‘I was biased against the idea of him defecting, because I didn’t trust him not to play a double game.’ Gavriela was in the matching chair, at an angle to the fireplace, sitting upright because she could not relax. ‘It may have shaded my perceptions. But I think I was correct, in terms of how he felt about Ursula.’

The knowledge that Rupert was officially retired hung between them.

‘I’ll make a phone call,’ he said after a minute.

‘Thank you.’

There was nothing to do but increase whatever security and surveillance was around Ursula. The details were up to others, far outside Gavriela’s purview and even – these days – Rupert’s.

‘You remember when you sent me to the States?’ she said then.

His lean form tightened. He had sent her in wartime across the dangerous Atlantic – pregnant, though no one knew that, not even Gavriela – to visit Los Alamos for legitimate reasons but also to get her away from Brian, her one night stand, his long term secret lover.

‘The FBI man,’ she said, softening her voice, ‘called Payne, who showed me around, also taught me some New York slang. Noo Yoik,’ she added, ‘including “doing a Brody”, meaning to take a dive off a bridge, suicidally.’

Rupert shook his head.

‘Damnable,’ was all he said.

The ‘Americanisation’ – itself a hated term – of the English language was something he detested, and often said so.

‘I think I mentioned it to Anna once,’ said Gavriela. ‘I’m wondering if that’s where she got the name from.’

‘Dear Gavi’ – he could use her real name here – ‘I really am failing to catch your drift.’

‘My grandson is to be called Brody Gould. Not even his father’s surname, you’ll note.’

‘Oh, dear.’

‘I feel like killing her. Know any decent assassins, Rupert?’

‘None that you can afford.’

She let out a breath and sank back in the comfortable arm-chair. ‘Just as well.’

‘Speaking of what you can afford . . . The rent on your flat is probably quite steep.’

‘No more than anyone’s. What about this place? It must cost a fortune, so it’s lucky you have one.’

Rupert’s lean face twisted.

‘Not the word I’d use, but I’m comfortably off. As for the house, I own it outright, as did my parents for that matter.’

Without jealousy, Gavriela said, ‘Lucky you.’

‘Yes, I know. And with all those spare bedrooms that Mrs Hooper keeps spotless and no one ever sleeps in. So I was wondering . . .’

This was unusual hesitation for the retired spymaster.

‘ . . .whether you’d care to move in, dear Gavi. With all your science books and whatnot, of course. Slide-rules, kind of thing. Broaden my mind.’

She looked at the shelves of books in here – a small portion of the collection scattered throughout the house – then back at Rupert.

‘I’ll move in tomorrow,’ she said.

They stared at each other for a moment, then they both nodded.

‘So,’ said Rupert, picking up a folded Times from the floor. ‘Have you seen today’s crossword?’

‘Not yet.’

He retrieved his fountain-pen and unscrewed the cap. No pencil for him: ink meant getting it right first time.

‘Shall we tackle it together?’

‘Yes,’ said Gavriela. ‘I think we should.’

THIRTY-EIGHT

MU-SPACE & GALACTIC CORE ENVIRONS, 2606 AD

Bad luck hit the mission early. A squadron of Zajinets was heading along the same trajectory, and perhaps for the same purpose; but that was the problem with a war on two fronts – three if you counted the realspace Anomaly of Fulgor and Siganth – against different hostile forces. My enemy’s enemy is trying to kill me, thought Roger, as comms burst into life with a command from Nakamura:

++Scatter right high. Plan 7 alpha.++

Roger and ship sent the ack signal – acknowledgement – along with everyone else as forty-five vessels split into nine soaring threads that curved around to avoid the energy beams tearing along the geodesic they had been following, and allowed them within seconds to target the Zajinets.

The first ship to explode was a heavy Zajinet vessel, raked by fire from Rhames and the four Pilots forming her wing. But the chase was on through layers of self-similar spacetime contours, fractal fire forking and branching, like living lightning, and in the next few subjective seconds Roger counted thirteen ships exploding, seven of them Pilots including an entire five ship wing.

But the Zajinets were tricky, and several vessels broke away and disappeared into mu-space depths. Seeing that, Nakamura sent the break-off signal, and the thirty-eight surviving Pilots disengaged from the fight and tore off onto a near-hell-flight geodesic that the Zajinets would find it hard to follow, starting as it did from a hugely non-linear volume of turbulence: only continuous inter-vessel comms allowed the Pilots to keep their ships aligned together and following the same trajectory.

++They might call for reinforcements. Bug-out count-down is now 100 hours from insertion, repeat 100. Copy all?++

Ship and Roger were straining with the effort of flight, but they spared the attention to send an ack blip, and presumably the rest of the squadron did likewise because they kept formation and flew harder than ever until Nakamura finally gave the signal to disengage and slip into an easier glide mode, ready for the final insertion.

But this was one of the things that made them special forces: the ability to fly hard, beyond the point where most Pilots and ships would break down, and then without recovery to move into a battle zone and operate better there than ordinary com bat trained ships and Pilots could when fresh.

Insertion.

And the exit into blazing space, filled with a profusion of starlight from the massive population making up the galactic core.

Quiescent and watching, in a warrior’s state of not-thought, of mushin, they floated, using passive sensors only – no transmission waves to ping against whatever they observed – for their job was reconnaissance, not assault, with the proviso that if they had to fight to get clear, they would bring shock and awe to the renegades, spreading death and confusion as they escaped.

Ordinary Pilots might have seen nothing, but the thirty-eight SRS Pilots and their highly trained ships were able, through stillness and hyper acuity, to observe shapes and movement against the blazing background, to make out patterns that others would not perceive, to piece together the nature of the installation existing here, and the vessels that attended it.

In briefing sessions they had referred to it hypothetically as Target Shadow, and here it was, not just a figment of the planners’ imagination but real and still growing, from what they could see.

The extended construction was vast: a sprawling free-floating militarised base, around which a flock of vessels moved, both realspace shuttles and mu-space ships Piloted by renegades. It was that mixture of Pilot and non-Pilot forces that meant the base had to be situated in realspace – that and the fact that the darkness was of this universe, perhaps more so than humanity, with goals that had nothing to do with mu-space and everything to do with the galactic core, and the thousand lightyear jet that spurted from it, perhaps from the legendary black hole at the exact centre of—

Maybe not.

What do you mean?

Drifting.

No one’s been to the very centre, have they?

Not alive. Maybe fragments of wreckage have drifted in.

I wouldn’t risk your safety, my love.

Quiet. No signals chatter among the ships.

We’re already in danger together, aren’t we?

True.

But the countdown continued, one hundred hours steadily diminishing to zero, the bug out time set by Nakamura acting as squadron leader, while Rhames as commander kept to the rear, relinquishing her right to lead – not the way Roger had envisioned combat squadrons operating, not until he joined one – and made no comment, indicating confidence in Nakamura’s decision.