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  He lost count. No, he concluded, there could be no overall meaning. There usually wasn’t, when you reduced events to their building-blocks. Accidents occurred, chances fell; gates opened here and closed there; but there was no hidden force insisting on an overall direction. Nothing made him survive the crashlanding or predators. No sinuous enigmatic force had willed it, any more than if he dropped dead now it would have been willed. If he dropped dead now, it would mean only that his abilities weren’t enough.

  And yet, he stood swaying on the ridge, a slight dark figure, and wondered if all his teaching was wrong. For below him in the dust bowl lay the ninth and final irony. He had no idea it would be there when he laboured up the shallow incline; he had thought to skirt the slope but his innate tidymindedness, or maybe it was obsessiveness, made him keep to his straight path, even if straight meant up.

  And now, below him in the shallow dust bowl and almost but not quite within hailing distance, sat a small Commonwealth command post. He continued to stand on the ridge, unable to walk forwards. A few more minutes passed.

  •

  “Fucker,” said Sergeant Madsen, mechanically and without malice. The way he said it, without emphasis on either syllable, gave it an everyday cadence. If he had spoken it as part of a longer sentence, it would have been hidden in the other words.

  He was talking to a dismantled drone lying on the bench in front of him. He’d been working on it for four hours, and couldn’t get its optical circuits to function. Unknown to Sarabt, this was the tenth and possibly final irony. If it had been working properly four hours ago, it would have been quartering the area of desert where the lifeboat crashlanded, and would almost certainly have seen him.

  Madsen was just about to give up on it. The optical circuitry wasn’t responding to any of his efforts. He leaned back and listened to the door of one of the outbuildings banging in the wind.

  Only a Sakhran would be polite enough to describe it as a Command Post. It was a collection of three sheds (two plus an outside toilet) to which Madsen and two others had travelled by tracked groundcar. It was the only collection of buildings anywhere near the area where they had calculated, from the lifeboat’s last known trajectory, that the crashlanding might have occurred. Their orders were to set up at the command post and quarter the desert with the remotely-piloted drone to spot any survivors. It hadn’t worked. The drone was a low-budget, short-range model, and its optical circuits were trashed. Ironically (would Sarabt have seen this as the eleventh irony?) it had been assembled by Sakhrans, as part of a failing Commonwealth re-employment project.

  In fact, the whole thing was rather half-assed. Yes, they’d told him, it would be easier just to quarter the desert with a flier, but all piloted fliers (Bast 3 didn’t have that many) were commandeered. In case, they told him, She came back.

  Hynd looked round the door.

  “Luck, Sergeant?”

  Madsen shook his head. “S’not gonna work. Give up, is best. Where’s Stockton?”

  “Toilet,” Hynd said, and added, “Wanking himself silly.”

  Madsen snorted, not in disgust but because he always snorted rather than blow his nose, and returned to the drone. It was spread out on the workbench like a dissected bat. He folded up the pinions and fabric of its wings, folded back its jointed body, went to return it to its carrycase, and found it wouldn’t fit.

  “Get him to come fit this back in its box. We’ll have to go back for another one.”

  “Should’ve brought two,” Hynd muttered as the door closed behind him, but Madsen heard.

  “Three,” he shouted at the door. “ ’Member who made them.”

  He snorted again, for the same reason as before. His personal hygiene was not of the first quality. While he waited for Stockton, Madsen remembered that his scalp itched. He scratched it—an event he had been saving, as a treat, for just such a moment. White flakes flew around his head and settled on the workbench, where they were camouflaged by dust.

  Stockton came in, still buttoning his fly, and, at a nod from Madsen in the direction of the workbench, commenced unpacking and re-packing the drone. Like Hynd, he was of average build with regular and not unpleasant features, but there was something not right about him. He had tastes he couldn’t share with real people, so he kept them to himself; and made frequent visits to the toilet. His colleagues often said he might have been Outsider material. He had all the required deviances and loner tendencies, and lacked only the talent.

  Second time round, the drone still didn’t fit. Part of its nose with the malfunctioning optic—if it had really been a bat, it would be part of its head with the left eye hanging out—refused to go in the carrycase. Stockton was about to start again, but Madsen couldn’t face the tedium.

  “Oh, leave it. Tell Hynd, take the groundcar and bring another one…No, tell him bring another three.”

  “Another three, Sergeant?”

  “He’ll understand.”

  Stockton went out. A moment later he was back.

  “Sergeant, you’d better come and see this.”

  He got up, at first wearily; then, seeing Stockton’s face, he straightened, hurried to the open doorway, and stood, with Hynd and Stockton, gaping at the figure which stumbled down the incline towards them. A slight, dark figure.

  “He needs help,” Stockton pronounced.

  “Oh, you think?” Madsen roared, and ran towards the figure, the others following. The figure bumped into the groundcar which stood directly in its way—still trying to keep a straight line—and continued, and when they reached it, it did not fall into their arms, or fall down, but stood before them swaying.

  Sarabt was still wearing his Commonwealth officer’s uniform, but only the top half. Below his waist he was naked. Madsen smelt, then saw, the bloody ruins hanging from his lower abdomen and between his legs.

  “Oh, you poor bastard,” he said, “you were pregnant, weren’t you?” He took Sarabt by the shoulders and gently lowered him to the ground. The secondary eyelids were flicking horizontally, and the mouth worked soundlessly, but his thin face held no expression.

  “Mmmmmmmmm,” Sarabt said, and “Ssssssssssssss.”

  “Later,” Madsen said. “Rest. Rest is best.” He turned to Stockton, who was already rushing back to the shed, and shouted “Tell Command to get a medical team here, now! Sakhran survivor of Pallas, premature childbirth, can’t be moved.”

  The smell from between Sarabt’s legs was shocking, even to Madsen, but Madsen stayed with him. He lost it, he said to himself, it died. Probably buried it out there, they do when they lose them, they bury them immediately. Along with their name and their past and their future.

  Now that Sarabt had stopped moving, flies were circling thickly around the area between his legs. Madsen went to cover him with his jacket, then thought better of it; better not touch or cover any injuries before help arrived. Instead he began waving his hands a few inches above the injured area, just to disperse the flies. He thought how strange it would look to Stockton if he returned; to Stockton, of all people.

  Stockton returned just then, but was too preoccupied to notice.

  “Mmmmmmmmmm,” Sarabt said again, and “Ssssssssssss.” It was no use. The words stayed inside him. His lips wouldn’t shape them.

  “They’re on the way,” Stockton said. Madsen nodded.

  Stockton brought a cup of water. Madsen propped Sarabt in his arms so he could take it. He accepted it gratefully, though he spilt most of it; the cup was too big for his narrow carnivore’s mouth.

  He seemed to be more comfortable propped up in Madsen’s arms, so Madsen stayed holding him, with the other two sitting close by in the dust. Arranged thus, they waited for help to arrive. His smell had got worse—Sakhran blood had a smell which humans found unendurable—but they stayed with him.

  The medical team arrived in two fliers which landed vertically nearby, but there were also at least eight others which continued overhead and into the desert, in the direction fro
m which Sarabt came. Madsen remembered the drone and exchanged a weary glance with Hynd.

  An hour later he started talking, though he was incomprehensible to any but the Sakhran doctors with the medical team. One of them turned to Madsen.

  “Sergeant, he keeps saying he wants you to put in a call to Thahl.”

  “Get the location. Stockton’ll do it, won’t you?”

  “He means,” the Sakhran said, “the First Officer on the Charles Manson.”

  “Oh, shit.”

  Not even ordinary warships would take non-military calls when they were on a mission: custom, as well as regulations, forbade it absolutely. Outsider Class ships, like the Charles Manson, were the most unreachable of all. Officially, they were almost nonexistent.

  “I’ll fix it, Sergeant” Stockton said quietly. “I’ll get the Charles Manson for him.”

  And somehow he did.

  •

  “Commander,” Thahl said, “I’ve been told I have an urgent personal call. May I take it?”

  Foord raised an eyebrow—a gesture missed by most of those on the Bridge because of the soft lighting, though Thahl noted it—and said “Yes, of course. Do you wish to take it privately?”

  “No thank you, Commander, I’ll take it here.”

  He spoke softly into his comm, nodded, and waited. No call came through. A couple of minutes passed. The soft lighting seemed to darken, as if the Bridge had its own artificial summer evening. It turned almost to twilight. Movements flickered discreetly round its edges, and low nuanced voices murmured.

  No call came. Sarabt had died before they could connect him.

  PART TWO

  “It won’t happen again” the convoy leader repeated. “Probably.”

  “What caused it?” asked Copeland.

  “A malfunction in the remote guidance system.”

  “I didn’t ask what it was. I asked what caused it.”

  “These malfunctions are quite common in freighters, Captain.”

  “I’ll try again. What. Caused. It.”

  Pause. “We don’t know.”

  “You can’t be certain it wasn’t Her.”

  The convoy leader stayed silent.

  Come on, Copeland thought, it’s only a double negative. But he didn’t bother to press for an answer.

  It was Her.

  In a convoy of thirty-one unmanned freighters, number Twenty-Nine had suddenly broken formation and embarked on a peregrination of its own for nearly three minutes, after which it had re-inserted itself in the line-ahead formation of the convoy. It was not uncommon for remotely-piloted freighters to do such things, and since returning it had responded perfectly to signals. There was absolutely no evidence that anything external was involved. And, at Copeland’s repeated insistence, they had checked and rechecked that, most thoroughly.

  He knew it was Her.

  “You can’t be certain it wasn’t Her! Probably Won’t Happen Again is no good to me!”

  The convoy leader’s image, on Copeland’s small chair-side comm screen, showed none of the anxiety this outburst had caused among Copeland’s crew on the Bridge, only a dogged will not to be bullied; he was a civilian.

  Copeland knew about civilian pilots, and knew about people who wouldn’t be bullied. He remained silent, and let his silence grow loud and long, never for a moment taking his eyes off the comm screen. Finally, the convoy leader started to fidget under his rancid gaze.

  “Captain, I….”

  “Until,” Copeland resumed, his voice now soft, “you can tell me exactly what caused the malfunction, I’m assuming it was Her. That means my ship remains on alert, and if any ship in your convoy breaks formation again I may order it destroyed. That includes the manned lead freighter. Your manned lead freighter.”

  “Captain, I….”

  “Stay on, I haven’t finished with you yet.”

  Copeland was large and overweight, an unreasonable and fractious burden for his Captain’s chair, even though it was reinforced. He had the complexion of a piece of uncooked pork, and eyes like the heads of embedded maggots. His gaze switched abruptly from the chair-side comm screen to the main screen at the front of the Bridge, where the convoy of freighters, thirty-one idiot unmanned ships led by one idiot manned ship, stretched for miles, identical nose to identical tail. It continued to lumber on undisturbed, and Copeland continued to lumber in his chair, disturbed. He was not reassured. His instincts were usually pessimistic, and usually accurate.

  He refocused his glare on the Bridge officers in front of him, silhouetted against the forward main screen, and barked “Status reports.”

  “Scanners: there are no sightings. Maintaining alert.”

  Copeland referred to his Bridge officers, and had them refer to themselves, by their function and not their name—an archaic military custom of which he was one of the few remaining practitioners.

  “Weapons: everything powered up and on immediate readiness.”

  “Engineering: immediate readiness on all drives.”

  “Signals: maintaining open channels with Anubis 3 and 4. They detect no other ships.” Pause. “Convoy leader is waiting to report, Captain.”

  Copeland swivelled to face the comm screen. His chair creaked as he did so.

  “Convoy leader,” he intoned, “I’m pleased to tell you that I’m now able to accept your status report.”

  The face on the screen started to frown, then thought better of it. Most ship’s captains took status reports at much longer intervals than this. Copeland took them every thirty or forty minutes; he treated them as recitations, to help him focus.

  The convoy leader checked his own instruments. “We’re two hours twelve minutes from arrival at Anubis 4. Guidance systems are functioning. No further incidents. But…”

  “Acknowledged.”

  “But I respectfully request, once again, that you move your ship closer. We want a proper escort.”

  “Respectfully denied.”

  “Commander, Anubis 4 needs this convoy urgently.”

  “Be precise. The convoy is going to the moon of Anubis 4. And it needs this convoy no more or less urgently than it needed any of the previous convoys.”

  “Previous convoys were delivered before She started appearing. Do I have to remind you that you volunteered to handle the escort of this convoy yourself?”

  “I volunteered because it was politically impossible to order any smaller ship to handle it.” And, he added to himself, no other ship in Anubis would have a chance, not if She appeared here. I won’t send others to certain death when I can send myself to, well, to perhaps not-quite-certain death.

  “Captain, unless you give us closer escort I can only assume that you’re using us as bait! You’re inviting an attack.”

  “I can hardly defend you without one.”

  He slammed the channel shut before the convoy leader could see past the apparently clever rejoinder and realise that he meant Yes, I am. As the small comm screen went dark he scanned the unmoving silhouettes of his Bridge officers for any reaction. He found none. They knew exactly what he meant, but they felt his gaze on their backs and took care to remain like cardboard cutouts.

  “Pilot, he said two hours twelve minutes until Anubis 4. Is that accurate?”

  “Yes, Captain.”

  “It’s too long.”

  “It’s as fast as the convoy will go, Captain.”

  Copeland’s disgusted snort was violent enough to jerk his body, which in turn brought a creak from the contour chair on which he was beached untidily and asymmetrically. Over the last hours the creak of the chair had assumed the character of a second voice, prefacing and echoing his shifts of mood (and of posture, which was the same thing) like an extra person, a familiar. The Bridge officers tensed when they heard it, then cancelled their tensing, then grew tenser in case he had spotted their tension before they cancelled it. It was a process which came close to perpetual motion.

  Some members of his crew asserted that Copeland’s
mind was as small as his body was large, others that it was as agile as his body was ponderous. He knew of the existence of both opinions and took care to ignore them equally.

  •

  Anubis and Isis were both ex-Sakhran systems: much larger than the almost negligible Bast, but much smaller than Horus, the Sakhrans’ home system.

  Bast, where the Pallas had been destroyed, was light-years away. The Commonwealth spanned twenty-nine solar systems; but the MT Drive, discovered almost by accident three centuries ago, compressed the spaces between solar systems to nothing, and removed distances from awareness. So, when the other twenty-eight systems got news of what had happened in Bast, it was like hearing muffled sounds in another room of the same darkened house.

  The news had reached the Wulf, Copeland’s ship, just after it passed the mid-point of its journey from Anubis 3, the system’s major planet, to the moon of Anubis 4. Copeland had promptly gone to full alert, dropped back from the convoy, and waited for the equivalent of footsteps in the hall and the turning of a door-handle.

  He knew it was Her.

  He knew She was in the system. Even before he heard about the events in Bast, he knew She would be coming, not just to this system but for this convoy. That was why he overrode the normal protocols and transferred escort duty from the small Class 072, which would normally have done it, to his own ship. The Wulf was a Class 095 cruiser, by far the highest designation in the small Anubis Fleet which, until now, had been more than sufficient for the security of the system. It was a silver needle nearly fifteen hundred feet long, as small and predatory in the wake of the freighters as a Sakhran stalking a herd of herbivores. It had three-percent sentience.