Ravna gritted her teeth. The hell of it was, the facts in the posting were correct. It was the inferences that were vicious and false. And she couldn't guess if this were some shade of black propaganda or simply Saint Rihndell expressing honest conclusions (though Rihndell had never seemed so trusting of the butterflies). One thing all the News seemed to agree on: Much more than the Alliance fleet was chasing the OOB. The swarm of ultradrive traces could be seen by anyone within a thousand light-years. The best guess was that three fleets pursued the OOB. Three! The Alliance for the Defense, still loud and boastful,
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复件 (87) air max2, even though suspected (by some) of being opportunistic genocides. Behind them,
复件 (69) air max2, Sjandra Kei ... and what was left of Ravna's motherland; in all the universe perhaps the only folk she could trust. And just behind them,
复件 (90) air max1, the silent fleet. Diverse news posters claimed it was from the High Beyond. That fleet might have problems at the Bottom, but for now it was gaining. Few doubted that it was the Perversion's child. More than anything, it convinced the universe that the OOB or its destination was cosmically important. Just why it was important was the big question. Speculation was drifting in at the rate of five thousand messages per hour. A million different viewpoints were considering the mystery. Some of those viewpoints were so alien that they made Skroderiders and Humans look like the same species. At least five participants on this News thread were gaseous inhabitants of stellar coronas. There were one or two others that Ravna suspected were uncataloged races, beings so shy that this might be their first active use of the Net ever. The OOB's computer was a lot dumber than it had been in the Middle Beyond. She couldn't ask it to sift through the messages looking for nuance and insight. In fact,
复件 (24) air max1, if an incoming message didn't have a Triskweline text, it was often unreadable. The ship's translator programs still worked fairly well with the major trade languages, but even there the translation was slow and full of alternative meanings and jabberwocky. It was just another sign that they were approaching the Bottom of the Beyond. Effective translation of natural languages comes awfully close to requiring a sentient translator program. Nevertheless, with proper design, things might have been better. The automation might have degraded gracefully under the restrictions imposed by their depth. Instead, gear just stopped working; what remained was slow and error-prone. If only the refitting had been completed before the Fall of Relay. And just how many times have I wished for that? She hoped things were as bad aboard the pursuing ships. So Ravna used the ship to do light culling on the Threats newsgroup. Much of what was left was inane, as from people who see "portents in the weather" -- Crypto: 0 Syntax: 43 As received by: OOB shipboard ad hoc Language path: Arbwyth->Trade24->Cherguelen->Triskweline, SjK units From: Twirlip of the Mists [Perhaps an organization of cloud fliers in a single jovian system. Very sparse priors before this thread began. Appears to be seriously out of touch. Program recommendation: delete this poster from presentation.] Subject: The Blight's goal at the Bottom Distribution: Threat of the Blight, Great Secrets of Creation Date: 4.54 days since Fall of Sjandra Kei Key phrases: Zone Instability and the Blight, Hexapodia as the key insightText of message: Apologies first if I am repeating obvious conclusions. My only gateway onto the Net is very expensive, and I miss many important postings.