‘Relayed signal!’ shouted Lember. ‘They want to know if it’s time to go in!’

Sprage extracted his pipe. ‘Tell ‘em yes. We’ll moor for the night and land in the morning. No point blundering about in the dark on Skinner’s Island. That’d be unhealthy.’

When Twelve shot screaming from the sea, the Warden picked up the gist of what it was saying, and reacted immediately. A high-speed analysis of its files provided some basis on which to make its suppositions. The AI was now eighty-seven per cent certain that the Prador aboard the war craft was the old Prador called Ebulan. Ebulan had been Hoop’s main Prador contact during the war, and at the forefront of some of its more risky campaigns. Confirmation then: Ebulan was here to cover his tracks. Any other Prador would have remained in the safety of the Kingdoms, and sent agents here instead to accomplish its ends. That Ebulan had come here himself was indicative of — to put it succinctly — which way he might now jump. Maybe Ebulan would not go so far as to directly involve his own ship but, that ship being a Prador light destroyer, the Warden was taking no chances.

‘Priority message: Gate for all incoming visitors is now closed. More instructions to follow.’

The Warden observed the effect of this announcement in the main concourse and in the arrivals lounges. People immediately began consulting their personal comps. In the first minute, the Warden counted two hundred enquiries directed through the consoles on Coram base. It fielded these with the same message, then directed its attention towards the code-breaker programmes it was running. No closer to cracking it yet, and that code was the easiest way through the skin of the Prador vessel should it eventually show itself. The Warden gave yet another command.

In the lounges and concourses, humans and altered humans observed — through the chainglass panoramic windows — weapons turrets cracking through the ice and sulphurous crusts, and rising into view. These turrets were black and grey and vaguely resembled the feeding heads of giant water worms. Some people nodded their heads and related to newcomers how this was the second time this had happened since they had been here. Children pointed out the various protrusions from the turrets, and identified them as anti-photon cannons, particle-beam projectors, racks of smart missiles, near-c rail-guns, and so on. Concerned parents remarked that there must be a deal of meteor activity occurring in this system and wondered why they had not been warned.

EXIT GATE IS NOW OPEN-PORT TO LOCAL SYSTEMS.

As soon as this message came up on the board, a silence descended in the base. Those very few ancients who were old enough to remember the Prador war, or even more recent conflicts, immediately headed for the runcible gate to get through before a panic started. Many of them remembered open-port evacuations of stations and moons near space battles. A few of them remembered what had subsequently happened to some of those stations and moons.

The Warden let things ride for a while as, after its first message, the exit gate had begun working to full capacity. It directed its attention planet-ward, to its submind on the Polity base.

‘Full lock down and defences,’ it instructed the submind.

‘Shit about to hit?’ asked the mind.

‘Most likely,’ conceded the Warden.

All around the Polity base, shield projectors began rising out of the sea. Huge automatic clamps closed over the three shuttles grounded there, and the platforms they were located on began to sink into the sea. Aircabs took off en masse from the jetties, as the base slowly drew in those jetties like a starfish pulling in its arms. The aircabs went at full tilt to the Domes on the nearby island, dropping in through the tops of them, then the Dome hatches irised shut. At the same time as these were closing, Polity citizens were rushing back into the Domes from the Hooper towns they had been visiting outside. Not all of them made it unfortunately, as the armoured doors rolled shut and left many terrified citizens outside with the bemused Hoopers. These Hoopers became even more bemused when turrets, much like those recently exposed on Coram, started rising out of the earth of their own island.

‘Attention all Polity citizens,’ the Warden announced. ‘A Prador light destroyer has been detected in-system with hostile intent. Proceed in an orderly manner to the gate.’

After this announcement, the Warden allowed information access to the hundreds of enquiries pouring in. Polity citizens learnt that ‘open-port’ meant they’d be thrown out through the gate as fast as was possible, to be fielded by those runcibles anywhere else that could handle the load. So they’d all arrive… somewhere. The Warden noted, with a small but pleasurable surprise, that there was no obvious panic. Its pleasure was tempered when it counted how many questions coming through concerned the Prador, and how many Polity citizens were learning for the first time about a war that had ended more than seven centuries ago.

The terrain became increasingly rocky as they laboured up the slope, and the vegetation had changed to accommodate this. Here the peartrunk trees were squat and gnarled and tangled with the same vine-like growths that coated the boulders and slabs of rock jutting up through the soil. Janer walked a couple of paces behind Keech, the carbine resting across his shoulder. In the half-light, he noticed Keech grimace and probe his wrist, then clench his hand into a fist, then open it again.

Also studying Keech, a pace or two to one side of Janer, Captain Ron asked, ‘When you went after her ship, what happened?’

‘I hit some powerful defences, which nearly brought me down.’ Keech gestured with his thumb towards Boris and Roach. ‘On the way out I saw your ship burning and picked up these two on my way back.’

Ron stared at Roach.

‘It wasn’t my fault,’ protested Roach.

‘I know that,’ said Ron, since he and Ambel had already had a long talk with Boris and ascertained most of the facts. He gestured to the probe Boris still carried and said to Keech, ‘What I’d like to know is what’s happening now.’

‘The Warden will be, let’s say, playing close attention to events down here,’ explained Keech. ‘Spatterjay might be officially Out-Polity, but it still comes under Polity protection. There was that much agreement between you lot and the Polity at least.’

‘What’s out there, then?’ asked Ambel, pointing seawards.

Keech gave Ambel a long look, then said, ‘Where there’s Prador adolescents there’s a Prador adult around too. In the absence of an adult, one of their adolescents becomes one very quickly. Prador adults are pretty careful about their own safety, so if there’s one anywhere here it’ll be heavily armed.’

‘Spzzckt light destroyer,’ SM13 chipped in.

They all stared at the drone Boris was carrying.

Keech continued, ‘A ship like that in hiding somewhere and Prador agents running around all over the place — that isn’t something the Warden would tolerate.’

‘But is it something the Warden can do anything about?’ asked Ambel.

Keech gazed at him again, and it was obvious to Janer the kind of thoughts that were going through the monitor’s mind.

‘I don’t know,’ replied Keech.

They trudged on a little further, until Ron suddenly halted, staring at the ground.

‘I reckon it’s circling back on itself. But if we go on any further in this light, we’ll lose the trail,’ he warned.

Janer sighed and slipped his backpack from his shoulders. Ambel gestured to a protected spot below a single huge slab jutting up diagonally from the ground. The six of them made their way over and sat in its dark shadow. Shortly, Ambel opened his bag and passed around dried strips of rhinoworm. Janer chewed on a length of it while pulling what remained of his heat sheet out of his pack. Roach began tugging lengths of dead vine from a nearby rock, and made a pile of them, then Boris ignited the heap with a quick burst from the laser he carried. He then looked to Captain Ron and tossed the laser over to him. The Captain caught it and pocketed it in one swift motion.