Wubslin peered down, then bent with an audible effort and stuck his big head down between his legs. Horza smelled drink.

"Haven't you finished yet?" Wubslin's muffled voice said.

"They took me off to another job; I only just got back," wailed a small, thin, artificial voice. Horza sat back in his seat and looked under the console. A drone, about two thirds the size of the one which had escorted him from the elevator to the CAT's bay, was disentangling itself from a jumble of tine cables protruding from an open inspection hatch.

"What', Horza said, "is that?"

"Oh," Wubslin said wearily, belching, "same one that's been here… you remember. Come on, you," he said to the machine. "The captain wants to do a communication test."

"Look," the little machine said, its synthesised voice full of exasperation, "I have finished. I'm just tidying everything away."

"Well get a move on," Wubslin said. He withdrew his head from underneath the console and looked apologetically at Horza. "Sorry, Kraiklyn."

"Never mind, never mind." Horza waved his hand. He powered up the communicator. "Ah…" He looked at Wubslin. "Who's controlling traffic movements around here? I've forgotten who to ask for. What if I want the bay doors opened?"

"Traffic? Doors opened?" Wubslin looked at Horza with a puzzled expression. He shrugged and said, "Well, just traffic control, I suppose, like when we came in."

"Right," Horza said; he flicked the switch on the console and said, "Traffic control, this is…" His voice trailed off.

He'd no idea what Kraiklyn had called the CAT instead of its real name. He hadn't got that as part of the information he'd bought, and it was one of the many things he had meant to learn once he'd accomplished the most immediate task of getting Balveda off the ship, and with luck following a false trail. But the news that there might be somebody looking for him in this bay — or anybody, for that matter — had rattled him. He said, "… This is the craft in Smallbay 17492. I want immediate clearance to leave the bay and the GSV; we'll quit the Orbital independently."

Wubslin stared at Horza.

"This is Evanauth Port traffic control, GSV temporary section. One moment, Smallbay 27492," said the speakers set in Horza and Wubslin's seat headrests. Horza turned to Wubslin, switching off the communicator send button.

"This thing is ready to fly, isn't it?"

"Wha-? Fly?" Wubslin looked perplexed. He scratched his chest, looked down at the drone still working to stuff the wires back under the console. "I suppose so, but-"

"Great." Horza started switching everything on, motors included. He noticed the bank of screens carrying information about the bow laser flickering on along with everything else. At least Kraiklyn had had that repaired.

"Fly?" Wubslin repeated. He scratched his chest again and turned towards Horza. "Did you say "fly"?"

"Yes. We're leaving." Horza's hands flicked over the buttons and sensor switches, adjusting the systems of the waking ship as though he really had been doing it for years.

"We'll need a tug…" Wubslin said. Horza knew the engineer was right. The CAT's anti-gravity was only strong enough to produce an internal field; the warp units would blow so close to (in fact, inside) a mass as great as the Ends, and you couldn't reasonably use the fusion motors in an enclosed space.

"We'll get one. I'll tell them it's an emergency. I'll say we've got a bomb aboard, or something." Horza watched the main screen come on, filling the previously blank bulkhead in front of him and Wubslin with a view of the rear of the Smallbay.

Wubslin got his own monitor screen to display a complicated plan which Horza eventually identified as a map of their level of the GSV's vast interior. He only glanced at it at first, then ignored the view on the main screen and looked more carefully at the plan, and finally put a holo of the GSV's whole internal layout onto the main screen, quickly memorising all he could.

"What…" Wubslin, paused, belched again, rubbed his belly through his tunic and said, "What about Horza?"

"We'll pick him up later," Horza said, still studying the layout of the GSV. "I made other arrangements in case I couldn't meet him when I said." Horza punched the transmit button again. "Traffic control, traffic control, this is Smallbay 27492. I need emergency clearance. Repeat, I need emergency clearance and a tug straight away. I have a malfunctioning fusion generator I can't close down. Repeat, nuclear fusion generator breakdown, going critical."

"What!" a small voice screeched. Something banged into Horza's knee, and the drone working under the console wobbled quickly into view, festooned with cables like a streamer-draped party goer. "What did you say?"

"Shut up and get off the ship. Now," Horza told it, turning up the gain on the receiver circuits. A hissing noise filled the bridge.

"With pleasure!" the drone said, and shook itself to get rid of the cables looped round its casing. "As usual I'm the last to be told what's going on, but I know I don't want to stick around this-" it was muttering when the hangar lights went out.

At first Horza thought the screen had blown, but he slid the wavelength control up, and a dim outline of the bay reappeared, showing its appearance on infra-red. "Oh-oh," said the drone, turning first to the screen, then looking back at Horza. "You lot did pay your rent, didn't you?"

"Dead," Wubslin announced. The drone got rid of the last of its cables. Horza looked sharply at the engineer.

"What?"

Wubslin pointed at the transceiver controls in front of him. "Dead. Somebody's cut us off from traffic control."

A shudder ran through the ship. A light blinked, indicating that the main hold lift had just slammed up automatically.

A draught briefly stirred the air in the flight deck, then died. More lights started flashing on the console. "Shit," Horza said. "Now what?"

"Well, goodbye chaps," the drone said hurriedly. It shot past them, sucked the door open and whooshed down the corridor, heading for the hangar stairwell.

"Pressure drop?" Wubslin said to himself, scratching his head for a change and knotting his brows as he looked at the screens in front of him.

"Kraiklyn!" Yalson's voice shouted from the seat headrest speakers. A light on the console showed that she was calling from the hangar. "What?" Horza snapped.

"What the hell's going on?" Yalson shouted. "We were nearly crushed! The air's going from the Smallbay and the hangar lift just emergencied on us! What's happening?"

"I'll explain," Horza said. His mouth was dry, and he felt as though there was a lump of ice in his guts. "Is Ms Gravant still with you?"

"Of course she's still fucking with me!"

"Right. Come back up to the mess room right away. Both of you."

"Kraiklyn-" Yalson began, then another voice cut in, starting from a distance but quickly coming closer to the mike.

"Closed? Closed? Why is this lift door closed? What is going on on this vessel? Hello, bridge? Captain?" A sharp tap-tap noise came from the headrest speakers, and the synthesised voice went on, "Why am I being obstructed? Let me off this ship at-"

"Get out of the way, you idiot!" Yalson said, then: "It's that goddam drone again."

"You and Gravant get up here," Horza repeated. "Now." Horza closed down the hangar com circuit. He wheeled out of the seat and patted Wubslin on the shoulder. "Strap in. Get us ready to roll. Everything." Then he swung through the open door. Aviger was in the corridor, coming from the mess to the bridge. He opened his mouth to speak but Horza squeezed quickly past him. "Not now, Aviger." He put his right glove to the lock on the armoury door. It clicked open. Horza looked inside.