mission. He is a hero. Everyone flocks to his church to hear not only the WORD, but centuries of news about the state of civilization.

"Our Theomendus is young, in his twenties, idealistic, and decides to postpone announcing their existence until his flock is ready, as he accounts it. Days pass into years. Not today, thinks Theomendus, tomorrow perhaps. On the other hand, maybe he is content that his charges remain isolated, it really doesn't matter. One day, thirty years later, trouble comes. Like on Earth, perhaps. I will take the best view of his state, and put it down to what we found out about his chemistry. His autopsy revealed a mental imbalance caused by the removal of certain elements from his metabolism. Before his eyes, people dying, terrible atmospheric phenomena. Perhaps his flock turns against him,. Again, we cannot know, save for the outcome. I must find help, he thinks, feeling the disaster to be an attack of some kind. Whether it affected his flock,or just himself, point is, he flees."

Diocullis blew out his cheeks and noted, "Quite a story, even if fabricated from whole cloth."

Joshua shrugged. "Oh, I like a good story. But this one's not quite a bar-stool yarn. The Friar we found was lost to us forty years ago. He certainly didn't spend all that time on board. His ship didn't have the equipment, food or power for that. He spent it somewhere. If he had got to a civilized planet or station, he would have reported in, or been reported in, even if he landed insane or dead. At least, the ship's landing would have been registered.

Diocullis snorted. Well, "We know where and when he actually did contact us, and how."

The prelate nodded. "The mass loss effects reported by Cardinal Reswell seem to be similar to conditions you noted on Earth. The odd message in the transmissions of Theomendus hinted at physical mass losses -- What sponsored our involvement in the first place. I knew from the autopsy that something similar happened with our Friar, and so by extension, possibly with his colony. I suppose we all envision some aspect of a recent disaster as affecting our own endeavors, perhaps unjustly, at one time or another. I am not immune- it's not special that I followed up on this. I assume he was still a Friar since he still wore a habit when found. I can't imagine much else from what little I know, though you are correct, Dio - the rest is of course literary license."

Joshua ticked off points on his fingers. "Both the minstrel ship and the good Friar were disabled in space. The Friar's vessel was badly damaged, the minstrel very lightly. However I needn't tell you how incredibly rare collisions in space are. Even the Earth systems asteroid belt only contains some 300 main bodies, none of which are capable of damaging a ship in stream. Both ships were small, normally proceeding in slip field flight with solar sails extended, which on small craft, are frequently designed to do duty as energy collectors. The Song Weaver report even makes mention of that. Two such cases in the same time-frame, inconceivable! If the ships didn't accidentally collide with something, then something purposely collided with them. Only that makes no sense either. Why would anyone ram a priest's ship? Or crash into a flying recording studio? Only in the minstrel's case, we know what it was. Indeed, they recorded the encounter, hmm?"

"I felt, based on the evidence from our own scans, that the causative agents were about in the Draco. Evidence of bands forty-two and seven, here, on Earth, and at the Song Weaver's location? It might as well have been handed to me on a plate."

Privately, Dio considered that only Joshua would think such a leap conclusive, but simply waited for the rest with crossed arms.

"My leap of faith, my thought was, that this new thing, the entities, might be the cause of the other new thing, the mass loss phenomena we found here, both in the Draco ten light year 'hole, and in our Friar, our microchips, and especially notable, on Earth. I have no idea of the mechanism, but if the Earth was similarly plagued, evidently through the use of a device, could it have been directing these...entities?"

Joshua waved his hand."Again, my speculation is really not necessary.

"Point is, my fear that someone might use such a thing to such nefarious purposes. My crew is working on that, with help from your most current reports."

"You assumed the quantum communicator device was not made by the ... creatures then?" asked Diocullis .

Joshua frowned. "No. At the time; the tech you reported was categorized as "off world" not "Alien." We now feel that instrumentation isn't their strong point, in any case. Sister Seika made the observation that they don't appear to be tool users. At least, we haven't seen them use any. Remember, quantum emitters can't be located, they just, babble at least as far as our ability is concerned. The tech you found was odd, but followed human technology in its construction. You mentioned it was manufactured. It wasn't some relic or alien artifact, yes? Also, as you pointed out in your reports, it really couldn't have been a beacon, in the usual sense of the term."

Diocullis laughed. "That would be hardly possible, considering the technology used; point taken, and a fair assumption."

Yes," admitted Joshua, "well then where was I? Oh. A tool does presuppose a tool-maker. I wondered if we might find some tool-using agent in the Draco directing all this pandemonium. That was my fear. The CORIANDER was the only thing in sight, and out here in space, that coincidence was hard to swallow. I called simply to protect myself, not any more a deduction than any old lady would make finding a dark stranger loitering in her yard, I'm afraid."

Diocullis appeared to ponder this for a moment. "While there seem to be holes in that logic, I can't fault the conclusions reached, Cardinal. Very intuitive despite your disclaimers. Still, this doesn't directly implicate the ore carrier. How did you tie all this in with the CORIANDER?" Diocullis demanded. "I thought your navigator told you that miners often visited this area?"

Joshua nodded. "It is true Tiel mentioned that ore gathering freelancers might reasonably be expected to make such ranging voyages way out here beyond the pale. But bumping into one, as if it were a tuna in a goldfish bowl? They were patrolling, not scavenging. Haviland as much as admitted this was the case. He told me he had scanned the entire area a week ago and had found nothing. Why else would he still be out here, in an ore-less void, following us about for two days?"

"The last test was something I intended to try anyway - Repeating the conditions both of the small ships exhibited prior to their damage. But not at speed of course, no need to damage our own ship. Stop, put out sails and activate slip field in such manner as to simulate the Songweaver's charged state when it encountered the entities. And of course,"Joshua waved at the shimmers running up and down the fanned out sails beyond the ship, "there they are."

"Amazing, your Worship," said Michael.

"It was just a lot of addition more than intuition, really. Could have been wrong, but I had to call you. If I was wrong, I would have apologized, when you arrived, and the ore ship would have been gone instead of closing in on us.

"We still don't know the mechanisms, so I still have to complete my primary mission. Dr. Wile and the rest have been making progress with our research the last few days; he can fill you in with much of that."

Dr. Wile, content to listen quietly up to then, cleared his throat and took up the discussion.

"The manifestations running about the sail web are indeed some form of life. We know they take in food in the form of matter which they convert to usable energy before, not after, absorption and excrete what very little they cannot use as radiant energy -- photons, muons, that sort of thing. They are almost supernaturally efficient creatures; composed of coherent energies hung like laundry on the threshold of our universe. Whatever forces bind them here exist rotated into other dimensions or extruded into the quantum world of threads and rings, where their communication bands exist. They may even turn out to be the cause of some Wormhole manifestations."

Diocullis thought on this. "How do they manage, out here in free space?"

"We have observed them in the process of moving about", said Dr. Wile, "and for any traveling distance of more than a score or so of feet, they seem to fold into space, disappear, then reappear elsewhere. They obviously love the thin ether and oddly, the anti-graviton emissions of our slip fields, plain enough.

"They are indeed capable of moving mass, at the elemental level. Have no idea how yet. Takes place on some level of the cosmos we know little of, that much is clear. This is likely the origin of their interest to such as Haviland and his ilk. Imagine what wonderful gleaners you have here, could you get them to harvest metals and other elements selectively for you.

"Why do they move matter about? We haven't gotten anywhere near enough information to say. It drives Sister Seika crazy not to be able to do a long term habitat study. She is on the systems daily with the papacy trying to rally support for establishing a permanent research station. Sister Seika says the behaviors, the clustering and the group actions, look on the surface like nesting behaviors. They stay to one locale, seem to preen it, clearing out debris with their talents, so forth.

"Arlyis has her Rosetta stone programs grinding away under Father Logan's trembling hands. They are rapidly decoding their elements of speech and should be able to start codifying the language, if that is what it really is, quite soon. Sister Seika is doing her best to codify their physical responses."

"So there you have it", interjected Joshua. "I'd wager that mining company you mentioned is using them to leach out specific metals and gases from planets, stars, and so forth, and without much concern for the consequences, other than as is rudimentary to not getting caught."

Diocullis nodded. "Astounding, what next, then?"

Cardinal Joshua sat for a moment. "Well, first my staff must finish their initial work. The Pope provided us a mandate for this mission. We are to see this issue through to its roots. He wants resolution, not just information."

Joshua turned to take in the flitting phantom shapes as they coursed across the vast expanse of the CHRISTOS solar sail array. Much, he thought, was being made of this in a scientific sense, but really, bumbling out here and running into them was not the answer to his mission. He had uncovered the What, not the Why or a How.

"As for the entities, I'm hoping for sentient negotiation, but if necessary I suppose a mechanical answer, as I assume was used on earth, could be employed. Something mechanical to ward off instead of attract the attention of these," Joshua waved in the direction of the solar sails ". . . things. They are a wild card in this equation. If they have been used to cause unnatural havoc, the problem is still unresolved.

"I have discussed this with Father Logan, who is by the way, thrilled smug. We can see great good coming from what we have discovered, but a potential to cause great suffering exists as well.

"It is now a race, do you see, to get a handle on this. We must learn to control, or defend ourselves against this new science. The Holy See and Cardinal Reswell have already been conferred with, and are working up a proposal to eventually present to the Federation, but you know how limited a help that will be. At the beginning of this mission, Cardinal Reswell was worried about changes to the shape of the universe, based on unknown physics."

Joshua passed his hands over the back of his neck and drew breath. "This is worse. Life is a statistical aberration. As much as we talk about Nature, life fights to exist in spite of it. It is willful, not so predictable, and can't just be corrected for, like some event this ship could be programmed to avoid. This discovery changes everything. Besides, things wait on your own mission completion, as it is."

Diocullis sighed, hoisting himself up from the table. "Very canny, Joshua. I know you already have here every possible aid, but I wish there was something further I could do."

"I appreciate that, Michael, but at least short term you have further eggs to fry. God forgive me, but I hope you discover every one of those pirates behind the weaponizing of these things. They certainly don't seem to be aggressive on their own part. Anything you learn about the, the Wavies, I guess is the nickname my staff uses, please see I get soon as possible."

"Of course. One further thought though. If you are correct, you now have a ship completely inundated with things potentially lethal to you and every member of your crew."

Joshua froze, and then blanched. "You're right, we are at risk. In our own defense, we didn't know for certain that our guesses were correct. We could have been wrong. This was just the fastest avenue to find out! I will have to move us out of here immediately. Besides I need to have the crew completely tested, and the ship's integrity examined. Thank you, Dio. Later, we may have to look about for the lost colony of Theomedus, after all."

Joshua concluded his conference with Dio then abruptly spun on his heels and raced for the bridge.

All of this, in synopsis, was sent to the University Library at New Vatica.