'Wait, Corrie-Lyn said. 'Where are we now? She'd assumed that after four hours they'd be far outside the Hanko system.

'A million kilometres from Hanko, Aaron said. 'And waiting.

'For what?

'Here's the deal, this is a Navy ship, so they build them tough; we can go ftl in our current state, but I haven't got me a huge urge to do that right now. The bots need some time to get us back up to a minimum function level. Now the way my instinct's pushing it, I don't mind waiting. When we are back up to a halfway decent degree of flight readiness, I'll know what to do.

Inigo blinked in astonishment. 'Is it always like this?

Corrie-Lyn sighed. 'Yes. Fraid so.

There was food on board. The crew each had their own little store of speciality items they just couldn't live without. So Corrie-Lyn and Inigo got to open packets of hot orange chocolate drink made on Luranda, with marshmallows from Epual. The packets were self-heating, which was just as well; the culinary unit was one of the casualties the bots were working on. And half of their basic nutrient liquid had squirted out of a ruptured tank.

The cabin furniture was a long way down the priority list for repairs, so they wriggled themselves into the strange lumpy curves as comfortably as possible and sipped from metal mugs. Aaron was with them some of the time. He often left to inspect what was being done in various parts of the ship.

After another argument, Corrie-Lyn got him to open up the ship's net with some heavy access restrictions in place. At least it meant she and Inigo were allowed to review the sensor images.

Hanko was a silver crescent set against an unusually barren starfield. The Lindaus remaining sensors overlaid the visual image with a host of gravitational data. They could actually watch the mass distribution altering as the Hawking m-sink ate the world from within. Great looping gravity waves expanded and contracted around the planet, juddering with the rhythm of a dying heart. Their motions became more erratic as the process began to accelerate towards its terrible ending. The magma core was now being absorbed at a phenomenal rate by the inflating event horizon. Tectonic plates shifted and shattered as the mantle adjusted to internal pressures that changed by the minute. The ice that had grasped every ocean for the last thousand years broke apart into vast crumbling sea-sized bergs that started to skid across the buckling land and collapsing mountain ranges.

Aaron returned to the cabin. 'It's about to go critical, he announced solemnly.

As he spoke, the brilliant white storm clouds began to glow with a tangerine hue, filling the crescent out to a perfect sphere of amber light. Its intensity rose swiftly, and the atmosphere started to expand. Massive hurricanes geysered up above the ionosphere, twirling off into space as the gases burned with nuclear heat.

'Wish it well, wish it gone, Aaron sang in a low whisper.

Below the shredded atmosphere, the mantle detonated. Continent sized rock segments punched outwards amid tattered oceans of superheated lava.

'The splendour of death, once known, loved beyond reason. Evolution's eternal shore, free at last to wash up what you will.

Untied from the constraints of the semi-solid shell, the true light of the runaway m-sink implosion shone out far brighter than the nearby star. Its spectrum chased through a delicate pink to pure white, then accelerated into blue-white as its radiation efflux poured out vast quantities of gamma waves. The event horizon consumed the last of the planet's core. Only the light remained, growing ever brighter as its heart shrank faster and faster.

'Out of twinkling Stardust all came, into dark matter all will fall. Death mocks us as we laugh defiance at entropy, yet ignorance birthed mortals sail forth upon time's cruel sea.

The Lindau began to accelerate at an easy two gees, keeping far ahead of the rock fragments and darkening seas of magma that spewed out from the dazzling implosion nucleus.

'I don't recognize the verse, Inigo said.

Aaron shook himself out of a mild daze to frown at him. 'What verse?

Corrie-Lyn rolled her eyes, and poured a shot of hundred-year-old rum into the remains of her hot chocolate. She'd found the bottle of St Lisamne's finest in one of the crew cabins, and immediately appropriated it. 'Never mind. Has your crappy brain come up with anything yet?

'I'm considering options. I'm most worried that the Navy knew we were here.

'How do you know that? Inigo asked.

'The information was in the captain's brain. Admiral Kazimir himself told him about you and me.

Corrie-Lyn shuddered and poured some more rum. The chocolate was all gone now. 'In his brain! So they'll come looking when this ship doesn't report in.

'I suspect they're already on their way and, given the captain reported the use of an m-sink, it will be considerably more than a simple scout ship that pops out of hyperspace.

'So will you suicide or surrender?

'Neither. We have about three more hours until primary systems repairs reach an adequate level. The rest can be performed while we're underway, but the drive and power systems must be made reliable first.

'That sounds like you know where we're going.

'I'm considering options that are opening up.

'Opening up, an intrigued Inigo said. 'Do you mean logically, or are these possibilities inside your own head that are being revealed by your employer?

Aaron scratched behind his ear, clearly made uncomfortable by the whole process. 'The options, I guess, are implanted information. Which one I choose is down to me based on the situation on the ground. After all, it's that kind of expertise which bought me the job.

'Do any of these options tell you what is to become of me?

'It's not like that. You're not relevant to me personally; you're just the package I'm assigned to deliver.

'You know, as well as my day job as the Dreamer, I am an accomplished analyst. If you were to open yourself fully to the gaiafield I might be able to uncover the pathways of these foreign memories.

'Why would I want you to do that?

'So that you know who you are. Where the real you begins and the artificial motivations end.

'Suppose they're not artificial motivations? Suppose this is what I am, what I've always been?

'You suffer too much for that to be true. Your dreams trouble you. I knew that even before Corrie-Lyn told me.

'And yet I'm alive, and you're in my custody. I think we'll settle for that level of functionality for now.

'As you wish. Can you at least tell us of the options that have been revealed?

'I don't know much in advance. That way, if I'm captured I can't reveal anything to my opponents.

'You just said we were in your custody.

'I have to consider the infinitely small probability you might escape. I can't have you knowing what I know, that would give you a mighty large tactical advantage my friend.

'Oh dear Lady, Corrie-Lyn groaned, and took a swig straight from the bottle. She ordered her u-shadow to resume the feed from the external sensors.

The new intense star that had been Hanko began to diminish within an hour of its inception. It was an insatiable consumer of mass, quick to devour the remnants of the planet that hadn't reached escape velocity during the implosion rupture. Solid splinters were quick to fall prey to its incredible gravity, flashing to ruin as they passed through the event horizon. Then its gravity reached out further, to the solidifying torrents of magma, pulling them back. After that there was only the thick streamers of gas and dust that were splayed out. Their tides began to turn, grasping at the loose irradiated particles and hauling them down the steepening gravity gradient to extinction.