It was a warning.
It hung in the void between stars, a flattened disc of obsidian material that absorbed all light. It was impossibly large—the size of a small moon—yet its surface was perfectly smooth, save for a single, hexagonal depression at its center. The Odysseus drifted alongside it like a gnat beside a cathedral. interstellar htb
"They didn't build this place to store knowledge," Aris said, his face pale as he pulled away from the third node. "They built it to harvest it. The signal wasn't a greeting. It was a lure." It was a warning