“The being claimed the Cradle is its home.” Rareth answered. “To its knowledge, there are three remaining of these beings, including itself. If we accept what it says as true, then we may need to find the rest as well. Though first, we have to deal with this one. It claims that by returning to the Cradle, its home, it can heal the damage to itself, and possibly the Cradle as well. Currently, based on my description of what your people have experienced in the Cradle, it believes it is damaged as well. Without memory or directives, it is expelling all foreign presence within itself in self-defense.”

As Rareth finished speaking, the hologram of Nirann’s avatar appeared beside them. Now that he was united with his copy’s memories, he could join in the discussion as well. “I think my original plan for moving this thing may serve us well. We won’t need to excavate much of anything; just some extra rock around the device. From what I had read up on your Cradle, I figured we might have difficulty moving it, if it came to that, so I came up with a plan that doesn’t really require [i]moving[/i] it at all. Even if it was somehow locked into its position in space, we could just…push that space somewhere else. All we have to do is assemble a gateway around it, then move another gateway to our destination. The device is fairly small, so it would only take a Class 1 gateway. In this case, we just need to move our destination gateway to Outremer. We could put it under the surface right next to the Cradle, if we wanted to. From there, it’s just a matter of activating the wormhole, and the device will be there in an instant.” Nirann explained, snapping his holographic fingers for effect. 

Nirann did take on something of a more worried expression as he added one more comment. “Plus, based on what this being was saying, it seemed like it was hiding out from this Hegemon. If we can transport it without taking it out of hiding, that might be best.”