Melita had not caught what Gawain had been muttering. She merely made one final circle around the tower-filled "central district," then adjusted her course and flew back the way she had come.
"Our time is limited," she said regretfully. "This 'home port' is simply too enormous. Even if everyone could fly like I can, surveying the entire port from the air within twelve hours would not be easy—not to mention the labyrinthine underground structures below, along with all the sealed facilities and dangerous zones."
"Let's head back first," Gawain said gravely. "Since that ship follows a fixed patrol routine, we can send more investigators here later. But honestly, this doesn't sit well with me..."
"Doesn't sit well with you?" Melita tilted her head slightly. "What do you mean?"
"The Sentinel System. This home port and that ship are essentially still part of the Sentinel System. We can't control it; we can only act according to the schedule of that periodically patrolling ship. But who knows when the system might change again—say, if the ship alters its patrol route... I don't like being in a situation beyond our control, especially when all of this is backed by an out-of-control 'Sentinel.'"
"I think I understand your concerns," Melita said in a low voice. "But this is a problem we have no choice but to face. There are simply too many things in this world that lie beyond mortal imagination, and the Voyager Legacy is one of them. That advanced civilization... they once saved this planet, yet the immense machines they left behind are becoming more and more terrifying and dangerous to us today, especially now that those machines are all beginning to malfunction... You know, this reminds me of an old holographic story from Tarlonnd long ago..."
"A holographic story?"
"Something like