A woman walks over, presumably Xala, his contact. Her head is shaven, sporting motile tattoos.

‘Devlin Cantrelle?’ she asks.

‘That’s, er, me.’ Carl allows nerves to surface in his voice. ‘Looking to buy—’

‘Passage to Nerokal Tertius.’ Smart-ink unicorns slide across her scalp. ‘The xeno ruins. And you’re a teacher with Gregor TechNet.’

‘How—? Yes.’

Xala’s smartlenses grow opaque, then clear.

‘Orbital ascent in fifty minutes.’

‘You’re travelling too?’ asks Carl.

The others are a family with defeated-looking eyes, a group of dark-suited, hard-faced men playing virtual cards around a table, and a seventh man, scar-heavy, with callused knuckles.

‘Along with them.’ She gestures towards the hard men. ‘The priests.’

‘Priests,’ says Carl.

‘We don’t pry into reasons. Not even yours, Mr Cantrelle.’

‘Um, right. Yes.’

He has already paid for the trip by clandestine transfer. There was always a chance she would simply not turn up; but it looks as though the offer might be real, at least up to a point.

The Admiralty Council has, for good security reasons, placed a strict embargo on Nerokal Tertius. So a black-market outfit offering trips to that location implies one of several possibilities, none of which can be legitimate.

Hence his presence here.

The people in the lobby stir as a presence enters, and the shock makes Carl want to throw up, because she can not be here: it is not possible. Not her.

Lianna Kaufmann was the person he loved, or possibly just worshipped when he was a neophyte, a Pilot Candidate who ostensibly became one of the Shipless during Graduation, while secretly gaining a red-trimmed black vessel with more power and manoeuvrability than he had thought possible. He had been recruited by Max Gould himself while still at the Academy, well in advance of that shaming public ceremony when Lianna saw Carl Blackstone apparently failing to gain any ship at all.

She is wearing a black, gold-edged cape with her black jump-suit. Old school and formal. But there is no time to wonder what she is doing here, because if she sees him the operation is blown. He gestures to the quickglass with the gotta-pee sign (as it’s usually known), and as the chamber opens, he tumbles inside. It seals up fast.

Before she glimpsed him, he thinks.

His tu-ring hides him from internal surveillance – unless Li-anna’s tu-ring has similar capabilities, he is now hidden from her. It also renders a section of the wall transparent, one-way, so he can see what Lianna does next.

Which is to point at a nervous-looking man and say: ‘That’s the one,’ as proctors enter the room, raising weaponised gauntlets. The man tumbles to the floor unconscious. Lianna crouches down, running her hand along the suspect’s clothing. ‘There. And there, woven into the material.’

A smuggler.

When the proctors have bound him with glistening membrane, they place the prisoner on a frictionless slide-sheet and drag him away with ease, while their officer ceremonially thanks Lianna, who says: ‘My pleasure, and I was happy to illustrate the point. So if we can return to the talks?’

‘This way, Pilot.’

There is much conversation when they have left – not many people get to see a real Pilot, never mind like this – while blood begins to return to certain faces, including Xala’s.

Lianna. Oh, Lianna.

Their friend Soo Lin used to say that strength means swallowing bitterness.

Concentrate.

‘Five minutes to detachment, everyone,’ announces Xala.

The fake priest with the scarred features and hardened knuckles approaches the small family group. ‘Hey, kids. You looking forward to this?’ And, as they shrink back: ‘What are you looking at? Are you trying to insult me?’

It is a good time to slip out of a hiding-place, while no one is looking this way. Carl does so, then walks openly towards the man – mental label Scarface; unkind but that is not the point – to get his attention.

‘You got a problem, my son?’ asks Scarface.

‘Er . . . No.’

Then the cold, psychopath laugh.

‘Three minutes,’ says Xala in a low voice.

Soon enough – as seen through a holoview opened by Xala – the Rotunda they are in has detached from Pneumos City and is rising through gold-and-orange clouds, leaving the sky-city shrinking below. Among the family, the baby is crying and the parents look worried.

‘Um, Miss . . .’ The father approaches Xala. ‘We were wondering. I mean, about the Pilot for the journey. How does—?’

‘Don’t,’ says Xala.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Don’t wonder. Go back to your wife and children.’

‘Oh,’ says the man. ‘Oh.’

Scarface calls over: ‘Pretty daughters you have, old man.’

It is enough to drain the blood from the father’s face and send him to his family, who shrink together as if for protection, really just for comfort. False comfort, tactically speaking.

For Carl to break cover might ruin the operation. If there really is an illegal mu-space voyage taking place, he needs to discover the same thing the father wanted to know: who or what will be flying the vessel. But there comes a point when mission integrity becomes secondary.

He will not allow Scarface to touch the children.

And there is the danger of mono-focus, because if he deals with Scarface then the six other hard men are likely to react. One of them, mental label Greybeard, has a carry-case at his feet that might contain anything, weaponry included. He will need to take them all down as well, while remaining alert to the third danger: that there is someone or something else here, a threat he has not identified. If that threat is automated, it might react in femtoseconds.

Blinking, he cranks up his tu-ring’s weapon displays.

Hoping they will remain unused.

]]]

Roger checked: Vachss Station was still waiting for him to initiate approach procedures. He ought to do just that. But one more segment first, just one . . .

sequence [[[

When the chamber reaches the edge of space beneath its vast extended balloon, impellers kick in and it rises higher, to Congregation Orbital where other ellipsoids like this one, balloons reabsorbed into their quickglass hulls, form a huge shoal, many linked by tendril-like tunnels, while others drift around the periphery, and a small number move alone, approaching or leaving the rest.

Off to one side floats a magnificent, unusual silver vessel, largely teardrop-shaped. Even if he had not seen it before, Carl would have known it for Lianna’s ship, as distinctive as her personality. In the Academy she was consistently top of the class yet remained an individualist.

‘Is that our ship, Daddy?’

‘Shh. Maybe.’

No, child. Not for a flight to an embargoed world.

‘Delta-bands all round.’ Xala is handing out the strips. To the father: ‘Children first, and then your own.’

‘Shouldn’t we wait until we’re—?’

‘Delta-bands now. It’s a condition of travelling.’

Scarface calls over: ‘No one’s making us miss this flight.’ He waits for the father to gulp before adding, ‘See? Blessed are the fucking peacemakers, right?’

None of the hard-faced men disguised as priests show a reaction, not even a smirk. As potential threats, Carl scales them upwards once more. Amateurs use intimidation as a social game, professionals as a tool.

Then he has a delta band in hand, given to him by Xala, while all around his fellow would-be passengers are settling on couches newly extruded from the quickglass deck. As they put their delta-bands on their foreheads and press the tiny studs, their eyelids flutter and they fall into deep, protective coma.

Lying there helpless against anyone left awake.

Time to choose.

He did not expect this, and it’s another form of cut-off: to go along with the risk or blow the whole thing open, when he has not even seen the rogue mu-space vessel – assuming one exists.