The Open Lock
Ilkay's voice came over the internal in the fifth hour. Anneli was in the bridge with Mihkel still sitting across from her. They had not spoken since Reval had said *I think the child is not the only one*, because there were things you did not rush, and because the phrase had to be allowed to stand in the air for a while before a person could begin to work around it.
"Anneli. Come up to the cupola. You need to see this."
They went up together. The cupola was in the forward dome, a long ovoid of pressurised glass at the ship's bow, set behind three layers of armour and always dimmed, because starlight at eighty-six years' remove was a small and precious input and the cupola's instruments liked to receive it without interruption. Ilkay was at the main scope. Reet was standing with her arms folded behind him. He did not turn around when they came in.
"We did the external pass," he said, without preamble. "Of the hull. We ran it against the baseline from the year-eighty inspection. Small delta. Nothing on five. Nothing on eight. Nothing remarkable on eleven — I was expecting there to be something on eleven, given the child, but the hull's intact over the deck, the mounting is nominal, the radiation shielding hasn't been touched."
"But."
He turned around. He had the look of a man who had not slept in some time and was about to tell somebody something that would keep them from