Far in the distance, they could see the group of black holes which had created the Gulf. Those flutes of plunging energy had passed through the area millennia before, clearing a space of consumed stars behind them, creating an artificial galactic arm as they headed in a long spiral closer towards the centre of the slowly spinning island of stars and nebulae that was the galaxy.

The group of black holes was commonly known as the Forest, so closely were they grouped, and the two speeding Culture craft had instructions to try to force their way between those twisted, lethal trunks, if they were seen and pursued. The Culture's field management was considered superior to the Idirans', so it was thought they would have a better chance of getting through, and any chasing craft might even break off rather than risk tangling with the Forest. It was a terrible risk even to contemplate, but the two ROUs were precious; the Culture had not yet built many, and everything possible had to be done to make sure that the craft got back safely or, if the worst came to the worst, were destroyed utterly.

They encountered no hostile ships. They flashed across the inward face of the Quiet Barrier in seconds and delivered their prescribed loads in two short bursts, then twisted once and tore away at maximum speed, out through the thinning stars and past the Glitter-cliff, into the empty skies of the Sullen Gulf.

They registered hostile craft stationed near the Schar's World system starting off in pursuit, but they had been seen too late, and they quickly outdistanced the probing beams of track lasers. They set course for the far side of the Gulf, their strange mission completed. The Minds on board, and the small crew of humans each vessel carried (who were there more because they wanted to be than for their utility), hadn't been told why they were blasting empty space with expensive warheads, shooting off CREWSs at each other's target drones, dumping clouds of CAM and ordinary gas and releasing odd little unpowered signalling ships which were little more than unmanned shuttles packed with broadcasting equipment. The entire effect of this operation would be to produce a few spectacular flashes and flares and a scattering of radiation shells and wide-band signals before the Idirans cleared up the debris and blasted or captured the signal craft.

They had been asked to risk their lives on some damn-fool panic mission which seemed designed to convince nobody in particular that there had been a space battle in the middle of nowhere when there hadn't. And they had done it!

What was the Culture coming to? The Idirans seemed to relish suicide missions. You could easily form the impression that they considered being asked to carry out any other sort something of an insult. But the Culture? Where even in the war forces «discipline» was regarded as a taboo word, where people always wanted to know why this and why that?

Things had come to a pretty pass indeed.

The two ships raced across the Gulf, arguing. On board, heated discussions were taking place between members of their crews.

It took twenty-one days for the Clear Air Turbulence to make the journey from Vavatch to Schar's World.

Wubslin had spent the time carrying out what repairs he could to the craft, but what the ship needed was another thorough overhaul. While structurally it was still sound, and life support functioned nearly normally, it had suffered a general degradation of its systems, though no catastrophic failures. The warp units ran a little more raggedly than before, the fusion motors were not up to sustained use in an atmosphere — they would get them down to and up from Schar's World, but not provide much more in-airflying time — and the vessel's sensors had been reduced in numbers and efficiency to a level not far above operational minimum.

They had still escaped lightly, Horza thought.

With the CAT under his control, Horza was able to switch off the computer's identity circuits. He didn't have to fool the Free Company, either; so, as the days passed, he Changed slowly to resemble his old self a little more. That was for Yalson and the other members of the Free Company. He was really striking two thirds of a compromise between Kraiklyn and the self he had been on the CAT before it had reached Vavatch. There was another third in there which he let grow and show itself on his face for nobody on board, but for a red-haired Changer girl called Kierachell. He hoped she would recognise that part of his appearance when they met again, on Schar's World.

"Why did you think we'd be angry?" Yalson asked him in the CAT's hangar one day. They had set up a target screen at one end and put their lasers onto practice. The screen's built-in projector flashed images for them to shoot at. Horza looked at the woman.

"He was your leader."

Yalson laughed. "He was a manager; how many of them are liked by their staff? This is a business, Horza, and not even a successful one. Kraiklyn managed to get most of us retired prematurely. Shit! The only person you needed to fool was the ship."

"There was that," Horza said, aiming at a human figure darting across the distant screen. The laser spot was invisible, but the screen sensed it and flashed white light where it hit. The human figure, hit in the leg, stumbled but did not fall: half marks. "I did need to fool the ship. But I didn't want to risk somebody being loyal to Kraiklyn."

It was Yalson's turn, but she was looking at Horza, not the screen.

The ship's fidelities had been bypassed, and now all that was needed to command it was a numeric code, which only Horza knew, and the small ring he wore, which had been Kraiklyn's. He had promised that when they got to Schar's World, if there was no other way off the planet, he would set the CAT's computer to free itself of all fidelity limitations after a given time, so that if he didn't come back out of the tunnels of the Command System the Free Company would not be stranded. "You would have told us," Yalson said, "wouldn't you, Horza? I mean you would have let us know eventually."

Horza knew she meant, would he have told her? He put his gun down and looked her in the eyes. "Once I was sure," he said, "sure about the people, sure about the ship."

It was the honest answer, but he wasn't certain it was the best one. He wanted Yalson, wanted not just her warmth in the ship's red night, but her trust, her care. But she was still distant.

Balveda lived; perhaps she wouldn't still be alive if Horza hadn't wanted Yalson's regard. He knew that, and it was a bitter thought, making him feel cheap and cruel. Even knowing that it was a definite thing would have been better than being uncertain. He couldn't say for sure whether the cold logic of this game dictated that the Culture woman should die or be left alive, or even if, the former being comfortably obvious, he could have killed her in cold blood. He had thought it through and still he didn't know. He only hoped that neither woman had guessed that any of this had gone through his mind.

Kierachell was another worry. It was absurd, he knew, to be concerned about his own affairs at such a time, but he couldn't stop thinking about the Changer woman; the closer they came to Schar's World, the more he remembered of her, the more real his memories became. He tried not to build it up too much, tried to recall the boredom of the Changers" lonely outpost on the planet and the restlessness he had felt there even with Kierachell's company, but he dreamt about her slow smile and recalled her low voice in all its fluid grace with some of the heartache of a youth's first love. Occasionally he thought Yalson might sense that, too, and something inside him seemed to shrink with shame.