Laril’s exovision showed him those weird quantum spikes again. A pale green phosphorescent glow enveloped Valean and her team.

“I’m afraid your T-sphere won’t work,” she said. “We’re counter-programmed.”

Paul cocked his head to one side, long hair flopping down his cheek. “Really? How about I use irony instead?”

Valean opened her mouth to speak. Then she frowned. Her arms moved. Fast. They became a blur, her emerald aurora brightening in the wake of the motion, leaving a broad photonic contrail through the air. Then she turned, which was also incredibly fast. Laril had to close his eyes as the haze around her grew dazzling. His biononics threw up retinal filters, allowing him to glance at the Accelerator team again. They’d turned into cocoons of brilliant lime green. He could just discern outlines of their bodies thrashing about inside each tiny illuminated prison, moving hundreds of times faster than normal. Fists were raised to hammer at the border, striking it at incredible speed and frequency. It was as if they’d turned to solid smudges of light. Valean’s red streamers swirled about in agitation as the color drained out of them. They turned black, then stiffened and began to crumble into small flakes that drifted down like a drizzle of ash.

Inside the green prisons the team members had stopped moving, making it easier to see them. He watched Valean as her legs gave way. A fast smear of green light followed her to the ground. For a second her body remained there on hands and knees before another flash of light chased her to a prone position. The green glow faded to an almost invisible coating. Laril watched her odd skin darken; then its shimmer died to reveal a leatherlike hide. It began to constrict even further around her skeleton. Cracks split open, and thick juices oozed out, solidifying into stain puddles on the floorboards.

“Oh, Ozzie!” Laril covered his mouth as he started to gag and looked away quickly. Each member of the Accelerator team had suffered the same fate. “What happened?”

“Age,” Paul said. “Gets us all in the end-unless you’re careful, of course.” He climbed down off the chair and walked over to Valean’s desiccated corpse. The green hue finally vanished, replaced by a glimmering force field. I accelerated her inside an exotic effect zone, like a miniature wormhole. Normally it’s used to suspend temporal flow, but the opposite effect is just as easy to engineer; it simply requires a larger energy input. Sort of like the Void, really.”

Laril almost didn’t want to ask. He couldn’t help thinking what it must have been like for Valean and her agents, imprisoned inside a tiny envelope of exotic force, enduring utter solitude for days on end as the outside world stood still. “How long?”

“About two years. She had very powerful biononics, but even they couldn’t sustain her indefinitely. Ordinarily the biononic organelles feed off cellular protein and all the other gunk floating around inside the membrane, which is constantly resupplied by the body. But in the temporal field she wasn’t getting any fresh nutrients. Her biononics ran out of cellular molecules eventually. In the end they were like a supercancer eating her from the inside, enhancing the starvation and dehydration.”

Laril shuddered. “But her force field is still working.”

“No, my defense systems are generating that. No telling what booby traps she programmed into herself at the end. Just because she’s dead doesn’t mean she’s harmless.”

Once again the T-sphere established itself; the corpses were teleported out of the lounge. Laril didn’t want to know where they’d gone. “What now?” he asked.

Paul gave him a brisk smile. “You’re my house guest until Araminta calls you-or doesn’t-and this is all over.”

“Oh.”

“Cheer up. ‘Here’ is actually quite dimensionally interesting. After all, you don’t really think I’ve spent the last thousand years cooped up in the same bungalow, do you?”

“Ah … no. Put like that, I suppose not.”

“Jolly good. So have you had breakfast yet?”

As soon as Paul Cramley transferred her call, Paula’s cabin portal projected a quaint image of tangerine and turquoise sine waves undulating backward into a vanishing point. “I might have known you’d be taking an interest,” she said.

“I always take an interest in human affairs,” the SI said.

“First question: Can you get through the Sol barrier?”

“Sorry, no. If ANA can’t, what hope does an antiquity like me have?”

“Are you trying to engage my sympathy?”

“You have some?”

“That was uncalled for. But as it happens, I do. For my own species.”

“Paula, are you cross with me?”

“I shared ANA’s opinion. Your interference in our affairs was unacceptable.”

“I hardly ever interfered,” the SI protested.

“We unmasked eighteen thousand of your agents. Your network was larger than the Starflyer’s.”

“I’m hurt by that comparison.”

“Oh, shut up,” Paula snapped. “Why did you order Paul to save Laril?”

“I didn’t order Paul to do anything. Nobody orders Paul around these days. You know he’s well on his way to becoming postphysical?”

“Well, I didn’t think he was fully human anymore.”

“That old body you saw with Laril is only a tiny aspect of him now. If you want to worry about nonhuman interference, you should keep a closer eye on him and the others like him.”

“There are others?”

“Not many,” the SI admitted. “You and Kazimir are the oddities. Everyone else of your vintage either downloaded or moved off in their own direction like Paul.”

“So you and he are colleagues? Equals?”

“That’s a very humancentric viewpoint: rate everyone according to their strength.”

“More an Ocisen one, I feel; perhaps we can include the Prime, too.”

The undulating sine waves quickened. “Okay, all right. Paul and I have a special relationship. You know, he actually wrote part of the original me. Back in the day he was a CST corporate drone in their advanced software department working on artificial intelligence development.”

“Very cozy. So how big an interest have you been taking in the Pilgrimage?”

“Big. That idiot Ethan really could trigger the end of the galaxy. I’d have to move.”

“How terrible.”

“Have you ever tried moving a planet?”

Paula gave the sine waves a shrewd stare. “No, but I know a man who probably can. How about you?”

“Yes,” the SI said. “Troblum is actually trying to get in touch with you.”

“Sholapur wasn’t exactly invisible. Tell me something I don’t know.”

“No, I mean he was really trying. He knew about the Swarm; he was going to make a deal.”

“Irrelevant now.”

“Paula, I’ve been in touch with him since Sholapur.”

“Where is he?”

“On his starship somewhere. Last time we spoke, he was still in range of the unisphere; I have no idea of the location. His smartcore is well protected, I urged him to get in touch with you.”

“Why?”

“He helped build the Swarm. He might be able to get through the barrier.”

“Did he say that?”

“He was reluctant to help. He claimed there is a code which can switch it off.”

“Even if there is, it’ll be Ilanthe who holds it,” Paula said. “Damnit, do you think he will contact me?”

“Troblum is a very paranoid man. A condition exacerbated by Sholapur. He is afraid of breaking cover. His true fear is that the Cat will find him. However, he was considering getting in touch with Oscar Monroe.”

“Oscar? Why?”

“I suspect he regards Oscar as the last trustworthy man in the galaxy.”

“I suppose that’s true. I’ll warn Oscar to look out for him.”

“Good.” The SI paused. “What are your intentions, Paula?”

“I’m not quite as liberal as ANA. I believe the Pilgrimage and Ilanthe must be stopped from entering the Void. That means getting hold of Araminta.”

“Difficult. She’s walking the Silfen paths.”