the Solvers.

The Solver had been inert for well on two thousand years. It was gray, rigid, mottled, harder than diamond, its face had five eyes. It was completely dehydrated. But it was not dead. Solvers live on a certain class of problems that crop up sometimes.

We had run into one of those problems while crossing the Aurofirene river. We had gotten the Solver out of its storage pod and presented it with the problem.

The thing that would be dead, er, the Solver, awakened. The air in the room obtained a soggy quality, the skin of the Solver changed as the problem filtered through its awareness. The Solver was alive, it coruscated, it effervesced.

The Solver outlined a solution that was rich in breadth and depth and well beyond our ken to create. A look of contentment passed over its face, and then it became quiescent again, rigid, mottled, gray, harder than diamond, looking thin and reedy.