"You want her washed and anointed, put in a white robe and placed on a stone altar, too?" Yalson said acidly. Horza shook his head.

"I want her clean of anything, anything at all that could be used as a weapon or that could turn into one. The Culture's latest gadgetry for the Special Circumstancers includes things called memoryforms; they might looked like a badge, or a medallion…" He smiled at Balveda, who nodded back wryly, "… or anything else. But do a certain something to them — touch them in the right place, make them wet, speak a certain word — and they become a communicator, a gun or a bomb. I don't want to risk there being anything more dangerous than Ms Balveda herself on board."

"What about when we get to Schar's World?" Balveda said.

"We'll give you some warm clothes. If you wrap up well, you'll be all right. No suit, no weapons."

"And the rest of us?" asked Aviger. "What are we supposed to do when you get to this place? Assuming they'll let you in, which I doubt."

"I'm not sure yet," Horza said truthfully. "Maybe you'll have to come with me. I'll have to see what I can do about the ship's fidelities. Possibly you'll all be able to stay on board; perhaps you'll all have to hit dirt with me. However, there are some other Changers there, people like myself but not working for the Idirans. They should be able to look after you if I'm to be gone for any amount of time. Of course," he said, looking at Yalson, "if any of you want to come along with me, I'm sure that we can treat this as a normal operation in terms of share-outs and so forth. Once I'm finished with the CAT, those of you who so desire may want to take it over for yourselves, run it any way you like; sell it if you want; it's up to you. At any rate, you'll all be free to do as you wish, once I've accomplished my mission on Schar's World — or done my best to, at least."

Yalson had been looking at him, but now she turned away, shaking her head. Wubslin was looking at the deck. Aviger and Dorolow stared at each other. The drone was silent.

"Now," Horza said, rising stiffly, "Yalson and Dorolow, if you wouldn't mind seeing to Ms Balveda…" With a show of some reluctance, Yalson sighed and got up. Dorolow started to undo some of the restraining straps around the Culture agent's body. "And do be very careful with her," Horza continued. "Keep one person well away from her with the gun pointed in her direction the whole time, while the other does the work."

Yalson muttered something under her breath and leaned to pick up the stun gun from the table. Horza turned to Aviger. "I think somebody should tell Neisin about all the excitement he's missed, don't you?" Aviger hesitated, then nodded.

"Yes, Kraik-" He stopped, spluttered, then said no more. He got up from his seat and went quickly down the corridor towards the cabins.

"I think I'll open up the forward compartments and have a look at the laser, Kraiklyn, if that's all right with you," Wubslin said. "Oh, I mean Horza." The engineer stood, frowning and scratching his head. Horza nodded. Wubslin found a clean undamaged beaker and took a cold drink from the dispenser, then went down the corridor through the accommodation section.

Dorolow and Yalson had freed Balveda. The tall, pale-skinned Culture woman stretched, closing her eyes and arching her neck. She ran a hand through her short red hair. Dorolow watched warily. Yalson held the stun gun. Balveda flexed her shoulders, then indicated she was ready.

"Right," Yalson said, waving Balveda forward with the gun. "We'll do this in my cabin."

Horza stood up to let the three women by. As Balveda passed, her long, easy stride unencumbered by the light suit, he said, "How did you get off The Hand of God, Balveda?"

She stopped and said, "I killed the guard and then sat and waited, Horza. The GCU managed to take the cruiser intact. Eventually some nice soldier drones came and rescued me." She shrugged.

"Unarmed, you killed an Idiran in full battle armour and toting a laser?" Horza said sceptically. Balveda shrugged again.

"Horza, I didn't say it was easy."

"What about Xoralundra?" Horza asked through a grin.

"Your old Idiran friend? Must have escaped. A few of them did. At any rate, he wasn't among the dead or captured."

Horza nodded and waved her by. Followed by Yalson and Dorolow, Perosteck Balveda went down the corridor to Yalson's cabin. Horza looked at the drone sitting on the table.

"Think you can make yourself useful, machine?"

"I suppose, as you obviously intend to keep us all here and take us to this unattractive-sounding rockball on the edge of nowhere, I might as well do what I can to make the journey as safe as possible. I'll help with the vessel's maintenance, if you like. I would prefer, though, if you called me by my name, and not just by that word you manage to make sound like an expletive: «machine». I am called Unaha-Closp. Is it asking too much for you to address me as such?"

"Why, certainly not, Unaha-Closp," Horza said, trying to look and sound sufficiently bogus in his abjection. "I shall most assuredly ensure that I call you that in future."

"It might," the drone said, rising from the table to the level of Horza's eyes, "seem amusing to you, but it matters to me. I am not just a computer, I am a drone. I am conscious and I have an individual identity. Therefore I have a name."

"I told you I'd use it," Horza said.

"Thank you. I shall go and see if your engineer needs any help inspecting the laser housing." It floated to the door. Horza watched it go.

He was alone. He sat down and looked at the screen, down at the far end of the mess. The debris that had been Vavatch glowed with a barren glare; that vast cloud of matter was still visible. But it was cooling, dead and spinning away; becoming less real, more ghostly, less substantial all the time.

He sat back and closed his eyes. He would wait a while before going to sleep. He wanted to give the others time to think about what they had found out. They would be easier to read then; he would know if he was safe for the moment or whether he would have to watch them all. He also wanted to wait until Yalson and Dorolow had finished with Balveda. The Culture agent might be biding her time, now she thought she had longer to live, but she might still try something. He wanted to be awake in case she did. He still hadn't decided whether to kill her now or not, but at least he, too, now had time to think.

The Clear Air Turbulence completed its last programmed course correction, swinging its nose towards the Glittercliff face; not in the precise direction of the Schar's World star, but onto the general bearing.

Behind it, still expanding, still radiating, still slowly dissolving in the system to which it had given its name, the unnumbered twinkling fragments of the Orbital called Vavatch blew out towards the stars, drifting on a stellar wind that rang and swirled with the fury of the world's destruction.

Horza sat alone in the mess room a little longer, watching the remnants dissipate.

Light against the darkness, a fat torus of nothing, just debris. An entire world just wiped out. Not merely destroyed — the very first cut of the Grid energies would have been enough to do that — but obliterated, taken carefully, precisely, artistically apart; annihilation made into an aesthetic experience. The arrogant grace of it, the absolute-zero coldness of that sophisticated viciousness… it impressed almost as much as it appalled. Even he would admit to a certain reluctant admiration.

The Culture had not wasted its lesson to the Idirans and the rest of the galactic community. It had turned even that ghastly waste of effort and skill into a thing of beauty… But it was a message it would regret, Horza thought, as the hyper-light sped and the ordinary light crawled through the galaxy.