The disruption faded, and Cormac almost resented the feeling of the attack ship surfacing into the real once again. It was as if, now that he was managing to control his perception of U-space, he wanted to stay there. He was, however, glad to find himself still sitting on his bed this time and not sprawled in one of the ship’s corridors outside.

‘I have something,’ said King over the ship’s intercom.

‘Erebus?’

‘It’s gone.’

‘What do you mean it’s gone?’

‘I sensed some large object ahead — mass equivalent to that of the war runcible,’ said King tetchily. ‘Now it’s gone.’

‘ Chameleonware?’

‘Possibly.’

Cormac had not really taken that into account. Why would this Orlandine, controlling a massive heavily armed thing like that, feel the need to hide from a mere attack ship?

‘Position?’ Cormac enquired.

‘Two thousand miles Earthside of the narrowest constriction in the corridor through the U-space disruption.’

Interesting…

‘It’s back again.’

‘What?’

‘Are you deaf?’

‘Please confirm for me—’

‘Gone again,’ King interrupted, then deigned to explain further: ‘Unusual chameleonware, and it seems Orlandine is having some trouble with it.’

Cormac was on his feet now, strapping Shuriken to his wrist. He donned the backpack, hung the proton carbine from its strap over his shoulder, and jammed his thin-gun into his envirosuit belt. Stepping out into the corridor, he quickly headed for the bridge, his U-sense expanding out from the attack ship but still unable to penetrate the surrounding disruption. In a moment he was aware that Arach and Hubbert Smith had joined him. Maybe they hoped he could take them with him.

Within seconds they arrived on the black glass floor, under a dome of stars.

‘I am receiving communication,’ said King. ‘Orlandine says she wants to speak with whoever is in charge here.’

‘Well, take the usual precautions and let’s hear what she has to say. Meanwhile keep taking us in closer.’

‘Understood.’

After a delay, doubtless while King checked for informational attack, a line cut down through the air, then opened out into the figure Cormac recognized from a file presently stored in his gridlink. She was an imposing woman but, then, with people able to remake themselves however they wanted, that really meant nothing.

‘Orlandine,’ said Cormac, intending to continue talking for as long as possible so King could get closer.

‘Who are you?’ she asked abruptly.

‘I am Agent Ian Cormac of ECS,’ he replied. ‘It would appear you have acquired some Polity property there. Do you suppose that you could see your way clear to explaining what you intend to do with it.’

‘I see,’ said Orlandine, ‘that you intend to draw this conversation out so you can get closer. An attack ship’s conventional weapons would have some problem getting through my defences, so either you have something else or you are desperate.’

‘You didn’t answer my question, Orlandine.’

Her hologram gazed at him. ‘I doubt you would believe the answer.’

‘Try me.’

‘I am here to destroy Erebus.’

The problem with that explanation, Cormac felt, was that it was all too plausible. However, the problem with that plausibility was that he could not afford to acknowledge it. There would only be one chance to get close enough to the stolen war runcible.

‘And why would you want to do such a thing?’

‘Cease approaching this war runcible immediately or I will fire on you,’ was her reply.

‘All I need is an explanation,’ said Cormac.

‘You’re not listening, are you.’ She gave a disappointed frown, her hologram froze, shrank to a line, disappeared.

‘Engaging chameleonware,’ King intoned.

A sudden change of course sent Cormac staggering to one side despite the gravplates’ attempts to compensate. Abruptly, the war runcible was hanging out there in space, and he felt it was almost within his grasp. With an effort of will he could throw himself across to it, transport himself to the selected set of buffers… Then it fell out of his grasp as King of Hearts turned hard and accelerated. A blinding stream of ionized matter stabbed past. Its effect was negligible to Cormac’s deeper U-sense but, upon snatching information from King’s server, he saw that Orlandine was firing a particle beam at them powerful enough to cut the attack ship in half.

‘Oops,’ said Arach. ‘I guess this means she’s hostile.’

‘Surely not,’ said Smith. ‘She throws moons at those who really irk her.’

Ignoring this comedy duo, Cormac instructed, ‘King, closer.’

‘I’m trying,’ King replied, ‘but there’s the small matter of the rail-gun missiles and the targeting systems trying to lock onto me, despite my chameleonware, which I’m incidentally having to reconfigure every five seconds.’

‘Right,’ conceded Cormac.

Another abrupt change of direction sent him staggering, so he stepped over to a fixed chair and braced himself against it. Despite the attack ship dodging back and forth, King managed to keep the image of the war runcible steady. Each time Orlandine’s particle beam lashed out, Cormac flinched and drove his fingers harder into the chair back. At one point it flashed particularly close and a sound like a ship’s hull scraping a reef echoed through the bridge. A second later the outside view was momentarily blocked by a cloud of incandescent gas filled with sparking globules of molten metal, for the beam had grazed King’s hull. Then flashes blossomed about the war runcible and, again linking to King’s server, he identified their source as a multitude of hunter-killer missiles being launched.

‘I cannot stay here for much longer,’ said King. ‘I will attempt one close run, then I’ll have to pull out. Just be ready.’

Cormac glanced around at Arach, who was gripping the indents specially cut in the floor for him, then across at Hubbert Smith, who was rigidly ensconced in a chair with his arms crossed and a frown creasing his face. He felt King of Hearts turn again and, reaching out with his U-sense, found the attack ship now heading directly towards the war runcible. He brought that massive objective into full focus, his perception sliding inside it. Concentrating on one of the five horn assemblies, he identified his destination and tried to fix on it. The sensation was like preparing to jump down to the deck of a violently rocking boat. The missiles were now close, their nose cones glaring steel eyes in the blackness.

Now.

Cormac felt able to take himself across and knew, at that moment, he could bring more along with him.

‘Arach!’

The drone abruptly scuttled forward and Cormac reached down, placing a hand behind his head as if grabbing the scruff of a pet dog.

Smith?

No, there wasn’t time to grab him, for even now King of Hearts was turning to evade the approaching missiles and so moving away from his objective — and anyway he didn’t trust the Golem. As he stepped through nothingness, he felt that his perception of missiles whipping past him could only be illusion. He focused on a landing point, his foot coming down on metal. Gravity snatched hold of him and he realized the metal under his foot was a wall.

‘Whoohoo!’ Arach yelled.

Cormac fell back towards a gravplated floor, turning in midair to land heavily on his feet and then roll. He ended up crashing into Arach, who had landed much better. The drone steadied him with one gleaming limb, which Cormac used to haul himself upright.

Stay with it…

He still kept King of Hearts within his perception, but warheads were now detonating out there, while something here — perhaps the runcible technology surrounding him — was interfering with his U-sense. Through his gridlink he set the CTD for signal-break detonation, unhooked his rucksack and abandoned it on the floor, then prepared to make the jump back to the attack ship. Too late, for the attack ship was gone — either it was already out of range or one of the detonations had destroyed it. He tried making contact through his gridlink but found too much interference.