By the process of elimination they established that the device giving them orders was in one of two sealed chambers. Diamond tools were made and used to open both. One held a source of light, or something like it, so concentrated as to be damaging. The other held large structures functionally similar to operators’ processors, but carrying enough power in its conductors to wipe the memory of a cluster.The cluster—“entity” was a better term by then—that examined the mindless explorers which were dragged back from chamber three by their tethers found that the silica that separated an operator’s filaments had left circuits undamaged behind it. It proposed that an entity go into the chamber wearing an articulated shell of silica, and offered to construct such a shell.Call it Wieland.Another entity, who had considered using the resources of Target One for themselves, volunteered to go in and open the circuits of the Master Computer until it stopped working.Call it Set.The success of Set on its mission started to become noticeable as soon as the shutdown was accomplished.
