‘Don’t blame yourself. Something about the Mole may have changed. I can’t believe it can have been so noisy before and escaped detection. May I?’ He reached out. Reluctantly she handed him the Mole. He hefted it, feeling its mass, turned it over in his hands, and rapped its hull. ‘Do you know what it’s made of? No? It’s a kind of metal, I think. Like kernel iron, but processed . . . Do you know what it is?’
‘I know what my mother said it is.’
‘Tell me.’
She took a deep breath, for she was about to speak heresy to a Brother. ‘Part of the Ship. Maybe the last surviving part. My mother said there was a big argument long ago. Some people wanted to forget about the Ship. Others wanted to remember. Humans don’t belong here – that was their slogan. So when remembering the Ship was banned by the Brothers, and any remnants of it were destroyed, this Mole was saved, and hidden.’
-Xeelee: Endurance, "Gravity Dreams"