A speck of hoary-grey flitted among the strands of blackness, snapping in and out of view. Following the smooth curving motions put Dariat in mind of a skier, the thing’s course was very much like a slalom run. Every turn brought it closer to Valisk.

The nebula doesn’t get out of its way,the personality remarked. It’s dodging the braids.

That implies a controlling intelligence, or at least animal-level instinct.

Absolutely.

The initial consternation of Rubra’s descendants had given way to a slick buzz of activity. Those out in the spaceport were activating systems, aligning them on the visitor. An MSV was powered up, ready for an inspection/interception flight.

An MSV can’t match that kind of manoeuvrability,dariat said. The visitor performed a fast looping spiral around a grainy black curlicue, shooting off in a new direction parallel to Valisk’s shell, fifteen kilometres distant. Visual resolution was improving. The visitor was about a hundred metres across, appearing like a disk of ragged petals. Even a voidhawk would have trouble making rendezvous.

The visitor darted behind another frayed column of blackness. When it re-emerged it was soaring almost at right angles to its original course. Its petals were bending and flexing.

They look like sails to me,dariat said.

Or wings. Although I don’t understand what it could be pushing against.

If this continuum has such a low energy state, how come it can move so fast?

Beats me.

Several spaceport dishes started tracking the visitor. They began transmitting the standard CAB xenoc interface communication protocol on a multi-spectrum sweep. Dariat allowed his affinity bond to decline to a background whisper. “Come on,” he told a frowning Tolton. “We’ve got to find a window.”

The visitor didn’t respond to the interface protocol. Nor did it show any awareness of the radar pulses fired at it. That was perhaps understandable, given that they produced no return signal. The only noticeable change as it spun and danced ever-closer was the way shadows congealed around it. Visually it actually appeared to grow smaller, as though it were flying away from the habitat.

That’s like the optical distortion effect which the possessed use to protect themselves with,dariat said. he and tolton had found a snug bar called Horner’s on the twenty-fifth floor. The two big oval windows were misted over inside, forcing Tolton to wipe them clean with one of the coarse table cloths. His breath kept splashing against the icy glass, condensing immediately.

Well we did choose a realm suitable for ghosts,the personality said.

I’ve never heard of a ghost that looked like that.

The visitor was within five kilometres of the shell now, about where the filigree of nebula strands began. There was only empty space between it and the habitat now.

Maybe it’s scared to come any closer,the personality said. I am considerably larger.

Have you tried an affinity call?

Yes. It didn’t respond.

Oh. Well. Just a thought.

The visitor left the convoluted weave of the nebula and flashed towards the vast bulk of the habitat. By now its deceptive glamour had reduced it to a rosette of oyster ribbons twirling gracelessly in the wake of a fluctuating warp point. The image of the nebula and its strange borealis storms fluxed and bent as the visitor traversed them; oscillating between iridescent scintillations and a black boundary deeper than an event horizon. Nothing about it remained stable.

It streaked over to within fifty metres of the shell then veered round to follow the curve, wriggling wildly from side to side. The quick serpentine orbit allowed it to cover a considerable portion of the habitat’s exterior.

It’s searching,the personality said. That implies a degree of organisation. It has to be sentient.

Searching for what?

A way in, I imagine. Or something it can recognize, some method of establishing communication.

Do any of the spaceport defences still work?dariat asked.

You have to be bloody joking. We need all the allies we can get.

Before we fused, you used to be the mother of all suspicious neurotic bastards. I think that would be a preferable attitude for you right now.

Well that’s the effect of your mature calming influence for you. So you’ve only got yourself to blame. But don’t worry, I’m not going to send the MSV after it.

Thank Tarrug for that.

Our visitor should be coming over your horizon any second now. Perhaps your eyes will do better than my sensitive cells.

“Wipe the glass again,” Dariat told Tolton.

The soaking table cloth smeared the moisture in long streaks. Tiny flecks of frost were glistening dull white over the rest of the big oval. Tolton switched off two of his lightsticks. Both of them peered forward. The visitor arched over the rim of the shell, lensing thin spires of vermilion and indigo light as it came. They wavered in the runnels of water, wobbling insubstantially before sinking back down into the visitor’s core. Now all that remained was a black knot in the continuum’s fabric racing over the dark rust-coloured polyp.

Tolton’s weak grin was bloated with uncertainly. “Am I being paranoid, or is that heading towards us?”

In the earlier time and place, long ago and far away, they had called themselves the Orgathй. Now, names had lost all meaning and relevance, or perhaps they themselves had devolved into something else, such was the way of this atrocious existence. There were many others adrift in the dark continuum, sharing their fate. Identity was no longer singular. A myriad of racial traits had blended and faded into a singleton over the aeons.

Purpose, though, purpose remained steadfast. The quest for light and strength, a return to the sweet heights from whence they had all fallen. A dream sustained even within the mйlange. Few forms existed now outside of the mйlange. The process of diminution claimed every life to fall into these depths. But this one had risen yet again, buoyed up by the tides of chaotic chance that rioted within the mйlange, spat out to roam the murk for as long as it had strength. The freeflying state of such escapees was still that of the Orgathй, though the essence of many others rode upon its wings. Its chimerical shape was a tortured mockery of the once glorious avian lords who ruled the swift air currents of their homeworld.

Ahead of it now drifted the exotic object. It was composed of a substance to be found only in the oldest of the Orgathй’s memories, those that pre-dated the dark continuum. How strange that it could barely recognize the antecedent of its own salvation.

Matter. Solid organized matter. Alive with a heat so fierce it took the Orgathй some time to acclimatise to the radiance; elevating itself to a near ecstatic level of warmth. Incredibly, just within the scorching surface, a sheet of life energy burned bright and vigorous. The entire object was a single mighty entity. Yet passive. Vulnerable. This was a feast which would sustain a huge proportion of the mйlange for a long time. It might even trigger a total dispersal.

The Orgathй slithered close to the object’s surface, feeling the mind within follow its flight. Vast swirls of rich thought flowed underneath it as it basked in the warmth. But there was no way to reach the abundant life-energy through the hard surface. If the Orgathй attempted to claw its way through, it would surely incinerate itself. Contact with so much heat for so long could probably not be sustained. But the craving within itself from proximity to so much vital life-energy was overwhelming.