Divide and Conquer

The consternation that followed the effective stuttering of the expected note broke the internal conversation within the chatty pair. With synchronization lost, both electrons tried to tap at the same moment, obliterating each other's information, and then waiting for a reply that never came. Observing this, the away pair split up, and after the second conversation collision, the away pair answered each of the chatty electrons independently.

Orbiting the Seven, the away pair separated the chatty pair and partner up with the component electrons that had been splattering their chattering all over the spectrum. The stationkeepers reported a reduction in noise level, and the navigation channel was expanded to take advantage of the increased bandwidth. The quieter conversation occurring on the Seven disappearing into the noise, the stationkeepers were my forward operatives in the intelligence gathering process.

The statistics that I could confirm were encouraging. With the split complete, only one of the two pairs on the Seven was observable at a given time, with the other opposite the nucleus. The pace of the conversation increased and the center frequency shifted into a higher bandwidth channel. Localized, these pulses were easily attenuated by the intervening One-Eight-Ones, making such a conversation pleasantly quiet at my distant position.