To his relief, Emery took a turn at asking the next obvious question. “What the hell’s ‘fluid mapping’？” she grumbled.
“Well, this is all speculation, of course,” Mesa began. “But it is a star map, linked to a series of beacons. The beacons send information back to the device, and the curanulta stays up to date.”
“How ‘up to date’？” Cavalon asked.
She raised her shoulders as she turned back to the screens. “I am … not sure. In many accounts, it is implied that they update almost instantly.”
“Real time?” Emery asked.
Mesa’s eyes narrowed. “That is the theory, but it is not practical. There would still be a lag of some kind, unless Viators had previously perfected interstellar data transfer to a degree beyond our current capabilities.”
Emery crossed her arms, her tone unusually serious. “What kind of information?”
“Oh, many things,” Mesa said lightly. “It could be used to monitor the status of their own ships, or enemy troop movement. There are many forms of military application. Also, simply as a record for astronomical bodies. To monitor star life cycles, system compositions, galaxy movements—a survey of the stars. It is quite fascinating.”
“Galaxy movements?” Cavalon asked, incredulous. “How large of an area do these things map?”
“There are curanultas in ancient Viator texts that claim to have mapped the entire universe.”
Cavalon scoffed. “How is that possible?”
Mesa shook her head slowly. “I do not know. I also do not know if there is even any truth behind the claims.”
“How much does this one cover?”
“I do not know.” Her mouth pinched together like the words tasted bad. She clearly didn’t have to say that kind of thing very often, and never so many times in a row. She moved forward and swept the screens around, quickly scaling up a section near the top edge.
She pointed at a border of thicker white lines that ran along the top of the grid. “I would theorize that this is the outer perimeter of what this atlas has mapped.” She gestured to a series of static circles spaced evenly along the edge. Some sat directly along the line, and others were a slight distance below it. “These may be a series of information beacons, sending data to the curanulta.” Her lips pinched as she let out a huff. “This is all conjecture.”
Cavalon rubbed the back of his neck as he let the information sink in. “If there are so many of these beacons out there, wouldn’t we have seen them?”
“Certainly not,” Mesa answered. “Space is quite vast, for one. Also, you would be astonished at how negligent the Legion has been in mapping the Divide. It would not surprise me if these beacons had gone unnoticed.”
Cavalon’s eyes grazed across the map, and he found himself looking for some kind of “you are here” indication, but saw nothing. “So, you don’t know what this is a map of?”
A rueful frown pulled at Mesa’s lips. “Unfortunately, no. I cannot tell if this map is showing our current area as opposed to anywhere else in the universe. From the lack of astronomical bodies, it can be presumed it is a section along the Divide. Though I possess a moderate understanding of the Viator tongue, I am unfamiliar with how to properly read a three-dimensional map, particularly a largely empty one. Someone familiar with stellar cartography who also possesses a fluency in the Viator tongue would be better suited.”
“Rake knows their language,” he said. “Does she know stellar cartography?”
“Better than I would, I suppose,” Mesa agreed. “We will have to wait for her return and see if she can make more sense of it.” Mesa rescaled the image, then let out a soft huff. “One thing that is quite odd—there seems to be three sectional overlays, each slightly different.”