‘So you keep saying,’ Ayanna replied drily.

‘Let’s see if we can, first,’ Rojas said. His hands moved nimbly over various switches on the pilot’s console. Two thirds of the way along the shuttle’s lower fuselage, a malmetal hatch flowed open. Four Mk24 GSDs (General Science Drones) emerged from their silo and began flying towards the Forest, looking like black footballs studded with hexagonal diamonds.

‘Functionality is good,’ Rojas said. Each Mk24 was displaying a visual image on a console pane. ‘I’ll send them in one at a time.’

‘There isn’t a clear barrier,’ Ayanna said. ‘The effect simply increases as you approach the outermost layer of trees.’

‘You mean I’ll get an increasingly delayed telemetry response?’

‘Could be,’ Ayanna replied. Uncertainty tainted her thoughts.

‘The first should reach the trees in forty minutes,’ Rojas said.

Laura kept looking at the view through the windscreen; she found it easier than constantly reinterpreting the images from the Mk24s. They weren’t getting much more than the full-spectrum visual feed. Hard science data was sparse. The solar wind was normal, as was the cosmic radiation environment.

‘I wonder if this is what schizophrenia feels like,’ Ibu said after twenty minutes. ‘I wanted a new and exciting life; that’s why I joined the colony project.’

‘But not this exciting,’ Laura suggested.

‘No fucking way. But I have to admit, the Void is intriguing. From a purely academic point of view, you understand.’

‘I’ll take that over boredom.’

The big man cocked his head to look at her with interest. ‘You were going to another galaxy because you were bored?’

‘I’ve had six marriage partnerships, and a lot more fun partners. I’ve had twelve children, not all of them in a tank; I’ve actually been pregnant twice, which wasn’t as bad as I was expecting. I’ve lived on the External and Inner worlds and sampled every lifestyle that wasn’t patently stupid. I thought becoming a scientist on the cutting edge of research would be infinitely thrilling. It wasn’t. Damn, unless you’re in it, you have no idea of how much petty politics there is in academia. So it was either a real fresh start, or download myself into ANA and join all the incorporeal minds bickering eternity away. And I just didn’t believe that was a decent solution.’

‘Interesting. What faction would you have joined?’

‘Brandts traditionally join the moderate Advancers. That sounded more of the same. So here I am.’

Ibu gestured at the vast silver stipple beyond the windscreen. ‘And is this not the infinite thrill you were searching for? You must be very content at what fate has dealt us.’

‘Hmm. More like infinitely worrying.’

‘Maybe, but we are in the middle of the galaxy’s greatest enigma. Unless we solve it, we will never return to the real universe. You can’t beat that for motivation.’

‘The more I see and understand,’ Laura said, ‘the more it seems to me we’re lab rats running around a particularly bizarre maze. What kind of power has the ability to pull us in here, then apparently ignore us?’

‘You think we’re being watched?’

‘I don’t know. I suspect this place isn’t quite as passive as the captain believes. What would be the point of it doing nothing?’

‘What’s the point of it at all?’

She shrugged, which didn’t work well in freefall.

‘Vermillion has decelerated into low orbit,’ Rojas announced. ‘They’re launching environment analysis probes into the planet’s atmosphere.’

‘It’s an oxygen nitrogen atmosphere,’ Ayanna said disparagingly. ‘And spectography showed the kind of photosynthetic vegetation we’ve found everywhere we’ve been in the galaxy. Unless there are some hellish pathogens running round loose down there, Cornelius will give the order to land.’

‘He doooesn’t,’ Joey began. The erratic spasms afflicting his face and neck mangled the words, so everyone had to listen hard now whenever he spoke. ‘Ever ned t-t-to lanid.’

‘How’s that?’ Laura asked.

‘Because of the Skathl . . .’ A burst of anguish flowered in Joey’s mind as his traitor muscles distorted his words beyond recognition. ‘Thusss Skahh.’ He shut his mouth forcefully. Began again. ‘Moih woold . . .’ His head bowed in defeat. ‘Because of the Skylords,’ his telepathic voice said clearly. ‘They brought us here for whatever this ridiculous fulfilment kick of theirs is. If they wanted to kill us, the very least they had to do was just leave us drifting in space while all our systems glitched and crashed. But they found us and guided us here, specifically here to this star which has an H-congruous type planet. On top of that, this whole place is artificial. Like Laura said, we’re here for a reason. Death isn’t it.’

‘Makes sense,’ Laura said. ‘On the plus side, it probably means the Vermillion and the others will be able to land intact.’

Ibu grunted in agreement. ‘And probably won’t be able to fly again.’

‘Fulfilment,’ Rojas said, as if hearing the word for the first time. ‘You’re making it sound like a sacrifice to a god.’

‘Best theory yet,’ Ayanna said. ‘The Void is the most powerful entity we’ve yet encountered. God’s not a bad description.’

‘Now you’re into infinite regression,’ Ibu said cheerfully. ‘If this is a god, what does that say of whoever created it?’

‘I’m not sure this qualifies as an entity,’ Laura said. ‘I’m sticking with my theory that the Void’s a more advanced version of ANA. Just a big-ass computer, running a real-life simulation that we’re trapped in.’

‘Nothing so far disproves that,’ Ayanna said sympathetically. ‘But that still means there’s a reason for it existing, and there’ll be a controlling sentience.’

‘My vote’s for a work of art,’ Joey told them. ‘If you can create this, you’re a long, long way past us on the evolutionary scale. Why not do it for fun?’

‘Because it’s dangerous and going to kill the galaxy,’ Rojas said.

‘If you’re a god, that might be fun.’

‘Let’s hope we don’t meet Her then,’ Ibu said sardonically.

Laura looked at the Forest again. ‘Well, I don’t think she’s likely to be in there.’

‘We might not get to find out,’ Rojas said. ‘The first Mk24’s telemetry feed is going weird on us.’

‘Weird, how?’ Ibu asked.

Rojas was studying several displays. ‘The datastream is slowing down. I don’t mean there’s less information; it’s dopplering – the bit rate separation is increasing.’

‘Temporal flow reduction,’ Ayanna said in satisfaction. ‘The quantum sensor data was right.’

‘Where’s the drone?’ Laura asked.

‘A hundred and fifty kilometres from the nearest distortion tree,’ Rojas said. ‘Approach rate, one kilometre a second. I’m reducing that now; I need more time to initiate manoeuvres.’

‘How’s it responding?’ Joey asked. There was a lot of curiosity behind the question.

‘Sluggish,’ Rojas admitted. ‘Oh: interesting. The second Mk24’s data is speeding up.’

‘The effect is fluctuating?’ Ayanna asked. ‘Now that is odd.’

‘Okay, and now the second Mk24’s telemetry is dopplering back down,’ Rojas said.

‘Maybe it’s a variable threshold,’ Laura suggested. The lack of instant information was exasperating; this mission was like operating in the Stone Age. Once again, she instinctively asked her u-shadow to connect to the shuttle’s network. Startlingly, the interface worked. A whole flock of icons popped up in her exovision. Secondary thought routines operating in her macrocellular clusters began to tabulate an analysis on an autonomic level. The raw torrent of information suddenly shifted to being precise and edifying.

Joey and Ayanna immediately turned to look at her, and she realized she’d let out a mental flash of comfort. ‘What’s the antonym of glitch?’ she asked. ‘I’ve just got a full-up connection to Fourteen’s network.’

‘Resurrection?’ Ibu suggested.