"How much of that Dragon business did you understand?" Fethan asked, cutting straight to the core of her confusion.

"Some ship attacking one of the arrays. Then there was something about a creature…" She trailed off. What she remembered didn't make any sense.

"Dragon is a creature the size of a small moon," Fethan explained. "It came here and it destroyed every single laser array in orbit, before falling to earth in the south."

Eldene nodded, waiting for the punch line that would turn a patently ridiculous statement into some moral epigram, or the explanation that would make clear what Fethan was actually saying. He'd not elaborated.

After a moment Eldene said, "You're saying some mythical creature flew here through space and destroyed the laser arrays — that we are all now free and will live happily ever after?"

"No, I'm saying that an alien creature, but well known in the Polity, and which named itself after a mythical one, came here and destroyed the laser arrays, and that now your people have a chance to fight for their freedom — a fight they still might lose." He held up a finger. "You hear that?"

Eldene listened to the noise coming from the rest of the building. She nodded.

"That's everyone getting ready to move to the surface: civilians, military, the lot. The laser arrays might be gone, but a Theocracy device that could penetrate even down to here is still on its way. At present they control the surface, and we must take that from them, and we must hold it and not allow them to retake it. Staying here, we are dead; if we lose on the surface we are dead; and if we do not collect the rest of the votes required for the ballot and persuade ECS to come here, we are dead. Now, girl, do you understand that I am not telling you sweet fairy tales, but a… grimmer kind?"

Eldene said, "What can I do?"

Fethan reached down beside the bed and picked up the pulse-rifle she had abandoned there. He tossed it to her and, catching it, she jerked awake, finding herself again at the controls of the ATV. His reply was a fading whisper in her mind:

"There ain't that many choices going, girl."

Choice?

Here on the surface, choices were limited to two — fight or die — and they were not mutually exclusive. A long day of avoiding ground actions only sometimes to come across the hideous results of such had shown her the consequences of these simple choices; and just seeing such had worn her ragged and almost to the edge of tears. Fethan took over, as the weight of Calypse and the sun dragged night over the land, whilst Eldene found a padded mat and a heat sheet and fell quickly asleep on the vibrating floor. When she awoke, with seemingly no transition, it was to bright daylight in the front screen, and she wondered why she had felt so weak before, and resolved never to feel weak again.

On the other side of the cabin Thorn was also sitting up, having just woken as well.

Fethan looked round at them both. "Ah, at last, the snoring ends," he said.

"Why've you stopped?" Thorn asked, scratching at his beard.

Only when he said this did Eldene realize that there was no vibration from the engine.

Fethan gestured to the door of the ATV. "Be best if I show you, I think," he said.

Thorn opened the door only after he saw that Eldene had copied him in flipping up her mask. The door made a slight whump as it opened, but the pressure differential was such that little breathable air would be lost from the cabin. Eldene followed him out into surroundings little different from those she and Fethan had encountered when first going out into the wilderness. To her left lay flute grass, plantains and native rhubarbs, cut through with a curving path made by the ATV — that path already blurring out of existence as the new grass slowly regained its upright position. The ATV rested in an area strewn with blister moss, the occasional algae-green tricone shell, and flashes of that bright green plant Fethan had identified for her as real grass imported from Earth. To her right there stood an embankment topped with a high mesh fence. When Fethan clambered out of the ATV and led the way up the bank, Thorn and Eldene followed with caution, since the sounds of explosions and gunfire from beyond the fence were almost constant.

Along the base of the embankment, below the fence through which they were gazing, was a muddy track, then a band of grape tree orchards. Beyond these lay squerm and sprawn ponds. On the causeways and embankments between, a running fire-fight was taking place: groups of Theocracy soldiers lay down covering fire for a gradual retreat towards a distant mesh-fenced compound; Underground forces advanced behind grav-sleds on which had been mounted shielded rail-guns. Bodies and wrecked sleds were scattered all across this area. A Theocracy armoured car was burning — the fire fed by its own internal air supply — and some of the ponds were red, and foamed with voracious feeding.

"The rail-guns on the sleds are a recent addition," observed Thorn.

"I was just speaking to their commander," said Fethan. "Because of the resistance here, and the lack of cover, they dismounted what they could salvage from the wrecked towers of the previous compound they took. This fight has been going on since yesterday: every time they drive the Theocracy soldiers back to the compound, they get hit by the towers still working here."

"Then we should go round," said Thorn.

"That'll add three hours to our journey and, from what I understand, the problem's going to be solved anyway in the next hour." Fethan glanced to the sky above the far right of the compound. "In fact, probably in the next ten minutes."

The military carrier with its retinue of aerofans was clearly a welcome sight for the Theocracy soldiers guarding the compound, for they waved as it came racketing in over the ponds. Two minutes later they were burying their faces in the black soil as missiles lanced down from the carrier and turned the two ironwork towers behind the compound fence into glowing wreckage. These men could not hide from Lellan's fighters, who guided the aerofans in above them and opened up with the side-mounted rail-guns. The rebels pounded those trying to hide into slurry, and those who abandoned their weapons and ran out with their hands in the air just made easier targets. Within half an hour the forces of the Underground had taken this more difficult compound.

"Let's get moving," said Thorn, as he observed the carrier and its retinue depart.

Eldene tried to feel some pity for the Theocracy soldiers — as would have been morally right — but all she felt, when they drove down a causeway past smashed and near-obliterated bodies, was annoyance at such waste of equipment. As they passed the compound buildings — Fethan giving a salute to the commander of the rebels — she observed with a deep empathy a group of bewildered and bowed pond workers, their arms clutched protectively around their scoles. Almost with embarrassment she realized she was patting her hand against the itchy area below her breasts where the wound left by her own scole was still healing, then clutched that hand in her other one to still it. To then see that some of the rebels wore the padded overalls of pond workers underneath their flak jackets — bulging with their own scoles — immediately raised her mood. These people — obviously recent recruits — she saw, further on, distributing packs of ajectant and weapons amongst their recently liberated fellows.

Beyond the compound lay more of the carnage of battle, which they drove through for the best part of an hour before seeing another high embankment and mesh fence ahead of them.

"We should reach the first co-ordinates by late afternoon," said Fethan. He glanced at Eldene. "Do you want to take over now?"

Eldene hesitated — she wasn't confident about driving the ATV up the bank and using it to knock down the fence, as Fethan had done upon entering this agricultural area. Before she could formulate a reply, there came a sudden staccato clattering down the side of the ATV, and pieces of something were rattling and pinging around inside the cabin, and yellow breach-foam was oozing from holes in the vehicle's walls as it sealed them.