'I've got no intention of helping you in anything, Trader,' Dakota spat defiantly. 'The whole lot of you can go to hell.'

'And without your help we surely will,' Trader replied, 'along with your entire species, should the Emissaries discover the means to build their own nova weapons any time soon. Or perhaps you really are the cowardly, deceitful murderer your people believe you to be. Perhaps I myself did nothing more than draw out your true nature, Dakota; and perhaps I helped you find your true vocation.'

Dakota leapt up, taking her guards by surprise. She got halfway to Trader's suddenly retreating field-bubble before something heavy slammed into the back of her skull. She hit the deck hard, curling up into a ball as the pain hit her.

'My apologies, my Queen. I should have been more prepared-'

'That's enough, Roses,' Dakota heard the Hive-Queen say. 'Trader, you have custody, as agreed. I hope you can persuade her to cooperate.'

Dakota lifted her head, and found herself staring down the barrels of two lethal-looking weapons from a distance of only a couple of centimetres. She didn't even struggle when someone started to lift her up by the shoulders.

Trader floated nearby. 'Anticipation of failure, my Queen,' she heard him say, 'is unknown within my vocabulary' Sixteen For a long time, Corso lay on the floor of the train, next to the gurney, wondering just what options he had left.

Honeydew had opened a connecting door and disappeared into another part of the vehicle, leaving Corso to ponder the question of what would happen to him once the Bandati agent returned. And, as he pondered, a deep and overwhelming sense of regret began to seep through him every time he thought about Dakota.

The more he thought about it, the more he was forced to confront the very real possibility that he'd just been a staggering idiot.

He finally took hold of one edge of the gurney and pulled himself back upright. He slumped over it and waited until Honeydew reappeared, accompanied by another Bandati brandishing a shotgun, and with a variety of weaponry secured in the loops of his harness. The guard kept the shotgun trained on Corso's head as Honeydew addressed him.

'I want to know what your decision is,' Honeydew said flatly.

'I don't know how you, or any of the rest of your people, think I could trust one more damn word you ever say to me. But I'll still get your protocols for you.' Or let you believe that until I figure out my next move.

'And help us develop new ones if necessary, yes?'

Corso glowered at the alien for a moment, then looked away before nodding his head briefly in agreement.

'We were not lying when we said we would invite your people into our negotiations, Mr Corso. Given the scale of what we are dealing with, my Queen knows the wisdom of seeking strength in numbers, and is entirely aware of how much you've succeeded where we have failed, and within a far shorter time span than was granted to us. I can't tell you too much yet, but if you give us your willing cooperation, I think you'll look on us rather more positively in good time.'

Corso felt the urge to give a bitter laugh, but he pushed it back down, realizing at the same moment that the train was finally beginning to slow. To his surprise, things did indeed begin to change for the better. For a little while, anyway.

The train pulled into another, identical-looking station and Corso was bundled out. Re-emerging into blinding sunlight a few minutes later, he found himself on the edge of a wide level plain that had been entirely surfaced over. It had the universally bleak and lifeless quality of spaceports everywhere. The towers of a city – presumably the same city they had just come from – could be seen in the hazy distance, with the sharp peaks of mountains visible just beyond it.

Corso was promptly marched across the concrete towards a wheeled launch platform, a fast ground-to-orbit scooter mounted above it, sunlight gleaming from the craft's black-as-night carapace. He was taken inside and thrust into a gel-chair, and left to watch as Honeydew and the guard climbed into their own restraints next to him.

The craft lifted up within moments, and Corso was slammed down into his gel-chair with all the force of a three-ton invisible elephant suddenly parking its rear on his chest.

Several minutes later the pressure abated, and he realized they were now in orbit. Before very long he was transferred to another orbiting vessel. He caught a glimpse of it from the outside in advance, through the window of the tiny ship-to-ship shuttle that ferried them across. It was a grim-looking thing with weapons nacelles dotted all along its enormous armoured flanks, and was on a scale with the Hyperion, the Freehold warship that had first brought Corso to Nova Arctis.

Beyond it lay the bright starry band of the Milky Way, while far below he could see the bright lights of low-orbit docks. Yet farther down were the blue-green continents and wide, shallow oceans of Ironbloom itself.

Corso could only guess where they were taking him, but the best bet was they were heading back to the derelict. As he stared down at the planet below, he wondered if Dakota was still trapped in her cell, and if she was looking up into the sky at that moment. Once Corso was safely on board the dreadnought, the ship underwent constant acceleration for what he estimated was the better part of a Redstone day. When weightlessness briefly returned, he guessed they must be at the midpoint of their journey.

He'd been left to his own devices in a small compartment that featured a bundle of twisted ropes attached at either end to two widely-spaced wall brackets. It resembled an abstract rendition of a spider's web, but a few minutes' contemplation finally brought him to the conclusion it was the Bandati version of a hammock.

He wasn't even under lock and key, as he'd assumed he would be. His quarters lacked a door, but this also meant there was no way to hide from observation. Once he was sure he was alone, he stepped outside the room.

He looked around the area beyond.

After a while, for lack of anywhere else to go, he went back into his billet.

What brought him his first surge of joy in a long time was to discover his clothes stuffed into a wall niche.

They stank of sweat and those long sleepless days and nights in the Piri Reis and, before that, in the Hyperion. He surely smelled no better now, but putting his clothes back on made him feel more alive, more human than at any point since his capture.

It was amazing how much confidence this simple act of getting dressed provided him with. It was hugely empowering.

I'll never let myself be locked up like that again, he decided. If his freedom had been valuable to him before he'd left Redstone, it was now more in the nature of an obsession. Accompanied again by two guards, Honeydew came for him some time later, as Corso lay dozing in a corner of his billet, having been unable to work out how to use the hammock provided.

He sat up, feeling grubby and sticky again, and instantly recognized Honeydew by the colour and pattern of his wings. The Bandati agent had a distinctive green-blue shading to his upper pair, while the lower ones were shot through with a fine tracery of vermilion.

'Mr Corso, accompany us, please.'

By this point the ship was moving again, decelerating now for the second half of their journey at a gravity-equivalent speed close enough to what he was used to from Redstone, so that he could again walk around quite comfortably. Corso nodded without replying, and Honeydew took the lead.

Soon Corso found himself back in a docking bay that looked identical to the one he'd disembarked into on their arrival.

There were various small craft to be seen – mostly variations on the ground-to-orbit launch that had first lifted him into orbit – as well as several even smaller, bulbous ones lacking engine nacelles, which were probably life rafts. The scale of the chamber alone was enough to give a sense of just how big the Bandati dreadnought must be.