Heirs of Earth by Sean Williams, Shane Dix

Gifts followed the same tactic with other species as they did with the human engrams: they chose just one member of the native population to speak with, ignoring all others. Even if the Yuhl did get their hands on one of the installations, they could only explore it, not interact with it.
    “Good work, Kingsley,” she said. “You’ve done well.”
    He inclined his head in acknowledgment of her praise. “Obviously we’re still a long way from a working evasion technique, but we’re getting there. It’d be good to have a Plan B available in case Plan A fails.”
    She agreed wholeheartedly, if silently, with this. “Speaking of which,” she said, “I came here to look at the systems in question. Are you able to run me through them?”
    The biotechnician beamed. “Of course. It’d be an honor.”
    Hatzis waved him forward. All the Oborns had something of a crush on her and they worked best when rewarded with personal contact. She was happy to provide it but wary of taking anything further. One of her engrams had been tempted, long before the arrival of the Spinners, but had found that the Kingsley Oborn engram became unstable if indulged. He’d been programmed with a deep-seated fear of intimacy that took precedence over any physical desires.
    That didn’t prevent a slight twinge of guilt, though. She had used the Oborn on Juno to head her previous research effort, and he had flown quite happily into the horror of Beid to protect her—and died in the effort. She had no room in her philosophy for noble sacrifice and was reluctant to encourage it in others.
    She took the passive role as Oborn wheeled the massive star map around her. An utterly seamless and detailed three-dimensional image, the map was another of the amazing gifts from the Spinners. It showed the location and vector of every major body in the galaxy. Known objects were accurate against Earth astronomical charts: many of the previously unknown objects explained anomalous observations through dust clouds or around the galactic core. Even if it was only mostly complete—there were unexplained gaps hiding, some people thought, information the Spinners considered too sensitive for primitives—it was a boon for astronomers and astrophysicists.
    “Here.” The view ballooned around them, expanding and focusing on one bright white star in particular. “That’s Asellus Primus. Variable F-type star; should have been visited by the Shelley Wright decades ago, but they didn’t make it. Not that they would’ve found much if they had. It’s a bit of a dud, really.”
    Hatzis knew her star maps as well as anyone. “Perhaps they kept on going to Asellus Secundus, hoping for better luck.”
    “If so, then they’re still on their way.” He smiled at her as though thanking her for an alternative and happier explanation for the Wright ’s absence. “We’re already preparing the contact point in here, orbiting the fourth planet. I think we can guarantee a fair degree of verisimilitude.”
    She nodded. One of the greatest concerns over the plan was that the trial run might have alerted the Starfish, put their guard up when it came to suspicious signals. Everything depended on the cutters behaving as normal in the face of an ftl transmission. If they hesitated just for a moment or failed to come at all...
    “The map data is accurate?” she asked, shying away from the thought. It didn’t serve any purpose to dwell on negative possibilities right now.
    “Down to single-figure percentiles, I’m told.”
    “Good. And the other?”
    The star map spun around her again. The second target was much more familiar to her. She instantly recognized its color and its position with respect to its nearest neighbors.
    “Pi-2 Ursa Major,” he said. “Five rocky worlds, six gas giants, two asteroid belts, and the usual cometary clouds. The fifth world out was the one to be colonized. You can even see the oxygen levels recorded in the map. I overheard Otto Wyra talking