Why did he insist on engaging her in such an elaborate charade?

What was he hiding?

The digitized shadow that thought of himself as Trader-In-Faecal-Matter-Of-Animals observed Dakota with amusement. Even if she stumbled on the truth, she would have no choice but to do exactly what he wanted her to do regardless.

Trader had modelled his software environment to create the illusion of a limitless ocean, an eternal blackness that replicated the gentle drift of Mother Sea’s embrace. The creature that had spoken with Dakota was very close to being an accurate model of the original Trader: every circuit, subroutine and protocol aboard the Hyperion-plus a few hidden Shoal neural processors, well out of sight, without which the human computer systems would have provided insufficient processing power-were bent to generating his self-image and consciousness.

Mental processes of near infinite complexity had been magically compressed into the tiniest of virtual environments, entirely equivalent to taking a Deep Dreamer and squeezing it down until it occupied barely the same space as an amoeba. Such limitations prevented the digitized Trader from feeling regret that its existence was by necessity a brief affair.

To destroy the derelict and the transluminal drive within by conventional means would be to risk detection, for Shoal monitoring networks within transluminal space existed precisely to detect the complex radiations thereby produced.

And that would never do. The subsequent investigation would certainly lead to unanticipated and deeply embarrassing revelations concerning long-hidden factions within the Hegemony, for whom Trader was the prime mover when it came to dirty work.

And that would really never do.

Far, far better that the greater masses of Shoal throughout the galaxy never learned the truth contained within the derelict-never learned of the great and terrible crime that had been committed so very long ago, albeit for the highest and noblest of reasons. The destruction of the last survivors of an entire civilization-of even the knowledge of that civilization’s existence was far from a minor consideration.

The Deep Dreamers had indicated that something of great and future significance lay in the near future, and clearly the derelict now took centre stage. And this despite the fact that other copies of Trader existed in other places, monitoring other, potential near-future causal hotspots-a way of spreading the bet, as it were.

Clearly, however, the Dreamers had been on the money where Dakota was concerned.

Trader’s purpose was to ensure her actions, and those of the Freehold, did not affect the security and stability of the Shoal Hegemony. The future was to a certain degree predictable-but it was most certainly not immutable.

Corso found himself wondering what it would be like to live entirely in a world without shadows. The Hyperion’s simulations hadn’t come close to the maddening reality: every surface here was illuminated to an equal degree, still with no apparent source for that radiation.

At one point, by way of experimentation, he squatted on his haunches and tried to block out the all-pervading light by tucking his head in against his chest and covering his head with his arms. It worked to a certain extent, but he quickly came to realize there was a… a misty quality to the derelict’s atmosphere, which suggested some form of luminous gas all around them. That theory might have made sense if the air piped into the derelict via the Freehold’s filtration system remained visibly luminescent outside the ship itself, but as soon as you stepped beyond the hull and into the tunnel leading to the submersible, the luminescence vanished.

It was strangely like entering a dream world.

‘According to the map, we’ve now gained access to almost two-thirds of the derelict,’ said Kieran, watching Corso as he worked. ‘Are we getting any closer yet to locating the bridge?’

‘You’re assuming there is any equivalent of a bridge,’ Corso replied. ‘Even the Shoal don’t appear to have anything like the human equivalent. Far as anyone knows, they just float around in a central space according to some ancient shoaling instinct, and issue commands according to social protocols we know almost nothing about.’

‘Then there’ll be a hub, at least, one or more central points from where the ship can be controlled.’ Kieran sounded like he’d stubbornly made his mind up.

Corso sighed and returned to his work, making minute physical adjustments to the interface chair’s neural circuitry. Kieran, along with the Senator, appeared to believe flying the damn fossil out of the Nova Arctis system in a blaze of glory was merely a matter of applying a can-do attitude.

One adjustment in particular seemed to make a difference: a minor tweak to improve the rate of dataflow between the human and alien software configurations, but one glance at a handheld screen he’d plugged into the chair suggested he’d turned a spigot and let loose a waterfall.

Corso took one look at the level of activity flowing through the walls around them and felt his heart skip a beat.

He bent down to pick up the toolkit he’d left lying next to the interface chair. Just as he was about to lay his hand on it, it slid away from him, slowly at first, then faster. Dumbfounded, he watched it slither across the pale, marble-like floor, and almost lost his balance when the floor unexpectedly seesawed under his feet.

He saw Kieran staring back at him from across the room, mute with surprise. The floor regained its former stability, but only for a moment. Now it was beginning to tilt.

Corso’s immediate thought was that the derelict was about to slide into the abyss. His terror of the abyssal depths far below them hit hard, and he moaned in terror. He grabbed on to one leg of the interface chair for purchase.

The ship continued to tilt. Kieran dropped to his knees and slid helplessly into a corner of the room, along with several random pieces of equipment Corso had kept scattered around him while he worked on the interface. Fortunately the technical team who had installed the chair had bolted it to the floor. Corso scrambled to get purchase on one of the chair legs, but lost it, tumbling down hard next to Kieran.

Then he realized the tilting was limited to the room they were in. They both gaped in stunned amazement towards the entrance.

They had both ditched their gel suits in the corridor outside. These, along with a stack of hardcopy data left behind by the surface base’s technical staff, resolutely refused to slide away or otherwise become affected by the tilting effect.

That seemed bad enough-but then monsters started coming out of the walls.