So they descended in a series of howling bumps and jolts, treating their own ramp. In the end it took over forty-five minutes to reach the base of the rift. The power blades retracted. Aaron gazed out in dismay at the field of ice boulders which the lightning flares revealed. They were larger than the ones at the lop of the rift, and closer together.

'Crap, he grunted. 'We're never going to get through this.

How far does it extend? If they didn't clear the boulder field in the next couple of hours, they would never make it to the ship before the implosion.

'I don't know, Inigo replied unperturbed. 'We don't exactly have survey maps. He steered the crawler along the base of the rift, looking for an opening.

'You must do!

'Not recent ones. They're all a thousand years out of date; and the surface ice does shift. Slowly, admittedly, but the movement throws up a fresh topography every century or so.

'Shit! Aaron finally did hit something, his fist thudding into the cabin wall. 'We have got to make better time than this.

'I know.

Corrie-Lyn came forward from her seat and slipped her arms around Inigo's neck. The low cabin lighting made her beautiful features deeply sensual. 'You're doing your best, ignore him.

Aaron growled in frustration, and hit the wall again. Back at the Olhava camp, Inigo had finally admitted he did have a private starship hidden away, for emergencies. Aaron's elation at the escape route had quickly cooled as the ground crawler got underway. According to Inigo his ship was safe in a tunnelled out cavern seven hundred kilometres south east of the camp. Aaron had assumed they would make it with almost a couple of days to spare. Then they drove straight into the ice boulder field.

'We always trailblaze through this kind of thing, Inigo told him as Corrie-Lyn rubbed her cheek adoringly against his. 'That's how I got to be so good with the power blades.

'Get better or we die, Aaron said bluntly.

Inigo flashed him a grin, then turned the ground crawler into a small gap. Razor-sharp shards of ice creaked and snapped against the bodywork as they scraped their way through. Aaron winced, convinced they'd wedge themselves in again. They'd done that once before a few hours back. He and Inigo had to go outside and use their biononic field effect to cut the vehicle free. It had felt good using his weapon functions, even on a minimum setting. He was accomplishing something.

The only benefit of the journey was that Corrie-Lyn hadn't touched a drop of alcohol since they started.

'So have you any idea who was in that starship? Inigo asked.

'No. I didn't even realize we were being followed, which is disturbing enough. To track the Artful Dodger you'd need something as good if not better. That kind of hardware is mighty difficult to come by, so it was either ANA or a Faction. But ANA wouldn't use an m-sink like that, and I'm kind of surprised a Faction did.

'No honour among thieves, eh?

'None, Aaron agreed. 'Using an m-sink has the sure taste of desperation to it.

'Hold a mirror up, Corrie-Lyn said. 'It was a ruthless despicable act, slaughtering all those people without warning or reason. The pilot must have been just like you.

'There are people in this universe a lot worse than me.

'That I don't believe.

But it's true. He smiled privately.

'So where were you going to coerce me into going? Inigo asked.

'I'll know when we're safe on the ship.

'Really? That's… interesting.

'It's depraved, Corrie-Lyn said.

'Actually, it's a simple and safe security measure, Aaron told them. 'If I don't know, I can't be forced to reveal it.

'But you do know, she said. 'It's buried somewhere in your subconscious.

'Yes, but I can't get to it unless the circumstances are coming up straight aces.

'You've damaged your own psyche with so much meddling.

'I've told you often before, and I'll enjoy telling you many limes again: I like what I am.

'Oh Lady, now what! Inigo exclaimed as the crawler's net hulled them again. He glanced at the radar screen with its concentric orange bands swirling round like a accelerated orrery. 'That's weird. His grey eyes narrrowed as he squinted through the windscreen. The headlights revealed a white blur of snow, but no boulders. Lightning flashes turned the black night to a leaden smog. There were no discernible shapes ahead of them.

Aaron's field scan revealed the ice had flattened out in front of the crawler's tracks. Then it ended in another sharp-edged rift. He couldn't pick up anything beyond. 'There's nothing out there.

'I think that's the problem.

They both suited up to take a look. Inigo said he didn't want to get the crawler too close to the rift until they knew what they were dealing with. Aaron shrugged and went with it. He didn't like wearing the surface suit — his biononics could produce a good defence against Hanko's foul environment — but it added an extra layer of protection, which his instinct insisted was tin-right thing in a situation with so many unknowns.

The two of them kept close to the headlight beams, leaning into the wind. As they shuffled closer to the edge, Aaron's field scan still couldn't detect anything beyond.

'Where the hell's the ground gone? he demanded. His field scan probed the ice beneath his feet. There were a few centimetres of crisp snow, then clear ice down as far as the scan could reach. It was as though they were on the top of some giant frozen wave.

'Must be a gully of some description, Inigo replied. 'If the pressure is right the ice can fissure instead of throwing up a ridge.

'Great.

'It should close up soon. I've never seen an ice fissure over five hundred metres long. You check that way. And don't go too near the edge.

'Right. Aaron started to walk parallel to the edge, keeping a good three or four metres between him and the drop. He soon came to a flat triangular prominence jabbing out from the verge, which he shuffled along cautiously, feeling the slight stirrings of vertigo. If anywhere would allow him a decent look into the gulf below, it would be here.

He extended his field scan to its maximum, sweeping it through the heavy swirl of snow. Even at full resolution he couldn't detect the other side of the rough fissure. Nor was there any sign of a bottom. He was standing on the brink of some massive abyss. Instinct kicked in, firing up his misgivings. Something Nerina said back at the camp registered. 'Hey, are we— His scan showed him Inigo's field function was switching, reformatting energy currents. His own biononics responded instantaneously, strengthening his integral force field, shielding him from any damage Inigo's outdated systems could possibly inflict. Accelerants rode his nerve paths ready to implement his response. Tactical routines rose out of macrocellular clusters, fusing effortlessly with his thoughts, analysing his situation. That was when he realized just how badly he'd screwed up by trusting Inigo. 'Shiiiit,

Inigo fired the biggest disruptor pulse his biononics could produce. It slammed into the ice a couple of metres short of Aaron's feet. For a moment, the whole prominence fluoresced an elegant jade. As the light faded, a single giant crack appeared with incredible speed, splitting the prominence off the edge of the Asiatic glacier.

Aaron stared in shock at the ruptured ice. Tactics programs rushed to find a counter—

'Sorry, Inigo said simply. The thoughts leaking out of his pa ill motes even proved he meant it. 'But sometimes to do what's right…

The entire prominence split away cleanly. To Aaron's accelerated nervous system it appeared to hang there for some terrible eternity. Then gravity pulled the colossal chunk of ice straight down with Aaron standing at the centre. It began to twist as the edges screeched down the cliff. His force field reconfigured, extending into a twin swept-petal shape—wings that could glide him away. Not good in the midst of this snowstorm, but better than anything else. That was when the vast cataract of avalanching snow triggered by Inigo's shot thundered into him, engulfing the tumbling prominence and him with it.