Edeard smiled round, very impressed.

'I remember your Master with great fondness, Barkus said, waving them on to the bench opposite himself. 'He travelled out here with us a long time ago. I was barely your age at the time. Your Mother, too, novice Salrana, always showed us kindness. Both will be missed and mourned. It was a terrible thing.

'Thank you, Edeard said. 'I don't wish to impose, but neither of us can stay in Thorpe-By-Water. We're not very welcome, and in any case it's too close to Ashwell.

'I understand. The whole province is shaken by what happened, though I've heard a great many different versions already. Including, I have to say, a couple which cast you in a less than favourable light, young man. I held my tongue at the telling of such tales because I remember you from our last visit, four summers ago. I also remember what Akeem said about you. He was impressed with your talent, and old Akeem was not easily swayed especially by one so young.

'Edeard risked his life to save me, Salrana said.

'That also I have heard.

'Before that night, Akeem said he wanted me to go to Makkathran to study at the Blue Tower of my Guild. I would — no, I will, see his wish come true.

Barkus smiled softly. 'A worthy goal, young man.

'We will work our passage, Edeard said forcefully. 'I will not freeload.

'Nor I, said Salrana.

'I would expect nothing less, Barkus said. He seemed troubled. 'However, it is a long way, we will not reach Makkathran until next spring, and that is if all goes well. Many caravans have already cut short their regular journey to leave this province. The stories of Ashwell's fate are many, but they have unnerved all of us. As I remember, Akeem said you have a strong third hand?

'That's true. But my talent is in sculpting. There are many wild defaults in the woods and hills of this province. By the time winter falls I can sculpt you a pack of ge-wolves that no bandit gang will ever get past no matter how strong their concealment. I can sculpt them with a stronger sense of smell than any you've used hitherto. I can also sculpt eagles which will circle for miles on every side of the convoy searching out the slightest hint of treachery or ambush.

'I'm sure you can. Even now Barkus was unsure.

'I can also teach you and your families this, Edeard said. He wove his concealment around himself. Barkus gasped, leaning forward blinking. Edeard felt the caravan Master's farsight whipping back and forth across the cabin. He quietly got up and sat next to the startled Barkus, then withdrew his concealment. 'How could the bandits attack you if they can't see you?

'Dear Lady! Barkus grunted. 'I never knew such a thing…

'Akeem gifted this to me.

Barkus regained his composure quickly. 'Did he now. Akeem was right about you, and so I think are half the tales. Very well my dear youngsters, I will accept you both as family tyros. You will come with us as far as Makkathran. And you will indeed work your passage. Let's see if you think such nobility is worthwhile when we reach the Ulfsen mountains. However, Edeard, this arrangement is conditional on you not teaching anyone your concealment trick, do you concur?

'I do, sir. I don't understand why, though.

'You haven't taught it to anyone in Thorpe-By-Water, have you?

'No, sir.

'That's a good political instinct you have there, my boy. Let's just keep it that way, shall we. There's enough trouble infecting our poor old world as it is without everyone sneaking around unseen. Though if you can find a way for farsight to uncover such trickery, I'd be grateful if you would inform me at once.

'Yes, sir.

'Good lad. We leave with the dawn light in three days' time. If you're not here that morning, we still leave. Though I don't suppose your Master will object to your exodus.

'I don't believe he will, sir.

'Makkathran! Edeard said as they hurried away from the wagon. Now Barkus had said he'd take them, all his earlier worries and doubts had dried up. He'd thought that he was running away, that he was being a coward for putting all the provinces between himself and the bandits, for allowing them to deal with the problem and endure their blood being spilt to safeguard the land while he lived a safe comfortable life in the city. But now they were going and that was that. 'Imagine it.

'I can't believe it. Salrana's smile was wide and carefree. 'Do you think it will be as wonderful as the stories we've heard?

'If it is only a tenth as fabulous as they say, it will be beyond anything I have dreamed.

'And we'll be safe, she sighed.

'Yes. He put his arm round her shoulder. In a brotherly fashion! 'We'll be safe. And what splendid lives we'll live in the capital of the world.

The glitch had been surprisingly easy to find. But then Troblum supposed Emily Aim didn't have a lot of time to insert it, nor would she suspect he'd come looking, at least not right away. She'd made several modifications to the blueprint; in itself each one was relatively innocuous which made them even harder to spot, but the cumulative effect was enough to throw the binding effect out of kilter. It was less than an hour's work for him to remove them. Then he restarted the production process.

With that underway, his u-shadow established a secure onetime link back to his apartment. Now he knew that Marius was trying to manipulate him, and would go to any lengths to achieve what he wanted, Troblum knew he needed an escape route. There was only one which would put him beyond even the representative's reach: the colonies. After the Starflyer War each of the old Dynasties had been left with a fleet of redundant lifeboats, starships capable of evacuating the entire senior strata of each 1)ynasty to the other side of the galaxy where they would have been safe had the Prime alien won. Given the phenomenal amount of money poured into their construction, the Dynasty leaders were never going to scrap them simply because the Commonwealth was victorious. Instead, the lifeboats set off to found new worlds and cultures completely independent of the Commonwealth. Over forty ships had launched, though even that figure was ambiguous; the Dynasty leaders were reluctant to admit how much money they'd poured into their own salvation at the expense of everyone else. In the following centuries, more colony ships had set forth. No longer exclusive to Dynasties, they had carried an even broader selection of beliefs, families and ideologies seeking to break free to a degree which even the External Worlds could never offer. The last major departure had been in AD 3000, when Nigel Sheldon himself led a fleet of ten starships, the largest craft ever built, to set up a 'new human experience' elsewhere. It was strongly rumoured at the time that the ships had a trans-galactic flight range.

With the ultra-secure link established to his apartment, Trob-lum used a similarly guarded connection for his u-shadow to trawl the Unisphere for the possible destinations of the colony ships within this galaxy. There were over a hundred departures listed, and subsequently thousands of articles presented on each of them. A lot of those articles speculated on why not one colony had got back in touch, even if it was only for a 'so there' message. Certainly there was no records of any Navy starships stumbling across a human world anywhere else in the galaxy, not that they'd ever explored a fraction of a per cent of the available Incongruous stars. Of course, it was the core of Living Dream dogma that most, if not all, such voyages had wound up inside the Void. However, a lot of genuine academic work had gone into estimating probable locations, despite the best efforts of the dwindling Dynasties to suppress such work. Even assuming the studies were correct, the areas that needed to be searched were vast, measuring hundreds of lightyears across. But Mellanie's Redemption was a fine ship, she should be able to make the trip out to the Drasix cluster, fifty thousand lightyears away, where the Brandt Dynasty ships were said to have flown.