‘Oh.’

‘And you can come with me to check the school out. I mean without causing problems work-wise.’

It was the UNSA culture: if they decreed that an employee was to spend time on some UNSA-approved human welfare task, that employee’s line managers had better show enthusiasm, or they were in trouble. Often Rekka thought that the organisation was too involved with people’s private lives, though her own solitary existence was unaffected; but at times like these you could take advantage of the corporate parental attitude.

‘Of course I’ll come with you,’ she said.

‘Good.’ Amber picked up her iced lemon tea, then put it back down. ‘Am I a terrible person, Rekka?’

‘No.’ Rekka took hold of her hand. ‘You are the very best, and Jared is proud of you.’

‘He’s my son, and so very young.’

On Earth, Amber saw herself as a cripple in several ways – those metal eye sockets were incapable of shedding tears – while in mu-space she soared, like a ballerina or gymnast or perhaps a dolphin in her natural element. However much Rekka thought secretly that Jared needed a full-time parent, she could never even hint that Amber might wrench herself from life as a Pilot. A bitter, half-insane mother would be worse than none at all.

‘The only family I’ve got is an aunt in Oregon.’ Amber sounded miserable. ‘But a stranger, you know? Wouldn’t even know Jared’s name.’

She sounded so empty.

Rekka squeezed Amber’s hand and said, ‘You will make the best choice for your son, and I’ll be there to help.’

‘I love you, Rekka. You know that, don’t you?’

Rekka was straight and Amber wasn’t, yet there was nothing awkward in the moment.

‘We’re family,’ said Rekka.

The family that you choose, you make, which need not be the one you were born with.

‘Yes, we are.’

But all families have the power to screw up children’s lives, and their decisions over the coming weeks would affect Jared for ever.

*

Zen gardens in the heart of the city, silence punctuated by children’s laughter during the breaks, gleaming polished halls and classrooms, laboratories and gymnasia. Rekka, her hand on Amber’s arm to guide her, walked through the school premises, increasingly impressed.

‘We are teaching freedom and self-discipline, respectful of but not constrained by the local culture,’ said a recorded holographic Frau Doktor Ilse Schwenger at the start of the tour. ‘While much of the teaching is in English and Nihongo, we also deliver lessons using Puhongua, and the advantages of that are obvious.’

One of those advantages was that knowing Puhongua – still ‘Mandarin’ to the uneducated – made it easier to use Web Mand’rin online.

‘Excuse me, ma’am. Pilot,’ said a young boy with black-on-black eyes. ‘I’m Carlos Delgasso and I’m nine years old. Would you like to see an aikido class?’

‘We would, thank you.’

Rekka’s sole physical discipline was yoga, and other stuff bored her; but aikido and Feldenkrais body-awareness training had been part of Amber’s initiation into Pilothood. Any mugger who laid a hand upon a Pilot, including those who were blind in realspace, was likely to find their face smashed into concrete, and their shoulder dislocated, or worse.

The class was impressive. A slight grey-haired man, in white gi jacket and black floor-length hakama split skirt, moved with magical ease while bodies flew everywhere. His demonstration was against adult black belts; when he took his younger charges through training drills, they seemed to spend most of their time rolling without hurting themselves.

Rekka said nothing of what she glimpsed, or thought she had, from the corridor that led here: a soundproof glass panel on a dojo door that revealed a mêlée of lean figures in black jumpsuits in swarming, robust combat, with throws and kicks and punches, almost too fast to see.

‘You like living here?’ Amber asked young Carlos, back outside in the corridor.

‘It’s the best,’ he said.

‘Some Pilot children live in ordinary homes,’ said Rekka. ‘With families.’

Carlos looked solemn as he nodded.

‘We’re very sorry for them.’

Perhaps that was the moment that clinched their decision. Before Rekka and Amber left, Jared was officially enrolled, and all that remained was the logistical task of getting him to Kyoto with his belongings.

And saying farewell, of course.

The only surprise, when Rekka returned to work, was that Google Li had handed in her notice and already left. No one seemed to have any idea of her plans, or even whether she remained in Singapore.

It would be many years before Rekka bumped into Google Li by chance at a conference in Frankfurt, where they did something very rare for both of them: got tremendously drunk on schnapps, Cointreau and tequila, and woke up the next morning on separate twin beds in Rekka’s hotel room.

That morning, Google Li would share the suspicions that caused her to question her career aspirations and leave UNSA without a word; but by then, Rekka had been asking herself similar questions for years, regarding the likelihood that Randolf and Angela’s death had really been an accident, instead of orchestrated murder in which their fellow passengers and flight crew were collateral damage within acceptable parameters, by the standards of an organisation grown too big and remorseless to own a conscience.

Or in which schemers like the two UN senators, Luisa and Robert Higashionna, wielded such unquestioned influence, pursuing goals that no ordinary people could guess at, moving like sharks through a sea of political and corporate power that minnow-like citizens would never understand.

Rekka and Google Li would share tears and hugs that morning, and never see each other again.

TWENTY-SEVEN

MU-SPACE, 2604 AD (REALSPACE-EQUIVALENT)

Call him a fuck-up seeking atonement. As far as Piet Gunnarsson was concerned, the first part – without the atonement-seeking – was what everyone did already.

Self-loathing and desperation do not lend attractiveness to any business proposition, but somehow he persuaded the Far Reach Centre logistics people – he talked to someone called Rowena James – to let him make a rescheduled cargo delivery to Vachss Station, in orbit around Vijaya, along with a personal package for one Jed Goran, Pilot. It was urgently required, the main cargo load, because some sort of onboard crisis had caused the original delivery to be cancelled.

The schedule was almost impossible, unless Piet followed something close to a hellflight trajectory. A whole bunch of other Pilots, he was sure, had already turned down the job.

‘This is important, then?’ he asked.

‘Lives aren’t at stake, but’ – Rowena touched the personal package – ‘you know what people are like.’

‘Whatever. I’ll take the job.’

‘Thank you, Pilot Gunnarsson.’

Her straightforward politeness was very different from the glances he received afterwards, walking along the Poincaré Promenade, heading for the great docking bay where his ship was waiting for him, filled with unconditional, understanding love.

You’re OK, my love.

I’ll try to be, for your sake.

For his sake, she acquiesced in the choice of geodesic; and as they flew the almost-hellflight, their conjoined selves filled with pain as well as the exhilaration of effort. Their suffering brought them closer than ever, offering the possibility of healing and redemption in a way that Piet did not feel he deserved.

Tearing through an unusual spiralling trajectory, Piet-and-ship burst out of a blood-coloured nebula close to their destination, finding themselves behind three Zajinet ships whose weapon systems were in the process of powering up.

So. Zajinets.

Whatever Piet’s role in causing hostilities, there had been open attacks on seven worlds that he knew of: it wasn’t just about him. If this was another such raid then he could not allow it to happen.