· Be not sorry. We all find it difficult on occasion. We shall,

perhaps, talk further on the matter.

· I was afraid we might.

· To return to my question, then.

· Do I believe all that stuff?

· Correct.

Fassin looked around at the ship beneath them and the great assemblage of roaring engines, whirling blades and supporting structures. The Long Crossing: thirty million years between galaxies.

· The idea that anything built by Dwellers could make a journey of that length does place the credulity under a degree of tension, he admitted.

· The assertion that the outward journey was made so much more rapidly seems no less to belong to the realm of fantasy.

Ah yes, the great and almost certainly mythical intergalactic “hole.

· I would not argue with you, colonel. Though I would say it’s perfectly possible that these are all nonsense, but the specific object we’re looking for still exists.

· It keeps unlikely company.

· Again, I wouldn’t choose to dispute the matter. We are left with the fact that you are a colonel, I am some sort of honorary major and orders are orders.

· How assiduously one attempts to follow one’s orders might be affected by the extent to which one believes they are capable of being carried out successfully.

· There I would completely agree with you. What are you getting at?

· Just calibrating, major.

· Seeing how committed I am? Would I sacrifice my life for our… object of desire?

· Something like that.

· I suspect we’re both sceptics, colonel. Me more than you, I suppose. We also believe in doing our duty. You more than me, perhaps. Satisfied?

· Content.

· Me too.

· I received a communication from the Ocula this morning.

· Really?

And were you always going to tell me, or could I have been even more mission-sceptical during that last exchange, and been told nothing? Or has your “calibration’ meant I’m not going to get told everything now?

— Yes. Our orders remain as they were. There were several more attacks on the system in general at the time of the assault on the Third Fury moon. Further, less intense attacks have continued. The communications satellite system around Nasqueron is being repaired as a matter of urgency. In the meantime a Navarchy fleet is being stationed above the planet, to take the place of the satellites, to provide security and main force back-up for you and me, and to pick us up at the end of our mission, or in an emergency.

Fassin took a moment to think.

· Any word from my Sept, Sept Bantrabal?

· None. There was confirmation that all those on or in Third Fury were killed. I am sorry to report that Master Technician Hervil Apsile is also believed to be dead. There has been no sign of or communication with the drop ship. I have been asked by the Ocula to pass on their commiserations to you regarding all those deceased Seers and supporting staff, to which of course I add my own.

— Thank you.

The colonel might have executed a sort of rolling bow, or it might just have been the effects of the swirling, buffeting slipstream tearing around them.

The slave-children had suffered no further casualties. Their repairs appeared to be working. Even where they had not completed their renovations, the damaged blades were vibrating less, making the rest of the job easier.

— How many ships were they sending to Nasqueron, to do all these things? That one small ship and two puck-sized satel-lites could do?

— This was not mentioned.

Fassin said nothing.

There were some potentially unfortunate consequences implicit in a profound belief in the Truth. One was that there was a possibility that when the simulation ended, all the people being simulated would cease to exist entirely. The sim might be turned off and everybody within the substrate running it would die. There might be no promotion, no release, no return to a bigger and better and finer outside: there might just be the ultimate mass extinction.

Also, back in the (apparently) real world, there was an argument that the Truth implied approval of its own extinctions, that it tacitly encouraged mass murder and genocide. Logically, if one way of upping the proportion of those who truly believed was to evangelise, convince and convert, another was to decrease the numbers of those who steadfastly refused to accept the Truth at all — if necessary by killing them. The tipping point into revelation and deliverance for all might come not at the moment when a sceptic became a believer but at the point that an un-reformable heathen breathed their last.

The Stormshear plunged into a great dark wall of thicker cloud, dimming the view. Lights started to come on, shining from the supporting structure and the Dweller skiffs. Soon they could see little, and the mad, overwhelming cacophony of the slipstream and the droning engines made sonosense near impossible. A methane hail rattled around them in the gathering gloom.

· Time to go in, perhaps, the colonel said.

· Amen.

* * *

The next day brought target practice, as the Stormshear’s weapons and crew were brought up to some form of war-readiness. Y’sul, Hatherence and Fassin were allowed to watch from inside an observation dome right at the front of the ship, a temporary structure protruding from the Dreadnought’s armoured nose like a little bubble of diamond. They shared the place with a few dozen interested civilians, mostly administrators of the various cities where the Stormshear had been paying courtesy calls during the last long period of peace. Uniformed pet-children floated amongst the VIPs, carrying trays of food and drugs.

Ahead, through a ten-kilometre gap in the clouds, they could see an object like a small bright blue ship, a target being towed by another Dreadnought a hundred or more klicks still further ahead.

The Stormshear shuddered mightily and an instant later there came a great blast of noise. Tracks like dozens of vapour trails appeared in the sky beneath and above them, great combs of thin, plaited gas racing in front of them headed by the barely glimpsed dark dots of the shells converging on the target. Screens set into each dent-seat — where working — showed a magnified view of the blue target; it shook as its hollow structure was punctured by the shells, holes appearing briefly on its hull before sealing up again.

A desultory cheer went up from a few of the generally bored-looking Dwellers present. It was drowned out by the clicking of maniple fingers demanding service from the pet-children waiters.

“I never asked,” Hatherence said, leaning close to Y’sul as he snorted up the coils of purple from a fuming stoke-pipe. “What is the war actually about?”

Y’sul turned jerkily and gave the impression of trying to get his outer sensory regions to focus on the colonel. “About?” he said, looking confused. The exhausted stoke-stick attached to the pipe went out with a loud “pop’. “Well, it’s about when two, ah, opposing groups of, ah people, ah, that is to say, Dwellers, in this case, obviously, decide to, umm, fight. Fight! Yes, usually over some issue, and… and they use weapons of war to do so, until one side or other — did I say there are usually just two sides? That’s kind of the conventional number, I believe. Sort of a quorum, you might say. Though—”

“I wasn’t looking for the definition of a war, Y’sul.”

“No? Good. I thought you probably had such things of your own. Most people seem to.”

“I meant, what is the point at issue? What is the cause of the war?”

“The cause?” Y’sul asked, looking surprised. He roted as far back in his dent-seat as he could while the ship shuddered again and another salvo, from each side of the vessel this time, lanced forwards to the distant target. “Well,” he said, distracted by the dancing dots of the shells dragging their gas trails after them. “Well, I’m sure there is one…’ He started mumbling. Hatherence seemed to realise she’d already got as much sense out of Y’sul as she was going to while he was sucking on the stoke-pipe, and settled back in her seat with a sigh.