Noumenon Infinity

If the silence had been deafening before, this was the utter absence of sound. The air lay dead. Caz looked from side to side, making sure her colleagues hadn’t died of shock. It seemed the sentence contained so foreign a concept, they could hardly process it.

I.C.C. clearly took the lack of interjection as a signal to continue. “I do not make this proposal casually, but I fear we may be at the beginning of a societal impasse.”

That’s an interesting way to put it, Caz thought. The dumbfounded silence hadn’t diminished. On the contrary, it seemed to be burgeoning. She could see words beginning at the back of Nwosu’s throat, but he swallowed them down. Beside Caz, Onuora sat up straighter, arms tucked against her sides, tight—a wound coil ready to spring. At what, Caz couldn’t guess.

Out of everyone in the room, only she and Pavon seemed to be taking the AI’s words in stride. Pavon’s clone line had a long history of siding with the AI—Caznal found that interesting. Perhaps Margarita would back her.

“The current mission was launched with a dual purpose,” I.C.C. continued. “Some have taken that duality to heart, while others believe one a side mission. The unofficial standing of that ‘side mission’ has further fueled the intellectual divide. But only now is the division beginning to show itself. It has been an undercurrent for over fifty years, but not until the last board meeting was it given voice.”

Onuora turned in her wheelchair, and Caz could feel a pointed gaze boring into her profile.

“I’ve run behavioral projections,” I.C.C. said, “and the results indicate this could be a turning point. Chances of societal disruption are high, threats to crew member safety are currently steady, but I fear an increase soon. Overall, chance of mission failure has increased by point-two-seven percent.”

Caznal’s stoicism cracked, her eyes widening. This was not what they’d talked about. The computer was supposed to be outlining the scientific merits of two convoys, why focusing on reverse engineering and alien instruction simultaneously was likely to see the construction project finished sooner than if they spurned one for the other.

The Web—I.C.C. was supposed to be focusing on the megastructure. If the damn board was so in love with the thing, she was going to give it to them.