Something about Ghosts troubles Lodi.

He can't say what it is at first. They're perfectly lovely people, as much as it's an adjustment to get used to thinking of little floating robots as people. Well, if he can do it for Eliksni, he can do it for Ghosts.

All right. Mr. Ghost, the eponymous, is perfectly lovely. Ms. Rey's Ophiuchus is a reserved fellow, which Lodi figures is his right. It takes Lodi some significant time to figure out that Mr. Drifter even has a Ghost at all, but even then—

Somehow, Lodi knows before he's told.

He's never put much stock in ESP, but there is, honestly, a feeling. A physical sense that sits in his chest and shivers. And once he's noticed that… well, it's a mystery. He turns it over in his mind while listening to Mr. Ghost talk about waveforms; he moves it mentally between his hands while studying Mr. Ophiuchus's armor movements during one of his rare appearances.

"Excuse me," Ophiuchus says. Ms. Rey is busy with a datapad of some kind, so for the moment, Lodi has Ophiuchus's undivided attention.

"Oh," Lodi says, "I beg your pardon. I didn't mean to stare." He did, but it's more polite to pretend not to.

"You have questions."

He does. "Is there any chance Ghosts give off some sort of infrasound? A hum in the machinery… Or does the Light have something to it that a Human could sense?"

Ophiuchus dips, rolls slowly in midair. His shell shuffles. "Light," he says portentously, "is in all living things. Few Humans respond to it in that form. I do wonder, though, about the Nine. They are not paracausal, but they are certainly aware. Perhaps you are, as well."

"I see," Lodi says politely, though he's not entirely sure he does. Even so, it's something to consider.

And it's true that when Ophiuchus disappears into Ms. Rey's armor, leaving behind a glowing afterimage in the air, Lodi knows he's gone before he looks. It's the sense of a band around his chest loosening, stepping off a boat and finding the ground unmoving—steadier, now, by its absence.

It is not a good sense, and Lodi can't say why, like it comes from somewhere else entirely. And that troubles him more than anything else.