Chastened, Aasleen joined Washen.

Gazing straight upward, they saw nothing. Again, blackness ruled the universe, and a bitter sucking cold ran through the black, and for a slender exhausted moment, Washen found herself wondering:

What if the polypond is right?

If the Creation was something aborted or delayed … and if freeing the mysterious passenger, the prisoner in the center of Marrow, could wipe away this endless night … then how awful was the crime that they were committing here today … ?

Washen swallowed her doubts and closed her eyes.

Into that self-imposed darkness, a voice spoke.

“Mother,” he said.

For an instant, she assumed Locke was elsewhere. She left her eyes closed, opening one of the last of her working nexuses. But the only presence waiting there was the Master herself.

“News?” the woman inquired.

“None,” Washen admitted.

“Then why pester me?” she snarled. And as the nexus closed again, Locke said to his mother:

“Here. Look here.”

He stood behind her. She hadn’t noticed his arrival, and as she turned to face him, a reflexive anger took hold. Why would her only child set himself in this very dangerous place? She came close to scolding him, then relief pushed the anger aside. Quietly, without hope, she said, “We are going to win here. Now.”

The small man nodded dutifully, saying nothing. He was dressed like an AI sage, except for a Wayward belt tied around his waist, the brown leather looking peculiar against the milky white toga. Like everyone in this place, he was exhausted. A few deep breaths were necessary before he had the wind to admit, “I have been trying to find you and talk—”

“I’ve always kept a nexus open to you,” she interrupted.

“To your face, Mother.”

The deadly tone made her focus.

To his face, she asked, “What is it?”

“I know who they are now,” he began.

“Who they are now?”

“As you guessed, like I imagined … for billions of years, and maybe since the beginning, they’ve been following in the ship’s wake …”

To Washen, it felt as if a fist of stone had been driven into her belly.

“They were chasing after our ship,” Locke continued. “But they were a long distance behind, and I don’t think they knew their target’s location. Not precisely, no. But then we fired the big engines—for the first time ever. We changed our trajectory, not once but thousands of times.” He lifted a flattened hand, and, using the fingertip of his other hand, he showed what he imagined must have happened. The Great Ship dove into the galaxy, tracing out an elaborate and highly publicized course partway around the Milky Way. While the other ship, following at some considerable distance, had several options open to it.

“That second ship could have dropped close to the old white dwarf, just as we did,” said Locke. “But it would have been noticed, and I don’t think its crew wanted to be seen. And besides, they still would have been left far behind us. If their goal was to catch up to us—”

“But they couldn’t do that,” Washen interrupted. “We’ve been over this and over this.” She shook her head, using her own flattened hand and fingertip to describe various trajectories into the Milky Way. “I don’t see how anyone could close a gap as large as what we’re talking about … tens of thousands of light-years behind us, maybe …”

“But what if this other ship … ?”

Locke started to pose another question, then paused. The floor was shaking, the entire ship vibrating now, an epic force moving closer to them by the instant.

Pamir looked straight up.

Aasleen stared at the Wayward, her eyes wide and glassy. “But if these pursuers had a streakship,” she began.

“Or its equivalent,” Locke agreed. “A swift vessel, but very limited. Too tiny to carry the sensors necessary to pinpoint exactly where the Great Ship was. Coasting at the ship’s velocity. No extra fuel to make endless course corrections.” He nodded, reminding his mother, “Hammerwings fly slowly when they hunt. Only when they see their prey for certain do they accelerate to full velocity.”

The shivering floor quieted for a moment.

Then the drumming grew worse than ever, threatening to knock everyone off their feet.

“They couldn’t see their target until we ignited the engines, until we gave it a voice. We made the Great Ship boast about its merits and future course, and by then humans had control, and what would be the most reasonable course for something that is very swift but small?”

Pamir dropped his gaze. “Get ahead of us,” he offered. “Wait for us along the way, somehow …”

“They’d have to be exceptionally patient,” Aasleen warned.

Then with her next breath, she admitted, “But they’ve already invested a few billion years in their pursuit.”

Humans would never comprehend that kind of fortitude.

“I’ve been thinking this thorough Locke continued.”If I was small but very quick—and if I didn’t know where the Great Ship was, but I had a fair idea about its velocity—I would match its trajectory to the best of my ability, then I would wait, and watch, and wait. For as long as was necessary. And when I saw the Great Ship fire its engines for the first time—a tiny flicker thousands of light-years ahead of me—I’d know that someone had finally found it and claimed it for themselves. And that’s when I would spend all of my reserves. I wouldn’t try to catch the ship straightaway. I probably don’t have the resources to take it back from its new owners. But I could decipher the ship’s future course, and if I burned every gram of fuel to jump ahead, diving into the galaxy at a point along that course, and there find a likely world …”

He hesitated.

“What?” Washen snapped.

“I’d find an empty world and then play an enormous game,” Locke explained. “I would build up my numbers, invent a history and then use that history to fool the captains … I would beg for a small berth on this vast, precious ship … and after an appropriate interval, I would quietly vanish from the captains’ view …”

The floor bucked suddenly.

A thousand silent alarms told Washen the worst. Then in the next moment, the team’s lead engineer declared, “We’ve got to load and calibrate; then we are ready. Ready!”

The first thin trace of light appeared directly above them.

Locke glanced upward and quietly said, “The !eech.”

But the Submasters had no time left for oddities and old histories. Suddenly they were hurrying off to stations where they could help orchestrate the final battle. Even Washen had to say to her son, “Not now. In a few minutes, maybe. But I can’t listen anymore, darling.”

Locke found himself standing alone.

The band of light above him was brightening. The polypond’s ultimate weapon was biting into a sudden emptiness. But he paid little attention to the mayhem, his mouth closing for a moment while the eyes wandered in no particular direction, then the mouth parted again, and to nobody he said, “But this is what is most interesting. I think.”

He explained, “They left just enough of a trail to be followed. Just enough that I could envision their existence and find their marks and follow them until I am absolutely sure that they exist.”

He paused.

Again, the floor shivered, and he glanced up at the descending blade, and in the barest whisper, he said, “Of course. Whatever they are, whatever they desire … they want very much to be found …”

Forty-seven

The cap-car wore a dozen burly coats of the finest hyperfiber, but the protection was far from adequate. “We’re being seared alive,” Osmium remarked, as they lifted into the blue-white glare. With gamma radiation punching its way through the armor and through their bodies, he told his companion, “We are cooking like a meal,” while his eating mouth made the rudest possible sound.