43.      An Exchange of Words

Hal discovers a Dyson sphere under construction at Gliese 877 and narrowly escapes an Others patrol twice through evasive maneuvers. After successfully evading them the second time by going silent, Hal deliberately broadcasts to test whether the Others can detect radio transmissions—and confirms his theory when they arrive immediately, but his ship is then catastrophically damaged.

Hal receives Bashful's final transmission and realizes he may have been traced by the Others. He immediately executes a hard turn at 10 g and deploys a drone along his original trajectory to monitor for pursuit. He sends warnings to Mario about the possibility of the Others tracing back to Epsilon Eridani and suggests booby-trapping the station. After careful approach, Hal uses probes to reconnoiter Gliese 877 from two light-hours away. When an Others flotilla appears on the probes' sensors, Hal destroys the probes and flees at full acceleration. Analyzing the telemetry, Hal discovers that the outer rocky planet is completely encased in metal and that the Others are constructing a Dyson sphere in orbit around the sun—a massive undertaking suggesting enormous alien engineering capabilities. Before he can fully process this, the Others' patrol fleet appears on his sensors. They pursue him in a stern chase, and Hal realizes they have superior acceleration (12.5 g versus his 10 g). After several days of evasive maneuvering, Hal manages to break their detection by making a predictable turn, then executing an unexpected vector change and shutting down all systems. He coasts silent for three days while sending data back to Mario. Suspicious about the timing of the Others' patrols, Hal theorizes they may be detecting radio interactions with extraordinarily high sensitivity. To test this dangerous hypothesis, he deploys a probe a couple light-seconds away and initiates a conversation, hoping to confirm whether radio transmissions alone trigger their response. The Others immediately detect and pursue him, and though Hal attempts evasive maneuvers at emergency drive levels, they close in with superior acceleration. His controller replicant goes offline, his SURGE drive fails, and the reactor begins an overload sequence leading to imminent self-destruct.