Parker Higgens faced the big xenoc, his anger visible. “It was more than suicide. It was a victory. They won. Whatever the knowledge was they carried with them, it meant they were no longer afraid of the beyond.”

“Yes.”

“And you know what it was.”

“You have our sympathy, and whatever support we can provide.”

“Damn it! How dare you study us like this. We are not laboratory creatures. We are sentient entities, we have feelings, we have fears. Have you no ethics?”

Ione stood behind the trembling director and laid a cautionary hand on his shoulder.

“I am well aware of what you are, Director Higgens,” Lieria said. “And I am empathic to your distress. But I must repeat, the answer to your problem lies within you, not us.”

“Thank you, Parker,” Ione said. “I think we’re all quite clear now on where we stand.”

The director gave a furious wave of his hand and walked away.

I apologize for his temper,ione told the kiint. But as I’m sure you know, this terrifies us all. It is frustrating for us to know you have a solution, even though it cannot apply to us.

Justly so, Ione Saldana. And I do understand. History records our race was in turmoil when we first discovered the beyond.

You give me hope, Lieria. Your existence is proof that satisfactory solutions can be found for a sentient race, something other than genocidal suicide. That inspires me to keep searching for our own answer.

If it is of any comfort, the Kiint are praying humans succeed.

Why, thank you.

•   •   •

Erick was woken by his neural nanonics. He had routinely set up programs to monitor his immediate environment, physical and electronic, alert for anything which fell outside nominal parameters.

As he sat up in the darkened office, his neural nanonics reported an outbreak of abnormal fluctuations in Ethenthia’s power supply systems. When he datavised a query at the supervisor programs, it turned out that no one in the asteroid’s civil engineering service was even examining the problem. A further review showed that fifteen per cent of the habitation section’s lifts appeared to be inoperative. The number of datavises into the net was also reducing.

“Oh, dear God. Not here, too!” He swung his legs off the settee. A wave of nausea twisted along his spine. Medical programs sent out several caution warnings; the team Emonn Verona promised hadn’t been to see him yet.

When he datavised the lieutenant commander’s eddress to the office’s net processor there was no response. “Bloody hell.” Erick pulled on his ship-suit, easing it over his medical packages. There were two ratings standing guard outside the office; both armed with TIP carbines. They came to attention as soon as the door opened.

“Where’s the lieutenant commander?” Erick asked.

“Sir, he said he was going to the hospital, sir.”

“Bugger. Right, you two come with me. We’re getting off this asteroid, right away.”

“Sir?”

“That was an order, mister. But in case you need an incentive, the possessed are here.”

The two of them swapped a worried glance. “Aye, sir.”

Erick started accessing schematics of the asteroid as they went through the Navy Bureau and out into the public hall. He followed that up by requesting a list of starships currently docked at the spaceport. There were only five; one of which was the Villeneuve’s Revenge , which cut his options down to four.

His neural nanonics designed a route to the axial chamber which didn’t use any form of powered transportation. Seven hundred metres, two hundred of which were stairs. But at least the gravity would be falling off.

They went in single file, with Erick in the centre. He ordered both ratings to put their combat programs into primary mode. People turned to stare as they marched down the middle of the public hall.

Six hundred metres to go. And the first stairwell was directly ahead. The hall’s light panels started dimming.

“Run,” Erick said.

Kingsley Pryor’s cell measured five metres by five. It had one bunk, one toilet, and one washbasin; there was a small AV lens on the wall opposite the bed, accessing one local media company. Every surface—fittings, floor, walls—was the same blue-grey lofriction composite. It was fully screened, preventing any datavises.

For the last hour the light panel on the ceiling had been flickering. At first, Kingsley had thought the police were doing it to irritate him. They had been almost fearful as they escorted him from the Villeneuve’s Revenge with a Confederation Navy officer. A member of the Capone Organization. It was only to be expected that they would try to re-establish their superiority with such sad psychology, demonstrating who was in control. But the shifts of illumination had been too fitful for any determined effort. The AV images were also fragmenting, but not at the same time as the light. Then he found the call button produced no response.

Kingsley realized what was happening, and sat patiently on his bunk. Quarter of an hour later the humming sound from the conditioning grille fan faded away. Nothing he could do about it. Twice in the next thirty minutes the fan started up again briefly, once to blow in air which stank of sewage. Then the light panel went out permanently. Still Kingsley sat quietly.

When the door did finally open, it shone a fan of light directly across him, highlighting his almost prim posture. A werewolf crouched in the doorway, blood dripping from its fangs.

“Very original,” Kingsley said.

There was a confused puppylike yap from the creature.

“I really must insist you don’t come any closer. Both of us will wind up in the beyond if you do. And you’ve only just got here, haven’t you?”

The werewolf outline shimmered away to reveal a man wearing a police uniform. Kingsley recognized him as one of his escorts. There was a nasty pink scar on his forehead which hadn’t been there before.

“What are you talking about?” the possessed man asked.

“I am going to explain our situation to you, and I want you to observe my thoughts so that you know I’m telling the truth. And after that, you and your new friends are going to let me go. In fact, you’re going to give me every assistance I require.”

A hundred and fifty metres to the axial chamber. They were almost at the top of the last flight of stairs when the well’s lights went out. Erick’s enhanced retinas automatically switched to infrared. “They’re close,” he shouted in warning.

A narrow flare of white fire fountained up the centre of the stairwell, arching around to burst over the rating behind him. He grunted in pain and swung around, firing his TIP carbine at the base of the streamer. Purple sparks bounced out of the impact point.

“Help me,” he cried. A smear of white fire was cloaking his entire shoulder. Terror and panic were negating all the suppression programs which his neural nanonics had doused his brain with. He stopped firing to flail at the fire with his free hand.

The other rating slithered past Erick to fire back down the stairs. A flat circle of brilliant emerald light sprang over the floor of the stairwell, then started to rise as if it were a fluid. The flare of white fire withdrew below its surface. Shadows were just visible beneath it, darting about sinuously.

The burned rating had collapsed onto the stairs. His partner was still shooting wildly down into the advancing cascade of light. The TIP pulses were turning to silver spears as they penetrated the surface, trailing bubbles of darkness.

The next door was eight metres above Erick. The ratings would never last against the possessed, he knew, a few seconds at best. That few seconds might enable him to escape. The information he had was vital , it had to get to Trafalgar. Millions of innocents depended on it, on him. Millions. Against two.