XIV

Ulver Seich tossed her damply tangled black hair over her shoulder and plonked her chin on Genar-Hofoen's chest. She traced gentle circles round his left nipple with one finger; he put a sweaty arm round her slim back, drew her other hand to his mouth and delicately kissed her fingers, one by one. She smiled.

Dinner, talk, drink, shared smoke-bowl, agreeing fuzzy heads might be cleared by a dip in the Grey Area's pool, splashing, fooling around… and fooling around. Ulver had been holding back a little for part of the evening until she'd been certain the man didn't just expect anything to happen, then when she'd convinced herself that he wasn't taking her for granted, that he liked her and that — after that awful time in the module — they did get on, that was when she'd suggested the swim.

She raised her chin off his chest a little and flicked her finger back and forth over his tinily erect nipple. "You were serious?" she asked him. "An Affronter?"

He shrugged. "Seemed like a good idea at the time," he said. "I just wanted to know what it was like to be one of them."

"So now would you have to declare war on yourself?" she asked, pressing down on his nipple and watching it rise back up, her brows creased with concentration.

He laughed. "I suppose so."

She looked into his eyes. "What about women? You ever wonder the same? You took the change once, didn't you?" She settled her chin back on his chest.

He breathed in deeply, raising her head as though on an ocean swell. He put one arm behind his head and stared up at the roof of her cabin. "Yes, I did it once," he said quietly.

She smoothed her palm over his chest for a while, watching his skin intently. "Was it just for her?"

He craned his head up. They looked at each other.

"How much do you know about me?" he asked her. He'd tried quizzing her over dinner on what she knew and why she'd been sent to Tier to intercept him, but she'd played mysterious (and, to be fair, he wasn't able to tell her exactly why he was on his way to the Sleeper Service).

"Oh, I know all about you," she said softly, seriously. Then she looked down. "Well, I know the facts. I suppose that's not everything."

He lowered his head to the pillow again. "Yes, it was just for her."

"Mm-hmm," she said. She continued to stroke his chest. "You must have loved her a lot."

After a moment, he said, "I suppose I must have."

She thought he sounded sad. There was a pause, then he sighed again and, in a more cheerful voice, he said; "What about you? Ever a guy?"

"No," she said, with a laugh that might have held a trace of scorn. "Maybe one day." She shifted a little and circled his nipple with the tip of her tongue for a moment. "I'm having too much fun being a girl."

He reached down and pulled her up to kiss her.

Then in the silence, a tiny chime sounded in the room.

She broke off. "Yes?" she said, breathing hard and scowling.

"I'm very sorry to intrude," said the ship, making no great effort to sound sincere. "May I speak to Mr Genar-Hofoen?"

Ulver made an exasperated noise and rolled off the man.

"Good grief, can't it wait?" Genar-Hofoen said.

"Yes, probably," said the ship reasonably, as though this had just occurred to it. "But people usually like to know this sort of thing immediately. Or so I thought."

"What sort of thing?"

"The sentient module Scopell-Afranqui is dead," the ship told him. "It conducted a limited destruct on the first day of the war. We have only just heard. I'm sorry. Were you close?"

Genar-Hofoen was silent for a moment. "No. Well… No. Not that close. But I'm sorry to hear it. Thank you for telling me."

'Could it have waited?" the ship asked conversationally.

"It could, but I suppose you weren't to know."

"Oh well. Sorry. Good night."

"Yes, good night," the man said, wondering at his feelings.

Ulver stroked his shoulder. "That was the module you lived on, wasn't it?"

He nodded. "We never really got on," he told her. "Mostly my fault, I suppose." He turned his head to look at her. "I can be a scum-bag sometimes, frankly." He grinned.

"I'll take your word for it," she said, climbing back on top of him.

10. Heavy Messing

I

Grief, nothing worked! The Fate Amenable To Change's ordnance directed at the Elench drone ship just disappeared, snatched away to nowhere; it had to react quickly to deal with the collapsing wormholes as they slammed back, now endless, towards its Displacers. How could anything do that? (And had the watching Elench warships noticed?) The little Elench drone flew on, a few seconds away from its home ship.

— I confess I just tried to destroy your drone, the Fate sent to the Appeal To Reason. ~ I make no apologies. Look what happened. It enclosed a recording of the events. ~ Now will you listen? There seems little point in trying to destroy the machine. Just get away from it. I'll try to work out another way of dealing with it.

— You had no business attempting to interfere with my drone, the Appeal To Reason replied. ~ I am glad that you were frustrated. I am happy that the drone appears to be under the protection of the entity. I take it as an encouraging sign that it is so.

— What? Are you mad?

— I'll thank you to stop impugning my mental state with such regularity and allow me to get on with my job. I have not informed the other craft of your disgraceful and illegal attack on my drone; however, any further endeavours of a similar nature will not be treated so leniently.

— I shall not try to reason with you. Goodbye and fare well.

— Where are you going?

— I am not going anywhere.

II

The General Contact Unit Grey Area was about to rendezvous with the General Systems Vehicle Sleeper Service. The GCU had gathered its small band of passengers in a lounge for the occasion; one of the ship's skeletal slave-drones joined them as they watched the view of hyperspace behind them on a wall screen. The GCU was making the best speed it could, rushing beneath the skein at a little over forty kilolights on a gently, decreasingly curved course that was now almost identical to that of the larger craft approaching from astern.

"This will require a coordinated full engine shut-off and Displace," the small cube of components that was the drone told them. "For an instant, none of us will be within my full control."

Genar-Hofoen was still trying to think of a cutting remark when the drone Churt Lyne said, "Won't slow down for you, eh?"

"Correct," the slave-drone said.

"Here it comes," said Ulver Seich. She sat cross-legged on a couch drinking a delicately scented infusion from a porcelain cup. A dot appeared in the representation of space behind them; it rushed towards them, growing quickly. It swelled to a fat shining ovoid that rushed silently underneath them; the view dipped quickly to follow it, beginning to perform a half-twist to keep the orientation correctly aligned. Genar-Hofoen, standing near where Ulver sat, had to put his hand out to the back of the couch to steady himself. In that instant, there was a sensation of a kind of titanically enveloping slippage, the merest hint of vast energies being gathered, cradled, unleashed, contained, exchanged and manipulated; unimaginable forces called into existence seemingly from nothing to writhe momentarily around them, collapse back into the void and leave reality, from the perspective of the people on the Grey Area, barely altered.

Ulver Seich tssked as some of her infusion spilled into the cup's saucer.