Beneath it, wreckage fell to earth in bewitchingly attractive pyrotechnic storms. Streaks of ionic flame tore through the upper atmosphere, a sleet of malignant shooting stars heating the stratosphere to furnace temperatures. A potent crimson glow rose up from the clouds to greet them.

Illustrious raced 80,000 kilometres over the south pole as the possessed on the ground chanted their spell. First warning came when the planetary gravity field quaked, warping the battleship’s trajectory by several metres. The shroud of light around Arnstat never faded; it merely changed colour, rippling through the spectrum towards resplendent violet as it contracted. Optical-spectrum sensors had to bring several shield filters on line during the last few minutes as the source shrank towards its vanishing point.

Motela Kolhammer kept one optical sensor aligned on the accusingly empty zone as the battleship’s radar and gravitonic sensors scanned space for any sign of the planet’s mass. Every result came in negative. “Tell our escort to jump to the task force rendezvous coordinate,” he told the tactical staff. “Then plot a course for New California.”

Sarha fell through the open hatchway into the captain’s cabin, ignoring the dark composite ladder and allowing the half-gee acceleration to pull her down neatly onto the decking. She landed, flexing her knees gracefully.

“Ballet really missed out when you chose astroengineering at university,” Joshua said. He was standing in the middle of the room, dressed in his shorts and towelling off a liberal smearing of lemon-scented gel.

She gave him a hoydenish grin. “I know how to exploit low-gee to my advantage.”

“I hope Ashly appreciates it.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Humm. So how are we doing?”

“Official end of duty watch report, sir. We’re doing the same as yesterday.” Her salute lacked efficiency.

“Which was the same as the day before.”

“Damn right. Oh, I tracked down the leak in that reaction mass feed pipe. Somebody slacked off when the tanks were installed in the cargo holds, a junction was misaligned. Beaulieu says she’ll get on it later today. In the meantime I isolated the pipe; we have enough redundancy to keep the flow at optimum.”

“Yeah, right, fascinating.” He balled the towel and chucked it in a low arc across the cabin. It landed dead centre on the hopper’s open throat and slithered down.

She watched it vanish. “I want to keep the fluid volume up. We might wind up needing it.”

“Sure. How were Liol’s jumps?” He already knew, of course; Lady Mac ’s log was the first thing he’d checked when he woke up. Liol had completed five jumps on the last watch, each essentially flawless according to the flight computer. That wasn’t quite the point.

“Fine.”

“Humm.”

“All right, what’s the matter? I thought the two of you were getting on okay these days. You can hardly fault his performance.”

“I’m not.” He fished a clean sweatshirt out of a locker. “It’s just that I’m asking a lot of people for advice and opinions these days. Not a good development for a captain. I’m supposed to make perfect snap judgements.”

“If you ask me a question about guiding Lady Mac I’ll be worried. Anything else . . .” Her hand waved limply, wafting air about. “You and I bounced around in that zero-gee cage enough to start with. I know you don’t connect the same way most people do. So if you want help with that, I’m your girl.”

“What do you mean, don’t connect?”

“Joshua, you were scavenging the Ruin Ring when you were eighteen. That’s not natural. You should have been out partying.”

“I partied.”

“No, you screwed a lot of girls between flights.”

“That’s what eighteen-year-olds do.”

“That’s what eighteen-year-old boys dream of doing. Adamist ones, anyway. Everyone else is busy falling helter skelter into the adult world and desperately trying to find out how the hell it works, and why it’s all so difficult and painful. How you handle friendships, relationships, breakups; that kind of thing.”

“You make it sound like we have to pass some kind of exam.”

“We do, though sitting it lasts for most of your life. You haven’t even started revising yet.”

“Jesus. This is all very profound, especially at this time of the morning. What are you trying to tell me?”

“Nothing. You’re the one that’s troubled. I damn well know it’ll be nothing to do with our mission. So I guess I’m trying to coax you into telling me what’s on your mind, and convince you it’s okay to talk about it. People do that when they’re close. It’s normal.”

“Ballet and psychology, huh?”

“You signed me up for my multi-tasking.”

“All right,” Joshua said. She was right, it was hard for him to talk about this. “It’s Louise.”

“Ah! The Norfolk babe. The very young one.”

“She’s not . . .” he began automatically. Sarha’s lack of expression stopped him. “Well, she is a bit young. I think I sort of took advantage.”

“Oh wow. I never thought the day would come when I heard you say that. Exactly why is it bothering you this time? You use your status like a stun gun.”

“I do not!”

“Please. When was the last time you went planetside or even into port without your little captain’s star bright on your shoulder?” She gave him a sympathetic smile. “You really fell for her, didn’t you?”

“No more than usual. It’s just that none of my other girlfriends wound up being possessed. Jesus, I had a hint of what that was like. I can’t stop thinking what it must have been like for her, how fucking ugly. She was so sweet, she didn’t belong in a world where those kind of things happen to people.”

“Do any of us?”

“You know what I mean. You’ve done stims you shouldn’t have, you’ve accessed real news sensevises. We know this is a badass universe. It helps, a bit. As much as anything can. But Louise—damn, her brat sister, too. We flew off and left them, just like we always do.”

“They spare children, you know. That Stephanie Ash woman on Ombey brought a whole bunch of kids out. I accessed the report.”

“Louise wasn’t a child. It happened to her.”

“You don’t know that for certain. If she was smart enough, she might have eluded them.”

“I doubt it. She doesn’t have that sort of ability.”

“She must have had some pretty amazing features to have this effect on you.”

He thought back to the carriage journey to Cricklade after they’d just met, her observations on Norfolk and its nature. He’d agreed with just about everything she’d said. “She wasn’t street-smart. And that’s the kind of dirty selfishness you need to elude the possessed.”

“You really don’t believe she made it, do you?”

“No.”

“Do you think you’re responsible for her?”

“Not responsible, exactly. But I think she was sort of looking at me as the person who was going to take her away from Cricklade Manor.”

“Dear me, whatever could have given her that impression, I wonder?”

Joshua didn’t hear. “I let her down, just by being me. It’s not a nice feeling, Sarha. She really was a lovely girl, even though she’d been brought up on Norfolk. If she’d been born anywhere else, I’d probably . . .” He fell silent, shifting his sweatshirt round, not meeting Sarha’s astonished stare.

“Say it,” she said.

“Say what?”

“Probably marry her.”

“I would not marry her. All I’m saying is that if she’d been given a proper childhood instead of growing up in that ridiculous medieval pageant there might’ve been a chance that we could have had something slightly longer-term than usual.”

“Well that’s a relief,” Sarha drawled.

“Now what have I done?” he exclaimed.

“You’ve been Joshua. For a moment there I thought you were actually evolving. Didn’t you hear yourself? She hasn’t had the education to become a crew member on Lady Mac , therefore it can’t possibly work between you. There was never a thought that you might give up your life to join her.”