CHAPTER 22

On the bridge, Ravna confronts Pham’s numbed nihilism. She argues that even Powers face mortality and that his current state does not negate his humanity. As Pham recalls overwhelming fragments of Old One’s memories, Ravna’s empathy and closeness draw him back from despair.

Amid their intimacy, they analyze Relay’s fall. Pham remembers Old One’s frantic final moments, as if cramming him with dense, painful data. Ravna proposes “godshatter”: a deliberate, compressed download of plans and triggers too large for conscious understanding, meant to emerge when needed. Pham senses the Perversion is ancient and that Old One learned something crucial while dying.

Accepting that he may be a latent instrument, Pham concludes their chase to the Bottom is not folly; the Straumer ship holds something that could matter against the Perversion. He warns that as godshatter activates he may become less “human,” but Ravna commits to him and to their shared goal.

They pivot to action, mining the ship library’s Applied History of Technology. With Blueshell and Greenstalk, they iterate uplift pathways for the Tines: prioritize firepower and communications. The plan targets simple firearms and “quantum torsion” radios built from silver and cobalt-steel arrays, with experiment trees to identify materials and manage toxicity despite limited local knowledge.

The team acknowledges translation gaps, resource uncertainty, and branching search trees may stretch timelines from about a hundred days to years. Despite the risk and reliance on luck, Ravna finalizes a clear Samnorsk package and transmits the best scheme to Steel, hoping to arm and coordinate Jefri’s allies before Woodcarver can seize the ship.