“We’re okay,” she said. The serjeants began to scan round. “No sign of structural breakdown. The cylinder is still intact and rotating.”

“That’s something.”

Above the serjeants, the Sleeping God’s effigy was moving in a circular bouncing motion, completely out of phase with the cylinder’s rotation. The axial gantry securing it bent and stretched with frighteningly loud stress creaks.

Baulona-PWM walked unsteadily over to Quantook-LOU. The distributor of resources was suffering in the aftermath of the attack, unable to lift himself up from the juddering plaza.

“Mosdva break their separation agreement,” Baulona-PWM said. “You damage Lalarin-MG. You kill our vassal castes. We will fire our weapons at Tojolt-HI. You will be exterminated.”

“Wait,” Ione said. “You cannot exterminate Quantook-LOU. He is the only Mosdva willing to deal with you. Without him there will be war. Billions of Tyrathca will die because you exterminated him. Their deaths will be your fault.”

“They will not die if you leave Mastrit-PJ. Do not give the Mosdva your faster-than-light drive. The Tyrathca here will survive. The Sleeping God will come to aid us.”

“The Mosdva will be given our drive. That is why we have come, to bring balance to the galaxy. The Tyrathca from Tanjuntic-RI were given the drive.”

“Tyrathca have faster-than-light drive?” Baulona-PWM demanded.

“Some of your worlds have it, yes. The technology is spreading slowly. Outside Mastrit-PJ your race is becoming powerful. Humans and our xenoc allies will not permit that to happen. There must be balance and harmony between races, only then can there be peace.”

Quantook-LOU heaved down a breath, but still made no effort to rise. “Humans are stupid,” he said. “Why did you give Tyrathca the drive? Can you not see what they are?”

“We know what both of you are. That is why we are here. Now you must choose. Will you mediate a new agreement? Will you pursue peace?”

“What will you do if we do not mediate an agreement?” Quantook-LOU asked.

“The balance will be enforced by us,” Ione said. “We will not tolerate war.”

“The Mosdva will mediate an agreement for peace,” Quantook-LOU said. “If the Tyrathca of Lalarin-MG do not wish to mediate with me, I will find an enclave that will.”

“Baulona-PWM, what is your answer?” Ione asked.

“I will mediate,” the breeder said. “But the Mosdva still attack Lalarin-MG. They must stop. There can be no agreement if we are dead.”

“Quantook-LOU, can you get the other dominions to withdraw?”

“I cannot. I must have the drive first, and the Lady Macbeth must leave. Only then will they be forced to ally with me.”

“You can’t have the drive until we have the Tyrathca information,” Ione said. “Baulona-PWM, how long will it take you to recover the information necessary for the agreement?”

“I am uncertain where it is stored. Our old memory centres are no longer enabled. We would have to reactivate them.”

“Wonderful,” Joshua exclaimed. “Not even total catastrophe can loosen these bollockheads up. Beaulieu, what’s happened to the trains?”

“Three of them are still en route, Captain. And the surviving Mosdva in spacesuits are still infiltrating the knot on the darkside.”

“Jesus, we have to buy Ione some time.”

“We could go back to the knot and use our firepower to defend Lalarin-MG from the Mosdva troops,” Liol suggested.

“No.” Joshua rejected it automatically. It would be messy, he knew. Lady Mac might be the most powerful ship in the system, but she wasn’t invincible. They needed some way of isolating Lalarin-MG while the Tyrathca breeders found the almanac. And maybe Quantook-LOU really could negotiate some kind of peace settlement. Nice bonus.

He let the factors stream through his mind. With that arrogant Calvert certainty that they had to act on Lalarin-MG, it was just a matter of running through options. Thinking what he had available to work with.

Joshua started chuckling wickedly.

Ashly closed his eyes in prayer. “Oh shit.”

“Syrinx,” Joshua called. “I need Oenone down here.”

One of the serjeants bent down beside Quantook-LOU. The distributor of resources had rolled partially on his side, which was why he couldn’t right himself. His bodyweight was trapping his midlimb. Ione pushed his flank as hard as she dared; too much pressure would snap his bones.

“I thank you,” Quantook-LOU said as his midlimb wriggled free. “You would make an excellent Mosdva. Even I am adrift among your mediating strategies.”

“A compliment indeed. My prime requirement, however, remains unchanged.”

“I understand. I will play my part.”

“Good.”

“In the expectation of reward.”

“You will collect the drive. Humans keep their word.”

“A welcome assurance at this point.”

The other serjeant had gone to talk to Baulona-PWM. They stood in the middle of the plaza, with the dirty rain from the effigy falling around them. The drops were less frequent, but larger, as the effigy continued its slow gyrations. “My ship tells me that the Mosdva troops are invading the area around this cylinder,” Ione said. “Can your soldiers hold them off long enough for you to retrieve the information?”

“How do you know this? We can detect no communication with your ship.”

“It is a method you are not familiar with. Now, can you hold them off?”

“We have no soldiers left outside Lalarin-MG. All is wrecked. Our food is grown in the tubes. There is no air, no fluid. Our communication links are failing. Our fusion weapons are disabled. Does your ship have weapons which can help us?”

“Not weapons, but we can certainly help. I will need your agreement to act as the mediator between you and Quantook-LOU.”

“Why?”

“If you supply me with the information which makes the agreement between Tyrathca and Mosdva possible, I may be able to offer all the Tyrathca of Lalarin-MG passage to one of the new Tyrathca worlds. It will not be today, but after we return to our home we can send larger ships to collect you. They could be here in three to four weeks.”

“We will be dead within one hour. Mosdva will come to break open Lalarin-MG’s shell.”

“My ship can move Lalarin-MG away from Tojolt-HI. The Mosdva will no longer be able to reach it. This will give you time to retrieve the information and mediate an agreement with Quantook-LOU.”

“You can move Lalarin-MG?”

“Yes.”

“Once we leave the shadow of Tojolt-HI, we will be unable to get rid of the sun’s heat. Our radiator bands are only sufficient to rid us of the heat we produce inside.”

“Mediating the agreement won’t take that long. You will find and supply the astronomical information to me. When I am satisfied it is correct, I will release the drive to Quantook-LOU and leave. All hostilities will then cease and the agreement will become active. You can travel back to another enclave to wait for our ships to collect you.”

“I agree to this.”

Joshua varied Lady Mac ’s acceleration at random as they flew back to the wrecked knot, making targeting difficult.

“Nobody’s shooting at us,” Liol said. It was almost a complaint. Heavy fire might have made Joshua rethink this whole idea. Then again, part of him was looking forward to this with disgraceful childish glee. As he suspected his younger brother was, as well. The rest of the crew treated the notion with an air of tolerant amusement. And Ione was doing a good job talking rings around the xenocs.

He had to admit, everything was falling into place.

“That’s because we’re going the wrong way to be shot at,” Monica said. “We’re coming back to them. It’s leaving they object to.”

“I wonder what they’ll make of this, then,” Joshua said.

Lady Mac glided over the edge of the knot. Virtually all of the foil sheets had been torn away from its sunside slopes, letting the red sunlight illuminate the snarl of dark tubes which made up the interior. Space around the knot was heavy with particles, crystals and scraps of foil reflecting the sunlight in a blossom of crimson scintillations. The sun-scoop’s plasma torch had blown out a huge crater at the crest of the knot. Three hundred metres in diameter, its walls were a stipple of fractured tubes with melted ends. They were still glowing coral red from the immense thermal barrage.