the Alabaster Hall. In the previous Shivas, there had not only been a corridor running the circumference of the ship, to the clockwise and counter-clockwise directions. There had also been a corridor running straight down the radius, toward the central axis and the slide chutes. The recon bots and birds that preceded the Angel One assault had been rudely surprised to find they could not go straight down that hall. What had been the shortest path in Shiva IV simply didn't exist in Shiva V.
Now Paolo thought he understood. The repair mechs on board Shiva V had sealed off that corridor! They'd done a great job too, by human standards. But even a great job by human standards did not reach the inhuman standards of Shiva's original engineers. Though the improvised seal had no visible seam, beneath the surface the welding of the new section of wall had left behind an imperfection. That imperfection had all the characteristics of a "crack," a fracture in the ceramic latticework.
Shiva could only have decided to seal that corridor because it knew that the corridor exposed a weakness. It was another indication that supported the oft-posited theory that the Shivas were in communication, that each Shiva learned from the experiences of the previous one.
But from Paolo's point of view, another point was even more important. For his predictions of the layout of the ship, he had to know where the corridors were even if they were sealed—all his team's algorithm's were set up to analyze the unsealed layout. To succeed, Paolo had to know if there were other sealed corridors. He had to know if there were other cracks.
He turned back to his wallscreen and laid out several new items. First, he wrote a forecast on the 'castpoint asserting that the wall fracture was really a sealed-over corridor. Second, he posted a prize on the board for any other fracture forecasts that proved correct. Third, he bought into the original prediction that the crack in the wall really existed. After all, his identification of why and how such a crack could be there was supporting evidence that the crack existed, and significantly increased the odds that
Now Paolo thought he understood. The repair mechs on board Shiva V had sealed off that corridor! They'd done a great job too, by human standards. But even a great job by human standards did not reach the inhuman standards of Shiva's original engineers. Though the improvised seal had no visible seam, beneath the surface the welding of the new section of wall had left behind an imperfection. That imperfection had all the characteristics of a "crack," a fracture in the ceramic latticework.
Shiva could only have decided to seal that corridor because it knew that the corridor exposed a weakness. It was another indication that supported the oft-posited theory that the Shivas were in communication, that each Shiva learned from the experiences of the previous one.
But from Paolo's point of view, another point was even more important. For his predictions of the layout of the ship, he had to know where the corridors were even if they were sealed—all his team's algorithm's were set up to analyze the unsealed layout. To succeed, Paolo had to know if there were other sealed corridors. He had to know if there were other cracks.
He turned back to his wallscreen and laid out several new items. First, he wrote a forecast on the 'castpoint asserting that the wall fracture was really a sealed-over corridor. Second, he posted a prize on the board for any other fracture forecasts that proved correct. Third, he bought into the original prediction that the crack in the wall really existed. After all, his identification of why and how such a crack could be there was supporting evidence that the crack existed, and significantly increased the odds that