"Yeah, she can trust me."

"She's the closest thing to a genuine KillBoy there is. I was part of the team that wiped out your platoon. And now that's all in the past? This from a man who would genocide a species because it has sharp teeth."

"The platoon followed me," Lawrence said slowly. "I brought them up here. You might have pulled the trigger, but it was me who put them in front of you."

"And there I was thinking you were going to say they knew the risks."

"That too. We don't expect a population to fight back, and we certainly don't expect it in the hinterlands of Thallspring. But each time we land we know it's a possibility. Denise might have had a few zippy gadgets, but her real advantage over us was how willing people were to sign up to her bogus resistance movement. If the local inhabitants ever get properly organized, or call Z-B's bluff, we automatically lose. Do you really think a starship captain, a flesh-and-blood human who has family of his own, is ever ever going to give an order for a gamma pulse that will slaughter half a million people? It won't happen. So we know we're on our own down here, that there's no fallback, no help from above. The fact that Denise eliminated so many of us in Memu Bay proves what I've known for a long time now: that Z-B is in decline. Probably a terminal one. Skin suits are superb technology, even up against your dragon's knowledge. But without the organization, the initiative and the determination to face down threats, that means nothing. And we had none of those qualities down in Memu Bay. Santa Chico should have told the Board that asset realization was over, finished for good. Instead they just kept on, trying to find weaker targets."

"You agree with the Eternals, then? Life is in a permanent cycle."

Lawrence let out a long breath, exhausted with holding back his anger and despair. "Could be. You know what? I really don't care. I don't care that you killed my friends. I don't care that I killed your ambush party. I don't care if that makes us quits or not. I don't care that Z-B is quietly collapsing. I don't care that you want to build some noble civilization based on total bullshit about people being perpetually nice to each other. I don't care that your deranged sister is willing to sacrifice herself and everyone she knows to save some piece of talking rock. I don't damn well care that the universe is doomed and the galaxy is falling into a black hole. I have spent the last twenty years caring. I cared for my platoon. I cared about what the human race was doing and where it was going. I cared that we didn't have frontiers anymore. I cared about my career. I even cared about what I was doing with my life. And look where I am because of that. Helping a bunch of cosmic hippies hijack a starship. Sweet fucking Fate!"

"You mean we can't trust you?"

"You got it, girl. Denise cannot trust me, not now, not ever. I do not like her. I will never like her. I will, however, respect her abilities. And I expect a similar respect in return. What you can have from me is reliability. I am dependable in this in a way none of you are. I will hijack that starship, and it will fly to Aldebaran. Of that you can be certain."

"I'm not sure I can be, Lawrence."

"This is for me, now. Not you and your ideals. That's why you can be certain. I finally, finally, have a chance to put my life back together and live it the way I was born to live it. To cancel out the last twenty miserable years. After Aldebaran I'm going home. That's all: home. And nothing and nobody can stop that from happening."

The sound of the hovercraft approaching made both of them turn and look out across the crater lake. Lawrence couldn't help a derisory laugh at the absurdity of the vehicle. It was made from wood, Arnoon's lightest, hardest timber, crafted into a simple oval platform with a cabin grafted onto the prow. Two big steerable propellers stood high on smooth, tall fins at the rear. The skirt was willow wool, a fine tight weave easily holding in the cushion of air on which it rode. Electric motors powered the propellers and impellers, salvaged from an assortment of heavy machinery across the plateau.

It swept lightly across the water, with a thin haze of spray escaping from underneath its skirt, and a creamy V-shaped wake spreading wide. When it reached the island it rocked slightly as the front skirt rode up the shingle and onto the scanty grassmoss. The propellers reversed pitch, bringing it to a halt. It sank down with a prolonged wheeze of escaping air.

The heavylift robot carrying the dragon trundled over to it. A ramp was deployed in front of the propeller fins, enabling it to climb up onto the deck.

"We're ready," Denise said. She gave Lawrence and her sister an anxious glance, aware that they'd been quarreling.

"Sure," Lawrence said brightly. "Is that thing really going to work?"

"Certainly." Denise sounded offended. "We've practiced the route a dozen times. The river is the easiest way out of Arnoon. The hovercraft will take us straight to Rhapsody Province. One of the articulated trucks from Dixon is already at the rendezvous point. It'll take the dragon all the way down to Memu Bay's airport. We'll be there in fifteen hours. After that, it's all up to you."

"Don't worry, my contact has sent a plane to collect us. Where's the cargo pod? We can hardly load the dragon into a Xianti as it is."

"The cargo pod is with the truck. An RL-thirty-three, industry standard sixty-ton capacity. We'll put the dragon inside it when we get there."

"Okay. Let's go."

* * *

Simon was appalled to discover that there was no supersonic transport on Thallspring. He wound up commandeering the presidential jet, which could barely reach Mach 9. It was a converted fifty-seat medium-range commuter jet that had a flight time of four hours to Memu Bay.

He spent the time working with his personal AS, dropping hundreds of askpings into Memu Bay's datapool. The leisure company that Michelle had signed up with to go diving among the atolls had no file on any employee called Josep, nor on Raymond, who was supposed to be his friend. The AS trawl couldn't find any abnormalities in the company's memory blocks. No substituted files, no gaps in the daily boat trip logs for a month either side of Michelle's visit; even the financial accounts were in order.

"Arrest them," Simon ordered Ebrey Zhang.

"Who, exactly?" Memu Bay's governor asked.

"The company's senior management. Their diving gill instructors. Boat crews. Bring them all in for questioning. I want them in custody by the time I arrive."

"Yes, sir."

The governor's noticeable reluctance made Simon review the current situation report for Memu Bay. "For God's sake," he muttered as the indigo script scrolled down. And to think, he'd warned the SK2 to keep an eye on the place.