Ellezelin Civil Defense Agency force fields were coming on above Riasi, a series of large interlocking hemispheres protecting the city’s districts. Five large Ellezelin navy cruisers were racing around the planet, their trajectories curving sharply to position them above the city.

A starship hurtled up from the buckling generator complex, accelerating at nearly forty gees. It fired a barrage of energy beams and disrupter pulses at the Columbia505. Digby found himself gripped by safety webbing as the starship spun helplessly. Planetary atmosphere was an alien milieu for it; systems designed for combat in the clear vacuum of space were operating below optimum, fogged by the dense gases. The force field shimmered a vivid amber, spitting off glittering scintillations while Digby’s vulnerable inner ears conjured up a wave of nausea. Far below, consecutive shock waves crashed down across the beleaguered commercial buildings and warehouses that comprised Riasi’s sprawling interstellar commerce district.

The Columbia505 leveled out, and the routines in Digby’s macrocellular clusters neutralized the nausea. Exoimage displays showed him the other starship streaking up through the troposphere, a huge ionic contrail shimmering behind it. “Follow it,” Digby ordered the smartcore. The air above the shaken city howled yet again as the Columbia505 powered its way up, ignoring the cruisers that were attempting to converge on it. The other starship slipped into hyperspace. Columbia505 followed.

“Why?” Paula asked before Digby had even cleared the Ellezelin system. “Those fragments were vital. We’ll lose most of them now.”

“Forensic analysis was only ever a long shot,” Digby countered. “I determined the faction ship was a much better lead. They risked a lot to obstruct my collection operation.”

“Which implies the fragments you were recovering were important.”

“My judgment,” Digby insisted, wishing he didn’t feel quite so small. No other human-Higher, Advancer, or normal-could ever make him feel so inadequate and defensive as his great-grandmother.

“Indeed it was, and you’re committed now. How good is the sensor reading?”

“Holding steady. They’re stealthed, of course, but my smartcore can still detect some distortion. It’s a good ship they’ve got, equal to Chatfield’s.”

“All right. I’d probably have done the same in your circumstances. You stay with it and see where that representative is going. The ANA judicial conclave is beginning now. I’m expecting the entire Accelerator Faction to be shut down within the next hour or two.”

“Excellent.”

“It has its problems, not least the agents and representatives still at large, like the one you’re following. I suspect we’re going to be a long time mopping up.”

“At least we’ll have a complete list of them and their activities.”

“Yes, that should help. Let me know when the ship reaches some kind of destination.”

“Of course.” Digby scowled as the secure call ended. This whole mission was proving very unsatisfactory. He was leaving too many unanswered questions behind him as he tagged along after the latest possible lead. He was also feeling plenty of stress from the destruction he’d caused and then fled from in Riasi. There would have been a lot of bodyloss due to his actions.

After a quarter of an hour it was clear the faction ship was heading in toward the Central worlds. It looked like the destination was Oaktier.

There had been only one judicial conclave in ANA’s history. It had been called to deal with the Separatist Faction, which had wanted to break ANA up, leaving them in a section free from any regulation or limit imposed by the base law control that acted as a universal governor across the entire edifice. The majority verdict was to disallow any such action. An entity with ANA’s ability and resources and under the authority of a dogmatic ideology might conceivably pose a threat to the original ANA, not to mention the rest of the Greater Commonwealth. The duplicitous method by which the Separatist Faction had sought to seize command of the quasi-physical mechanism that sustained ANA in order to achieve the segmentation was verification enough that they couldn’t be trusted to evolve quietly in some distant corner of the galaxy. A whole host of other agendas to encourage postphysical ascension were exposed at the conclave.

As before, ANA:Governance produced a spherical assembly arena with an equivalent diameter half that of Earth itself. Such a size was necessary to accommodate the manifested forms of every individual mind embedded within the edifice of ANA. They appeared within seconds of the judicial conclave being announced, materializing across the vast curving shell, clustering with those of their own factions or in simple groupings of friends or relatives. Ilanthe, as the nominated representative of the Accelerator Faction, floated at the center of the sphere. She had chosen to manifest as her primary representation, a featureless human female with fluid silver skin. Only her face retained any characteristics, showing a long jawbone and a small elegant nose. Her eyes were the absorptive black of an event horizon.

“Thank you for responding,” ANA:Governance said to the convened population.

Ilanthe performed a random sweep over sections of the assembly arena, noting the various forms and shapes manifested across the shell wall. Over half retained a human appearance, whereas the rest had selected a multitude of geometries and colors from minimal spheres of light, to swarms of neuron echoes, to the simple yet sinister black pyramids of the radical Isolator Faction. One of the human figures was Nelson Sheldon, who was contemplating her with the relaxed disdain of a man who had won his game. Of Gore Burnelli there was no sign, which perturbed her more than it should have. She still didn’t understand how he’d become the Third Dreamer; his mentality must have some private link out of ANA to the gaiafield that she didn’t comprehend. Not that it was going to matter now.

Her fully expanded mentality (still anchored within the Accelerator compilation) regarded her jury with a degree of amusement, especially as some infinitesimal portion of her own mentality was contributing to ANA:Governance, effectively making her judge herself.

“We are called here to review the activities of the Accelerator Faction,” ANA:Governance continued. “The charge against them is one of high treason.”

Ilanthe’s peers remained quiescent, awaiting the information repositories containing ANA’s evidence.

“Do you wish to say anything?” ANA:Governance asked Ilanthe.

“You exist to provide us an existence which promotes intellectual development and evolution, yet you place restrictions upon enacting those very developments in the reality of spacetime. Now you complain when we try to achieve that which your fundamental nature encourages. Please explain the logic.”

“All individuals within me are free to translate their goals into physical or postphysical reality,” ANA:Governance replied. “You know this. What I cannot permit is for those goals to be imposed on an unwilling majority. When and if we transform to postphysical status, it will be as a consenting majority.”

“Nice in theory. But the restrictions you impose on those of us who are ready to transcend are completely unacceptable. We shall achieve our objective on our own.” Ilanthe’s primary consciousness withdrew back into the center of the Accelerator compilation, where the inversion core awaited. Secondary routines took over her manifestation within the assembly arena, producing responses to ANA:Governance’s questions.

The globular inversion core shimmered a dark metallic indigo, its surface cohesion rippling slightly as the bands of exotic force structuring its boundary began to disengage from the quantum pseudofabric that was ANA’s edifice.