That, however, didn’t even skim the surface of the implications this hypothesis presented. If these stations had been active since the universe stopped expanding, that would put Viators in this part of the universe well before they arrived at mankind’s doorstep in the Core.
“Mesa, I get where you’re coming from,” Cavalon said, “I really do. But come on. The implication of that?”
“Correct,” Mesa said, her voice steady as ever. “The implication being that the Viators stopped the collapse of the universe by building these stations.”
Griffith let out a heavy breath.
“But then what?” Cavalon said. “They just battened up this side of it and left it at that? What about the rest of the entire edge? They can’t possibly have traveled the entire universe.”
“No,” Mesa said. “Only the perimeter.”
Cavalon scoffed. “Right, but still…”
“Think about what we do know,” Mesa prompted. “They traveled the Divide for millennia before they found mankind. They may have come from the other side of the universe. There could be trillions upon trillions of Viators still alive wherever they came from. The Viators we know could be a small sampling, sent for the express purpose of building these stations in this sector of the universe.”
Cavalon shook his head. “I thought they traveled here on the Divide. They can’t have if they built it.”
Mesa shrugged. “That was the assumption, but we had no outposts anywhere near the Divide at that point. We have no direct accounts of their origin.”
“So, what,” Griffith said, “they finished building the stations and decided to stick around awhile and pillage mankind?”
“Right,” Cavalon agreed. “I mean, even once they were losing, they never tried to leave. Or get reinforcements.”
“Maybe they couldn’t go home,” Rake said, tone heavy.
Mesa’s face suddenly went blank, and she stared up and off into the distance.
Cavalon cleared his throat. “Mesa…”
Her consciousness seemed to snap back to her in an instant, and her eyes refocused onto him. “There is an ancient Viator phrase,” she began. “Part of a series of verses. Not from two centuries ago, but their history, very old, some of the earliest chronicles we have from them. It does not translate well, but part of it essentially says, ‘the shunned will build the edge.’ It has long been interpreted to imply the expectation of inclusion. As you know, Viators did not segregate within their species.”
Rake hung her head. “You think it’s literal?”
“Maybe,” Mesa said. “There is more to the saying than that, but I have not committed it to memory. It was actually the basis for the Sentinel nursery rhyme, you know the one, ‘Sentinel, Sentinel, at the black—’”
“Yeah, we know the one,” Rake grumbled. “Fuck, Mesa.”
“Indeed,” Mesa agreed with a curt nod.
Griffith leaned against the wall. “So you think ancient, far, far away Viators sent their shunned troops to stop the collapse? And they had to circle the universe to create all these stations?”
Mesa inclined her head. “That is my hypothesis, yes.”
“All right…” Rake drew in a long breath. “Reconstructing Viator history right now is way off point.”
Griffith nodded his agreement. “So the ‘data beacons’ we see here…” He moved away from the wall to point to the crisp white holographic map. “They are actually all dark-energy generators?”
“If my hypothesis is correct, yes,” Mesa said. “It is likely that the alpha stations began to break down, but the redundant beta stations, being inactive, have failed to pick up the load. It is possible their power sources failed, as it appears this one has. And with no, or…” She eyed Rake and Griffith warily. “… with so few Viators remaining, they were not able to maintain the generators properly.”