'Nothing to be sorry for, Inigo told her. He reached out and gripped her hand. Corrie-Lyn leaned in towards him.

'If I hadn't come, none of this would have happened. Tin-restoration team would still be alive. You could have carried on rescuing people.

'The universe doesn't work like that. They would have found me; one way or another. I'm glad it was you.

'I've killed you. The tears were running freely down her freckled cheeks.

Inigo stopped the ground crawler and put his arms round her. 'That's just fright you're feeling. You must not blame anyone, least of all yourself.

'How can you be so calm?

'All I have seen, all Edeard showed me, it gives me hope. Hope doesn't die just because a life is lost, nor even a million lives. The human race carries on. We have before, many times, we will again.

'As stupid as ever, she grumbled, wiping at the tears.

He caught her hand, and brought it to his own face, then slowly licked the moisture from her fingers. 'That's my Corrie-Lyn.

She nestled up against him. 'I still think it's my fault. I should never have let that psychopath talk me into this.

'From what you've told me you didn't have a lot of choice.

'1 could have been bolder. I could have thrown him off a cliff like you did.

'Well, in the end that hasn't made a lot of difference, has it?

'I'd prefer not to spend my last moments with him, thank you.

'We're not dead yet. Inigo let go of her, and turned back to the console. 'Only another two hundred kilometres to my starship.

'You really have one?

'I really have one. Smart man, that Aaron, working that out.

The ground-crawler lurched forwards again. Corrie-Lyn came over from her seat to stand behind Inigo. Her hands massaged his shoulders.

'How far have we come?

'About eighty kilometres in the last seventeen hours. He nodded at the windscreen. 'It's getting worse out there. I'm guessing the quakes are the start of the implosion. No wonder the atmosphere is kicking up.

'We're not going to make it, are we?

'No.

She bent down and nipped his ear. 'Hey, you're a messiah. You're supposed to inspire your flock.

'Would the flock settle for certainty?

'I thought there were no absolutes.

'I can see you're going to be a difficult convert.

The ground crawler juddered alarmingly as the landscape outside heaved. Corrie-Lyn's grip tightened as she struggled against being thrown to the metal decking.

'Lady, Inigo grunted. The portal projecting the sensor images showed a crack in the ground running almost parallel to the ground crawler, in some places it was over two metres wide. It hadn't been there before the quake.

Inigo upped the speed of the tracks, sending them wobbling away from the crack.

'Why did you leave us? Corrie-Lyn asked.

'No great revelation, he said. 'I was tired. Tired of the expectations. Tired of the Council. Tired of the adulation.

'And me?

'No, never you. I wouldn't have stayed as long as I did if it hadn't been for you.

'I don't believe you.

Inigo laughed. 'If you're not an absolute, you're definitely a constant. Why don't you believe me?

'Because I know you, or I did back then. You believed in tin-dreams, in the life the Waterwalker showed us, the life we could live in the Void. You never tired, not of that, not of being our Dreamer. What happened?

'Maybe I shouldn't have left. Lady, look what's happened because I did. Ethan as Conservator! He was never elevated to Council for a reason, you know. Why did the conclave vote for him? What were you thinking of?

'Change, she snapped at him. 'Pilgrimage. The Second Dreamer made it possible, or at least believable. But that's not relevant, that's today, not seventy years ago. Why, Inigo? Don't you at least owe me that?

'There was a dream, he whispered. His mind released a deluge of sadness through his gaiamotes, strong enough to make her shudder in dismay.

'The Last Dream? she gasped. 'It's real?

'Not in the way rumour had it.

'But the Waterwalker died. That was his victory, he'd finally lived every life. The Skylords guided his soul to Odin's Sea. I was there, she growled. 'I lived that dream, the dream you gave us. I lay back on the pyre atop the tallest tower in Eyrie and watched the Skylords return to fill the sky above Makkathran. I rose with him while the whole city sang their hymn of farewell. I received his final gifting to the world. He went to the Heart of the Void! It was so beautiful, and I believed it. I believed in you. Corrie-Lyn shoved her way along the side of Inigo's chair, and knelt down, putting her face inches from his. 'That is the dream I recall so few times because it is so powerful I weep each time at what those of us trapped outside the Void never had. That is the dream that counts. That is the reason I am a member of Living Dream, your movement. And it is why I always will be no matter who is in charge or what ridiculous petty politics affect the Clerics. You gave us that. You made us dream.

Inigo stared at the sensor projection of the treacherous ground, refusing to meet her eye. His gaiamotes closed up, shutting off his emotions.

'Tell me, she demanded, so frightened she was trembling. 'Tell me what dream you had.

'It's just me, he said. 'That's all. It was just my reaction. There's nothing to stop the Pilgrimage, nothing to prevent the faithful from achieving their perfect lives. It just affected me.

'What is it? Please, Inigo?

'I had one more dream, he said, still watching the display. 'I saw what happened to Querencia afterwards. After the Waterwalker died. It was the life of one of his descendants living in Makkathran.

'What did they do? she asked. 'Did they misuse the gift?

The ground quaked again.

'No, Inigo said, with a faint smile. 'They used it perfectly.

Corrie-Lyn grimaced in annoyance as the quake got worse. She clutched at the back of Inigo's seat. Both of them looked at each other as the crawler began to tip over. The sensor display showed the ground lifting and splitting.

Inigo loaded a quick sequence into the ground crawler's small smartnet. Anchors fired out of the lower fuselage, drilling long spikes deep into the frigid soil. Superstrength cables rewound, the tension tightening the heavy machine's grip on the anchors.

'Inigo, Corrie-Lyn wailed.

He gripped her hand. 'We're together, he promised, and opened his mind to her again.

The ground beneath the crawler heaved with a profound roaring. All six anchor spikes came flying back out of the disintegrating soil, crashing into the side of the vehicle with an almighty clang.

'Together.

The ground crawler started to roll. Corrie-Lyn yelled in panic as she was thrown into the side of the cabin, then the walls carried on moving. Inigo was hanging upside down in his seat as the safety webbing held him in place. Corrie-Lyn tumbled down towards the back of the cabin as the angle shifted. The ground crawler was skidding along on its roof. Another judder from the ground pushed it up on its nose and twisted. Several storage locker doors popped open, releasing a clutch of clothes and crockery and food packets that pelted through the interior, bounding about dangerously.

Corrie-Lyn lost her hold on the galley section to be tossed about. She felt her arm break as she hit the external door. The pain was awful, dulling her mind, even the cabin dipped into grey. She actually thought: This is the end.

A couple of miserable breaths later and she was still whimpering where she'd fallen. The ground crawler had stopped moving.

'Hang on, Inigo called above the constant clamour of the blizzard. 'I'm coming.

She watched him through a haze as her stomach grew very queasy. He had to climb up the side of the forward cabin, twisting round the front chairs with a contortionist's agility. Somehow the ground crawler had finished up standing on its nose, with the deck inclined.