'Thank you.

'I'm also throwing a welcome party for you in three hours. Everyone is very keen to meet you.

'I suppose they are, she said. 'Fine, I'll be there. I could do with some company after that trip.

They climbed into the little cab together, which immediately shot into the transport tunnel. 'I should warn you that nearly a third of our observation staff are Living Dream followers, the director said.

'I reviewed personnel files before I came.

'As long as you know.

'Is it a problem?

'Hopefully not. But, as you implied, it's a volatile situation right now.

'Don't worry, I can do diplomatic when I have to.

Her suite was equal to any luxury hotel she'd stayed in. The only thing missing was human staff, but the number of modern bots more than made up for it. The Navy had clearly spared no effort in making the station as cosy as possible for the scientists. The main room even had a long window looking out over the alien sections of the station. Justine stared at them for a while, then opaqued the glass. Her u-shadow established itself in the room's net. 'No visitors or calls, she told it.

Justine settled back on the bed, and opened her mind to the local gaiafield. The darkened room filled with phantoms, colours glinted amid the deeper shadows. Voices whispered. There was laughter. She felt drawn to various emotional states which promised to immerse her in their enticing soulful sensations.

Resisting temptation, she focused her attention on the nucleus of the whimsy, the confluence nest itself. A quasi-biological neural module which simultaneously stored and emitted every thought released into its field. It had memories like a human brain, only with a much, much larger capacity. Justine formed her own images, offering them up to the nest. It responded with association. Naturally, it contained every one of Inigo's dreams; Living Dream had made sure of that. She ignored the vivid spectacle of the Waterwalker's life, brushing those memories aside as she refined her own fancy for a different recollection of life inside the Void. The nest was full of enigmas, the mental poetry left behind by observers baffled by the terrible dark heart of the galaxy. There were compositions of how a life might be lived for anyone fortunate to pass inside; wish fulfilment, easily discernible from the real thing. The promise-prayers which Living Dream's followers made every night to their mystic goal. All were imprinted on the nest. But nothing else. No other glimpse into another life lived on Querencia. No grand mellow thoughts originating from a Skylord.

The garden dome at the middle of the human section boasted trees over two hundred and fifty years old. Oaks with thick trunks sent out thick crinkled boughs, acting as lush canopies above the tables where the station staff were gathering. Up on a rustic tree house platform, an enthusiastic amateur band were playing songs from different eras stretching back across several centuries, and were keen for requests. It was dusk inside, allowing the sharp violet light of the Wall stars to dominate the sky overhead.

Justine admired the broad patch of eye-searing scintillations with the kind of weariness she reserved for dangerous animals. Her arrival in the garden dome had created quite a ripple of interest. She liked to think that was at least partly due to the little black cocktail dress she'd chosen. It certainly seemed to have the required effect on Director Trachtenberg, who was becoming quite flirtatious as he fussed round, offering her various drinks and selections of the finger food.

Everyone she was introduced to was keen to know exactly what ANA's interest was in them at this time. She repeated the official line a dozen times that she was just visiting to ascertain the current status of the observation.

'Unchanged, complained Graffal Ehasz, the observation department chief. 'We don't learn anything these days apart from ion storm patterns in the Gulf on the other side of the Wall stars. That tells us nothing about the nature of the beast. We should be trying to send probes inside.

'I thought nothing could get through the barrier, she said.

'Which is why we need a much more detailed study. You can't do that with remote probes fifty lightyears away.

'The Raiel don't like us getting closer, Trachtenberg said.

'When you get home, you might like to ask ANA why we still need their permission just to fart around here, Ehasz said. 'It's fucking insulting.

'I'll remember, Justine said. The party was only twenty minutes old; she wondered how many aerosols Ehasz had already inhaled.

The director took her by the arm and politely guided her away.

'Sorry about that, he said. 'There's not a lot of opportunity to blow off steam around here. I run a pretty tight schedule. This is an expensive installation, and phenomenally important. We need to extract the best information we can with what we've got.

'I understand.

'It's Ehasz's third stint out here. He tends to get frustrated by the lack of progress. I've seen it before. First time, you're all swept along by the wonder of it all. Then when that fades away you begin to realize how passive the observation actually is.

'How many times have you been here?

He grinned. 'This is my seventh. But then I'm a lot older and wiser than Ehasz.

'So would you like to join the Pilgrimage?

'Not really. As far as three hundred years of direct observation has shown us, you touch the barrier, you die. Actually, you die a long time before you reach the barrier. I just don't see how they hope to get through.

'Somebody did, once.

'Yeah, that's the really annoying part.

'So what do— Justine stopped as the ground heaved, almost knocking her feet out from under her. She tensed, dropping to a crouch like just about everyone else. Her integral force field came on. The local net was shrieking out all sort of alarms. The huge oak boughs creaked dangerously; their leaves rustling as if tickled by a gust of wind.

'Hoshit, Trachtenberg yelped.

Justine's u-shadow established a link to the Silverbird's smart-core. 'Stand by, she told it. 'Keep a fix on my position. When she scanned round the dome it was still intact. Then she looked at the horizon, which appeared to be perfectly level. She'd been expecting big cracks to be splitting the lava plain open at the very least. The ground tilted again. Nothing moved! 'What is happening? she demanded. Some kind of quake? But this planet was a dead husk, completely inactive in any respect.

'I'm not sure. The director waved an annoyed hand to shush her.

The band were clambering down out of the tree-house as fast as they could go, jumping the last metre off the wooden steps.

They'd abandoned their instruments. Justine stared at the drink in her hand as the ground shifted again. The wine sloshed from one side of the glass to the other, yet she was holding it perfectly still.

'Holy Ozzie, Trachtenberg exclaimed. 'It's gravity.

'What?

'Gravity waves. Fucking colossal ones.

Ehasz hurried over to them, swaying badly as the ground seemed to tilt again. 'Are you accessing the long-range sensors? he yelled at Trachtenberg.

'What have they got?

'The boundary! There are distortion ripples lightyears long moving across it. And the damn thing is growing. The sensors in the Gulf can actually see it move. Do you realize what that means? The expansion is superluminal. This is an Ozziefucking devourment phase.

The ground quivered badly. Water running along the little streams sloshed about, shooting up small jets of spray. For a moment, Justine actually felt her weight reduce. Then it came back, and the neat stacks of crockery and glasses on the tables crashed on to the grass. She stumbled away from the oak tree as it emitted a nasty splintering sound. Emergency force fields were coming on, reinforcing the dome. Around the rim, safety bunker doors rippled open.