Excavation bots had dug a passage down at forty-five degrees, hacking crude steps into the rocky ground. Thick blue air hoses were strung along the roof, clustered round a half-metre extraction tube that buzzed as it propelled grains of frozen mud along to be dumped on a pile half a kilometre away. Polyphoto strips hanging off the cables cast a slightly greenish glow. Aaron trod carefully as they went down. The solid ground around him blocked any detailed field scan.

The bottom of the crude stairs must have been seven metres below ground level. Ericilla explained they'd cut into a lakebed which had filled with sediment during the post-attack monsoons. There were several people from the surrounding area who had never made it to Anagaska.

The passage opened out into a chamber ten metres wide, and three high, supported by force fields. Discarded arm-length bots were strewn over the floor with power cables snaking round them. A couple of hologram projectors filled it with a pervasive sparkly monochrome light. Ice crystals glinted in the sediment contained behind the force field.

There was an opening on the far side. Aaron's field scan showed him another cavern, with a great deal of electronic activity inside. Someone was in there. Someone who could shield his body from the scan.

'Holy Ozzie, Aaron breathed.

Corrie-Lyn gave him a curious look and strode into the second chamber. It was larger than the first, a third of its wall surface was covered with excavator bots. They looked like a mass of giant maggots slowly wiggling their way forward into the gelid sediment. A huge lacework of tiny pipes emerging from their tails led back to the start of the extraction tube. Silver sensor discs floated through the air, bobbing about to take readings. Silhouetted by the retinue of cybernetic activity was a lone figure wearing a dark-green surface suit. Corrie-Lyn took a couple of hesitant steps forward.

The man turned, lifting his bubble helmet off. His face had a Latin shading rather than Inigo's North European pallor, and the hair was dark brown rather than ginger. But apart from that, the features hadn't been altered much. Aaron thought it a particularly inferior disguise, as if he was just wearing make up and a bad wig.

'Inigo! Corrie-Lyn whispered.

'Of all the Restoration projects on all the dead worlds in the galaxy, you had to walk into mine.

Corrie-Lyn sank to her knees, sobbing helplessly.

'Hey girl, Inigo said sympathetically. He knelt down beside her, and flipped the outer seals on her helmet.

'Where've you been, you bastard! she screamed. Her fist smacked into her chest. 'Why did you leave me? Why did you leave us?

He wiped some of the tears from her cheeks, then leant forward and kissed her. Corrie-Lyn almost fought against it, then suddenly she was wrapping her arms around him, kissing furiously. The fabric of their suits made scratching noises as they rubbed together.

Aaron waited a diplomatic minute, then unsealed his own helmet. The air was bitingly cold, and held the strangest smell of rancid mint. His breath emerged in grey streamers. 'You're a hard man to find.

Inigo and Corrie-Lyn broke apart.

'Don't listen to him, Corrie-Lyn said urgently. 'Whatever he wants, refuse. He's insane. He's killed hundreds of people to find you.

'Slight exaggeration, Aaron said. 'No more than twenty, surely.

Inigo's steel-grey eyes narrowed. 'I can sense what you are. Who do you represent?

'Ah, Aaron gave a weak smile. 'I'm not sure. But we're about to find out. He could feel the knowledge stirring in his mind again. He was about to know what to do next.

'I won't go back, Inigo said simply.

'What happened? Corrie-Lyn pleaded.

Aaron's u-shadow reported a call was coming in from Director Ansan Purillar. Transferred across the hundreds of desolate kilometres from Kajaani by the small sturdy beacons to enter the camp where it finally trickled down into the excavation through a single strand of fibre optic cable.

'Yes, Director? Aaron said.

Inigo and Corrie-Lyn gave each other a puzzled glance, then looked at Aaron.

'Do you have some colleagues following you? Ansan Purillar asked.

'No.

'Well there's a ship coming through the atmosphere above us, and it won't respond to any of our signals.

Aaron felt his blood chill. His combat routines came on line as he instinctively shielded himself with the strongest force field his biononics could produce. 'Get out.

'What?

'Get out of the base. Everyone out. Now!

'I think you'd better explain just exactly what is going on.

'Shit! His u-shadow used the tenuous link to the base to establish a tiny channel to the Artful Dodger's smartcore. 'Tell them, he yelled at Corrie-Lyn.

She flinched. 'Director, please leave. We haven't been honest with you. She turned to Inigo. 'Please? she hissed.

He gave a reluctant sigh. 'Ansan, this is Earl. Do as Aaron says. Get as many as you can into the starship. Everyone else will have to use the ground cruisers.

'But—

The Artful Dodger's smartcore scanned the sky above Kajaani. Its sweep was hampered considerably by the protective force field over the base. But it showed Aaron a small mass thirty kilometres high, holding position above the thick outer cloud blanket. 'Come and get us, he told the smartcore. 'Fast. His exovision showed him the starship powering up. Flight systems took barely a second to come on line. Its force field hardened. Directly overhead, an enormously powerful gamma-ray laser struck the base's force field. A scarlet corona flared around the puncture point, and the beam sliced into the generator building.

Complete force field failure was an emergency situation which had been incorporated into the base's design. Secondary force fields snapped on over the cottages and science blocks, almost in time to protect them from the first awesome pressure surge. Several sheets of ice crystals hammered against the walls, drilling holes in the grass. Staff caught outside screamed and flung themselves down as the impacts battered them. It was over in seconds as the re-trapped air stilled. When they looked up they could see the parkland being scoured of grass and bushes by the victorious wind. Their starship had been cut in two by the gamma-laser strike, uneven sections lying twisted on the pad as the cold storm buffeted it about.

Beside it, the Artful Dodger rose into the maelstrom of radioactive destruction which cascaded across the base the instant the main force field vanished. Sensors showed it a pinprick of dazzling white light searing its way downward, accelerating at fifty gees. The ship's smartcore blasted away at the weapon with neutron lasers and quantum distortion pulses. Nothing happened. The smartcore started to change course. It wasn't fast enough. The lightpoint struck the Artful Dodger amidships, unaffected by the force field. Enormous tidal forces tore at the ship's structure, destroying its integrity. Even spars reinforced by bonding fields were ripped out of alignment. Ordinary components were mangled beyond recognition. The entire hull buckled and imploded to a third of its original size. Then the Hawking m-sink punched through the other side of the ship and streaked onwards into the ground. Its intense spark of light vanished. The surrounding ground heaved as if Kajaani had been hit by a massive earthquake, annihilating the remaining buildings and structures. All the secondary force fields died, leaving the collapsing cottages and science blocks exposed to the planet's malignant atmosphere.

The wreckage of the Artful Dodger tumbled out of the hurricane to smash into the ruins of the base.

Aaron's contact with the starship was lost as soon as the Hawking m-sink penetrated the hull, when every microcircuit and kube physically distorted and ruptured.