“You may mediate with Baulona-PWM,” the breeder said. “Two of your escort may accompany you, and the humans. Follow me.”

The tube which the breeder led them down was six metres in diameter, with a cable stretched along the centre supporting clusters of lights at regular intervals. All the Tyrathca walked along the walls as though they were in a gravity field. Their whip-like antennae were waving about with vigorous sweeping motions, like undersized wings. Ione realized the breeder’s antennae were much longer than those of the Tyrathca she was familiar with.

“We always believed them to be balance aids,” Parker said. “It would appear low gravity has encouraged their reuse.”

Her sensors swept over the breeder. It was about ten per cent smaller than Confederation breeders, although it appeared fatter. A smattering of the scales on its sienna-coloured hide had turned pale grey, and there were small lumps on its leg muscles. Its breathing seemed to be mildly erratic, almost as if it was wheezing. When she checked the soldiers, they had similar blemishes. Two of them were also running a temperature.

“They haven’t come through the isolation as well as the Mosdva,” she said.

“Small population base,” Ashly said. “They’ll be running into inbreeding problems. Couple that with the kind of medical difficulties which you get from exposure to freefall, and they’ll probably have a high number of invalid eggs. Considering they don’t have a research base to examine and counter the problems, they’ve done well to survive this long.”

The last tube opened out into the rotating airlock. It was a layout remarkably similar to the one in Tanjuntic-RI, a long cylindrical chamber with three large airlock hatches at the far end leading into Lalarin-MG and a pressure seal halfway along. A low rumbling sound vibrated through the atmosphere as the giant cylinder revolved.

The flightship design was carried over on the other side of the airlock. A waiting freight lift was flanked by archways leading directly onto spiral ramps.

Everyone crowded into the lift together, and it started to descend. Gravity built slowly, causing trouble for the three Mosdva. They had to remove their spacesuits entirely to free their hindlimbs, allowing them to stand on them and their midlimbs. It wasn’t easy; their club-like hind feet were evolving away from dexterity, while their midhands were almost too delicate to carry half of their body weight. When the lift reached the base of the cylinder, gravity was fifteen per cent Earth standard. The Tyrathca were perfectly comfortable with it; Ione reprogrammed her suit actuators to take it into account, making sure the serjeants didn’t go power leaping and compensating for the coriolis factor. Quantook-LOU staggered slowly, moving his limbs with painful unfamiliarity. His two bodyguards were a little better off; they had prosthetic midlimbs to take the weight. Servo mechanisms whined loudly with their every movement. Ione wondered what kind of strain weight was putting on their organs and heart.

The lift doors opened, revealing the interior of the cylinder. Ione had to bring more filters on line to compensate for the glare.

Lalarin-MG was a single open space enclosed by a cyclorama of aluminium alloy. The floors were fully occupied by rank after rank of buildings, the standard tapering towers of all Tyrathca settlements. Here, though, they were built out of some jet-black composite; thick pipes and knobbly segments of equipment protruded from the walls, as if they were machines rather than residences. Countering that impression were lush vines with broad, droopy emerald and lavender leaves that scaled the walls, sprouting rings of large hemispherical turquoise and gold flowers. Thin strata of mist drifted up from the grid of streets, merging together into an unwavering pearl-grey haze as they curved their way towards the axis. Every rooftop supported a battery of brilliant lights which shone directly upwards, their broad beams intersecting within the haze and diffusing slightly before they illuminated the section of floor directly overhead.

The cylinder’s sheer endwalls were simple circles of moss, broken into an elaborate tessellation pattern by structural reinforcement ribs and interconnecting spars. A slender axial gantry ran the length of the cylinder. With one interruption.

“Oh my God,” Ione said. “Can everybody see that?”

“We see it,” Syrinx said.

In the absolute centre of the cylinder, suspended from its tips by the axial gantry, was an effigy of the Sleeping God. From tip to tip it measured two hundred metres, giving it a diameter of a hundred and fifty at the flared central disk. Originally the surface had been given a polished metallic sheen, now it was streaked by thick runnels of algae, with tufts of sickly brown fungi sprouting from pocks and cracks. Both spires were mottled by encrustations of lichen.

The Mosdva paid it no attention as they walked painfully along the narrow streets between the towers. Humidity was high. Every surface was beaded with condensation, horizontal ledges and pipes dripped constantly. The eternal background pattering sounded like a gentle rainfall.

Tyrathca breeders (always in pairs, Ione noticed) crowded every intersection along the street, chittering among themselves as the procession made their way into the cylinder. There were few vassal castes in evidence, and most of those were soldiers. Farmers tended the curtains of vines with slow arthritic movements, training new shoots up the trellis and picking the ripe clusters of dark purple fruit.

As they walked slowly through the buildings, her impressions of Lalarin-MG clarified. The interior of the cylinder had the same pattern of lethargic decay that was present across all of Tojolt-HI. Some buildings were in good repair; one or two were actually new, their siege of vines barely reaching up to the first floor windows. But for every new one, four were disused. Even the equipment on the walls of the occupied towers was allowed to fail; magnetic and infrared sensors revealed the casings were inert, sharing the ambient temperature.

“They’re on the border between stability and stagnation,” she said. “And edging over the wrong way.”

“It’s the biological aspect,” Ashly said. “It has to be. It’s the one negative factor at work here. They need to interbreed, inject some vitality back into the family bloodlines. They’ll die out for sure otherwise.”

They finally came out on an annular plaza directly underneath the Sleeping God effigy. It was paved with slabs of aluminium coated with a rough layer of quartz for traction. Overhead, long ribbons of algae dangled from the effigy’s rim, as if it had been given a raggedy skirt. Water showered down from the fringes, falling in a wide curve to sprinkle the whole plaza.

Tyrathca breeders were lined up along the edge of the aluminium slabs, sheltered from the drizzle. They were sitting on their hindquarters, antennae rising high from the shaggy manes running down their spines.

The soldier caste guard all halted at a single piping command from the breeder. Quantook-LOU immediately sank down so his lower belly was resting on the slabs. His breathing was coming very fast.

A breeder rose from the row of Tyrathca and came over to stand in front of the serjeants. An old one, Ione guessed. Its hide was covered in white and grey patches, rheumy fluid leaked from its eyes, and it seemed to have some trouble focusing.

“I am Baulona-PWM, my family regulates electronics throughout Lalarin-MG. The Mosdva I know of. You I do not.”

“We are humans.”

“The Mosdva distributor of resources claims you have travelled from the other side of the nebula to visit Mastrit-PJ.”

“We have.”

“Did the Sleeping God send you?”

“It did not.”

Baulona-PWM tilted its head back against the soft warm rain, and let out a soft keening. The other Tyrathca around the plaza followed suit. A mournful chorus of dismay.