“That’ll put us twelve to fifteen thousand light-years ahead of the Pilgrimage fleet,” Araminta-two said. “Will that give you enough time?” she asked Aaron.

“All I know is we have to get to Makkathran.”

Oscar gave him a considered look. “Gore was adamant that Justine go to Makkathran.”

“It’s the one place we know for sure is H-congruous inside the Void.”

“Gore told her that after she landed on the replica Far Away.”

“His actual words were ‘that’s where humans are centered in the Void,’” Beckia said. “Which is logical. It is where everyone is going.”

“I bet Ilanthe isn’t,” Corrie-Lyn grunted.

“We don’t know if the replica Far Away is still there,” Tomansio said. “Justine reset the Void to before she dreamed of it.”

“I think you’re all overreacting,” Inigo said. “Or at least reading too much into this. Makkathran as a destination isn’t coincidence, exactly, but there wasn’t a whole lot of choice involved in either case.”

“Do you ever remember meeting Gore?” Liatris asked Aaron.

“I don’t remember anything.”

Liatris showed a modicum of unease. “He did kill your father.”

“Irrelevant.”

“Bruce McFoster was a Starflyer agent when Gore eliminated him,” Tomansio said. “The actual Bruce was killed years before when he was taken captive by the Starflyer.”

“But you have to admit the coincidences are starting to-”

“Uh oh,” Araminta-two said.

Everyone was still as he gifted them the scene in the observation deck of the Lady’s Light, where a determined Ethan was walking toward her. As the confrontation unfolded, Inigo put his arm around Araminta-two’s shoulder. “I am here,” he whispered, pushing his support through the gaiafield union. “Show him no weakness. You are the Dreamer now. You are right in your belief. It is the Void which will decide this for all of us.”

Oscar drew a sharp breath as the winged Silfen shimmered within his thoughts. Bradley, he knew, and smiled. Way to go, man. You look great.

A thwarted Ethan walked away. Everyone in the Mellanie’s Redemption’s cabin burst into spontaneous applause. After a moment, even Troblum joined in.

So he does have gaiamotes, Oscar thought.

Araminta-two smiled around sheepishly. “Thank you,” he told Inigo. Corrie-Lyn gave him a swift kiss.

“Troblum,” Tomansio said. “Let’s get going.”

“The device is almost at active status. Another five minutes.”

Aaron smiled encouragement.

Troblum’s tentative humor faded away. His big round face paled. “Oh, no,” he gasped.

Oscar’s u-shadow was pulling sensor imagery from the starship’s smartcore. Troblum had permitted everyone a general-level access.

A sleek-looking ultradrive ship not too dissimilar to the Elvin’s Payback had emerged ten kilometers away. It opened a communication link. Oscar’s shoulders slumped. He knew.

“Hello, my dears,” said the Cat.

A pulse of pure misery swept through the cabin.

“What kind of defenses have we got?” Aaron asked.

Troblum shook his head. He was close to tears.

“Weapons?”

Troblum started trembling. His legs gave way, and he sank to his knees. “I can’t let her capture me. I can’t.”

“What do you want?” Oscar asked the Cat. If it was dead, they would’ve been that already.

“That’s a whole load of talent you’ve got on board there with you, Oscar, my dear. It’s not often I’m impressed, but just this once I’m going to admit it. You did good.”

“What have you done to Cheriton?” Corrie-Lyn demanded.

“Don’t interrupt the grown-ups,” the Cat said. “You’ll get a smack where it hurts most for that.”

Oscar made a frantic cutting hand signal at Corrie-Lyn. She gave him a disgusted glare.

“You told Ilanthe about us,” Oscar said.

“Oh, I’m sorry. Did that spoil things? I thought you dealt with that little shit Ethan quite beautifully, Araminta.”

“What do you want?”

“You know that, Oscar. Same thing I always do: some fun.”

“We’ll invite you to the victory party.”

“Don’t push your luck. The Void is where this is all going to finish. I need to be a part of that, and you’re going to take me there.”

“What is Ilanthe doing?” Oscar asked.

“She’s set her little metal heart on something called Fusion.”

“No,” Araminta-two said. “It’s not that. She has become something other.”

“Then you’ll be able to ask her yourself soon enough, won’t you?”

“Can the Cat affect us once we’re inside the Void?” Aaron asked Inigo.

“You mean apart from blowing us all to shit?”

“Surely your mind is stronger.”

Inigo gave Araminta-two a worried look; he looked equally alarmed.

“I just don’t know.”

“Oscar, my dear, it’s rude to keep a lady waiting.”

Oscar didn’t know what the hell to do apart from using the obvious smart-ass answer, which in this case might just prove terminal. And nobody was offering any suggestions. Suddenly he was flinching, cowering halfway to the decking. Space outside was ablaze with hard radiation as a range of enormously powerful weapons were fired. His u-shadow reran events, analyzing it in millisecond increments. He saw another ultradrive starship materialize directly between the Cat’s ship and Mellanie’s Redemption. It opened fire instantaneously at the same time its force field expanded, deflecting the Cat’s return salvo away from Mellanie’s Redemption.

A communication channel opened.

“Oscar, get the hell out of there,” Paula said. “Leave the Cat to me.”

“Go,” Oscar screamed at Troblum.

For the second time in an hour, the Mellanie’s Redemption fled into hyperspace.

“You’re going to deal with me?” the Cat asked. There was a mocking tone in the voice.

Paula was frantically reviewing the Alexis Denken’s defense status. The force fields were struggling under the energy impact of their first weapons exchange. Whatever the Cat’s ship was equipped with, it was stronger than she had expected. The beam weapons were somehow transferring some of their energy through hyperspace, circumventing the force fields. Local gravity was doing strange things, its twists exerting unnatural stresses throughout the Alexis Denken that the onboard compensators weren’t designed to cope with.

“Always do,” Paula sent back. On her instruction, the smartcore fired a couple of quantumbusters. They shot away, accelerating at two hundred gees. “And this is the last time.” The quantumbusters went active. Eighty kilometers away, the small chunk of astroidal rubble they targeted was less than thirty meters in diameter. The entire mass was converted directly into energy in the form of ultrahard radiation. For a microsecond its output rivaled that of the nearby star.

Exovision warnings leaped up as the force fields strained to deflect the appalling radiation torrent. Paula sent the starship back into hyperspace and flashed toward the gas giant. The Cat came after her. Neither was making any attempt at stealth.

Fifty thousand kilometers above the seething pink and gray cloudscape, Paula stopped, and the Alexis Denken hung in transdimensional suspension while the force field generators began to stabilize.

One of the gas giant’s large outer moons exploded. A quantumbuster had converted a couple of its more substantial craters directly into energy, a detonation big enough to fracture the moon down to its core. The entire globe ruptured, with vast segments moving ponderously apart while a billion rock fragments came tumbling out of the expanding fissures into the outburst of raw energy. The physical damage was an irrelevancy. The quantumbuster had a diverted energy function, shunting a high percentage of the explosion’s power into hyperspace.

Paula went flying painfully across the cabin as the colossal exotic energy wave smashed into the starship. Alexis Denken fell back into spacetime as its overstressed ultradrive failed. Outside, the remnants of the moon were creating a giant translucent shock sphere twenty thousand kilometers across that glowed an ominous spectral blue as it inflated at half lightspeed. The Cat’s ship came streaking out of the garish aurora, force fields glimmering a malevolent crimson as it headed straight for the Alexis Denken. Dark missiles punched forward at a hundred gees.