38.Travelling

Herschel and Neil deal with a power core malfunction on the Bellerophon that requires a restart procedure. As they work through repairs, they discuss the design of the cargo vessel and theorize about the Others' possible nature, while also grappling with ongoing synchronization issues with the ship's mover plates that necessitate building additional plates.

Herschel responds to Neil's frustration over a non-functioning power core in the Bellerophon's power room. The anodes are saturated, requiring either a one-hour bleed or a twenty-minute full restart. Herschel chides Neil for not automating the routine maintenance task with an AMI, calling him lazy. As they set up the restart process, they discuss the design philosophy of the cargo vessel's internal structure—organized radially with storage bays and central corridors. Neil questions why the bays are necessary when cargo could simply be stacked, but Herschel points out the practical need for securing large objects and notes that the power connections in every bay suggest multiple uses beyond simple cargo storage. Herschel theorizes that the Others may be an underground species with agoraphobic tendencies, which would explain why they might conduct all manufacturing inside these ships rather than in open space. Their conversation is interrupted when Guppy alerts them that the mover plates have gone offline due to loss of synchronization among the plate AMIs—the third such occurrence that month. Herschel concedes that despite Bill's calculations showing 24 plates sufficient for the ship, their constant movement and operations create instability requiring additional plates for redundancy. They resolve to build eight more mover plates and identify a free bay toward the front for installation.