Eukary looked over Forge’s shoulder. His vam was bright, but her attention was drawn to the top of the hill.

“Well?”

Forge tapped a new command on his vam. The readout remained unchanged. He gathered up his gear, stowed it, then slid his pack back into the frame on his back.

“It’s all glass,” he said, baffled.

Eukary couldn’t understand it either.

“Well,” she said, “we’re not geologists. We’ll bring the samples back and get them looked at properly.”

She failed to convince even herself, and as the two of them looked across the horizon, Eukary could not shake the feeling that Bindu Prime was anything but a planet.

“Have you ever read up on this place?”

Forge shrugged. “Never had a reason.”

“Me neither. There’s so many eels here. That is not usual.”

They were bursting below the clouds now and then, showing off their aerobatics, then plunging back through the veil.

“I’ve never seen them so lively, either,” said Forge.

A very young eel shot like a dart and levelled out low to the ground, slithering between the hills. It rose and flew about in a spiral, looking down at them as it passed over their hill. It began to circle around them, singing and kicking up glass pebbles with its tail, then shot back upward in answer to its mother’s call.

Eukary cracked a smile.

“Cute lil’ guy,” said Forge.

They looked overhead while they made their way back to the grotte, watching as the eels congregated and intensified their song before vanishing back into the clouds.

Forge had rummaged through the salvage of Harbinger One and set up a rudimentary lab next to Speck’s room. Speck was up to walking, so he hobbled over and Eukary propped him up on a cot one of the Shadow Children had brought in.

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Speck is a friend, it said.

“You get used to them after a while,” said Speck, after the Shadow Child had appeared to leave.

Yes, it said, we’re not so bad.

“Okay,” said Forge, “no more of that. We don’t like being spied on.”

“Apologies.”

All Eukary could think of was how useful they would be as allies, and deadly they would be as enemies. She hoped to Imogen that Solomon was still sane.

The Shadow Children had salvaged some of the survey equipment from Harbinger One and helped Forge set it up. There they did a more thorough analysis of the samples they had gathered, and it seemed that every piece of planetary matter they gathered had a uniform composition.

“That’s weird,” said Speck.

Eukary examined him discreetly. He was a thin man, but wiry, yet the crash had taken much of his strength. She worried about his coughing and the bags under his eyes. Still, just the other day he could barely move. Now he was standing.

“Maybe this whole world is some sort of satellite,” she speculated. She turned to the faint distortion and it flickered for a moment. “What do your people know of Bindu Prime?”

“Solomon brought us here.”

Then a thought struck Eukary. “How long have you been Shadow Children?”

“How long have you been Harbinger?”

Speck gave her a look that told of numerous circular conversations along a similar grain.

“Well,” said Forge, “I know what Bindu Prime isn’t. Nothing organic forms along such a uniform pattern.”

Eukary shook her head. “The manufacturing of worlds bankrupted every nation that attempted it, and the worlds never lasted long enough to get any sort of return. And why make a whole planet out of glass?”

“It’s sturdy stuff, too,” said Speck. “Sol told me he stress tested some of it. He couldn’t break any of it. Even using his radiance.”

“I wondered if you had a chance to talk to him at all,” said Eukary.

“A little. I was out of it. I asked him about the place and told him about my scans. He said he just came here because no one’s been to the place in forever.”

“Speaking of Solomon,” said Forge.

They heard the voices in the hall. Solomon, Cat, Sensus, and the whispers of the Shadow Children.

They went out to meet them and saw Revol and Haruspex.

“Where are Aster and Ishtar?” asked Sensus.

Eukary signaled them on her vam, but there was no response.

“My people will find them,” said Solomon, and he nodded to a seemingly blank stretch of the hallway. Three silhouettes appeared and dispersed in different directions.

“We’ve got a lot to discuss,” said the captain. His old eyes looked tired.