‘Or possibly the Uchidans and Bourdain know too, given the security leaks you’ve been neglecting to tell me about.’

Gardner knew he was walking a dangerous edge, but he was finding it harder and harder to bite his tongue. He had already taken it upon himself to make coded queries to his associates back home, about contracting a fleet to wrest control of the derelict from the Freehold.

But the partners were still too cautious, too scared of drawing attention to what was happening out here, and drawing yet more potential combatants into a risky war over an unpredictable prize. Convincing them otherwise was going to take time Gardner wasn’t sure he had.

‘Don’t worry, Mr Gardner,’ Arbenz snarled, ‘you’ll get your share in the manufacturing and technology rights, once we acquire the drive. And I hope you’ll enjoy spending every last penny of it in hell.’

Gardner nodded, and kept his expression cool.

Corso and Kieran had almost reached the passage connecting to the external airlock when the gravity flipped again.

It had happened another four times so far since they had escaped from the room containing the interface chair. At one point the gravity cut off completely, leaving them in freefall for several panicked seconds.

The worst part of it was they were back in the part of the derelict which had until now been deemed safe. Clearly that was a mistake, and whatever countermeasures the derelict was currently implementing remained effective throughout its structure.

Sheer luck had saved them from being dashed to pieces when a passageway had flipped. The process was slow enough, they had time to react: unfortunately the passageway was a long one, and had rapidly transformed into a deep vertical shaft even as they raced along it.

Kieran had pushed them both down against the floor so rather than falling straight down, they instead slid down at an increasing rate as the gravity shifted. They still managed to hit the far end of the passageway with considerable force, and Corso blacked out for a couple of seconds. When he came to, Kieran was already hauling him by the shoulders towards the airlock and safety. From the way Kieran held himself and the expression on his face, Corso could see he’d been injured in some way.

After a couple of metres of this, Corso managed to stumble upright. A clanging sound reverberated from just ahead and he realized the submersible must have come back down and docked.

It was well ahead of schedule, so obviously somebody had figured out they were in trouble.

They rounded the last corner, almost collapsing on top of each other as the airlock door swung ponderously open. Several heavily armed Freeholder troops were stamping through it towards them, wearing combat armour too bulky to progress easily through the confined spaces of the tunnel. Corso laughed weakly as the soldiers were forced to shuffle towards them sideways in single file.

‘Get the hell back!’ Kieran yelled, waving at them to retreat.

Their faces were invisible behind their reinforced visors, but after a moment they started to shuffle back into the submersible.

The howling noise manifested itself once more from somewhere far around the curve of the passageway, sounding like it was getting closer. It was impossible not to imagine some terrible, monstrous apparition stalking them through the derelict’s twisting interior spaces.

Corso glanced up at the screen still roughly welded into an excision in the wall and noticed that the interior of the derelict was reshaping itself. Corridors and rooms disappeared from the map even as he watched, while others appeared that he was sure hadn’t previously existed.

In that same moment, Corso saw that Lunden and Ivanovich were gone. They would find no trace of their bodies now, as had been the case with anyone else who had disappeared into the derelict’s maw.

Kieran’s face turned pale and he slid to the ground, unconscious. Corso dropped down next to him and found the man still had a pulse, but his pupils were dilated and his breathing staccato and shaky. Corso didn’t feel that much better himself-sheer terror had helped him forget temporarily about the pain. One of the troops saw what had happened and headed back their way again, lifting Kieran up and leading the way back into the submersible.

He’d been so sure the derelict would accept his programming. He still couldn’t believe he’d overlooked anything. But would the Senator understand that when he demanded to know what had happened?

Twenty

At first, when Dakota quietly entered the surgery, Corso had been staring down at a workscreen he held in both hands, a faraway look on his face. One shoulder was encased in a flexible med unit that kept his damaged tissues anaesthetized, while repairing the damage beneath at an accelerated rate.

Both Corso and Kieran Mansell had been brought back to the Hyperion a few hours previous, since it apparently had better medical facilities than the base on Theona.

Empty medical caskets were stacked up on either wall, in steel racks extending the full length of the medical facility. Udo was still encased inside one of these, but he was likely to be back out in a day or two. The external readings made it clear he’d been undergoing a slow and difficult recovery.

His brother Kieran was in better shape, but only just. He was in the intensive treatment bay, an adjustable palette with an autodoc suspended from the ceiling above his deeply sedated form. Its articulated arms were at the moment curled up and at rest, like some enormous metallic spider.

Dakota studied Kieran’s life-signs monitors and wondered what would happen if she smothered him with one of his own pillows. At the very least it would be a mercy killing.

Corso, on the other hand, was conscious and sitting up. His complexion was pale, as if the blood had been drained out of him.

She stared at him, full of nervous energy, until he finally looked up and became aware of her presence. He blinked in surprise as if he wasn’t sure her presence was a good or bad thing.

‘How are you?’ she asked.

He took a moment to think about this. ‘Been better.’

‘I heard about what happened, how the derelict attacked you. What went wrong?’

‘Nothing.’ Corso shook his head, no longer looking at her, an abstract expression on his face. ‘That’s the whole problem.’

Dakota went silent in blank incomprehension.

Corso elaborated. ‘I mean, I did everything right. What happened… shouldn’t have happened. It was like… sabotage.’ He shrugged. ‘I swear, it was like deliberate sabotage.’