Tessern was practicing when they arrived.
Not killing—simulating. Consciousness-space around Tessern contained elaborate constructs that mimicked predator behavior. Distributed awareness spreading across virtual space. Hunger patterns. Feeding responses. Defense mechanisms.
Tessern moved through the simulation with efficiency that looked like art. Modular consciousness shifted states rapidly—singular for penetration strikes, distributed for information gathering, somewhere between for adaptive response. The simulated predator died in four minutes and thirty-seven seconds.
Clean. Swift. Almost beautiful in its precision.
"You're watching me practice," Tessern noted without stopping the simulation. A new predator-construct materialized. "Good. Better to see the reality than imagine it. This is what five years of hunting looks like day-to-day. Preparation, execution, recovery. Repeat."
"You practice on simulations?" Kaine asked. "Even after six hundred thousand years?"
