Ahead of the Olokkural, the Void’s perfectly smooth black boundary began to distort upwards, as if some kind of tumour was growing inside. Up and up it was stretched by the terrible stress of negative gravity, forming a single grotesque mound.

Nigel held his breath. He could feel his clone closing his eyes, hands gripping the cabin’s acceleration couch.

At the peak of the distension, the Void’s boundary tore open. Elegant nebula light shone out into real spacetime. The Olokkural released Skylady, then veered away at two hundred gees, whipping round in a hard parabola and heading back out away from the shrinking rent.

Skylady slipped in through the gap, and thirty seconds later the Void’s wounded boundary closed up behind it.

Nigel gulped down air again.

‘Did he survive?’ Torux asked.

‘Yes.’

BOOK THREE

Revolution for Beginners

1

An hour after the patrol squad broke camp, the morning mist still hadn’t lifted. Grey haze clung to the ground, swirling slowly round the big ecru-shaded tree trunks, keeping the temperature pleasantly low. All across the densely wooded valley, native birds called to each other in their strange oscillating whistle, competing with the incessant rustling sound of bussalore rodents creeping through the undergrowth. Bienvenido’s hot sun was nothing more than a blur-patch above the eastern horizon. Nonetheless, its intensity fluoresced the mist, making it difficult to see more than ten metres.

Slvasta dragged his boots through the feathery lingrass that grew lavishly between the trunks of the quasso trees, ripping the twiny blades apart. It was easier than picking his feet up; the lingrass came halfway up his shins. Dew slicked his stiff regiment-issue canvas garters; he knew that by midday that damp would be soaking his socks and rubbing his feet raw. An hour into the sweep, and he was bored and irked already.

‘Crud, Slvasta, why not just ring a bell to tell the Fallers we’re here?’ Corporal Jamenk chided.

‘This stuff is everywhere,’ Slvasta complained, as he carried on tearing the wispy strands apart. ‘I can’t help it.’

Jamenk drew an annoyed breath, but decided not to push it. Slvasta gave Ingmar a desperate look, but his friend wasn’t about to take his side in any dispute with the corporal.

Slvasta was peeved by the betrayal. The two of them had signed on with the regiment in Cham three months ago. Slvasta could have done it earlier, but he’d agreed to wait for Ingmar’s seventeenth birthday so they could do it together. Signing on was all he’d wanted to do since he was nine, and his father and uncle had vanished after a Fall. The regiment had never found the bodies, not in all the sweeps they made of the county during the following month. Even at school, everyone knew what that meant.

Two years later his mother had married Vikor; he was a decent man, and Slvasta now had two little half-brothers. But the loss of his father – the way he was taken – was a fire which burnt his very soul. He knew he would never be fulfilled, never be guided by the Skylords to the Giu nebula where the Heart of the Void waited, not until he had exorcized his demons. And that would only happen when he had his vengeance on the diabolical Fallers, smashing up every one of their eggs that plagued the world.

Joining the regiment was the first step in achieving that. Slvasta had dreams of rising up through the ranks until he was Bienvenido’s lord general, commanding troops across the globe. He would show the Fallers no mercy until the Forest which birthed them eventually realized it could never defeat him, and retreated from Bienvenido forever. Now that would be true fulfilment.

However, the reality of regimental life was altogether more mundane that he’d been expecting. Uniform to be painstakingly maintained. Horses to muck out. Food you wouldn’t even use as pigswill back home on the farm. Drill – endless drill, marching round the headquarters’ yard. Flamethrower practice against mannequins representing Fallers – now that was exciting, the two times he’d got to do it. Search exercises that were basically little more than camping trips out in the wilds beyond the county’s farmland.

Then finally, the beacon fires had been lit. There had been a Fall in the lands around Prerov, six hundred miles east along the Eastern Trans-Continental line, the main railway track that bisected the continent from west to east. The regiment had swung into action. They’d deployed their full strength of five hundred troops in less than three hours. Along with all their equipment and mods, they’d embarked the special train laid on for them. Half the town had come out to cheer them off.

He had spent most of the journey with his face pressed against the train carriage window, watching the beacon flames roaring away in their huge iron cage braziers. So big they took days to burn out. He could almost feel their heat every time the steam train raced past one, helping to raise his excitement and determination.

The bulky iron engine had finally pulled in to Prerov’s station along with several other troop trains. Eight regiments had been called out to help sweep the estimated Fall zone for eggs. It was the first time Slvasta had ever been outside his own county – his first time anywhere, really. The station was in the middle of the commercial district at the foot of the striking mountain town on the western end of the Guelp range. Slvasta stood on the platform and stared up at the regional capital in delight. Prerov was over two thousand years old. Humans and mods had spent generations hacking into the stony slopes, producing terrace after terrace cluttered with buildings that had whitewashed walls and red clay tile roofs. Most of them were shaded under huge tomfeather and flameyew trees growing in their courtyards. And, perched right at the top, without any trees close by, was the great observatory dome of the Watcher Guild, whose eternal vigil helped protect Bienvenido from Falls. He was desperate to climb the steep winding steps that knitted the terraces together and explore the ancient town, with its wealth and colour, and lots of well-to-do girls who would probably be appreciative of regiment troops risking their lives.

As it happened, the regiment didn’t even spend one night billeted in town. A squadron of Marines had arrived from Varlan, the capital, as soon as the beacons were lit. Smart tough men in their imposing midnight-black uniforms, they’d quickly claimed the authority of the Captain and started organizing the regiments. It was important to get the sweeps underway as soon as possible, before the eggs had time to ensnare anyone. So an hour after the train pulled in, Corporal Jamenk’s squad, which comprised just Slvasta and Ingmar, had been assigned to sweep the whole Romnaz valley. Slvasta had been proud of the responsibility – it was a huge area. Until Captain Tamlyan had sneeringly pointed out that they were on the very fringe of the estimated Fall zone; it was an assignment to keep the new recruits and an untried corporal out of the way and out of trouble.

A convoy of farm carts had taken them and eleven other squads out of Prerov, the humans rattling round in the back while the regiment’s mods trotted alongside. The farmland immediately outside the regional capital was like an extended garden, with the fields and meadows and groves immaculately tended by mods and their human owners. Lovely villas sat in the middle of each estate, larger and grander than any of the houses back in Cham. Streams and canals were meshed together, providing excellent irrigation and drainage. Pump houses clattered away, puffing smoke into the blazing sapphire sky as the engines spun big iron flywheels, maintaining the all-important water levels. It was the only noise the troops could hear. No one else was on the broad road with its guardian rows of tolmarc trees. The villages they passed through had sentries – the old men and stout women; the younger, able, men were in the local regiment reserve, out helping to sweep.