Roger rubbed his face. His bladder was full, and he needed a cup of daistral: output and input to start the day. But he also needed to understand why Rhianna was telling him this. Dad would have called it a background briefing.

‘Sanctuary.’ Roger tightened his bladder muscles. ‘That’s where Jed Goran was when the whole thing began this time.’

‘And all he could do was get clear, luckily with you on board. So the point is, a hundred years ago, the Luculenti had these plexcores inside themselves, each the size of a large daistral mug, you know?’ She gestured. ‘This big.’

Roger stopped himself groaning.

‘Give me a moment.’

He gestured for an opening in the wall, the formation of a bathroom-facility alcove, and went inside, the quickglass sealing up as he was still stepping through. Peeing in his clothes would have been possible – smartfabric lived up to its name – but not without Rhianna noticing. Relieved, he used smartgel to cleanse face, hands and hair. Feeling human, he went back out into the bedchamber.

An extruded table was laden with daistral and pastries, and two chairs were in place, with Rhianna already seated.

‘Breakfast.’ She gestured. ‘Eat.’

‘You’re a genius.’

‘I wouldn’t go that far.’ She waited while he took his first sip of daistral and began to eat, then: ‘Plexcores, we were talking about. Large things, bigger and heavier than the modern plexnodes. So de la Vega, the more he had in his array – outside his body, remember – the more he was affected by lightspeed delays fragmenting his holistic thoughts.’

Roger pushed in a half-eaten mouthful.

‘You mean – sorry – he used Zajinet tech to get rid of the delays.’

‘Well done, except that he actually used our tech. Mu-space relays of the kind we don’t let realspace folk have access to, not these days.’

‘Ah.’

Perhaps this was not such an obscure story after all, not for educated Pilots, if it had caused a policy shift.

‘But that is exactly why Rafaella Stargonier was after Zajinet technology. Realspace hyperdimensions or mu-space, either one will do to shorten lightpaths. Incidentally, our analysts think there’s an eighty per cent probability that the Fulgor authorities had a captive Zajinet in the research institute you visited, and a ninety-seven per cent probability that there was such a captive somewhere on the planet.’

‘A prisoner?’

‘They believe that your benign Fulgidi government institutions were involved in torturing a Zajinet over a period of two decades to extract its knowledge and capabilities. That’s based partly on intelligence supplied by your father. They also think the Stargonier woman succeeded where the Fulgidi failed.’

It occurred to Roger that Rhianna must be a senior officer to have access to so much classified information.

‘And from your own report, Roger,’ she continued, ‘it was this Helsen woman who manoeuvred Stargonier into thinking about Calabi-Yau manifolds. Using a friend of yours to convey the suggestion.’

‘Alisha, yes.’ He put down the food. ‘She … You know what happened to her?’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Right.’

‘But the question now is’ – Rhianna appeared to become more relaxed than ever – ‘what use Zajinets would be here on Molsin, given that there’s no Skein and no Luculenta Stargonier to subvert.’

‘Maybe Helsen just wants to be able to teleport,’ he said.

Not much of an answer. He had not thought about the bitch’s intentions: he simply wanted to kill her.

Steady on.

Understanding an enemy was a prelude to destroying them. That made sense.

‘You think Helsen and Ranulph were trying to capture the three Zajinets?’ he added. ‘It looked like they were trying to kill us all.’

‘They did something to Tannier that made him want to kill you specifically. It’s not hypnosis as such, more like the hypnosis of melodramas than real trancework. You can get someone to do things they normally wouldn’t, but you do it by deep unconscious association, subliminal operant conditioning, that kind of stuff. More Pavlov than Mesmer, if you know your psych history.’

Roger wondered how she knew so much about mind-bending. Perhaps there were aspects to intelligence work that Dad had never chosen to mention.

‘Tannier’s going to be all right, by the way,’ she added.

‘Oh. I … Oh.’

‘We won’t tell him you forgot to ask. So, that Pavlov. He was a sick son of a bitch, did you know? Surgically operated on children, attached glass vials to their faces, so that when he stimulated the unconsciously installed saliva response, he could measure the volume of generated saliva.’

‘Oh.’

‘My doctoral thesis was called Torture, Sadism and the Birth of Neuroscience. And then’ – she gestured at herself – ‘I became a Barbour socialite and fashion icon. Isn’t life strange?’

‘Is this some psych manipulation thing you’re doing on me now?’

Rhianna smiled.

‘Always,’ she said. ‘Do you feel better for having had breakfast?’

He understood enough basic psych to be sensitive to her intonation, feel better having the emphasis of a covert command.

‘I don’t feel awful, anyhow.’

Rhianna’s laugh sparkled, echoing from the quickglass surroundings.

‘I think you’d make a fine intelligence officer, Roger.’

‘I’m no longer sure that’s a compliment.’

‘Maybe it isn’t. OK, last thing, almost: the Zajinets have gone. I talked to them after yesterday’s events, and they summoned their ship – one vessel for all three of them – and disappeared. Before they went, they mentioned the darkness more than once, but not in any way that made much sense. You know what they’re like.’

‘Sort of.’

‘Plus I have my own bias, given that my uncle died fighting those bastards.’ She presumably meant in one of the occasional violent incidents that had broken out over the centuries without ever escalating into war. ‘But the Zajinets also asked whether we were staying, you and me, meaning Pilots. When I said yes, they said we should flee as well. That part was clear.’

‘They’re afraid of Helsen.’

‘And they see her the same way you do, Roger Blackstone. Infested with this darkness, and they even use the same word. So perhaps you’re not delusional after all.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Not that thinking like a Zajinet is anything to be proud of. Are you done?’

‘Sorry?’

‘With breakfast. Are you finished?’

‘Oh. Sure.’

She gestured and the table melted back into the floor, the crockery dissolving, organic leftovers digested by the quickglass.

‘Final item you need to know,’ she said. ‘If Helsen’s goal is to create another Anomaly, and if she has the means to do it, Zajinet-inspired or otherwise, then we have ten days to find her. You know about Conjunction, right? I mean, I gather you were shacked up with an older lover in Barbour. No better way to get to grips with local culture, is there?’

Roger looked at her, feeling not the slightest hint of blushing.

‘There was quite a lot of conjoining going on,’ he said. ‘I was too busy to pick up trivia.’

Rhianna gave a slow nod.

‘Noted. But you surely knew that sky-cities are always on the move, and that Deltaville’s giving birth to D-2 would normally be attended by more than just Barbour.’

‘Because all the cities are moving to this Conjunction, which is …?’

‘Exactly what it sounds like.’

‘Of course.’ He clasped his hands, interweaving his fingers as he used to do when Dad was thrashing him at chess or go. ‘Every city in Molsin’s skies coming together in one spot. Cultural interchange. Very natural.’

‘Happens every four standard years.’

‘Shit,’ he said.

‘Right. I don’t think the authorities quite appreciate what Helsen might do, or don’t believe what we’re telling them. The cities are far too independent of each other for effective action anyhow, despite Conjunction. At best we can hope they’ll give us the nod if surveillance spots her, and then I’ll set you loose.’