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own magnetic field gave a spiderweb defense against cosmic rays and angry storms flailing out from the persecuted star that powered all this. Its fields were like spaghetti strands wrapped around the atmosphere, layers of argument against intruding particles wanting to plow into innocent gases.
    Redwing said, “What other weapons does this place have?”
    “More than we do,” Clare said mildly.
    “Look,” Jampudvipa said with an irked twist to her mouth, “this thing’s unknowably old. Ancient! Beyond ancient. On Earth a century was a huge time for weapons to evolve. I read up on this in preoutbreak history, back when we were on one world. Amazing stuff. In the same century as the first nuke got used, we also killed each other with bayonets and one-shot rifles. So how can we think about— this ?”
    This outbreak of consternation made them all sit back, think.
    Karl said solemnly, “The laws of physics constrain everybody—even the Bowl Folk, whoever they are. Or whatever.”
    “Tech has its own evolution,” Clare said. “What’s in those big domes at the Bowl rim?”
    “No way to know. Fly low, is all we can do,” Redwing said. Taking my ship into uncharted waters … It was liberating to be simply honest.
    They slid on a blithe arc over the quickly spinning lip of the Bowl. Sensors set on the big domes and their enormous snouts registered no change.
    Cruising over the Bowl’s lip and down the swiftly rushing hull brought quick instructive views. SunSeeker had come at the Bowl from the side and below, along the axis of revolution and through the Knothole. Now Redwing could see the detailed and intricate lattice that framed the hull’s support structures, threaded by long ribbed structures that looked like enormous subways and elevators, some with spiky turrets protruding at the junctions. But here and there were sections clearly retrofitted, yellow and green splotches of newer joints and fix-up ornamentations of mysterious use.
    Additions and afterthoughts, he judged. Some reminded him of accumulated grime, touch-up attempts and insertions. Like the yellowing varnish on a Renaissance masterpiece, he thought. Strip away the accretions, and beneath is the original brilliance. Interstellar archaeology.

 
    SIX
    Karl deployed the smart flexi with an electric shock. Under a kilovolt surge the velvet blue shroud billowed out—so thin, he could see the gyrating hull grinding past in the distance. Starlight lit its eternal churn. A certain serenity enveloped the view, for the background was the eternal spread of stars. The approaching dot was for the moment nothing.
    He had static-fixed the flexi to the Bernal ’s hull. Its sensors would follow inbuilt commands he could activate. Well, here goes …
    The flexi popped open at the electro-command. Yet the micro sensors at the far end remained live and ready, he saw from his wrist monitor. The flexi bubble furled out as liquidly as a cape cast off a shoulder, though all this was in high vacuum, no gravity or atmosphere to command its dynamics. Such a thin fabric of layered smart carbon could be made and trained in the ship printers, but he had never tried anything this complex before. Now they had to use it to rescue Beth’s team from the big train car that came swarming up at them, the dot assuming a velocity a bit too high. Problems, yes. Perhaps not fatal, entirely. Yet.
    Karl had not been thawed when SunSeeker shot through the Knothole, so all this gigantic architecture was new to him. He stared, momentarily lost in detail.
    “Coming up on rendezvous prompt,” Jam sent on comm. “Bogie on vector grid.”
    “Got it.” He eased the flexi controls, using both hands. For ease of manual operations, there were no left-handed crew on SunSeeker. Karl had made the crew cut because he was genuinely ambidextrous. In college he had made extra cash as a juggler.
    “It’s coming up too fast,” Jam said urgently.
    “I’ve got mag fields on, maybe I can push it