“Oh,” Mesa said, back straightening.
A clicking preceded a subdued hum, then a tiny panel slid open on the peak of the pyramid. Bright white, crisp holographic screens appeared in the air—the same bulging triangular panels Cavalon had seen the Drudger captain surveying.
Mesa gave a pleased shrug. “That was … easier than I expected.”
Cavalon and Emery both slid forward in their chairs, staring at the bright screens in curiosity. Dozens of displays fanned out, some layered in stacks, some individual panels, all clustered in a tight formation just over a half meter wide.
Mesa reached out with tentative fingers to touch a screen, then swept it a few centimeters to the side. It responded, floating to the right, stopping when she let go. Exactly what they would expect from their own holographic displays—which wasn’t surprising, since humans had assimilated the technology from Viators.
Mesa began experimenting with the screens, quickly discovering she could open new panels along the edges of existing ones, linking them together to create one larger image. Soon, she slid around the menus like she’d invented the tech herself. But each time she opened a new screen, the others shrank to accommodate. With a scowl, Mesa stood and discarded her chair. She pushed up the sleeves of her uniform and rubbed her hands together as she glared at the display. Cavalon grinned. Things were about to get serious.
After only a few minutes of hyperfocused trial and error, Mesa figured out how to expand the limits of the projection, so more screens could remain expanded and side by side, instead of stacked. When the whole display had become as wide as their worktable—almost two meters—Cavalon began to wonder how it was possible. The screens projected from an opening no more than two centimeters square. He had no idea how it could project an image that wide without some degree of distortion.
When he asked, Mesa’s monotonous, absentminded answer was simply, “Self-refracting vectors.”
Cavalon exchanged a look with Emery, who shrugged and popped a fresh piece of purple gum into her mouth.
Mesa finished expanding the screens and locked them together, revealing a handful of small, stationary dots scattered across a faint, white-lined grid. Just as he’d thought when he’d first seen the displays in the cockpit, it appeared to be some kind of blueprint or map. Though, an empty one—like a blank template that needed filling in.
“Mesa…” Cavalon began. “What are we looking at? Do you know what this is?”
She didn’t respond at first, then with an effort she drew her gaze away, peering through the semitransparent displays to stare at him. “Maybe.” She seemed awestruck, but also cautious. He thought he could sense a hint of fear behind her speculative, overlarge eyes.
“So, what is it, Mes?” Emery asked. “Spill it.”
Any fear Cavalon may have sensed seemed to vanish as a smile spread across Mesa’s face. An honest, unhindered, full-out grin. “I think this may be a curanulta.”
Cavalon exchanged another clueless look with Emery. “And that’s … what?” he asked.
Mesa blinked heavily, snapping out of her reverie. “Right, of course.” Her tone transformed from inquisitive and quiet, to the steady and informative timbre Cavalon had grown accustomed to. “Curanulta. It is Viator for … well, it is akin to ‘boundless.’ A fable, or so I thought.”
“A fable?”
She gave a short nod. “It is a device recorded in their ancient texts, but I have never seen one, and I know of no one who has. I had thought it lost to time, if it ever existed to begin with.”
“And it does what, exactly?”
“It is an atlas, of sorts, but dynamic. Fluid mapping.”
Cavalon slouched and sat back, hoping she couldn’t sense his utter confusion. Mesa tended to say things as if they were common knowledge, to the point where he was convinced he’d understood her, only to realize after his brain had time to chew on it a while, he had no idea what she’d just said.