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“Meaning, ‘Huh, that’s weird,’” Chan said “Sir”

Ashford’s smile was cool as he hed before he went on

“We have a couple of other anomalies that we aren’t quite sure what to make of It looks like there’s a maximum speed on the other side”

“Can you unpack that, please?” Pa said

“The Y Que went through the Ring going very fast,” Chan said “About seven-tenths of a second after it reached the other side, it started a massive deceleration Bled off almost all its speed in about five seconds It looks like the nearly instant deceleration hat killed the pilot Since then, it see and deeper into whatever’s on the other side”

“We know that when the protomolecule’s active, it’s been able to… alter e’d expect from inertia,” Sam said “Is that how it stopped the ship?”

“That’s entirely possible,” Chan said “Mars has been pitching probes through the Ring, and it looks like we start seeing the effect right around six hundred meters per second Under that, mass behaves just the e expect it to Over that, it stops dead and then moves off in approxi”

Sam whistled under her breath

“That’s really slow,” she said “The main drives would be almost useless”

“It’s slower than a rifle shot,” Chan said “The good news is it only affects netic spectruht”

“Thank God for s us?”

“There’s so out there,” Chan said, and for the first time a sense of dread leaked into his voice “The probes are seeing objects Large ones But there’s notor iven inconsistent returns If whatever’s in there is made of the same stuff, who knows?”