‘Leeja thought Tannier was a bad influence,’ said Clara later, when she and Jed were sitting up in bed together, drinking daistral. ‘When they met first, that is. Tough cop, getting Roger into trouble. But she’s beginning to mellow towards him. To Tannier.’

‘And her world being destroyed? How did she cope with that?’

‘Ah, not well,’ said Clara. ‘Not well at all.’

They hugged, side by side, careful with the daistral, thinking of all the ways the universe could rip people apart from each other.

‘I’m glad I found you.’ Jed kissed her ear.

‘That’s just what I was going to say.’

‘You want to know how glad?’

She smiled, putting down her drink.

‘Show me, show me.’

Pavel and Sapherson departed the next day, leaving Jed and Clara with the opportunity to spend delightful time together – ‘They owe me leave, but this counts as work, which is even better,’ she told him – but after three more nights, it was time for her to go as well.

‘Just a few more days here for me,’ said Jed. ‘I’ll be back in Labyrinth in no time.’

‘You’d better be.’

The Sanctuary resident was a Pilot called Draper, one of the Shipless and an expert in xenoanthropology, busy turning his study of Haxigoji culture into his life’s work. Draper’s girl-friend was a non-Pilot, an Earth-born bioengineer, pleasant enough company when they dined together, the four of them, before Clara left: Jed and Clara, Declan Draper and Emma Mbaka. Several hundred tonnes of export goods were due, later than scheduled, to be shuttle-lifted up to Vachss Station over the next few days. With the original Pilot pick-up cancelled, Draper was arranging for Jed to get the business, taking these and other products to Finbra V, Yukitran and Earth.

‘They’ll expect a discount, what with you being here already,’ Draper had said.

‘Perfectly reasonable,’ Jed had answered.

‘And you’ll deliver my report to Far Reach?’

‘Of course I will.’

Perhaps, as a Pilot without a ship of his own, Draper’s anxiety to have full disclosure on any commercial deal, to show he was not receiving kickbacks, came from his dependence on others and his position in Sanctuary. But Pilots living in realspace were generally nervous. Schenck and his mu-space renegades were gone from Labyrinth, but no one knew how many Pilots still working among ordinary humans, whether undercover or openly like Draper, had been part of the conspiracy.

Everyone was under scrutiny, and Admiralty observers were everywhere, deconstructing history, reading between the lines. Every now and then, it was whispered, people disappeared for questioning, and did not necessarily return.

A few hours after Clara’s departure, Jed was in a diamond-windowed lounge watching space tumble past. Different portions of Vachss Station rotated in different ways – spars along longitudinal axes, larger sub-assemblies of nodes and arcs around their individual centres – forming a kaleidoscopic mandala, something to watch while he thought about Clara.

His tu-ring beeped, and he acknowledged the request.

‘Got an arrival,’ Draper said in a virtual holo. ‘Dropping off refugees from Fulgor. An unscheduled arrival.’

‘Sounds unusual.’

‘Says he picked them up while making a delivery on Berkivan-deux. They wanted to come here. Weren’t being treated well where they were.’

‘Poor bastards.’

All Fulgor survivors had been double-checked by Admiralty teams for trace of Anomalous influence, but paranoia was understandable.

In the holo, Draper shrugged. ‘Holland didn’t go into detail.’

‘Holland? That’s the Pilot?’

‘Guy Holland, Labyrinth-based.’

‘Don’t know him, but never mind,’ said Jed. ‘I’ll pop over and say hello.’

He considered taking Tannier and Leeja along: survivors of Molsin having something in common with refugees from Fulgor. It seemed a good idea, so he made the call, arranging to meet them in Receiving Lounge 17A. They must have been keen enough, because by the time Jed reached the lounge, Tannier and Leeja were already there, standing next to each other with shoulders almost touching.

Survivors together.

It seemed Tannier had already got to know some of the long-term station residents. He introduced a tall slim man called Vilok, who greeted Jed by pressing palms in the manner of someone from Hargdenia Polity.

‘We’re not the only ones interested,’ said Vilok, ‘in an unexpected arrival. See there.’

Through the far entrance, several Haxigoji were entering: six or seven antler-racked males, eight or ten females (or perhaps some young males), all in a group. Their fur ranged from cream to dark chocolate beneath their ornate, brocaded tunics and trews. Half again as tall as humans, with double thumbed hands and amber, horizontally slitted eyes.

By the standards of xeno evolution, they were practically identical to humanity.

In fact Clara, before leaving, had shown him holos of Vijayan embryos, so like their Terran counterparts, clumps of cells that twisted early on into a topological cylinder. She had shown off by quoting a centuries-old Earth scholar: ‘”It is not birth, marriage or death but gastrulation that is truly the most important event in your life.”’

Thinking about her, Jed took several moments to process Vilok’s tension as he focused on a virtual holo emitted from his tu-ring. ‘Is something wrong?’

‘Pilot Holland is being . . . prevented from leaving his ship.’

He shared the holo: Haxigoji were crowding a flexible corridor whose far end was a smartmembrane placed against a visiting ship’s hull.

‘And the refugees?’ Jed glanced at the Haxigoji here in the lounge. ‘They’re still on board the ship?’

‘They’re almost here. Came directly from the hold via another—’

Jed ignored the holos, because the Haxigoji were moving towards an entrance from which a confused-looking group of people were emerging. No . . . They were converging on a single member of the group, a dark-skinned young man with an odd expression and disjointed gait, who stopped and said to the xenos: ‘My name. Is. Rick. Mbuli from. Ful-gor.’

Jed’s skin crawled.

I’ve heard that name before.

The Haxigoji were shuffling from left foot to right foot and back, over and over, in a form of agitation that appeared to surprise Vilok as much as Jed. But the name . . . And there was holo footage Jed had watched, he and Roger mulling over all that had happened.

Vilok said: ‘Why have they switched off their torcs?’

He meant the Haxigoji; Jed understood.

No.

It came to Jed that the Haxigoji were psyching themselves up to attack a human for the first time ever, but if they were right then the danger was immense.

Not here.

Clara was away and safe, but there were others here, hundreds on board and an entire inviting world below, and that could not be allowed to happen, not another Anomaly, not again.

Now.

Fire exploded from Jed’s tu-ring – not a feature of normal rings, not at all – and Mbuli’s head detonated into strawberry spray, spattering everywhere; but that was not enough, so with tightened fist Jed kept the beam directed, playing up and down along the corpse, obliterating it, while sending a coded signal for Draper to get here now, and be ready with a smart-miasma capable of spreading through a room and hunting down every human cell with a given DNA sequence, because nothing of Mbuli could be allowed to persist.

Automated beam weapons, designed to be highly visible threats, swung down from the ceiling, while security personnel were already entering the lounge; but as Jed powered off his tu-ring’s weapons, his viewpoint was blocked: over a dozen Haxigoji were moving between him and the security team, forming an arc with their backs towards Jed.

Protecting him.

Their torcs were still switched off, but a soft scent of triumphal rose petals rose from their bodies: a vote of thanks and approval for what he had done, whatever the legal consequences.