“He’s here, he’s fine.”

“Almighty Mary. You’re sure?”

“Yes. I just checked his zero-tau pod. Six of us made it.”

“Only six? What happened?”

“We lost Tane Ogilie a couple of years ago after he went outside to work on the drive tube. It had to be repaired before we could decelerate into this orbit; there was a lot of systems decay over twenty-eight years. Trouble is, the whole antimatter unit is badly radioactive now. Not even armour could save him from receiving a lethal dose.”

“Oh, Mother Mary, I’m sorry. What about the other two?”

“Like I said, we’ve had a lot of systems decay. Zero-tau can keep you in perfect stasis, but its own components wear out. They went sometime during the voyage, we only found out when we came out to start the deceleration. Both of them suicided.”

“I see,” she said shakily.

“What happened, Alkad? You’re not in any Garissan navy uniform I remember.”

“The Omutans did it, Kyle. Just like we thought they would. The bastards went ahead and did it.”

“How bad?”

“The worst. Six planet-busters.”

Joshua cancelled his link to the communications circuit, turning to the more mundane details of the flight. Some things he just didn’t want to hear: the reaction of a man being told his home planet has died.

Lady Mac ’s sensors were slowly gathering more information on the Beezling , allowing the flight computer to refine the warship’s location beyond Sarha’s initial rough estimate. The gas giant’s violent magnetic and electromagnetic emissions were making it difficult. Even this far above the outer atmosphere space was a thick ionic soup, congested with severe energy currents which degraded sensor efficiency.

Joshua altered their flight vector several times as the new figures came in. Lady Mac was well over the nightside now, the swirl of particles around her forward fuselage glowing a faint pink as they were buffeted through the planetary magnetosphere. It played havoc with the support circuitry.

Beaulieu and Liol would datavise flurries of instructions to contain the dropouts, returning the systems to operational status. Joshua monitored Liol’s performance, unable to find fault. He’d make a good crewman. Maybe I could offer him Melvyn’s slot, except his ego would never allow him to accept. There has to be a way we can settle this.

He turned his attention back to the communications link. After the shocks he’d received, Kyle Prager was reacting badly to Mzu’s news of her deal with the agencies and Ione.

“You know I cannot hand it over to anybody else,” Prager said. “You should never have brought them here, no matter what you agreed with them.”

“What, and leave you to rot?” Alkad replied. “I couldn’t do that. Not with Peter here.”

“Why not? We planned for it. We would have destroyed the Alchemist and signalled the Confederation Navy for help. You know that. And as for this fable about the dead being alive . . .”

“Mother Mary. We can barely pick up your signal now, and I knew where to look. What sort of condition would you be in five years from now? Besides, there might not be any Confederation left in another five months, let alone five years.”

“Better that than risk others learning how to build an Alchemist.”

“Nobody is going to learn from me.”

“Of course not, but there are so many temptations for governments now the knowledge of its existence has leaked.”

“It leaked thirty years ago, and the technology is still safe. This rescue mission is designed to clear up the last loose end.”

“Alkad, you’re asking too much. I’m sorry my answer has to be no. If you try to rendezvous I will switch off the confinement chambers. We still have a quantity of antimatter left.”

“No!” Alkad yelled. “Peter’s on board.”

“Then stay away.”

“Captain Prager, this is Captain Calvert. I’d like to offer a simple solution.”

“Please do,” Prager answered.

“Shoot the Alchemist down into the gas giant. We’ll pick you up after it’s gone. Because I can assure you, I’m not going to come anywhere near the Beezling with that kind of threat hanging over me.”

“I’d like to, Captain, but it will take some time to check over the Alchemist’s carrier vehicle. Then the antimatter would have to be reloaded. And even if it still works, you might be able to intercept it.”

“That’s a very unhealthy case of paranoia you’ve got there, Captain.”

“One that has kept me alive for thirty years.”

“All right, try this. If we were possessed or simply wanted to acquire Alchemist technology we wouldn’t even have come here. We already have the doc. You’re military, you know there are a great many ways information can be extracted from unwilling donors. And we certainly wouldn’t have thrown in a crazy story like the possessed to confuse the issue. But we’re not possessed, or even hostile to you, so we told you the truth. So I’ll tell you what. If you’re still not convinced that we want to end the Alchemist threat, then go right ahead and kamikaze.”

“No!” Alkad yelled.

“Quiet, Doc. First though, Captain, you put this Peter Adul character in a spacesuit, boot him out the airlock, and let us pick him up. He cannot be allowed to die, not if he knows how to build an Alchemist. The possessed would have him then. Guarding against that technology leakage is part of your duty, too, now. Once we have him, I’ll blow you to shit myself if that’s what it takes.”

“You would, too, wouldn’t you?” Prager asked.

“Jesus, yes. After what I’ve been through chasing the doc, it’ll be a pleasure to finish this properly.”

“It may be just the lousy reception I’m getting, but you look very young, Captain Calvert.”

“Compared to most starship captains, I probably am. But I’m also the only option you have. You either die, or you come with me.”

“Kyle,” Alkad pleaded. “For Mary’s sake!”

“Very well. Captain Calvert, you can rendezvous with the Beezling and take my crew off. After that the Beezling will be scuttled with the Alchemist on board.”

Joshua heard someone on the bridge let out a heavy breath. “Thank you, Captain.”

“Christ, what an ungrateful bastard,” Liol complained. “Just make sure you invoice him a huge rescue bill, Josh.”

“Well that finally settles that question,” Ashly chuckled. “You’re definitely a Calvert, Liol.”

The Beezling was in a sorry state. That became increasingly apparent on Lady Mac ’s final approach phase, when they were rising up behind it from a slightly lower orbit. Both ships were deep inside the penumbra now, although the gigantic orange and white crescent they were fleeing from still cast a glorious coronal glow across them. It was enough for Lady Mac ’s visual sensors to provide a detailed image while they were still ten kilometres away.

Almost the entire lower quarter of the warship’s fuselage plates were missing, with only a simple silver petal pattern left surrounding the drive tubes. The hexagonal stress structure was clearly visible, fencing in black and tarnished chrome segments of machinery. Some units were obviously foreign, jutting up through the centre of the hexagons where they’d been hurriedly inserted to complement or enhance original components. From the midsection forward, the fuselage was relatively intact. There was very little protective foam remaining, just a few dabs of blackened cinderlike flakes. Long silvery scars etched across the dark monobonded silicon told the story of multiple particle impacts. There were hundreds of small craters where the fuselage’s molecular-binding generators had suffered localized overloads. Punctures whose vapour and shrapnel had been absorbed by whatever module or tank was directly underneath. None of the delicate sensor clusters had survived. Only two thermo-dump panels were extended, and they were badly battered; one had a large chunk missing, as if something had taken a bite out of it.