'Help me please. You are killing people.

'To ascend into the fabric in any fashion is wonderful. Even the quietest minds are a part of what is.

'No no, death outside this universe is final. It ends all form of existence.

'How hard for your species. You adapt easily and mature within this universe. We welcome you all. That is the reason for our existence.

'I have to get to the Heart. Do you remember others like me you guided there?

'There were many. They were joyful to reach the nucleus.

'I am glad to hear that. Where are they now? Where is the nucleus?

'The nucleus is the centre of everywhere and everywhen. It is that which all came from, and all return to change and live among change.

'Is it here? Are we in the nucleus right now?

'You cannot be in the nucleus. You have not reached fulfilment.

'I would like to talk with those of my kind who are already there. I could learn so much from them, it would help me reach fulfilment.

'Fulfilment comes from within.

'Fulfilment is achieved from experience. I am alone here. I need to commune with my own kind if I am to mature.

'My kindred are not aware of any thoughts from minds akin to your species. None are left.

'None? she asked in shock. 'But there was a whole world of us, maybe more.

'All were guided to the nucleus. That world awaits the arrival of others. As do my kindred.

'Then take me to some world where you can feel living minds.

'My flock searches this universe always. There is no world I can feel where minds live this when.

'Jesus fuck it! Justine couldn't help it, but the frustration was finally getting to her. The Ocisens were less stubborn than this creature. She took a breath. It's not stubborn, these are its thought routines, perfectly adapted to its life and purpose. Why should it understand my motivations and problems?

'You are sorrowful, the Skylord said. 'When you are ready to be guided, I will guide you. Know this and hope.

Something changed among the patterns shimmering within the Skylord's curving crystalline sheets. It moved, shrinking away at an incredible velocity. Within seconds it had vanished from the Silverbird's sensors.

'Ye Gods, Justine muttered. The Second Dreamer's views of Skylords always showed them drifting along sedately. Whereas the acceleration she'd just witnessed would have been close to five hundred gees. If it was acceleration. This is a strange old place.

She spent the next few hours running over her conversation again and again. In the end she acknowledged she couldn't have achieved any other outcome. The Skylord simply didn't have the psychology to help her reach the Heart. It was too alien.

For all its size and ability she wasn't strictly sure it qualified as sentient. Most intelligences had the ability to learn and reason, these creatures seemed incapable of interpreting anything outside their original parameters.

Not that the analysis helped her.

When she ran through the starship's log she was pleased with the way Silverbird had remained functional. For some reason the glitches had been minimal while she'd been in suspension. Now all she had to do was decide what to do next.

At a lightyear distant the visual sensors could just make out some kind of accretion disc surrounding the star she was heading for. She examined the tenuous imagery with growing dismay. Any star whose planets were still forming wasn't going to have u habitable world for her to establish herself on. Or at least, it wouldn't out there in the real universe.

Justine mulled the problem over while she had another gourmet meal of lamb shanks cooked in toblaris wine and herb rosties, then pigged out on chocolates. She'd come this far, and it was only another one and half years in suspension. She still didn't have enough information to make a decision, any kind of decision. She was simply heading for the star as a comfort measure. That was something she needed more than ever now. No other planetary species in this whole universe!

Silverbird began accelerating back up to point seven lightspeed as the medical chamber's lid flowed shut above her.

It was an ordinary house in an ordinary street. At least as far as Ganthia was concerned. A planet that became Higher soon after it was settled, its various political committees had quickly evolved a policy of sustainable organic construction. Native flora lent itself easily to the concept, trees in the temperate zones were hardwoods with an internal honeycomb structure. A few genetic tweaks make them quite suitable for creative shaping. Like the aircoral developed during the first Commonwealth era, Ganthia's modified trees could be guided over frameworks to form hollow bulbous chambers. Better yet, they were amenable to grafting, so while each room was an individual tree, a house was the merger of many.

Navy Captain, retired, Donald Chatfield, lived in the middle of what from the air resembled a good-sized forest. It fact it was Persain City, spreading out over the side of several mountains just above the shoreline. Twelve trees provided him five first floor rooms whose curving walls sprouted stunted branches with shell-pink leaves. Five long trunks grew up through the gaps between the lower rooms, before bulging out into the second floor of smaller compartments; each frosted with copper leaves. The remaining two trees were hollow pipes, twisting round the curvature of the lower rooms to provide stairwells between the two levels.

Paula's taxi capsule skimmed along what appeared to be a wide greenway through the forest city. It settled silently on tin-wild lawn outside Chatfield's home and she climbed out, sniffing the unusually spicy air. House clusters stretched away in every direction, some extending three or four floors high, their marvellously convoluted trunks forming a knotted support maze. Sunlight shone through the overhead branches creating a sharp dapple around her. In the distance, some kids were playing in an open area. The whole scene was remarkably rustic. Only the capsules flitting along the grid of greenways betrayed the planet's true cultural base.

She walked up the short wooden steps to the porch platform formed from a miniature tree crafted to a flat mushroom shape. Donald Chatfield greeted her at the wonderfully old-fashioned green-painted front door. A tall youthful-looking man with an easy smile. His neat dark hair was starting to grey in contrast to firm features and a healthy tan. She couldn't work out if those light strands were a fashion statement or an imperative genetic quirk his biononics couldn't adjust. He was three hundred and fifty years old, after all.

'Thank you for agreeing to see me, she said as he led her into the sitting room. Three big circles had been sawn out of the bulging walls, to be filled with perfectly clear crystal that overlooked his back garden. No attempt had been made to paint or cover the bare wood, though walls and ceiling had been polished to show off the dark timber's turquoise grain flecks. Even the furniture was carved from large sections of tree trunks; softened by a few scattered cushions.

'Your reputation precedes you, Investigator, he said as he waved her into one of the big chairs. 'I didn't even have to consult a reference file. But then I have served on ships around Dyson Alpha. It was a long time ago, but the crews tend to assimilate the War period's history in more detail than the average citizen, it helps us understand the mission.

'Interesting, she said as she settled back. 'That's actually why I'm here.

He raised an eyebrow in an almost dismissive expression. 'Good heavens. Even I'm history in that respect.

'Not quite. I'd like to ask you about your third mission there, you captained the Poix.