“Are you worried at all?”

Adelaide looked out at the water while she thought about how to respond to Ray. They had realized that a bunch of the scales or plates or whatever were still floating on the surface, and everyone had started pulling them in just on the general principle that people would probably buy something like that. A bunch had been pulled in with nets, and now the crew was taking out the dinghy to grab the others. Adelaide was already picturing them being melted down into some dumb breastplate for someone who wanted to swing a cutlass around before he drowned or something.

She noticed how negative her thoughts were growing, and internally apologized to their hypothetical future customer she had just mocked — his armor would probably look great and he was probably a capable swimmer. It wasn’t his fault that Adelaide felt like she’d ruined something, not least because he didn’t actually exist.

Anyway, it was time to respond to Ray.

“You second guessing me?”

As soon as she said it, Adelaide regretted it. But she didn’t apologize, and another moment stretched out in silence.

Ray eventually broke it. “I wasn’t saying you made a mistake. But I thought I had the right to do so, if I did.”

“You do. You’re right, I am worried. I’m not taking it well.”

“Yeah?”

“I mean, what did I just fuck up by pulling this thing in? Like it was clearly something, right? They were passing it, or chasing it. I have no idea why, but they won’t find it now! Hopefully they have a spare or it’s not that important. But it probably is. For all I know, I just killed the whole species. Maybe now they just spin hopelessly until they die.”

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Ray didn’t respond at first, and Adelaide listened to the sound of the scales being pulled into a dinghy.

“Ok, I have two reactions.” Ray said eventually. “First, I think you need to recalibrate your sense of your own importance.”

“Gee, an insult, thank you.”

“It’s not an insult, Professor, just reality. You probably did not commit genocide in a moment. Even if it is something important, you don’t think there are other things around here that occasionally disrupt their process, assuming it is a process? You don’t think there’s something that tries to eat it or lay eggs in it or something? I’m not the scientist, but I don’t think anyone gets to do whatever they want without obstacles, no matter how fast they spin.”

“That’s a good point, but humans disrupt plenty of ecosystems. That’s nothing new.”

“Sure, but you have a reason, right? You’re not just messing around for no reason — you are out here to study Nodes, and now you have one to put under a magnifying glass or whatever.”

“Do you actually think modern science involves magnifying glasses?”

“Whatever. Anyway, you have it now — have you even looked at it?”

Adelaide turned and walked over to the Node, which turned out to be more of a gem shape than the sphere it had looked like in motion. The faces were rough and not sharply delineated — there were curved edges, and many nicks. It was about three feet long and had almost been too heavy to haul up. But it wasn’t some sort of giant emerald - it was opaque, with little variation between each side.

“It’s hard to know what to make of it,” Adelaide said. “Nodes are features of the readings we pull in — they are like points on a graph. I didn’t expect one to be a physical object. I don’t even know what to do with a physical object like this. And what about when we take it back? Will it be a Node then, even outside the Triangle? What would that even mean? I mean, I had to take it because of those questions, but I have no idea how to begin solving them.”

“I bet you’ll figure it out.”

“I wish I were so confident, but thank you. But you had two reactions, right? What was the other one?”

“Oh, well, when I asked if you were worried, I wasn’t thinking about ethical concerns. I was wondering if you were worried one of those giant guys was able to track this thing and would want it back.”

Adelaide froze, and then started laughing so hard she had to sit down.