As she passed through the edge of the distortion trees, a time symbol flicked up into her exovision. It had been twenty-seven hours thirty-one minutes since Shuttle Fourteen had actually entered the Forest.

*

Nigel waited until the exopod was clear of the Forest, then targeted Shuttle Fourteen. A burst from an X-ray laser sliced the fuselage apart. Gas and debris belched out of the big rupture, sending the craft spinning chaotically. The port wing snapped off. Nigel fired the X-ray laser again, chopping the fuselage into smaller sections. One pulse struck a fuel tank, and the explosion ripped the remaining structure to tatters. A giant shrapnel cloud spun out.

‘Okay,’ Nigel told the Skylady’s smartcore. ‘Take us to the centre of the Forest.’

The starship’s ingrav drive powered up to nine per cent.

‘Really?’ he asked.

‘Best available given the environment,’ the smartcore told him. ‘It is strange outside.’

Giving the smartcore his own voice was a mistake, he decided. But changing that now was somewhat pointless. ‘And how are we doing with nailing that environment?’

‘Analysis of the quantum signature is progressing effectively.’

‘Or, as we say in plain English . . .’

‘We have enough data to initiate an identical distortion effect for the quantumbuster detonation. However, you were right: the pattern is progressive.’

‘I knew it.’ He couldn’t help the flash of satisfaction. No battle of this nature could remain static. The assault the Forest’s trees mounted against the Void’s structure was constantly in flux as the Void strove to override the damage to itself. As he suspected from examining Laura’s original data, the pattern fed in to the quantumbuster for initiation would have to be real time. Skylady ’s sophisticated sensors had to be linked directly to the warhead. ‘No remote detonation, then?’

‘No.’

He sat back in the chair and looked round the circular cabin. His u-shadow was accessing the hull’s visual sensors, revealing the constellation of glimmering enigmatic distortion trees they were sliding between. Bienvenido’s bright crescent was visible in the distance.

‘She would have loved this, flying through space. Seeing her world from afar.’

‘She will know it. And with you, too.’

‘As long as it’s not with Ozzie.’

‘Jealous?’

‘I just don’t want her hurt out there. That’s why I’m in here doing this. When the Void goes, she’ll meet the real me.’

‘You are real.’

‘Yes, but there can’t be two of me. And I am just a copy, no matter if I’m physically superior to the original. She mustn’t be given a confusing choice. That wouldn’t be fair.’

‘I am sure she will cope. You taught her a lot. You should be proud.’

‘I am. How big is the delay between pattern lock and detonation?’

‘I estimate nine picoseconds.’

‘That’s quite a gap.’

‘Again, best I can do.’

‘It’s hardly a certainty, though, is it?’

‘There are no certainties.’

‘True. So – let’s dump Paula’s fallback package.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes. Load Joey’s memories into it for safe keeping, and do it. Just in case.’

The sensor feed showed him the package slipping behind Skylady – a sphere curiously similar to a Faller egg. Its ingrav drive powered it away gently. Nigel concentrated inwards. And I mustn’t tell Paula, he thought to himself. She’ll think I’m insecure. Can’t have that.

‘Three minutes to the centre of the Forest,’ the smartcore said.

‘Great. Synth some beer and pizza for me.’

‘Are you regressing?’

‘I think I’m allowed some comfort food at this point.’

The food processor pinged. Nigel went over and smiled fondly at the brown glass bottle and the flat, square cardboard box. ‘Thanks. Damn, I haven’t seen that label in a thousand years.’ The smell triggered memories of long ago. Of student halls and all-night sessions on the physics department hypercube, hour after hour arguing excitedly with Ozzie as they begged, borrowed and stole equipment to build the gateway. His first footprint on Mars.

Nigel took a good long swig from the bottle. ‘That is just how I remember it tasting. Cheap, weak and gassy. Perfect.’

‘We are at the centre of the Forest. Would you like a countdown?’

‘Hell, no. Just do it.’ He bit into the hot pizza slice –

*

Demitri had caught up with them on the afternoon of the day after the launch, riding his horse up the first of the Algory foothills where they’d made camp.

‘Where’s Valeri?’ Kysandra asked.

Demitri dismounted. ‘In Dios, keeping an eye on things.’

‘Nothing on this planet matters any more?’

‘Let’s hope not, eh?’

They built a small fire of logs. Not worried about the blaze being seen. The ge-eagles were still flying high circles around them, alert for any pursuit. There wasn’t another human within twenty miles.

Kysandra insisted on sitting up for most of the night, waiting.

‘How long?’ she asked as the flames sent sparks high into the night. Overhead, the beautiful nebulas glimmered for what she knew was their last time; Giu and Uracus sat on opposite sides of the sky, facing each other as always. It didn’t matter; soon she would know a night sky filled with stars.

‘It should have taken Skylady approximately twenty-two hours to reach the Forest,’ Fergus said. ‘But don’t forget he had to locate Shuttle Fourteen.’

Kysandra hugged her knees and rocked about. ‘Oh, come on, Nigel!

Marek shook her shoulder, waking her. She looked about in puzzlement. Someone had put a blanket over her. The fire had burnt down to embers. Dawn was lightening the eastern sky, allowing the nebulas to fade away behind the rising azure stain. Poised just above the horizon, the Forest shimmered a pale silver.

‘What’s happened?’ she asked anxiously. ‘Why hasn’t it detonated?’

‘Not much longer,’ Marek assured her. ‘We thought you’d better be awake for this.’

‘Thanks.’ She nodded in gratitude.

Demitri handed her a mug of tea. She sat up, stretching. Her shell tightened. She didn’t want the ANAdroids to know how alarmed she was growing. She’d been expecting the quantumbuster to detonate a long time ago.

She sipped at the reassuringly hot tea, glancing resentfully up at the vile fuzzy patch that was starting to blend into the emergent rays of the sun.

‘Best you don’t look directly at the Forest now,’ Fergus said.

‘Why?’

‘The Skylady masses about three hundred tonnes. When the quantumbuster goes off, it’ll convert that directly to energy to power the effect. Even if ninety per cent is successfully modified into a quantum distortion wave, ten per cent is still a hell of a lot of radiation overspill.’

‘The flash will be brighter than the sun,’ Marek said. ‘And we’ll have no warning.’

She frowned thoughtfully. ‘What about gamma rays? Won’t they be harmful?’

‘The atmosphere should shield us.’

‘Should?’

‘It depends on—’

Marek lied. The quantumbuster detonation wasn’t simply brighter than the sun. It was so intense, so overwhelming, the flare dissolved the whole world into a uniform sheet of silver whiteness. Kysandra yelled in shock as everything vanished into the outpouring of impossible light. She instinctively slapped her hand over her already closed eyes. The whiteness dimmed to bright scarlet. Blood colour.

Her heart was racing exactly as it had while Skylady powered into space. She wanted to risk opening her eyes, but she was too scared.

‘It’s okay,’ Fergus was assuring her. ‘It’s over.’

Now she was simply creeped out by the silence of the devastating light. Something that powerful should surely sound like the planet splitting open. Carefully, she opened one eye. Her vision seemed to be all purple and yellow after-image blotches. She blinked for a long while, trying to clear the contamination away. Secondary routines helped filter her retinas.