“Good.” The number two dog sat down again, and unconcernedly set about licking the inside of its right hind leg. “The other units of this pack are not cognizant of these affairs. They’re just simple secret police dogs. You are not to trouble them with unpleasant questions. This debriefing is at an end. I believe you have a ship to run?”

Wednesday watched the end of the world with her parents and half the occupants of the Rose Deck canteen. The tables and benches had been deflated and pushed back against one wall while the ship was under boost. Now a large screen had been drawn across the opposite wall and configured with a view piped down from the hub sensor array. She had wanted to watch on her own personal slate, but her parents had dragged her along to the canteen: it seemed like most people didn’t want to be alone for the jump. Not that anybody would know it had happened — contrary to dramatic license, there was absolutely no sensation when a starship tunneled between two equipotent locations across the light years — but there was something symbolic about this one. A milestone they’d never see again.

“Herman?” she subvocalized.

“I’m here. Not for much longer. You’ll be alone after the jump.”

“I don’t understand. Why?” Jeremy was staring at her so she grimaced horribly at him. He jumped back, right into the wall, and his mother glared at him.

“Causal channels don’t work after a jump outside their original light cone: they’re instantaneous communicators, but they don’t violate causality. Move the entangled quantum dots apart via FTL and you break the quantum entanglement they rely on. As I speak to you through one that is wired into your access implant, and that is how you speak to me, I will be out of contact for some time after you arrive. However you are in no danger as long as you remain in the evacuation area and do nothing to attract attention.”

She rolled her eyes. As invisible friends went, Herman could do an unpleasantly good imitation of a pompous youth leader. Dark emptiness sprinkled with the jewel points of stars covered the far wall, a quiet surf of conversation rippling across the beach of heads in front of her. A familiar chill washed through her: too many questions, too little time to ask them. “Why did they let me go?”

“You were not recognized as a threat. If you were, I would not have asked you to go. Forgive me. There is little time remaining. What you achieved was more important than I can tell you, and I am grateful for it.”

“So what did I accomplish? Was it really worth it for those papers?”

“I cannot tell you yet. The first jump is due in less than two minutes. At that point we lose contact. You will be busy after that: Septagon is not like Old Newfoundland. Take care: I will be in touch when the time is right.”

“Is something wrong, Vicki?” With a start she realized her father was watching her.

“Nothing, Dad.” Instinctive dismissal: Where did he learn to be so patronizing? “What’s going to happen?”

Morris Strowger shrugged. “We, uh, have to make five jumps before we arrive where we’re going. The first—” He swallowed. “Home, uh, the explosion, is off to one side. You know what a conic section is?”

“Don’t talk down to me.” She nearly bit her tongue when she saw his expression. “Yes, Dad. I’ve done analytic geometry.”

“Okay. The explosion is expanding in a sphere centered on, on, uh, home. We’re following a straight line — actually, a zigzag around a straight line between equipotent points in space-time — from the station, which is outside the sphere, to Septagon, which is outside the sphere of the explosion but on the other side. Our first jump takes us within the sphere of the explosion, about three light months inside it. The next jump takes us back out the other side.”

“We’re going into the explosion?”

Morris reached out and took her hand. “Yes, dear. It’s—” He looked at the screen again, ducking to see past one of the heads blocking the way. Mum, Indica, was holding Jeremy, facing the screen: she had her hands on his shoulders. “It’s not dangerous,” he added. “The really bad stuff is all concentrated in the shock front, which is only a couple of light days thick. Our shielding can cope with anything else; otherwise, Captain Mannheim would be taking us around the explosion. But that would take much longer, so—” He fell silent. A heavily accented voice echoed from the screen.

“Attention. This is your captain speaking. In about one minute we will commence jump transit for Septagon Central. We have a series of five jumps at seventy-hour intervals except for the fourth, which will be delayed eighteen hours. Our first jump takes us inside the shock front of the supernova: religionists may wish to attend the multifaith service of remembrance on G deck in three hours’ time. Thank you.”

The voice stopped abruptly, as if cut off. A stopwatch appeared in one corner of the wall, counting down the seconds. “What will we do now?” Wednesday asked quietly.

Her father looked uncomfortable. “Find somewhere to live. They said they’d help us. Your mother and I will look for work, I suppose. Try to fit in—”

The black-jeweled sky shimmered, rainbow lights casting many-colored shadows across the watchers. A collective sigh went up: the wall-screen view of space was gone, replaced by the most insanely beautiful thing she had ever seen. Great shimmering curtains of green and red and purple light blocked out the stars, gauzy shrouds of fluorescent silk streaming in a wild breeze. At their heart, a brilliant diamond shone in the cosmos, a bloodred dumbbell of light growing from its poles. “Herman?” she whispered to herself. “Do you see that?” But there was no reply: and suddenly she felt empty, as hollow as the interior of the baby nebula the ship now floated in. “All gone,” she said aloud, and suddenly there were tears in her eyes: she made no protest when her father gathered her in his arms. He was crying, too, great racking sobs making his shoulders shake: she wondered what he could be missing for a moment, then caught its palest shadow and shuddered.

“May I ask what I’m accused of?” Rachel asked for the third time. Don’t let them get to you, she told herself, forcing her face into a bland smile: One slip and they’ll hang you out to dry.

The daylight filtering through the window-wall was tinted pale blue by the slab of dumb aerogel, the sky above the distant mountains dimmed to a remote purple. Behind the heads of her inquisitors she focused on the contrail of a commuter plane scratching its way across the glass-smooth stratosphere.

“There are no charges,” the leader of the kangaroo court said, smiling right back at her. “You haven’t broken any regulations, have you?” The man next to her cleared his throat. “Well, none of ours,” she added, her exaggeratedly dyed lips curling minutely in distaste. Rachel focused on her hairline. Madam Chairman was dressed in an exaggeratedly femme historical style — perhaps to add a touch of velvet and lace to her S M management style — but a ringlet of hair had broken free of whatever chemical cosh she used to discipline it, and threatened to flop over one razor-finished eyebrow in a quizzical curl.

’The excursion to Rochard’s World was not my initiative, as I pointed out in my report,” Rachel calmly repeated, despite the urge to reach across the table and tweak Madam Chairman’s hairdo. Damn, I’d like to see you manage a field operation gone bad, she thought. “George Cho got the run-around from the New Republican government, the idiots had already decided to violate the Third Commandment before I arrived on the scene, and if I hadn’t been in position, there wouldn’t have been anybody on the ground when the shit hit the fan. So George sent me. As I think I’ve already stated, you’re not cleared to read the full report. But that’s not what this is about, is it?”