Within ten years of the genocidal invasion, the Anomine had thrown up force field barriers around the stars humans came to know as the Dyson Pair. Where the Dark Fortress generators had come from-indigenous construction or borrowed from the Raiel-was a point still much argued over by a small specialist section of human academia. But it was that effort which had brought the diverse Anomine back together. Barely a hundred fifty years after the barriers went up, the majority of the Anomine went postphysical.

“There’s nothing about the elevation mechanism,” the Delivery Man said as the Last Throw streaked toward the Anomine star at fifty-five light-years an hour. They were fifteen minutes out, and the starship’s sensors were starting to obtain high-resolution scans of the system with all its planets.

“Classified,” Gore replied smartly. “Some aspects of government never change no matter how benevolent and transparent they strive to be. Secrecy is like oxygen to politicians and defense forces; there’s always got to be some of it to keep them going.”

“But you’ve got the files, right?”

“I’ve accessed the summaries.”

The Delivery Man gave Gore a suspicious look. “I thought you had this all planned out.”

“I do, sonny, so stop with the panicking.”

“Have you got those summaries?”

“Not actually with us here today, no, but I remember most of the critical stuff.”

“But … You do know how to get it working again, don’t you? You said that.”

“I said that we think it’s intact.”

“No!” The Delivery Man sat forward abruptly, almost ready to fly out of the chair and go nose to nose with Gore. “No, no, you said, and I quote, they went postphysical and left their elevation mechanism behind.”

“Well, obviously they didn’t take the fucker with them.” Gore gave a chirpy grin. “If you’re postphysical, you can’t, because the mechanism is physical. We saw that with the Skoloskie; their mechanism was still there rusting away on their abandoned homeworld. Same goes for the Fallror. It’s what happens. Jeezus, relax, will you; you’re acting like a prom virgin who’s made it to the motel room.”

“But. You. The. Oh, shit! Tell me the navy has seen the Anomine mechanism; tell me you know it’s on their homeworld.”

“The navy exploration parties that did manage to get through communicated with the old-style Anomine left on the planet. They had legends of their ancestral cousins leaving. The legends are quite specific about that; they departed the homeworld itself. QED, that’s where the mechanism must be.”

“You don’t know! I trusted you! Ozziedamnit. I could be making progress; I could have opened the Sol barrier by now.”

“Son, Marius would have shredded you like a puppy stuffed into a food blender if I’d let you go off after him. You’re good at what you do, delivering stuff to my agents and the odd bit of observation work. That’s why I recruited you, because everyone knows you’re basically harmless, which puts you above suspicion. Face it, you’ve just not got the killer instinct.”

“My family is trapped back there. I would do anything-”

“Which has made you angry, yes, which is driving you on. But that’s bad for you. It would mean there comes a point where you hesitate or get a nasty dose of doubt and remorse and decency when you were sawing off Marius’s fingers and making him eat them.”

The Delivery Man wrinkled his nose up in revulsion. “I wasn’t going to-”

“Son, you just said you’d do anything. And that would be the least of it. These people don’t roll over because you ask them nice. You’d have to strap Marius down on the dungeon table and make him tell you how to take down the barrier. And I’ll lay you good odds the only person who can actually deactivate the barrier is Ilanthe, and she’s not available. No. The only way for you to achieve anything right now is by helping me. So will you please stop the fuck whining and let me work out how to find the mechanism.”

“Crap!” The Delivery Man slumped back down, furious at being taken in again and even more furious that Gore was right. Somewhere in his mind was an image of himself threatening Marius, maybe firing a jelly gun close to his head, which would make anyone capitulate. Right? He shook his head, feeling foolish. Then he gave Gore a sharp look. “Wait a minute. You said the ones that got through.”

“What?” Gore paid him little attention. His eyes were closed as he lounged back in his orange shell chair, analyzing the smartcore’s data.

“The navy exploration ships that came here. You said some got through?” There was no reply. The Delivery Man requested the raw sensor data, building up a coherent image of what they were approaching. The star’s cometary halo seemed to have active stations of some kind drifting through it, large stations with force fields protecting them from a detailed scan.

“Oh, yeah, them,” Gore said eventually. “The borderguards are a good security team. They’re left over from the last of the high-technology-era Anomine, and they don’t like anyone contaminating the old homeworld.”

“The whats?” It didn’t sound good, not at all. But Gore never had time to answer him. That was when the Last Throw dropped out of ultradrive, and the smartcore was showing him an image of the borderguard not a kilometer away. It measured over five kilometers across, though most of it was empty space. The primary structure was of curving strands arranged in a broad ellipsoid, but they bent around sharply in the thick central section, forming three twisting cavities that intersected in the middle. Each strand appeared to be transparent, filled with a thick gas that hosted a multitude of dazzling green sparks. They swarmed along the strands as if there were a gale blowing inside. Floating in the heart of the cavities was a shape identical to the one formed by the green strands; this one was barely a tenth of the size, filled with a sapphire gas complete with swift sparks. At its center was a crimson shape; inside that was a yellow version that had a lavender speck nestled within. Passive sensors couldn’t make out if there was another miniature version contained by its haze, and a strong force field prevented any active examination.

“Now what?” the Delivery Man whispered.

“We talk very fucking quietly in case they’re listening in,” Gore snapped back.

The Delivery Man actually cringed from the look of contempt Gore gave him. He cleared his throat. “All right. Is it going to shoot at us?”

“I hope not.”

“So what do we do?”

“We ask permission to go through.”

“And if it says no?”

“Pray it doesn’t. We’ll have to kill all seventeen thousand of them.”

“Can this ship actually-” He broke off and kept silent. The smartcore shot a simple communication pulse at the borderguard. Sensors showed another five of the gigantic stations appearing out of odd spatial distortions a few thousand kilometers away.

“Why are you here?” the borderguard asked.

“We are representatives from the human race; two of us are on board.”

“What type?”

“Higher. You have dealt with us before and were favorable. I ask for that consideration to be shown again.”

“Your species has withdrawn all information valid to you from those who stayed behind.”

“I understand. We seek data on those who left. We are a subsect of our species which believes we should try to evolve as the final Anomine did. We seek information on their society.”

“You carry weapons; they are of a sophisticated nature. Those of your species who came before did not carry weapons.”

“There is an active conflict among our species and the Ocisen Empire. Other species are emerging who are hostile. Interstellar travel is a dangerous endeavor right now. We reserve the right to protect ourselves.”

“We have detected no conflict.”

“It is coming. The Void underwent a small expansion recently. Species across the galaxy are becoming alarmed by its behavior.”