Appears in The Compact Reader
Cybercommand operative Weiss is dispatched from Tian to the politically volatile planet Aphrodite, where two ethnic groups—the Penqu and the Kolkats—have been in a state of sporadic civil war for centuries. Her assignment is to investigate a supposed “giant robot” unearthed in the desert, far from Aphrodite’s usual swampy climate.
Guided by a nationalist Penqu named Cenek, Weiss witnesses the emergence of a ten-meter-tall automaton—an ancient alien mech buried beneath the sand. The robot briefly activates, mimicking language and declaring Weiss and Cenek “trespassers” before toppling and severely injuring Cenek. Analysis by Cybercommand technician Scully reveals the machine is approximately a billion years old, predating humanity’s presence in the Helios System. Its design implies a primate-like alien species, and Scully speculates that similar constructs may be buried on Ares, another Class-E world in the system that shows signs of ancient terraforming.
While factions on Aphrodite bicker over the robot’s implications for territorial claims, Weiss recommends leaving it in place—not to claim it, but to serve as a unifying artifact, a shared mystery older than either group. Her superior, Director Frumentarius, agrees.
But just as the mission settles, Weiss is reassigned by G-5 Zhong, the head of Cybercommand. The Compact has gone on high alert: the Mars colony Farigha has been destroyed, and Gilead has gone silent. With war looming, Weiss is pulled off the Aphrodite operation and sent to Thule to retrieve Captain Hideki Okada, a former Navy officer involved in the warp drive project. She is ordered to escort him to the Challenger, the first warp-capable warship, and remain aboard as Cybercommand’s embedded agent.
Though reluctant to leave her family and the tantalizing alien mystery behind, Weiss complies, recognizing that ancient machines are less urgent than a looming war—and that the Compact may need warp drive not for exploration, but for survival.