“I think we might have something,” Etchells said.

Kiera looked up from the pizza slice she was munching through. A couple of the console displays were showing elongated stars being lassoed by turquoise nets, columns of scarlet figures scrolling past too fast to be read. So far all the hellhawk had found was some radar-type pulses coming from (presumably) stations orbiting the huge star. They gave nothing away, other than the fact they weren’t Confederation. Kiera and Etchells both wanted to see if anything else existed before they started investigating.

“What have you seen?” she asked.

“Take a look for yourself.”

The gauzy iridescent clouds of the nebula slid across the bridge’s main port as the hellhawk swung round. Bright crimson light shone in as it faced the red giant again.

Kiera dropped her pizza back into the therm box and squinted against the glare. Right in the middle of the port was a dazzling white spark. As she watched, it grew longer and longer.

“What is that?”

“An antimatter drive.”

She smiled grimly “It must be the Confederation Navy ship.”

“Possibly. If it is, there’s something wrong. An antimatter drive should accelerate a ship at over thirty-five gees. Whatever’s producing that drive flare is barely moving.”

“We’d better take a look then. How far away are they?”

“Roughly a hundred million kilometres.”

“But it’s so bright.”

“Nobody really appreciates how powerful antimatter actually is until they encounter it first hand. Ask the ex-residents of Trafalgar.”

Kiera gave the apparition a respectful look, then went over to the weapons console. She started arming the combat wasps. “Let’s go.”

Joshua switched all the starship’s drives off as soon as Lalarin-MG cleared the crest of the knot. The flight computer had to tell him where that was. Tojolt-HI’s structure had simply melted away from the antimatter drive, leaving a hole over eight kilometres wide where the knot had been. The fringes glowed cerise, extending bent tendrils of molten metal. Only the largest lump of asteroid rock had survived intact, although it was down to a quarter of its original size. It tumbled in towards the photosphere, its surface baked to a cauldron of bubbling tar, spewing out a guttering tail of petrochemical fog.

The red giant shone through the huge circular rent in the diskcity, illuminating the end of the cylinder and a tapering slice of the shell as if a flame was playing up the side. Lady Mac ’s ion thrusters fired, backing her out of the crushed bearing ring. The hub had bowed inward under the enormous force she’d exerted, but the rib spars had held. Now they were retreating from the diskcity at a leisurely thirty metres per second.

“And they’re still not shooting at us,” Liol said.

“I should hope not,” Dahybi retorted. “After that little display of power they’ll think twice about antagonising us again.”

“Look how much damage we’ve done,” Ashly said. “I’m sorry, but this is one accomplishment which doesn’t make me very proud.”

“This section of Tojolt-HI was mostly dead,” Liol said. “And the sunscoop had already destroyed the tubes which still had viable life support functions.”

“Ashly’s right,” Joshua said. “All we’ve done is react to events. We’re in control of very little.”

“I thought that’s what life was,” Liol said. “The honour of witnessing events. You need to be a God to control them.”

“That drops us into a neat little paradox, then,” Sarha said. “We have to control events if we want to find a God. But if we can control them, then ipso facto we’re already gods.”

“I think you’ll find it’s a question of scale,” Joshua said. “Gods determine the outcome of large events.”

“What happened here was pretty big.”

“Not compared to the destiny of an entire species.”

“You’re taking this very seriously,” Liol said.

Joshua didn’t even smile. “Somebody has to. Think of the consequences.”

“I’m not a total asshole, Josh. I do appreciate just how bad it’s going to get if no one can find an answer to all of this.”

“I was thinking what happens if we succeed, actually.”

Liol’s laugh was more a bark of surprise. “How can that be bad?”

“Everything changes. People don’t like that. There’s going to have to be sacrifices, and I don’t mean just physical or financial. It’s inevitable. Surely you can see that coming?”

“Maybe,” Liol said gruffly.

Joshua looked over to his brother and put on his wickedest grin. “In the meantime, you’ve got to admit, it’s a wild ride.”

One of the serjeants stayed with Baulona-PWM and Quantook-LOU to act as an arbitrator as they tried to sort out the parameters of a new agreement. A triumph of optimism, she thought: that both of them believed the ZTT drive would bring about a new era among the diskcities orbiting Mastrit-PJ. It was clear that they were both conceding the remaining Tyrathca population would be evacuated to the flightship colony worlds. Their enclaves among the diskcities would not be expanded. Such a premise made it even more important that the two species didn’t clash over who had claim on new star systems. Retrieving the flightship information really had become essential to the agreement. An intriguing irony. Now all she had to worry about was Quantook-LOU’s sincerity. It made her suggest several safeguards to Baulona-PWM, such as ensuring communications were opened up to all the remaining enclaves. Not that either of them knew how many there were scattered among the diskcities. Quantook-LOU admitted even he didn’t know how many diskcities there were.

The other serjeant accompanied a team of six breeders that Baulona-PWM had designated to reactivate their electronics. They escorted her to the band of fat towers around the end of the cylinder. It was Lalarin-MG’s utilities district, with the towers housing water treatment plants, air filtration, fusion generators (appallingly crude, she thought), and the heat exchangers. Fortunately each service was provided by parallel stations, giving it a failsoft capability. A third of the systems were inoperable, the machinery inert and tarnished, testifying as to how long it had been since Lalarin-MG had a full population.

She was taken to a tower which the breeders said was an electrical and communications station. The ground floor was occupied by three tokamaks, only one of which was working. A ramp spiralled up to the first floor. There were no windows, and the ceiling lights didn’t work. Her infrared sensors showed her the silent ranks of electronic consoles, very reminiscent of those in Tanjuntic-RI. The Tyrathca had brought portable lights with them, which they set up revealing the true state of the consoles. Humidity had succoured a fur of algae over the rosette keyboards and display screens. Access panel catches had to be drilled through to release them, exposing rubbery fungal growths over the circuitry inside. The breeders had to run cables down to the generator below to power up the consoles.

One console actually burst into flames when they switched it on. Oski’s curses echoed through the general communication link.

“Ask them if we can integrate our processor blocks with their network,” she told Ione. “If I’ve got access, I’ll be able to load some questors in. That should speed the process up. And while we’re about it, let’s see if they’ll accept a little advice on reactivation procedures.”

The wormhole terminus opened six hundred kilometres above Tojolt-HI’s darkside, deep in the umbra. The Stryla flew out; Etchells was in his harpy form, red eyes blazing as he looked round in surprise. From his position the huge disk eclipsed most of the sun’s surface, with a tide of crimson light appearing to sweep up over the rim, as if it was sinking into an ooze of photons.