'Inigo, I presume, the director's overloud voice proclaimed. 'Glad to meet you; and you're bright and early for the party, as well, most commendable, laddy.

Inigo smiled with professional deference as he shook the tall man's hand. 'Director Eyre, he acknowledged. The briefing file's CV had told him very little about the director, other than claiming his age was over a thousand years. Inigo suspected corrupted data, although the director's clothing was certainly historical enough; a short jacket and matching kilt with a very loud amethyst and black tartan.

'Oh please, call me Walker.

'Walker? Inigo queried.

'Short for LionWalker. Long story. Not to worry, laddy. Won't bore you with it tonight.

'Ah. Right. Inigo held his gaze level. The director had a thick stock of brown hair, but something glittered underneath it, as if his scalp was crawling with gold flecks. For the second time in five minutes Inigo held off using biononics; a field scan would have revealed what kind of technology the director was enriched with, it certainly wasn't one he recognized. He had to admit, the hair made LionWalker Eyre look youthful; just like the majority of the human race these days, no matter what branch — Higher, Advancer, Natural — vanity was pretty much uniform. But the thin grey goatee lent him an air of distinction, and cultivating that was very deliberate.

LionWalker waved his whisky tumbler across the darkened parkland, ice cubes chittering at the movement. 'So what brings you to our celebrated outpost, then young Inigo? Thinking of the glory? The riches? Lots of sex? After all, there's not much else to do here.

Inigo's smile tightened slightly as he realized just how drunk the director was. 'I just wanted to help. I think it's important.

'Why? The question was snapped out, accompanied by narrowed eyes.

'Okay. The Void is a mystery that is beyond even ANA to unravel. If we can ever figure it out we will have advanced our understanding of the universe by a significant factor.

'Huh. Do yourself a favour, laddy, forget ANA. Bunch of decadent aristos who've been mentally taxidermied. Like they care what happens to physical humans. It's the Raiel we're helping, a people who are worth a bit of investment. And even those galumphing masterminds are stumped. You know what the Navy engineers found when they were excavating the foundations for this very garden dome?

'No.

'More ruins. LionWalker took a comfortable gulp of whisky.

I see.

'No you don't. They were practically fossilized, nothing more than dust strata, over three quarters of a million years old. And from what I've picked up, looking at the early records the Raiel deign to make available, the observation has been going on a lot longer than that. A million years pecking away at a problem. Now that's dedication for you. We'd no be able to manage that, far too petty.

'Speak for yourself.

'Ah, I might have known, a believer.

'In what?

'Humanity.

'That must be pretty common among the staff here, surely? Inigo was wondering how to disengage himself, the director was starting to irritate him.

'Damn right, laddy. One of the few things that keeps me all cheered up out here all by my wee lonesome. Och… here we go. Lionwalker tipped his head back, and stared out across the dome where the low layer of hazy light faded away. Overhead, the crystal was completely transparent, revealing the vast antagonistic nebulas that washed across the sky. Hundreds of stars shone through the glowing veil, spikes of light so intense they burned towards violet and into indigo. They multiplied towards the horizon as the planet spun slowly to face the Wall, that vast barrier of massive stars which formed the outermost skin of the galactic core.

'We can't see the Void from here, can we? Inigo asked. He knew it was a stupid question. The Void was obscured on the other side of the Wall, right at the very heart of the galaxy. Centuries ago, before anyone had even ventured out of Earth's solar system, human astronomers had thought it was a massive black hole, they'd even detected X-ray emissions from the vast loop of superheated particles spinning round the event horizon, which helped confirm their theories. It wasn't until Wilson Kime captained the Commonwealth Navy' ship Endeavour in the first successful human circumnavigation of the galaxy in 2560 that the truth was discovered. There was indeed an impenetrable event horizon at the core, but it didn't surround anything as natural and mundane as a superdense mass of dead stars. The Void was an artificial boundary guarding a legacy billions of years old. The Raiel claimed there was an entire universe inside, one that had been fashioned by a race that lived during the dawn of the galaxy. They had retreated into it to consummate their journey to the absolute pinnacle of evolution. In their wake, the Void was now slowly consuming the remaining stars in the galaxy. In that it was no different from the natural black holes found anchoring the centre of many galaxies; but while they employed gravity and entropy to pull in mass, the Void actively devoured stars. It was a process that was slowly yet inexorably accelerating. Unless it was stopped, the galaxy would die young, maybe three or four billion years before its allotted time. Far enough in the future that Sol would be a cold ember and the human race not even a memory. But the Raiel cared. This was the galaxy they were born in, and they believed it should be given the chance to live its full life.

LionWalker gave a little snort of amusement. 'No, of course you can't see it. Don't panic, laddy, there's no visible nightmare in our skies. DF7 is rising, that's all. He pointed.

Inigo waited, and after a minute an azure crescent drifted up over the horizon. It was half the size of Earth's moon, with a strangely regular black mottling. He let out a soft breath of admiration.

There were fifteen of the planet-sized machines orbiting within the Centurion Station star system. Nests of concentric lattice spheres, each one possessing a different mass property and quantum field intersection, with the outer shell roughly the same diameter as Saturn. They were Raiel-built; a 'defence system' in case a Void devourment phase broke through the Wall. No one had ever seen them in action, not even the Jadradesh.

'Okay. That is impressive, Inigo said. The DFs were in the files, of course. But a machine on that scale and head-on real was awesome.

'You'll fit in, LionWalker declared happily. He slapped a hand on Inigo's shoulder. 'Go find yourself a drink. I made sure we had the very best culinary programs for alcohol synthesis. You can take that as a challenge. He moved on to the next arrival.

Keeping one eye on DF7, Inigo made his way over to the bar. LionWalker wasn't kidding, the drinks were top quality, even the vodka that fountained up through the mermaid ice sculpture.

Inigo stayed at the party longer than he expected to. There was something about being thrown together with a bunch of like-minded devoted people that instinctively triggered his normally dormant social traits. By the time he finally got back to his apartment his biononics had been deflecting alcohol infiltration of his neurones for several hours. Even so, he permitted some to percolate through his artificial defences, enough to generate a mild inebriation and all the associated merits. He was going to have to live with these people for another year. No advantage in appearing aloof.

As he crawled into bed he ordered a complete de-saturation. That was one superb benefit of biononics: no hangover.

And so Inigo dreamed his first dream at Centurion Station. It wasn't his.