“You’re being as arrogant as Capone,” Galic said. “Your thoughts, your opinions, are the ones which must prevail.”

“We all know very well what has to prevail,” she replied. “There has to be a valid species-wide government mechanism to implement the kind of policies which are going to be needed afterwards, and oversee the transition phase. For all its faults, the Confederation can be made to work properly. If it fails the human race will fragment, socially, politically, economically, religiously, and ideologically. We’ll be right back where we were in the pre-starflight age. It’ll take centuries to recover, to get us back to where we are today. By that time we should have joined the transcendent-active population of this universe.”

“We?”

“Yes. We. We privileged few. Just because we were engineered here doesn’t mean we’re not human. Two thousand years spent walking amongst our own people makes this the alien world.”

“Now you’re being melodramatic.”

“Call it what you like. But I know what I am.”

The internal sensors on the Villeneuve’s Revenge revealed Kingsley Pryor to be alone in his own small cabin. He’d adopted the same unnerving posture which André and his three crew had witnessed throughout the tortuous flight. He hung centimetres from the decking, legs folded in Lotus position, with eyes granted a vision of some terribly personal hell. Even over the link from the starship, the CNIS duty officer could see he was suffering.

With the remote electronic survey complete, and hull plate 4-36-M now detached and held in the MSV’s waldo, André was given a vector taking them in towards Trafalgar at a tenth of a gee. SD Command observed the flight computer responding to the crew’s instructions, coaxing the fusion tube to life. They were following the security protocols to the last byte.

Kingsley drifted the last few centimetres down onto the decking, and suppressed a whimper at what that meant. During the flight he’d elevated his dilemma to a near physical pain, every thought he had concerning his destination burned from within. There simply was no way out of the box Capone and his whore had trapped him in. Death surrounded him, making him more compliant than any set of sequestration nanonics could ever achieve. Death and love. He couldn’t allow little Webster and Clarissa to vanish into the beyond. Not now. Nor could he let them be possessed. And the only way to prevent that from happening also could not be permitted.

Like men in his position throughout history, Kingsley Pryor did nothing as events swept him to their conclusion; simply waiting and praying that a magical third option would spring from nowhere. Now with the fusion drive pushing the starship towards Trafalgar, hope had cast him aside. The power he had been given to inflict suffering was insane in its size, yet he could feel Webster and Clarissa. The two balanced, as Capone knew they would. And now Kingsley Pryor had to make that impossible choice between the intimate and the abstract.

The cabin sensor had enough resolution to observe his lips contracting into a bitter smile. It looked as though a scream was about to burst loose. The CNIS duty officer shook her head at the way he was acting. Looks as though his brain’s cracked, she thought. Though he was keeping passive enough.

What the sensor never showed her was a patch of air beside Kingsley’s bunk thicken silently into the shape of Richard Keaton. He smiled sadly down at the stricken Navy officer.

“Who are you?” Kingsley asked hoarsely. “How did you hide on board?”

“I didn’t,” Richard Keaton said. “I’m not a possessed here to check up on you. I’m an observer, that’s all. Please don’t ask for who, or why. I won’t tell you that. But I will tell you that Webster has escaped from Capone, he’s no longer on Monterey.”

“Webster?” Kingsley cried. “Where is he?”

“As safe as anyone can be right now. He’s on a rogue ship that takes orders from no one.”

“How do you know this?”

“I’m not the only person observing the Confederation.”

“I don’t understand. Why tell me this?”

“You know exactly why, Kingsley. Because you have a decision to make. You are in a unique position to affect the course of human events. It’s not often an individual is put in this position, even though you don’t appreciate all the implications stretching out ahead of you. Now, I can’t make that decision for you, much as I’d like to. Even I can’t break the restrictions I work under. But I can at least bend them enough to make sure you have all the facts before you pass your judgement. You must choose when and where you die, and who dies with you.”

“I can’t.”

“I know. It’s not easy. You just want the status quo to carry on for so long that you become irrelevant. I don’t blame you for that, but it isn’t going to happen. You must choose.”

“Do you know what Capone did to me, what I’m carrying?”

“I know.”

“So what would you do?”

“I know too much to tell you that.”

“Then you haven’t told me everything I need to know. Please!”

“Now you’re just looking for absolution. I don’t provide that, either. Consider this, I have told you what I believe you should know. Your son will not suffer directly from any action you take. Not now, nor in the time which follows.”

“How do I know you’re telling the truth? Who are you? ”

“I am telling you the truth, because I know exactly what to tell you. If I wasn’t what I say I am, how would I know about you and Webster?”

“What should I do? Tell me.”

“I just did.” Richard Keaton started to raise his hand in what could have been a gesture of sympathetic compassion. Kingsley Pryor never found out, his visitor faded away as beguilingly as he’d arrived.

He managed a small high-pitched snigger. People (or xenocs, or maybe even angels) were watching the human race; and were very good at it. It wouldn’t take much to see what was going on among the Confederation: a few carefully placed scanners could pick up the appropriate datavises, the CNIS and its counterparts did that as a matter of routine. But to secrete observers among the possessed cultures was an ability far beyond any ordinary intelligence agency. That kind of ability was unnerving. Despite that, he felt a small amount of relief. Whoever they were, they cared. Enough to intervene. Not by much, but just enough.

They knew the devastation he would cause. And they’d given him an excuse not to.

Kingsley looked straight at the cabin sensor. “I’m sorry. Really. I’ve been very weak to come this far. I’m ending it now.” He datavised an instruction into the flight computer.

On the bridge, André twitched in reaction as red neuroiconic symbols shrilled their warnings inside his skull. One by one, the starship’s primary functions were withdrawn from his control.

“Duchamp, what are you doing?” SD Command queried. “Return our access to the flight computer immediately or we will open fire.”

“I can’t,” the terrified captain datavised back. “The command authority codes have been nullified. Madeleine! Can you stop them?”

“Not a chance. Someone’s installing their own control routines through the Management Operations Program.”

“Don’t shoot,” André begged. “It’s not us.”

“It must be someone who had direct MOP access. That’s your crew, Duchamp.”

André gave Madeleine, Desmond, and Shane a frightened glance. “But we’re not . . . merde, Pryor! It’s Pryor. He’s doing this. He was the one who wanted to come here.”

“We’re powering down,” Desmond shouted. “Fusion drive off. Tokamak plasma cooling. Damn, he’s opened the emergency vent valves. All of them. What’s he doing?”

“Get down there and stop him. Use the hand weapons if you have to,” André shouted. “We’re cooperating,” he datavised at SD Command. “We’ll regain control. Just give us a few minutes.”