A mere three hours after it shone brighter than its primary, Hanko was reduced to a tiny glowing ember surrounded by whirlpool veils of lavender fog that were slowly constricting.

'It consumes everything around it in order to burn, Aaron said. 'Yet, in the end, entropy will always emerge victorious, snuffing out the very last glimmer of heat and light. After that there is only darkness. When that state is reached, even eternity will cease to exist, for one moment will be like every other, and nothingness will claim the universe. He turned to Inigo. 'Sound familiar?

'Nothingness is a long way off, Inigo said. 'Not even the post-physicals will be around to witness that. It certainly doesn't worry me.

'And yet it's your Void which will accelerate the process. Without the mass of this galaxy, the universe moves noticeably closer to the end of time and space.

'Your employers want me to stop the Pilgrimage.

Aaron gave a bemused shrug. 'I have no idea what they want. I'm just observing the symbology here.

Corrie-Lyn stirred herself. After the St Lisamne rum, she'd polished off a couple of bottles of wine hoarded by another crewman. Then there was the JK raspberry vodka. It annoyed her there wasn't a working fridge, the JK should have been drunk chilled to arctic levels. 'You care though, she slurred. 'That's a start. Your conditioning is beginning to unravel. Maybe we'll get to meet the real Aaron sooner than your boss would like.

'You're already looking at him. Sorry. Aaron sent an order to the smartcore, and the Lindau went ftl.

'So what have you decided? Inigo asked.

'The Navy knows that I was hunting you, and if they don't know I survived Hanko they'll find out soon enough. We're both being hunted by whoever flew the ship that fired the Hawking m-sink. I was supposed to be in the Artful Dodger, which should have given me a big edge, but that's gone. However, there's the emergency replacement ship waiting for me on Pulap. The bad news is that if we turn up anywhere in the Lindau, everybody and their mother will know about it. I can't risk that, I can't expose you to the possibility of capture or termination.

'You're stuffed then, Corrie-Lyn sniggered. 'Shame about that.

'Not quite. There is something that took a long time to emerge, a real last resort.

'Which is? Inigo asked.

'I'm taking you to the Spike.

'The alien macro-habitat? That's seven thousand lightyears away. It'll take weeks. What in Honious is there?

Aaron wrinkled up his brow as if listening to some distant voice. Even he seemed surprised by what it was saying: 'Ozzie. Ozzie lives in the Spike.

Paula watched the padded plyplastic fold protectively around her piano with a mild sense of regret. There was just no point in trying to play. Following the conference with Kazimir and ANA she just couldn't lose herself in music like she normally did. Kazimir's doubt about the Accelerator's motivation was troubling her. Logically, the outline she'd proposed was flawless. The Accelerators needed the deterrent fleet weapons to blast the Raiel out of the way.

As she'd thought earlier: what else could the whole Prime scheme be? And that nasty little phrase had begun to haunt her. What else? For the Accelerators to risk internal ANA suspension by manipulating the Ocisens and Primes was a phenomenal gamble. One that always had a good chance of exposure. To her mind it was too much of a gamble for anything astute as an ANA Faction. For all she rejected half of their ideologies, they weren't stupid. Which left her with the uncomfortable question of what else they could hope to gain by forcing deployment of the deterrent fleet.

In a classic diversion tactic, the fleet would rush off to intercept the Ocisens, leaving the rest of the Commonwealth exposed. She couldn't think what the nature of that exposure could be.

It can't be a physical attack. They need the Pilgrimage ships to be complete and launch, they also need ANA to carry on, after all they're part of it.

So, what, then?

If it was nothing other than a crude attempt to analyse the deterrence fleet weapons they were going to fail. And failure now would mean the end of them and their goals. ANA: Governance had only ever used the suspension sanction once before, during the Evolutionary Secessionist rebellion five hundred years ago, which had seen the Secessionists trying to literally split ANA so they might assume control of a section and go post-physical.

There has to be something I'm missing.

The one big hole in her information was the nature of the deterrence fleet. Which was the one thing ANA: Governance would never explain to her. For all she was a valued agent, even she acknowledged that information could never be allowed to leak out, which it might well do if she was ever captured. Small chance, but if it was the Cat after her, a realistic chance. And if not the Cat, there were others who would enjoy seeing her removed from physical existence. There probably always would be. All part of the job. After fourteen hundred years you just grew to live with the prospect no matter what your psychology was.

The smartcore told her the Alexis Denken was fifteen minutes out from Kerensk. And Gore was making a call.

'Justine's still all right then, Paula said. 'That's good news.

'Yes. But that little shit Ethan must be laughing his fucking head off that the Skylord wouldn't help her.

'It won't help her now. But let's face it, if any of us are close to maturity it's going to be Justine.

'Yeah, maybe.

'I didn't realize time was that fast inside the Void.

'Nobody did. Although I suspect the flow rate might be localized. We don't know enough about its fabric yet, but that would certainly explain the Skylord's acceleration. It wasn't physically fast, it operated a different time-flow.

'What do you think happened on Querencia since the Water-walker's death? The Skylord said there's nobody left now.

'Who gives a shit? I have some information for you. Do you know who left Ganthia two hours after you did?

'Yes, an Accelerator agent we're interested in. He's got an ultradrive ship, but its stealth isn't perfect, or at least ANA's sensors are better. Don't worry, Digby has him under surveillance.

'Keeping it in the family, huh? Good for you. But I wasn't taking about Chatfield.

Paula sighed. There were times when she was very annoyed with ANA for the leeway it granted Gore Burnelli. 'Who then?

'Marius.

After fourteen hundred years, an unexpected turn in a case no longer surprised her, but she was very interested. 'And how do you know that?

'A friend of a friend saw him at the starport.

She laughed. 'You mean the Conservative Faction is still eager to screw the Accelerators.

'Screw them into the ground and dance on the pieces, actually. Does that information help?

'It's not helpful for them, but it does confirm my assumption that Chatfield is an Accelerator representative. Her u-shadow reported that it couldn't track the origin of Gore's call. There were very few people who could manipulate the Unisphere to that extent. And why would he hide that anyway? Unless… No! Surely not.

'I have something else which may be of use for you, Gore said.

'What's that?

'Troblum.

'You know where he is?

'No, sorry, not that, but I do know what he's been up to.

'Oh really? Your Delivery Man shut down our one avenue of investigation. I'll get round to arresting him one day, you know. Using an m-sink on a Central world is not amusing.

'Consider this my olive branch. We were scared by what Troblum was doing.

'Which was?

'Building an ftl drive big enough to move a planet.

'Jesus! You're kidding.