Yes!

He glanced inquiringly around at his three crew. “Anybody got any idea what happened to our weirdo passenger?”

“ ’Fraid not,” Aziz said. “I asked around the port, and all I could find out was that she’s hired herself a charter agent. After that—not a byte.”

Meyer eased himself down into his command couch. A small headache was still pulsing away behind his eyes. He was beginning to wonder if it was going to be permanent. The doctor had said most probably not. “No bad thing. I think Mzu was right when she said we’d be better off not knowing about her.”

“Fine in theory,” Cherri said irritably. “Unfortunately all those agency people saw it was us who lifted her from Tranquillity. If she’s right about how dangerous she is, then we’re in some sticky shit right now. They’re going to want to ask us questions.”

“I know,” Meyer said. “God, targeted by the ESA at my age.”

“We could just go straight to them,” Haltam said. “Because, let’s be real here, they’re going to catch us if they want to. If we go to them, it ought to show we aren’t at the heart of whatever it is she’s involved in.”

Cherri snorted in disgust. “Yeah, but running to the King’s secret police . . . It ain’t right. I’ve heard the stories, we all have.”

“Too right,” Haltam said. “They make bad enemies.”

“What do you think, Meyer?” Aziz asked.

It wasn’t something he wanted to think about. His nutrient levels had been balanced perfectly by the hospital while he was in recuperation therapy, but he still felt shockingly tired. Oh, for someone else to lift the burden from him, which of course was the answer, or at least a passable fudge.

Good idea,Udat commented. She was nice.

“There is somebody who might be able to help us,” Meyer told them. “If she’s still alive. I haven’t seen her for nearly twenty years, and she was quite old then.”

Cherri gave him a suspicious look. “Her?”

Meyer grinned. “Yeah. Her. A lady called Athene, she’s an Edenist.”

“They’re worse than the bloody ESA,” Haltam protested.

“Stop being so prejudiced. They have one quality above all else, they’re honest. Which is a damn sight more than you can say for the ESA. Besides, Edenism is one culture the ESA can never subvert.”

“Are you sure she’ll help?” Cherri asked.

“No promises. All I can tell you is if she can, she will.” He looked at each of them in turn. “Does anyone have an alternative?”

They didn’t.

“Okay, Cherri, file a departure notice with the port, please. We’ve been here quite long enough.”

“Aye, sir.

And, you, let’s have a swallow sequence for the Sol system.

Of course,Udat said, then added rather wistfully: I wonder if the Oenone will be at Saturn when we arrive?

Who knows? But it would be nice to see how it developed.

Yes. As you say, it has been a long time.

The first swallow manoeuvre took them twelve light-years from Narok’s star. The second added another fifteen light-years. Confident the blackhawk had recovered from its ordeal, Meyer told it to go ahead with the third swallow.

Empty space twisted apart under the immense distortion which the patterning cells exerted. Udat moved cleanly into the interstice it had opened, shifting the energy which chased through its cells in smaller, more subtle patterns to sustain the continuity of the pseudofabric that closed around the hull. Distance without physical length flowed past the polyp.

Meyer! Something is wrong!

The alarmed mental shout struck like a physical blow. What do you mean?

The terminus is retreating, I cannot match the distortion pattern to its coordinate.

Linked with the blackhawk’s mentality he could actually feel the pseudofabric changing, twisting and flexing around the hull as if it were a tunnel of agitated smoke. Udat was unable to impose the stability necessary to maintain the wormhole’s uniformity.

What’s happening?he asked, equally panicked.

I don’t understand. There is another force acting on the wormhole. It is interfering with my own distortion field.

Override it. Come on, get us out of here.he felt a burst of power surge through the blackhawk’s cells, amplifying the distortion field. It simply made the interference worse. Udat could actually sense waves forming in the wormhole’s pseudofabric. The blackhawk juddered as two of them rolled against its hull.

It doesn’t work. I cannot support this energy output.

Keep calm,meyer implored. It might just be a temporary episode.in his own mind he could feel the energy drain reach exorbitant levels. There was barely ninety seconds reserve left at this expenditure rate.

Udat reduced the strength of the distortion field, desperate to conserve its energy. A huge ripple ran down the wormhole, slapping across the hull. Loose items jumped and spun over the bridge. Meyer instinctively grabbed the couch arms even as the restraint webbing folded over him.

The flight computer datavised that a recorded message was coming on line. Meyer and the crew could only stare at the offending console in amazement as Dr Mzu’s image invaded their neural nanonics. There was no background, she simply stood in the middle of a grey universe.

“Hello, Captain Meyer,” she said. “If everything has gone according to plan you should be accessing this recording a few seconds before you die. This is just a slightly melodramatic gesture on my part to explain the how and why of your situation. The how is simple enough, you are now experiencing distortion feedback resonance. It’s a spin-off discovery from my work thirty years ago. I left a little gadget in the life-support section which has set up an oscillation within the Udat ’s distortion field. Once established, it is quite impossible to damp down; the wormhole itself acts as an amplifier. The resonance will not end while the distortion field exists, and without the field the wormhole will collapse back into its quantum state. A neat logic box you cannot escape from. You can now only survive as long as Udat ’s patterning cells have energy, and that is depleting at quite a rate, I imagine.

“As to the why; I specifically chose you to extract me from Tranquillity because I always knew Udat was capable of pulling off such a difficult feat. I know because I’ve witnessed this blackhawk in action once before. Thirty years ago, to be precise. Do you remember, Captain Meyer? Thirty years ago, almost to the month, you were part of an Omuta mercenary squadron assigned to intercept three Garissan navy ships, the Chengho , the Gombari , and the Beezling . I was on the Beezling , Captain, and I know it was you in the Omuta squadron because after it was over I accessed the sensor recordings we made of the attack. The Udat is a most distinctive ship, both in shape, colouring, and agility. You are good, and because of that you won the battle. And don’t we all know exactly what happened to my home planet after that.”

The datavise ended.

Cherri Barnes looked over to Meyer, strangely placid. “Is she right? Was it you?”

All he could do was give her a broken smile. “Yes.” I’m sorry, my friend.

I love you.

Three seconds later, the energy stored in the Udat ’s patterning cells was exhausted. The wormhole, which was held open purely by the artificial input of the distortion field, closed up. A straight two-dimensional fissure, fifteen light-years in length, appeared in interstellar space. For an instant it spat out a quantity of hard radiation equal to the mass of the blackhawk. Then, with the universe returned to equilibrium, it vanished.