"In the context you have stated, it is wrong. But how do I know that those following you seek to dominate others of your species? How do I know it is not you who favor this course?"

Lawrence gave Denise an awkward shrug. "Damn, I've gone and triggered its paranoia. Any ideas?"

"Our dragon can tell you all about our intentions," Denise said.

"I would be willing to do that," the Arnoon dragon confirmed.

"That would not be acceptable," One told them. "The fragment's processing routines are derived from your genetic algorithms. It is your creature."

Denise cursed at the pane showing One's visual image, a tiny black splinter lost against the irradiated fog. "Now what?"

"Rely on human nature," Lawrence said. "May we approach you?" he asked One. "Our ship is being strained by this environment. Your umbra would provide shelter. And we'll be safer there."

"Safer relative to what?"

"Open space. The human following us may be violent. He will not risk using weapons close to you."

"Very well."

"After that, could you wait until a third ship arrives? The information could then be given to all of us simultaneously. That would achieve a balance, wouldn't it?"

"I will wait."

Simon had spent the entire voyage in the Norvelle's sickbay. After the first fortnight, the two doctors onboard had begun his dermal regeneration treatment. New skin was now growing successfully over the deeper burns. He found the whole process extremely tiring; the new growth seemed to devour energy from the rest of his body. Fortunately the pursuit of the Koribu didn't require his attention.

Captain Sebastian Manet had been surprised at the course the hijacked starship had taken. "They're heading for Aldebaran," he'd said as soon as Simon's stretcher was maneuvered through the Xianti's airlock tunnel.

Simon's personal AS scrolled data on the star. "A red giant? Are there any planets there?"

"The astronomers have never found any," Manet said. "However, we don't know for sure. There have never been any missions to Aldebaran. Nobody's pure science budget ever ran to that."

"Interesting. So we could well have an alien civilization living closer to us than we ever knew: right inside our sphere of influence, in fact."

The captain's front of disapproval faded slightly. "Is that what all this is about?"

"Yes. Now how long before we can depart?"

"I wanted to talk to you about that."

"There is no discussion over this matter."

"It will take a hundred and four days to reach Aldebaran from here. We will barely have enough fuel to return."

"But we do have the capacity?"

"Just. Assuming nothing goes wrong. There's also the crew to consider. They did not anticipate an extra two hundred days' flight time plus however long we remain in the Aldebaran system itself."

"Rubbish. I know you space-types. They will relish the opportunity of performing first contact."

"Then what about the ground forces on Thallspring? When will we return for them?"

"Captain, you will either give the order to go FTL or tell me you will not."

Sebastian Manet gave the obscured figure on the stretcher a hateful glance. "Very well. We can go FTL in another eight minutes."

They had barely spoken in the hundred days that followed. Simon had spent a lot of the time asleep, as the treatments ate into his reserves of strength. In his waking hours he reviewed every scrap of data they'd acquired on the Arnoon alien, hoping for some insight. Each day he checked the tracking data. Koribu remained a resolute twenty-six minutes and thirteen seconds ahead of them. He began to make his own plans for exodus. Manet, along with his crew, could not be trusted with what needed to be done, and they couldn't be allowed to interfere. Simon's personal AS reviewed and confirmed all the command codes, ensuring he retained ultimate authority over the starship.

Ten days before the exodus Simon ordered the doctors to end his treatments. The interval would allow him to build his strength up again.

On the day itself he remained in sickbay; the doctors and medical staff had been dismissed. He lay on the bed, content that the pain had reduced over the last three months. He would have the physical resources to carry this out. His DNI and optronic membrane linked him with every vital sensor outside the starship, their data formatted by his personal AS into a comprehensive wraparound display, putting his perception point at the front of the starship. At the moment it was surrounded by a formless gray haze, with an ebony knot far ahead of them. Indigo ranging data scrolled across it.

Simon kept switching his attention between it and the other knot, the one following them forty minutes behind. He knew the SK9 had somehow got himself up to orbit and into a starship. There was only one reason he'd do that.

"Shouldn't be long now," Captain Manet announced. "We're detecting the photosphere."

Beyond the knot representing the Koribu, a faint drizzle of black was creeping through the nothingness, as if space were coming to an end outside the compression wormhole. Then the knot began to waver, expanding as it lost density. It vanished.

"They left that late," Manet said. "Only forty million kilometers out."

"We need to be close to them," Simon said.

"Yes, I know. But I'm going to shift our inclination. If they're really hostile they'll mine the exodus zone."

Simon spent the next twenty-five minutes watching the black barrier of the star's photosphere coming toward them, wondering what Newton and his friends were doing out there in real space. With five minutes to go until their own exodus, Manet armed the Norvelle's missiles in preparation. The ship's AS primed the fusion drive under the bridge crew's supervision. Then the black wall was unnervingly close, and beginning to pick up speed. It fractured radially, with red streaks fizzling through. Then the huge starship was sailing high above a glaring carmine smog that seemed to stretch out forever in all directions.

Columns of indigo digits streamed around Simon, mutating wildly as they went. There was no mass point within five hundred kilometers. No sensor radiation fell across them. Infrared energy began to soak the fuselage. The big secondary chemical rocket engines around the cargo section flared brightly, initiating a slow thermal roll. Large rectangular radar antennae began to deploy.

Simon used his command capability to launch a salvo of missiles. Pressure doors throughout the Norvelle closed and locked, isolating the crew.