'This habit is turning into a vulgar repetition, Ilanthe said, her voice silky with disdain.

Kazimir hadn't realized before now how much he missed

Gore at the council; his grandfather was a perfect balance against the Accelerator advocate. More accurately, Gore wouldn't put up with her bullshit point scoring and needling.

Crispen gave her a small grin. 'Ever wondered what kind of effect these snatch raids are having on the Ocisens? I mean, their most powerful allies are being pulled out of space and shot without any warning. Can't be good for morale.

'Don't compare the Ocisen psychology to ours, Creewan warned. 'Obedience to the nest father is their paramount concern, in fact it's their only concern. They don't question and worry away at issues like we do.

'Which makes this interception even more pointless, Ilanthe said. 'They can't be rattled. They're not going to turn round even if we eliminate every Prime ship there is.

'I'm not eliminating them, Kazimir said levelly. 'I want a living immotile.

'What? John Thelwell demanded. 'I thought this was the final final warning, not some capture mission.

Kazimir met Ilanthe's gaze across the conference table. The lightning outside the big curving window stroked their faces with sharp slivers of flickering light. 'It is the final warning. To her credit she didn't flinch, but then he didn't expect her to. Less than an hour ago, Paula had reported in that the ice moon Accelerator station had been destroyed by a quantumbuster. Kazimir was mildly surprised Ilanthe had turned up to the ExoProtectorate Council at all. She must know the indomitable investigator was getting close to the kind of evidence ANA needed to suspend the Accelerators.

'What in heaven's name do you want with an immotile? Creewan asked.

'Intelligence, Kazimir said. 'We need to know where they come from, which planet or planets they've colonized. Ship numbers. Technology level. Once the Ocisens are eliminated by the deterrence fleet they will be the Navy's next target.

'Glad to hear it, John Thelwell said.

'Yes, said Kazimir. 'It will be interesting to find out how they avoided the Firewall. He still didn't get a reaction from Ilanthe.

The Navy ships yanked a single Prime warship out of hyper-space. Kazimir followed the engagement closely. He couldn't fault the captains, their strategy was flawless, subjecting the warship's force field to inexorable stress. When the force field finally collapsed, weapons fire against the hull was minimal. They went for electronic warfare, scrambling electronics and knocking out power circuits with quantum magnetic pulses. All at a level that wouldn't interfere with Prime nervous systems. Even with life support equipment knocked out, there was enough air and warmth for the living Primes to survive until they were captured.

Ten marine assault teams got ready to jump across.

The Prime warship exploded.

'Shit, Kazimir grunted.

'I trust this charade is concluded to your satisfaction, Ilanthe said. 'Admiral, will you now be launching the deterrence fleet in compliance with the Senate Executive Security Commission resolution?

Creewan and John Thelwell watched closely.

'Yes, Kazimir said. 'I will order the launch of the deterrence fleet immediately. And what have you put out there to snare it? What are you up to?

Ilanthe's female persona translocated out of the old fashioned perceptual reality of the conference room. She reformed herself in a completely different zone of ANA, the Accelerator compilation, that manifested as an inverted world of dark primary colours. She walked across a verdure sky as a heliotrope ocean rippled above her. Airborne wisps of kingfisher-blue light slithered around her, winking in complex sequences designating their sentience level: mirrored personality repositories performing designated secondary tasks while the primary mentality operated on an upper hierarchal level. Her body characteristics morphed away to a simple flawless silver skin, and her own repositories fluttered in, perching themselves on her shoulders and arms like birds of prey. Information squeezed in through the data porous boundary skin.

First analysis was of the Ellezelin interception. Every surviving physical section of Chatfield's starship was encapsulated by trajectory algorithms extrapolated and refined from Ellezelin's monstrously crude orbital sensor arrays. The flight of the eighty thousand scraps of matter were defined in a four-dimensional projection resembling a particularly beautiful scarlet firework scintillation bloom.

Origin point analysis designated the critical segments of the equipment Chatfield had been carrying. Exotic matter fragments were already decaying as their cohesion integrity was broken. But sufficient pieces survived; it would be possible to determine the interstice folds contained within them before their decay sequence fizzled to extinction. ANA might be capable of retro-profiling the nature of the equipment, and that would ruin everything.

Two more blank humanoid shapes walked across the sky. Fellow Accelerators, Colabal and Atha. Ilanthe transferred the trajectory construct to them. 'Supervise the wormhole interception yourself, she told Atha. 'It will need to be speedy, the ANA agent will see what's happening and instigate a hyperspacial distortion. You will need to collect seven thousand fragments.

'Confirmed, Atha said. The figure reversed its dimensions to zero and translocated.

'Is the replica functioning? Ilanthe asked Colabal.

'Yes. The sky beneath their feet began to undulate, its tempo increasing rapidly as if thin storm clouds were speeding past. A section glowed with a pale amber hue. Ilanthe immersed herself into it.

One of the accelerator agents that Colabal ran had collected a sample of Araminta's DNA from the Colwyn City apartment block. The sequencing had provided the Accelerators with enough information to formulate Araminta's neural structure.

Every scrap of information on her background had been transformed into simulated memories and loaded in. They were woefully inadequate, Ilanthe acknowledged, but the personality that knitted together was the closest thing they could produce to the actual Second Dreamer herself. Puzzlingly, there were no gaiamotes, how she connected to the gaiafield was a complete mystery.

Ilanthe hung in the middle of the simulacrum, and meshed herself with the mind that flowed within. Emerald threads of neurological emulates blended into her own primary mentality. Ilanthe allowed herself to see the block of flats beside Bodant Park go up in flame, fed in the shock pulse that Araminta had released into the gaiafield. Feelings raged around her, connecting to memories with erratic volatile associations, triggering irrational emotional responses.

Ilanthe disconnected herself. 'Laril, she said. 'She will turn to her ex-husband for help. This disconcerting meat-based memory fluttered through her thoughts, illogical and shaky. 'He represents a stability she has not known before or since. It is not a pleasant refuge for her, but a dependable one. She lacks that above all else.

'He's migrating inwards, Colabal said. 'That makes him susceptible. And his reputation is established. We can make cooperation worth his while. He is also weak. He will capitulate to threats.

'Proceed, Ilanthe said. She opened a secure link to Neskia. 'Marius made a huge mistake bringing Chatfield into operation this early, she told the station chief. 'And using the Cat against Paula was another blunder, he should have known better than to exploit personal animosity. His stupidity has exposed us to an unacceptable level of risk. Consequently, I'm restructuring our event sequence. Please take immediate command of the swarm, and bring it to Sol.