The long oval meeting room was hundreds of metres inside Starthroat's armoured hull. Covered in a richly detailed fresco, the walls enclosed a hallowed mahogany table of ancient provenance. Just as the table's extremities now sagged with age, time had turned the fresco dark and sepia. In one corner a proctor was slowly renovating the historic artwork, moving with machine diligence from one scene of conflict to another, brightening hues, sharpening brushstrokes that had become indistinct with age.
Merlin squeezed past the squat machine.
'You're late,' Quail said, already seated. 'I take it your trip was a fruitful one?' Merlin started to compose an answer, but Quail was already speaking again. 'Good. Then sit down. You may take it as a very bad omen that I am not especially minded to reprimand you.'
Wordlessly Merlin moved to his own chair and lowered himself into it.
What could be that serious?
In addition to the gaunt, grey-skinned captain, there were fifteen ship seniors gathered in the chamber. Apart from Merlin they were all in full ceremonial dress, medals and sigils of rank to the fore. This was the Council: the highest decision-making body in the ship save for Quail himself. One senior for every dozen subseniors, and one subsenior for every hundred or so crewmembers. These fifteen people represented somewhat less than fifteen thousand others working, relaxing or sleeping elsewhere in the swallowship's vast confines. And much of the work that they did was concerned with tending the two hundred thousand people in frostwatch: frozen refugees from dozens of systems. The burdens of responsibility were acute; especially so given that the swallowship had encountered no other human vessel in centuries. No one became a senior by default, and all those present - Merlin included - had earned the right to sit with Quail. Even, Merlin thought, his enemies on the Council. Like Pauraque, for instance. She was a coldly attractive woman who wore a stiff-necked black tunic, cuffs and collar edged with complicated black filigrees. She tapped her fingers against the table's ancient wood, black rings clicking together.
'Merlin,' she said.
'Pauraque. How are you?'
She eyed him poisonously. 'Reports are that you took one of the final two syrinxes without the express authorisation of the Council Subdivision for Waynet Studies.' Merlin opened his mouth, but Pauraque shook her head crisply. 'No; don't even think of weaselling out of it. I'll see that this never happens again. At least you brought the thing back unharmed this time . . . didn't you?'
He smiled. 'I didn't bring it back at all. It's still out there, approaching the Way.' He showed Pauraque the display summary on the back of his glove. 'I placed it aboard an automated drone.'
'If you destroy it . . .' Pauraque looked for encouragement in the doleful faces around her. 'We'll have you court-martialled, Merlin . . . or worse. It's common knowledge that your only reason for studying the syrinxes is so that you can embark on some ludicrous quest--'
Quail coughed. 'We can discuss Merlin's activities later, Pauraque. They may seem somewhat less pressing when you've heard what I have to say.' Now that he had their attention, the old man softened his tone of voice until it was barely a murmur. 'I'm afraid I have remarkably bad news.'
It would have to be, Merlin thought.
'For as long as some of us remember,' Quail said, 'one central fact has shaped our lives. Every time we look to stern, along the way we've come, we know that they are out there, somewhere behind us. About thirty light-years by the last estimate, but coming steadily closer by about a light-year for every five years of shiptime. In a century and a half we will come within range of their weapons.' Quail nodded towards the fresco, one particularly violent tableau that showed ships exchanging fire above a planet garlanded in flames. 'It won't be pretty. At best, we might take out one or two elements of the swarm before they finish us. Yet we live with this situation, some days hardly giving it more than a moment's thought, for the simple reason that it lies so far in our future. The youngest of us may live to see it, but I'll certainly not be amongst them. And, of course, we cling to the hope that tomorrow will offer us an escape route we can't foresee today. Better weapons, perhaps - or some new physics that enables us to squeeze a little more performance from our engines, so that we can outrun the enemy.'
True enough. This was the state of things that they had known for years. It was the reality that had underpinned every waking thought for just as long. No one knew much about the Huskers except that they were ruthless alien cyborgs from somewhere near the galaxy's centre. Their only motive seemed to be the utter extermination of humanity from all the niches it had occupied since the Flourishing. This they prosecuted with glacial patience, in a war that had already lasted many kiloyears.
Quail took a sip of water before continuing. 'Now I must disclose an alarming new discovery.'
Stars winked into existence above the table: hundreds and then thousands of them, strewn in lacy patterns like strands of seaweed. They were looking at a map of the local stellar neighbourhood - a few hundred light-years in either direction - with the line of the Way cutting through it like a blue laser. The swallowship's position next to the Way was marked, as was the swarm of enemy ships trailing it.
And then a smudge of radiance appeared far ahead, again near the Way.
'That's the troubling discovery,' Quail said.
'Neutrino sources?' Merlin said, doing his best to convince the room that his attention was not being torn between two foci.
'A whole clump of them in our path, about one hundred light-years ahead of us. Spectroscopy says they're more or less stationary with respect to the local stellar neighbourhood. That means it isn't a swarm coming to intercept us from the front - but I'm afraid that's as good as the news gets.'
'Husker?' said Gallinule.
'Undoubtedly. Best guess is we're headed straight towards a major operational concentration - hundreds of ships - the equivalent of one of our motherbases or halo manufactories. Almost certainly armed to the teeth and in no mood to let us slip past unchallenged. In short, we're running from one swarm towards another, which happens to be even larger.'
Silence while the seniors - including Merlin - digested this news.
'Well, that's it, then,' said another senior, white-bearded, bald Crombec, who ran the warcreches. 'We've got no choice but to turn away from our current path.'
'Tactically risky,' Gallinule said.
Crombec rubbed his eyes, red with fatigue. Evidently he had been awake for some time - perhaps privy to this knowledge longer than the others, grappling with the options. 'Yes. But what else can we do?'
'There is something,' Merlin said. As he spoke he saw the status readout on his glove change: the sensors racked around the syrinx finally recording some activity. Considering what he was about to advocate, it was ironic indeed. 'A crash-programme to achieve Way-capability. Even if there's an ambush ahead, the Huskers won't be able to touch a ship moving in the Way.'
Pauraque scoffed. 'And the fact that the Cohort's best minds have struggled with this problem for kiloyears in no way dents your optimism?'
'I'm only saying we'd have a better than zero chance.'
'And I suppose we could try and find this superweapon of yours while we're at it?'
'Actually,' said Quail, raising his voice again, 'there happens to be a third possibility, one that I haven't drawn your attention to yet. Look at the map, will you?'
Now Quail added a new star - one that had not been displayed before. It lay directly ahead of them, only a few tens of light-years from their current position. As they moved their heads to establish parallax, they all saw that the star was almost exactly aligned with the Way.
'We have a chance,' he said. 'A small one, but very much better than nothing. This system has a little family of worlds: a few rocky planets and a gas giant with moons. There's no sign of any human presence. In nearly every respect there's nothing remarkable about this place. Yet the Way passes directly through the system. It might have been accidental . . . or the Waymakers may have wanted this sy
stem in their network.'
Merlin nodded. Extensive as the Waynet was, it still only connected around ten million of the galaxy's stars. Ten million sounded like a huge number, but what it meant was that for every single star on the network there were another forty thousand that could only be reached by conventional means.
'How far away?' he said.
Quail answered: 'Without altering our trajectory, we'll reach it in a few decades of worldtime whatever we do now. Here's my suggestion. We decelerate, stop in the system and dig ourselves in. We'll still have thirty years before the Huskers arrive. That should give us time to find the best hiding places and to camouflage ourselves well enough to escape their detection.'
'They'll be looking for us,' Crombec said.
'Not necessarily.' Quail made a gesture with his hands, clasping them and then drawing them slowly apart. 'We can split Starthroat into two parts. One will continue moving at our current speed, with its exhaust directed back towards the Huskers. The other, smaller part will decelerate hard - but it'll be directing its radiation away from the aliens. We can fine-tune the beam direction so that the swarm ahead of us doesn't see it either.'
'That's . . . ambitious,' Merlin said. He had his gloved hand under the table now, not wanting anyone else to see the bad news that was spilling across it. 'If hiding's your style.'
'It's no one's style - just our only rational hope.' Quail looked around the room, seeming older and frailer than any captain ought to be, rectangles of shadow etched beneath his cheekbones.
Crombec spoke up. 'Captain? I would like to take command of the part of the ship that remains in flight.'
There were a few murmurs of assent. Clearly Crombec would not be alone in preferring not to hide, even if the majority might choose to follow Quail.
'Wait,' Pauraque said. 'As soon as we put people on a decoy, with knowledge of what has happened earlier, we run the risk of the Huskers eventually learning it all for themselves.'
'We'll take that risk,' Quail snapped.
'There won't be one,' said Crombec. 'You have my word that I'll destroy my ship rather than risk it falling into Husker possession.'
'Merlin?' the captain asked. 'I take it you're with us?'
'Of course,' he said, snapping out of his gloomy reverie. 'I support your proposal fully . . . as I must. Doubtless we'll have time to completely camouflage ourselves and cover our tracks before the swarm comes past. There's just one thing . . .'
Quail tilted his head to one side to rest against his hand, like a man close to exhaustion. 'Yes?'
'You said the system was almost unremarkable . . . is it simply the presence of the Waynet that makes it otherwise?'
'No,' Quail said, his patience wearing fatally thin. 'No, there was something else - a small anomaly in the star's mass-luminosity relationship. I doubt that it's anything very significant. Look on the bright side, Merlin. Investigating it will give you something to do while the rest of us are busying ourselves with the boring work of concealment. And you'll have your precious syrinxes, as well - not to mention close proximity to the Waynet. There'll be plenty of time for all the experiments you can think of. I'm sure even you will be able to make two syrinxes last long enough . . .'
Merlin glanced down at his glove again, hoping that the news he had received earlier had in some way been an error, or his eyes had deceived him. But neither of those things proved to be the case.
'Better make that one,' he said.
Naked, bound together, Sayaca and Merlin seemed to float in space, kindling a focus of human warmth between them. The moment when the walls of the little ship had vanished had been meant to surprise and impress Sayaca. He had planned it meticulously. But instead she began to shiver, though it was no colder than it had been an instant earlier. He traced his hand across her thigh, feeling her skin break into goosebumps.
'It's just a trick,' he said, her face half-buried in his chest. 'No one can see us from outside the cutter.'
'Force and wisdom; it feels so cold now, Merlin. Makes me feel so small and vulnerable, like a candle on the point of flickering out.'
'But you're with me.'
'It doesn't make any difference, don't you understand? You're just a man, Merlin - not some divine protective force.'
Grudgingly, but knowing that the moment had been spoiled, Merlin allowed the walls to return. The stars were still visible, but there was now quite clearly a shell of transparent metasapphire, laced with control graphics, to hold them at bay.
'I thought you'd like it,' he said. 'Especially now, on a day like this one.'
'I just wasn't quite ready for it, that's all.' Her tone shifted to one of reconciliation. 'Where is it, anyway?'
Merlin issued another subvocal command to the ship, instructing it to distort and magnify the starfield selectively, until the object of Sayaca's interest sprang into focus. What they saw was the swallowship splitting into two uneven parts, like an insect undergoing some final, unplanned metamorphosis. Six years had passed since the final decision had been made to implement Quail's scheme. Sayaca and Merlin had become lovers in that time; Quail had even died.
The separation would have been beautiful, were so much not at stake. Starthroat did not exist anymore. Its rebuilding had been a mammoth effort that had occupied all of them in one way or another. Much of its mass had been retained aboard the part that would remain cruising relativistically. She had been named Bluethroat and carried roughly one-third of the frostwatch sleepers, in addition to Crombec and the small number of seniors and subseniors who had chosen to follow him. Needless to say there had been some dispute about Crombec getting most of the weapons, chiefly from Pauraque . . . but Merlin could not begrudge him that.
The smaller part they had named Starling. This was a ship designed to make one journey only, from here to the new system. It was equipped with a plethora of nimble, adaptable in-system craft, necessary for exploring the new system and finding the securest hiding places. Scans showed that a total of six worlds orbited the star they had now named Bright Boy. Only two were of significance: a scorched, airless planet much the same size as fabled Earth, which they named Cinder, and a gas giant they named Ghost. It seemed obvious that the best place to hide would be in one of these worlds, either Cinder or Ghost, but no decision had yet been made. Sayaca thought Cinder was the best choice, while Pauraque advocated using Ghost's thick atmosphere for concealment. Eventually a choice would be made; they would dig in, establish a base and conceal all evidence of their activities.
The Huskers might slow down, curious - but they would find nothing.
'You were there, weren't you?' Sayaca said. 'When they decided this.'
Merlin nodded - remembering how young she had seemed then. The last few years had aged them all. 'We all thought Quail was insane . . . then we realised even an insane plan was the best we had. Except for Crombec, of course . . .'
Bluethroat was separating now, its torch still burning clean and steady, arcing back into the night along the great axis of the Way. Far behind - but far closer than they had once been - lay the swarm, still pursuing Merlin's people.
'You think Crombec's people will die, don't you?' Sayaca said.
'If I thought he had the better chance, that's where I'd be. With his faction, rather than under Pauraque.'
'I thought about following him too,' Sayaca said. 'His arguments sounded convincing. He thinks we'll all die around Bright Boy.'
'Maybe we will. I still think the odds are slightly more in our favour.'
'Slightly?'
'There's something I don't like about our destination, Sayaca. Bright Boy doesn't fit into our normal stellar models. It's too bright for its size, and it's putting out far too many neutrinos. If you're going to hide somewhere, you don't do it around a star that stands out from the crowd.'
'Would it make any difference if Quail had put you in charge rather than Pauraque? Or if the Council had not forbidden you to test the final syrinx?'
Conceivably, he thou
ght, it might well have made a difference. He had been very lucky to retain any kind of seniority after what had happened back then. But the loss of the next to last syrinx had not been the utter disaster his enemies had tried to portray. The machine had still rammed against the Way in a catastrophic manner, but for the first time in living memory, a syrinx had appeared to do something else in the instants before that collision . . . chirping a series of quantum-gravitational variations towards the boundary. And the Way had begun to respond: a strange local alteration in its topology ahead of the syrinx. Puckering, until a dimple formed on the boundary, like the nub of a severed branch on a tree trunk. The dimple was still forming when the syrinx hit.
What, Merlin wondered, would have happened if that impact had been delayed for a few more instants? Might the dimple have finished forming, providing an entry point into the Way?
'I don't think it made any difference to me.'
'They say you hated Quail.'