To pay for their passage, they borrowed starship plans broadcast by the Great Ship and improved upon them, building a fleet of fat round hyperfiber vessels inside which were tanks filled with liquid hydrogen as well as a single small-mass black hole, heavily charged and suspended inside an elaborate cage. The captains had no compelling need for the hydrogen, since those frigid lakes couldn’t fuel the Great Ship’s engines for more than a few breaths. And while tiny black holes had their uses—in research and communication, mostly—there were already plenty of the dangerous little monsters waiting in inventory. But there were only a few of the fef on board each vessel, and they were pleasant enough, and by evidence of their work, they were gifted tinkerers. Gleefully, they accepted spartan quarters in a deep, lower-gravity district, easily blending into the multitude of odd species. And that was twenty thousand light-years ago, which meant sixty thousand years in the past. In the ages since, those few thousand immigrants had slowly and patiently prospered, making their livelihoods by repairing nonvital systems that the ship’s engineers couldn’t bother with. And in certain cases—if there was a burning hurry, or if certain permission forms hadn’t been tiled—fefs would do their usual excellent work in the briefest possible time. In the dark, preferably, since they were a nocturnal species. And for a considerable fee. But they never discussed their clients, and they continued to live quietly among the multitude of aliens, shoving their profits into the acquisition of new quarters where their children began raising their own families—a few colonists becoming a nation numbering more than half a billion souls.

“Your greatness,” the leading fef declared, standing at the entranceway to the repair camp. Built with diamond and furnished sparingly, the facility was a chain of transparent bubbles set on the open hull, the lighting reduced to a comfortable gloom. High-grav braces helped him stand as he proclaimed, “It is an honor to have you with us, your splendor.”

“Thank you,” Washen replied, offering a tidy little bow.

“Thank you for coming,” the leader muttered, speaking through his translator. “May we quench a thirst? Stuff a stomach? Or perhaps, we could sing to you—”

“Nothing. Thank you.”

“If you need—”

“I will demand.”

“And we will serve you, your majesty.”

Twenty months had passed since the launching of the streakship. The Inkwell covered most of the sky now—a featureless ebony face betraying nothing to human eyes. What was bright and spectacular was the occasional flash of light when a laser struck some mountain-sized hazard, followed by the colorful aurora as the shields collected the ionized debris, pulling the ionized wreckage across the sky and down to where elaborate, heavily armored facilities collected the material, sorting it by its elemental composition, and then sending the treasures to storage or selling them to some critical industry.

The leading fef bent in the middle, two pairs of feet moving together, lifting his eye pod closer to the First Chair’s face. “I hope that I have not stolen you away from any vital work, your marvel.”

Washen shrugged. “For the moment, no.”

“But they refuse to leave the work site,” the alien persisted. “I know they have permission to be there. But we have goals, and timetables, and if these deep cavities are not patched soon—”

“These are minor problems,” she interrupted.

Nothing was minor to a fef. With a suddenly tense voice, he replied, “Madam. I know they have your permission to tour the deep cavities. That is why I contacted you before anyone. My team and I have done no work for the last thirty-two days. Perhaps these cavities mean something, but if that is the case, we must be found other assignments. Work is the heart of existence, madam. As long as they are down there—”

“You have no heart. I understand:”

The fef lowered his eye pod, and after some considerable thought, he decided to say nothing more.

“Perhaps I should speak with them,” Washen offered.

“If you could, please. Madam. All of us would be most appreciative.”

She looked across the facility. Hundreds of fef were showing their thanks by rocking side to side, and among them were their robots—thousands of insectlike bodies that made, what was for them, a kowtowing motion.

“Where is your access tunnel?” the Submaster inquired.

“This way,” the leader said. “I will take you down myself.”

Quietly, Washen said, “Thank you. But no.”

Directly overhead, a substantial piece of ice exploded, obliterated by a nanosecond pulse of UV light.

“Stay here,” she ordered. “This work is all mine.”

THE COMET THAT struck during the war was relatively large and massive—thirty kilometers across and dense as new snow wrapped around chunks of rock and gravel. It had little velocity of its own, but the ship’s velocity had provided a fantastic amount of kinetic energy. Any normal world built of rock and warm iron would have been gutted, but the hull was made from more stubborn stuff. Heat and momentum were channeled into the hidden dimensions and speculative realms. The damage was more extensive than it should have been, but only because this was very close to where an even larger impact had occurred billions of years ago. A moon-sized object had smacked into the ship, creating a deep blast cone as well as a necklace of tiny, relatively trivial cavities. The first Remoras had patched the surface with the best available grades of hyperfiber. The fef were supposed to finish the repair begun one hundred thousand years ago, leaving the hull as sturdy as it might have been ten minutes after its unimaginable creation.

Built for fefs, the cap-car felt tiny to Washen, and its air was thick with carbon dioxide and water vapor. Every breath was warm enough to remind her of every sauna that she had ever endured. And the car was swift, plunging to its destination, time passing too quickly to allow an overworked captain to steal more than a moment or two of sleep.

With a hiss, the hatch dissolved.

The air beyond was thinner and very dry. What might have been a narrow fissure had been enlarged, several meters of wounded hyperfiber removed to build a passageway as well as stripping away everything that was even a little weak. What remained was a long half-lit tunnel, gray walls looking like mirrors where they had already been prepared for the final repair. In time, the atmosphere would be yanked away and millions of liters of fresh, high-grade hyperfiber would pour into the emptiness. What was new would effortlessly merge with the rest of the hull, and once cured, only the most persistent expert armed with delicate sensors would notice the seams left behind.

That was one of the miracles of hyperfiber—its endless capacity to accept every tiny graft and every giant patch.

Washen walked patiently if not quite slowly. After a long lazy turn to the left, the passageway twisted to the right again, and with that turn she began to hear the quiet, smooth, and occasionally human sound of voices.

Short of the chamber, she paused.

“But if you consider,” said a voice. What followed was one of the dense AI languages, rapid and efficient and invented for no other purpose than to plumb the high realms of mathematics.

“Consider this,” a second voice responded.

The next dose of machine talk was louder and even quicker. A nexus translated for Washen, and three other nexuses did their best to explain what she was hearing. But one after another, her devices reached the limits of their ability. They apologized, or they simply fell silent, too embarrassed to speak.

A third voice said, “Thank you.”

And then a fourth voice, very familiar, said, “Why won’t you come the rest of the way, Mother? Don’t worry, you aren’t interrupting.”