More done than it appears: I had to go back and add stuff.
I decided to contribute, albeit generically. “Weird. What about the signal itself? Is it regular?” Which could mean anything, but nailing that down would eliminate a whole other bunch of anything — but Syah was shaking his head.
“I wouldn’t call it regular, but I wouldn’t call it meaningless, either. Like there’s an underlying order to the randomness — yeah, I know how that sounds. Don’t worry, I haven’t been skipping my weekly psych sessions, just because I’m here.”
“Good,” I said, and rolled my eyes at how my tone sounded. “Sorry: that was just me putting on my official hat for a second. I know the sessions and the exercises are boring, but we all have to do them. If we don’t, we get flabby in the head.” And then the murders begin, I thought. Although it’s not really true that a planetary site that neglects its collective mental health is going to end up harboring a bunch of ritual killers. Well, it’s an exaggeration. A bit of an exaggeration.