Stephanie’s bullet wound had healed enough to let her walk round the headland camp; she and Moyo and Sinon made the circuit twice a day. Their small secluded refuge had grown in a chaotic manner as the deserters from Ekelund’s army dribbled in. Now it sprawled like an avalanche of sleeping bags away from the cliff edge. The new people tended to stay in small groups, huddling together round the pile of whatever items they’d brought with them. The only rule the serjeants had about extending sanctuary from Ekelund was that they hand over their real weapons once they arrived. Nobody had objected enough to return.

As she circled round the knots of subdued people, Stephanie picked up enough fragments of conversation to guess what awaited any deserter foolish enough to venture back. Ekelund’s paranoia was growing at a worrying rate. And Tinkerbell’s appearance hadn’t helped. Apparently, the crystal entity had been shot at. That was the reason for it fleeing away into the empty glare.

As if they didn’t have enough to worry about with their current predicament, there was now the prospect Ekelund had started a war.

“I miss him, too,” Moyo said sympathetically. He squeezed Stephanie’s hand in an attempt at reassurance.

She smiled faintly, thankful he’d picked up on her melancholic thoughts. “A couple of days without him, and we’re all going to pieces.” She paused to take a breath. Perhaps her recovery wasn’t as advanced as she liked to imagine. “Let’s go back,” she said. These little walks had started out to give the newcomers some sense of identity, that they were all part of a big new family. She was the one they’d come to, and she wanted to show she was available to them if they needed it. Most of them recognized her as she walked past. But there were so many now that they had their own identity, and it was the serjeants who guaranteed their safety. Her role had diminished to nothing. And God forbid I should try to manufacture my own importance like Ekelund.

The three of them turned and headed back to the little encampment where their friends kept a vigil over Tina. A little way beyond it, the serjeants formed a line of watchers strung out along the top of the cliff, searching for any sign of Tinkerbell. They covered almost a fifth of the rim now, and Sinon told her their mini-consensus was considering stationing them all the way round the island. When she’d asked if Ekelund might consider that a threatening move, the big bitek construct merely shrugged. “Some things are considerably more important than placating her neuroses,” he’d said.

“Quick inspection tour,” Franklin remarked as they returned.

Stephanie guided Moyo to a comfortable sitting position a couple of metres from Tina’s makeshift bed and sprawled on a blanket beside him. “I’m not exactly an inspiring sight any more.”

“Of course you are, darling,” Tina said.

Everyone had to strain to hear her. She was in a bad way now. The serjeants, Stephanie knew, had basically given up and were just making what they considered her last days as comfortable as possible. Even though Rana rarely even let go of her friend’s hand, she didn’t exert any energistic power other than a general wish for Tina to mend. Active interference with the woman’s crushed organs would probably only make things worse. Tina didn’t have the willpower to maintain any form of body illusion any more. Her dangerously pale skin was visible for anyone to see as she laboured for air. The stopgap intravenous tube was still feeding fluid into her arm, though her body seemed determined to sweat it out at a faster rate.

They all knew it wouldn’t be long now.

Stephanie was furious with herself for wondering what would happen. If Tina’s soul would migrate back to the beyond, or be trapped here; or if she’d simply and finally die. A legitimate enough interest given their situation. But Stephanie was sure Tina would pick up the pulse of guilt in her mind.

“We’re still attracting Ekelund’s discards,” she said. “At this rate everyone will be camping here with us in another week.”

“What week?” McPhee grumbled softly. “Can you no’ feel the air fouling?”

“The carbon dioxide level is not detectable at this moment,” Choma said.

“Oh? And what are you lot doing to help right now?” McPhee indicated the line of stationary serjeants standing along the cliff. “Other than making that madwoman more paranoid.”

“Our efforts continue,” Sinon said. “We are still trying to formulate a method of opening a wormhole, and our observation role has been increased.”

“Putting our hopes on a bloody fairy! This place must be making us all soft in the head.”

“That term is a misnomer, though a perfectly understandable one for Cochrane to use.”

“I guess that means you still haven’t figured out what it was,” Moyo said.

“Unfortunately not. Though the fact that some kind of intelligence exists here is an encouraging development.”

“If you say so.” He turned away.

Stephanie snuggled up closer to Moyo, enjoying the reflex way his arm went round her shoulders. Being together made the awful wait a tiny bit more tolerable. She just couldn’t work out what she wanted to happen first. Though they’d not spoken of it, the serjeants would probably try to open a wormhole back to Mortonridge. As a possessed, it would hardly be a rescue for her. Perhaps staying here until the carbon dioxide built to a lethal level was preferable.

She flicked another guilty glance at Tina.

Three hours later, the wait ended. This time the serjeants saw it coming. A riot of tiny dazzling crystals swooped out around the base of the flying island to rush up vertically. They erupted over the top of the cliff like a silent white firestorm. Thousands of them curved in mid air and cascaded downwards to spread out above the headland camp, slowing to hover just over the heads of the astounded humans and serjeants.

The light level was quadrupled, forcing Stephanie to shield her hand with her eyes. Not that it did much to protect her from the vivid scintillations. Even the drab ground was sparkling.

“Now what?” she asked Sinon.

The serjeant watched the swirl of crystals drifting idly, sharing what he saw with the others. There was no real pattern to their movement. “I have no idea.”

They are watching us as we watch them,choma said. They have to be probes of some kind.

It is likely,sinon said.

Something is coming,the serjeants along the cliff warned. a disc of raw light was expanding out from underneath the island. Not that it could have been hidden there, it was well over a hundred kilometres in diameter. The emergence effect was similar to an Adamist starship’s ZTT jump, but much much slower.

Once it had finished distending, it began to rise up parallel to the cliff. A cold, brilliant sun slid over the horizon to fill a third of the sky. It wasn’t a solid sphere, snowflake geometries fluctuated behind the overpowering glare.

The small crystals parted smoothly, racing away over the landscape, leaving nothing between the headland camp and the massive visitor. Fountains of iridescence erupted deep inside it, mushrooming open against the prismatic surface. Streaks and speckles shimmered and danced around each other, striving for order within the huge blemish.

It was the sheer size of the image they melded into which defeated Stephanie for some time. Her eyes simply couldn’t accept what she was seeing.

Cochrane’s face, thirty kilometres high, smiled down at them.

“Hi, guys,” he said, “Guess what I found.”

Stephanie started laughing. She used the back of her hand to smear tears across her cheeks.

The crystal sphere drifted in towards Ketton island, dimming slightly as it came. When it was a few metres from the cliff, a tiny circular section darkened completely, and receded inside in a swift fluidic motion.