That bizarre band of ruins, somehow unharmed even in the Abyss, was already close at hand—though "close at hand" was a rather special concept here. Just as in the Void, distance could not be measured within the Abyss. It was not that distance did not exist as a property, but rather that its value was utterly chaotic, like a map whose scale was scrambled and constantly changing, making it impossible to observe. Thus, within the Abyss Gate, the only way to determine "distance" was through one's own perspective. Deep Diving Ships possessed the ability to "self-interpret," so those of us aboard could rely on the orderly mathematical model surrounding us to measure our distance from another entity. But if you were outside the Deep Diving Ship, what you saw would likely be entirely different. You might see a hundred thousand miles between the ship and the wreckage field, or see them brushing past each other, or perhaps see nothing at all. Everything was in a chaotic, random state.
Of course, that was beside the point. To everyone aboard the Deep Diving Ship, the wreckage simply drifted closer as usual.
"Nothing seems unusual, but I can't tell what this thing is either." Anses stared intently at the images from the monitors. Even at this relatively close range, the monitors still suffered a degree of interference. These were the most advanced information-scanning devices we could produce, yet the images they transmitted were still distorted—fortunately, not enough to prevent viewing.
I also studied the wreckage curiously. They were clearly artificial objects, with a sheen somewhere between metal and plastic. There were many of them, varying greatly in size. The largest piece was perhaps several hundred meters long, while the smallest fragments were only a few meters across. These scattered wrecks looked as though