“Maybe it is.” Sun had come up with us, leaving the rest of the team down by the Nagini. No one else seemed overkeen to spend time either in or near the cavern.

“It’s supposed to be a hyperspatial link,” I said, moving sideways in an attempt to break the hold the thing’s alien geometry was exerting. “If it maintains a line through to wherever, then maybe it moves in hyperspace, even when it’s shut down.”

“Or maybe it cycles,” Sun suggested. “Like a beacon.”

Unease.

I felt it course through me at the same time as I spotted it in the twitch across Sutjiadi’s face. Bad enough that we were pinned down here on this exposed tongue of land without the added thought that the thing we had come to unlock might be sending off ‘come and get me’ signals in a dimension we as a species had only the vaguest of handles on.

“We’re going to need some lights in here,” I said.

The spell broke. Sutjiadi blinked hard and looked up at the falling rays of light. They were greying out with perceptible speed as evening advanced across the sky outside.

“We’ll have it blasted out,” he said.

I exchanged an alarmed glance with Sun.

“Have what blasted?” I asked cautiously.

Sutjiadi gestured. “The rock. Nagini runs a front-mounted ultravibe battery for ground assault. Hansen should be able to clear the whole thing back this far without putting a scratch on the artefact.”

Sun coughed. “I don’t think Commander Hand will approve that, sir. He ordered me to bring up a set of Angier lamps before dark. And Mistress Wardani has asked for remote monitoring systems to be installed so she can work direct on the gate from—”

“Alright, lieutenant. Thank you.” Sutjiadi looked around the cavern once more. “I’ll talk to Commander Hand.”

He strode out. I glanced at Sun and winked.

“That’s a conversation I want to hear,” I said.

Back at the Nagini, Hansen, Schneider and Jiang were busy erecting the first of the rapid deployment bubblefabs. Hand was braced in one corner of the assault ship’s loading hatch, watching a cross-legged Wardani sketch something on a memoryboard. There was an unguarded fascination in his expression that made him look suddenly younger. “Some problem, captain?” he asked, as we came up the ramp.

“I want that thing,” said Sutjiadi, jerking a thumb back over his shoulder, “out in the open. Where we can watch it. I’m having Hansen ‘vibe-blast the rocks out of the way.”

“Out of the question.” Hand went back to watching what the archaeologue was doing. “We can’t risk exposure at this stage.”

“Or damage to the gate,” said Wardani sharply.

“Or damage to the gate,” agreed the executive. “I’m afraid your team are going to have to work with the cavern as it is, captain. I don’t believe there’s any risk involved. The bracing the previous visitors put in appears to be solid.”

“I’ve seen the bracing,” said Sutjiadi. “Bonding epoxy is not a substitute for a permanent structure, but that’s—”

“Sergeant Hansen seemed quite impressed with it,” Hand’s urbane tone was edged with irritation. “But if you are concerned, please feel free to reinforce the current arrangement in any way you see fit.”

“I was going to say,” Sutjiadi said evenly, “That the bracing is beside the point. I am not concerned with the risks of collapse. I am urgently concerned with what is in the cavern.”

Wardani looked up from her sketching.

“Well that’s good, captain,” she said brightly. “You’ve gone from polite disbelief to urgent concern in less than twenty-four hours real time. What exactly are you concerned about?”

Sutjiadi looked uncomfortable.

“This artefact,” he said. “You claim it’s a gate. Can you give me any guarantees that nothing will come through it from the other side?”

“Not really, no.”

“Do you have any idea what might come through?”

Wardani smiled. “Not really, no.”

“Then I’m sorry, Mistress Wardani. It makes military sense to have the Nagini’s main weaponry trained on it at all times.”

“This is not a military operation, captain.” Hand was working on, ostentatiously bored now. “I thought I made that clear during briefing. You are part of a commercial venture, and the specifics of our commerce dictate that the artefact cannot be exposed to aerial view until it is contractually secured. By the terms of the Incorporation Charter, that will not become the case until what is on the other side of the gateway is tagged with a Mandrake ownership buoy.”

“And if the gate chooses to open before we are ready, and something hostile comes through it?”

“Something hostile?” Wardani set aside her memoryboard, apparently amused. “Something such as what?”

“You would be in a better position than I to evaluate that, Mistress Wardani,” said Sutjiadi stiffly. “My concern is simply for the safety of this expedition.”

Wardani sighed.

“They weren’t vampires, captain,” she said wearily.

“I’m sorry?”

“The Martians. They weren’t vampires. Or demons. They were just a technologically advanced race with wings. That’s all. There’s nothing on the other side of that thing,” she stabbed a finger in the general direction of the rocks, “that we won’t be able to build ourselves in a few thousand years. If we can get a lock on our militaristic tendencies, that is.”

“Is that intended as an insult, Mistress Wardani?”

“Take it any way you like, captain. We are, all of us, already, dying slowly of radiation poisoning. A couple of dozen kilometres in that direction a hundred thousand people were vaporised yesterday. By soldiers.” Her voice was starting to rise, trembling at base. “Anywhere else on about sixty per cent of this planet’s land mass, your chances of an early, violent death are excellent. At the hands of soldiers. Elsewhere, the camps will kill you with starvation or beatings if you step out of political line. This service too, brought to us by soldiers. Is there something else I can add to clarify my reading of militarism for you?”

“Mistress Wardani.” Hand’s voice held a tight strain I hadn’t heard before. Below the ramp, Hansen, Schneider and Jiang had stopped what they were doing and were looking over towards the raised voices. “I think we’re getting off the point. We were discussing security.”

“Were we?” Wardani forced a shaky laugh, and her voice evened out. “Well, captain. Let me put it to you that in the seven decades I have been a qualified archaeologue, I have never come across evidence to suggest that the Martians had anything more unpleasant to offer than what men like you have already unleashed across the face of Sanction IV. Excluding the small matter of the fallout from Sauberville, you are probably safer sitting in front of that gate than anywhere else in the northern hemisphere at the moment.”

There was a small silence.

“Maybe you want to train the Nagini’s main guns on the entrance to the cavern,” I suggested. “Same effect. In fact, with the remote monitoring in place, it’ll be better. If the monsters with half-metre fangs turn up, we can collapse the tunnel on them.”

“A good point.” Seemingly casual, Hand moved to position himself carefully in the hatch between Wardani and Sutjiadi. “That seems the best compromise, does it not, captain?”

Sutjiadi read the executive’s stance and took the hint. He threw a salute and turned on his heel. As he went down the ramp past me, he glanced up. He didn’t quite have his previous immobility of feature down with the new Maori face. He looked betrayed.

You find innocence in the strangest places.

At the base of the ramp he caught one of the gull corpses with his foot and stumbled slightly. He kicked the clump of feathers away from him in a spray of turquoise sand.

“Hansen,” he snapped tightly. “Jiang. Get all of this shit off the beach. I want it cleared back two hundred metres from the ship on all sides.”