Garamond received an increasing number of requests from crewmen, especially those who were inactive when the main drive was not in use, for permission to stay on Orbitsville under canvas. At first he encouraged the idea, but Napier reported that the remaining personnel were becoming resentful of their relaxed and sunburned colleagues whose eyes held a new kind of contentment and surety when they returned to ship duties. Partly to combat the divisive forces, Garamond took the Bissendorf on a circuit of Orbitsville’s equatorial plane and established that no other entrances were visible.

He also set teams of men to work on moving the swarm of dead ships to a position a thousand kilometres down orbit from the aperture. With the ships at their new station, photographic teams went inside as many as was practicable and made records of their findings. They confirmed Garamond’s first guess that the hulls had been used as mines and sources of supply. The interiors were gutted, stripped to the bare metal of their hulls, and in some cases it turned out that what had first been thought of as the havoc of battle was actually the work of scavengers. An unfortunate by-product was that virtually nothing was found which would have let researchers deduce the appearance of the aliens who had built and flown the huge fleet. The most significant find was a section of metal staircase and handrailing which hinted that the aliens had been bipeds of about the same size as humans.

Where were they now?

The question came in for more discussion than did speculations on the whereabouts of the beings who had created Orbitsville. It was understood that the sphere-builders had possessed a technology of an entirely different order to that of the race which had produced the ships. The instinctive belief was that the sphere-builders were unknowable, that they had moved on to new adventures or new phases of their existence, because it would be impossible to be near them without their presence being felt. Orbitsville appeared to be and was accepted as a gift from the galactic past.

Garamond brought Aileen and Christopher into the sphere, through the newly constructed L-shaped entrance port, for a strangely peaceful vacation. Aileen was, as he had predicted, able to adjust to Orbitsville’s up-curving horizons without any psychological upsets, and Chris took to it like a foal turned loose in spring pastures. In the daytime Garamond watched the boy’s skin acquire the gold of the new-found sun, and at nights he sat outside with Aileen beneath the fabulous archways of the sky, their gratification all the more intense because of the period of despair which had preceded it.

Only in dreams, or in the half-world between consciousness and sleep, did Garamond feel any apprehension at the thought of Elizabeth advancing across the light-years which lay between Orbitsville and Earth.

To the unaided vision it would have appeared that her flagship came alone, but in fact it was at the head of a fleet of seventy vessels. An interstellar ramjet on maindrive was surrounded by its intake field, a vast insubstantial maw with an area of up to half a million square kilometres, and for this reason the closest formation ever flown was in the form of a thousand-kilometre grid. The fleet was unwieldy even by Starflight standards. It spent two days in matching velocities with the galactic drift of Pengelly’s Star and in deploying its individual units in parking orbit. When each ship had been accurately positioned and its electromagnetic wings furled, the flagship — Starflier IV — advanced slowly on ion drive until it was almost alongside the Bissendorf. Captain Vance Garamond received a formal invitation to go on board.

The very act of donning the black-and-silver dress uniform, for the first time ever in the course of a mission, made him aware that once again he was within Elizabeth’s sphere of influence. He was not conscious of any fear — Orbitsville had had too profound an effect on the situation for that — yet he was filled with a vague distaste each time he thought of the forthcoming interview. For the past four months he had been certain of the fact that Elizabeth’s consequence had been reduced to normal human dimensions, but her arrival at the head of an armada suggested that the old order was still a reality. For her, the only reality.

The sight of his dress uniform had disturbed Aileen, too. As the doors of the transit dock opened and the little buggy ventured out on to the black ocean of space, Garamond remembered the way his wife had kissed him before he left. She had been abstracted, almost cold, and had turned away quickly. It was as though she were suppressing all emotion, but in his final glimpse of her she had been holding their golden snail against her cheek. He stood behind the pilot of the buggy for the whole of the short trip, watching the flagship expand until it filled the forward screens. When the docking manoeuvre had been completed he stepped watchfully but confidently into the transit bay where a group of Starflight officials were waiting. Behind the officials were a number of men in civilian dress and carrying scene recorders. With a minimum of ceremony Garamond was escorted to the Presidential suite and ushered into the principal stateroom. Elizabeth must have given previous instructions, because his escorts withdrew immediately and in silence. The President was standing with her back to the door. She was wearing a long close-fitting gown of white satin — her favourite style of dress — and three white spaniels floated drowsily in the air close to her feet. Garamond was shocked to see that Elizabeth had lost most of her hair. The thinning black strands clung to her scalp in patches, making her look old and diseased. She continued to stand with her back to him although she must have been aware of his presence.

“My Lady…” Garamond scuffed the floor with his magnetic-soled boots, and the President slowly turned around. The skin of her small-chinned face was pale and glistening.

“Why did you do it, Captain?” Her voice was low. “Why did you run from me?”

“My Lady, I…” Garamond, unprepared for a direct question, was lost for words.

“Why were you afraid of me?”

“I panicked. What happened to your son was a pure accident — he fell when I wasn’t even near him — but I panicked. And I ran.” It occurred to Garamond that Elizabeth might have sound political and tactical reasons for choosing to meet him as a mother who had lost a child rather than as an empress in danger of being usurped, but it did not lessen her advantage.

Incredibly, Elizabeth smiled her asymmetrical, knowing smile. “You thought I wouldn’t understand, that I might lash out at you.”

“It would have been a natural reaction.”

“You shouldn’t have been afraid of me. Captain.”

“I… I’m glad.” This is fantastic, Garamond thought numbly. She doesn’t believe any of it. I don’t believe any of it. So why go on with the charade?

“…suffered, and you’ve suffered,” Elizabeth was saying. “I think we always will, but I want you to know that I bear you no grudge.” She came closer to him, still smiling, and her soft satiny abdomen brushed his knuckles. Garamond thought of spiders.

“There isn’t any way I can express how sorry I am that the accident occurred.”

“I know.” Elizabeth’s voice was gentle, but suddenly the room was filled with her sweet, soupy odour and Garamond knew that, just for an instant, she had thought of killing him.

“My Lady, if this is too much for you…”

Her face hardened instantly. “What makes you think so?”

“Nothing.”

“Very well, then. We have important business matters to discuss, Captain. Did you know that the Council, with my consent, has authorized the payment to you of ten million monits?”

Garamond shook his head. “Ten million?”