Poseidon's Wake

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

Aboard Mposi they had seen the pause in the other ship’s progress and the temporary quenching of its Chibesa signature. At first they drew some encouragement from that, hoping that it might signal a change of heart on Dakota’s behalf — perhaps even a technical fault that would force her to abandon the mission. But closer examination showed the presence of a Watchkeeper, a dark-shuttered lantern a thousand times larger than Kanu’s tiny spacecraft. They watched it shark in close and stop with an insolent suddenness. It held station for an hour or two, then veered off at high acceleration. Not long after the Watchkeeper departed, the Chibesa signature resumed.

They had lost a little time, but nothing that made any difference in the larger scheme.

‘Eunice?’ Vasin asked, as if she had all the answers.

But Eunice had nothing to offer. ‘You know as much as I do. If the Watchkeepers didn’t think that expedition of hers was a good idea, they’d have stomped down on it.’

Soon there was an incoming transmission from Kanu.

They crowded around to watch it, letting it play without interruption. Now that she had spent time in the man’s presence, Goma felt she had some measure of Kanu as an individual — some sense of when he was speaking frankly, and when he was being held back from absolute candour.

Now she had no doubt that he was speaking freely.

They were to turn around, Kanu said. They were to turn around and restore full power to Zanzibar, and if they did not do so there would be immediate and irrevocable consequences.

‘She has no weapon that can touch you,’ Kanu explained, ‘just as you have no real weapon that can hurt her — and no, the mirrors don’t count. But ask Eunice about the Friends, about the survivors in the skipover vaults. Dakota has already convinced us that she’ll harm the Friends if we don’t cooperate with her, and that’s argument enough for me. Now she’s extending the same terms of engagement to you. If you don’t turn around, the Friends will die.’

The distance between Mposi and Icebreaker — they now knew the name of Kanu’s ship — had closed to less than one light-minute now. On that basis, Kanu demanded a response to his request within three clock minutes. Both ships were fully capable of tracking the other’s movements and exhaust energies — there was no possibility of subterfuge.

‘Sounds like brinkmanship to me,’ Vasin said.

‘Whatever it sounds like,’ Eunice replied, ‘he’s telling the truth about the sleepers in the skipover vaults. They exist.’

‘You mean,’ Ru said, ‘they existed the last time you had any hard evidence.’

Eunice gave a gracious nod. ‘That’s true, and I can’t prove that the Friends are still on Zanzibar. But they were always a potentially useful resource to her, even if only as a human shield. Provided she had the power to keep them viable, I think she’d have done so. Besides, there is another reason to believe they’re still alive.’

Ru folded her arms. ‘Which would be?’

‘Atonement. A great crime took place aboard Zanzibar. Don’t think that hasn’t left its mark on Dakota — there’s a part of her that still feels, still suffers remorse.’

‘You’re that good a judge of her character, after all this time?’ Vasin asked.

‘I know elephants. The past isn’t the past to them.’

‘Then she’s kept the Friends alive out of a sense of guilt, is that what you’re saying?’ asked Goma.

‘Not guilt, precisely, more out of a deep desire to undo what was already done — to balance out a wrongness with a greater good. But that doesn’t mean she won’t harm the Friends if she feels there’s no other alternative.’

‘How might she do it?’ Vasin asked.

‘A hundred ways. The simplest? Turn off their power. Left to warm too quickly, they’ll come back to us as so much neural porridge. Trust me. I’ve had some experience with this.’

‘You were warmed too quickly,’ Goma said, remembering one thread of Eunice’s ancient history. ‘But they found your body in time to recover some patterns from your head.’

‘They may as well have read chai-leaves. I don’t think Chiku brought back anywhere near as much of me as she imagined. But she meant well by it. It encouraged me to be more than I was.’

‘So where does this leave us?’ asked Vasin.

‘Your choice, Captain,’ Eunice said. ‘Take Kanu at his word and turn around or press ahead if you think this really is brinkmanship.’

‘What would you do?’

‘I can’t say I’ve ever been one for turning.’

If there was an argument to be mustered against Vasin, Goma was not going to be the one who took a stand. She could see the case for turning around — that to press on further was to risk retaliatory action against the Friends. But equally they had come this far with the intention of dissuading Dakota, not of giving in at the first setback.

She felt uneasy about it — as if she was allowing herself to be swept along by a rising tide of belligerence. But abandoning the pursuit felt no more desirable.

‘I meant to salute your courage,’ Grave said, during a quiet moment while they were waiting to see how Dakota would respond to their refusal to turn back. ‘After what happened to Mposi, it was not an easy thing to submit to the nanomachinery.’

Goma thought back to the horror of that moment, the imminent terror of drowning, the cool, calm force of Eunice restraining her under the surface of that lung-filling fluid.

Goma dredged up some false bravado. ‘It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.’

‘It’s what you feared beforehand that matters. I can’t say I knew him as well as you did, but I believe he would have been suitably proud. I just wish your negotiations had brought us to a more positive state of affairs.’

‘So do I.’

‘Our captain appears to be moving towards an acceptance of force as the only solution.’

Goma answered wearily, ‘If you have a better idea, please raise it. We’ve argued with them and reasoned with them. It’s made no difference.’

‘Mposi would not have been so defeatist.’

‘You’re right — you didn’t know him as well as I did.’

‘I just think we’re rushing into something we will not be able to undo. Gandhari will try to use the mirrors in an offensive capacity; Dakota will deliver on her promise to harm the Friends. And what will have been gained by either party except a deepening of our estrangement?’

‘I get all that, Peter. I just don’t see an alternative.’

‘We could have demonstrated our good intentions by backing off.’

‘And allowed Dakota a free run at Poseidon?’

‘An even freer run,’ Grave corrected, without any censure. ‘In one sense, our chase is completely futile. She will get there ahead of us no matter what we do, so what is to be gained by pursuing this course of action?’

‘We can’t just let her do what she wants.’

‘But since we cannot prevent her, what are we hoping to achieve? A show of defiance?’

‘Anything could happen once they approach those moons. They’ll need to slow down drastically. If they run into trouble or have a malfunction, the tables might be turned.’

He smiled. ‘Might.’

‘It’s all we’ve got, Peter. You have your faith, and this is mine — that a long shot is better than no shot at all. And you forget, Dakota is a Tantor — no matter what she thinks of herself, what she’s become, that makes her something marvellous to me. I want to know her mind. I want to protect it like a jewel. Nothing so precious should ever fade from the universe again.’

‘From what I’ve seen, she looks like a monster to me.’

‘Even monsters are beautiful,’ Goma said.

Dakota delivered her answer via Kanu. His face, familiar to them all now, bore the stress of recent events. Nissa, his former wife, looked on from the background, her expression no more settled than Kanu’s.

‘Well, you can’t say you weren’t warned. Dakota has sent a command back to Zanzibar to begin selective thawing of one hundred of the Friends. You know what this means. They’ll be raised from skipover too quickly and suffer irreversible damage to their detailed brain structure. The process will take a few hours and you’ll have no independent confirmation of it until the work is done, but I’ve spent enough time with Dakota not to doubt her conviction. The thawing has commenced. You can still turn around, and perhaps the damage won’t be so bad that they can’t be cooled down again and given another shot at revival. But that’s your decision, and your risk. I’ve done what I can — I’ve argued our case to the best of my abilities. I hoped you’d see sense — see that there’s no option but to permit us to continue alone. But you haven’t, and I’m sorry.’

When he was done, Vasin turned to her little assembly. ‘An idle threat?’

‘Not given her history,’ Eunice said.

‘Then we can assume those sleepers really are being allowed to thaw?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do we still retain control of the mirrors?’

‘Ditto.’

‘And her efforts to lock us out?’

‘Continuing, but as yet unsuccessful. They’ve put up a good fight, but I know the control architecture of those mirrors better than they do, and I had a head start.’

Vasin nodded solemnly. ‘Then we’ll put that control to the test. Depriving them of power hasn’t been persuasive. I want you to swing the beams back onto Zanzibar, but not directed at the power grids this time. Concentrate the heat on anything that might be vulnerable.’

‘This will not make her a happy bunny.’

‘We were not the first to move to violence as a negotiating tactic,’ Vasin said.

‘We were not,’ Peter Grave said, ‘but we did refuse to listen to any of her earlier pleas, and now we’re going to meet violence with violence.’

‘Against physical structures, not human bodies,’ Vasin said.

Loring steepled vis fingers and gave a sagelike nod. ‘Fair point.’

‘Our intention is to debilitate Zanzibar, not to harm the Tantors,’ Vasin went on. ‘If we can hurt their life-support capability, we may force them back from the brink. Reactivate the mirrors, Eunice. Let’s show them that we have teeth.’

Like vengeful searchlights, the mirrors’ beams tightened their focus and swung back onto Zanzibar.

Vasin’s knowledge of the former holoship was still predicated on long-range imagery and the gloss of interpretation — reliable or otherwise — offered by Eunice. Doubtless they were wrong or confused about some of the details, but at least the positions of the original solar grids were known with reasonable confidence. They were now directing the foci of the beams away from those designated collector areas onto other parts of the crust. The grids were intended to absorb the incoming energy of solar photons, soaking it into the fluid that would eventually drive the generators inside Zanzibar. They would grow hot — no radiation conversion process was entirely efficient — but that was compensated for in their design. But no such allowance would have been made for any of the other structural installations on the shard’s surface.

Under the continued assault of three thousand kelvins of temperature, almost any mechanical system was bound to suffer catastrophic damage. Locks would be fused into slag, power ducts ruptured, berthing cradles warped out of function, insulation charred and boiled away, the very skin of Zanzibar turned locally molten. Volatiles trapped in the rocky matrix of the original holoship would geyser into vacuum. These actions would only damage the outer skin of the little world and the consequences might not be immediately fatal for the deeper layers — it was not Vasin’s intention to blast through into the airtight cores, or to bake the inhabitants into submission. But she was hoping to do sufficient swift and severe damage that her opponents would be cowed into renegotiation, for fear of worse to come.

Even from the distance of Mposi, the effects of their work were soon visible. Wherever the beams touched, warm material began to haze off into the surrounding vacuum. Zanzibar began to resemble the husk of a warming comet stroked by sunlight. These tendrils of gas and ionised matter would eventually curdle into orbit around Paladin.

‘This is Kanu,’ he said, when news of the attack reached Icebreaker. ‘I confess I’m surprised by the haste of your actions. Under any other circumstances we’d call this a declaration of war.’

The time lag for round-trip communications was down to ninety seconds — not quite short enough for a fluent conversation, but sufficient for real-time negotiations.

‘Call it what you will, Kanu,’ said Vasin. ‘Dakota was the one who began murdering innocent hostages, not us. So far we’ve not touched a single life — Tantor or human. You can still back down, provided you convince Dakota to give up on this expedition.’

‘You still don’t get it, do you? You’re damaging Zanzibar, but that won’t make any difference to Dakota. You can’t touch Icebreaker, and whatever harm you do to Zanzibar’s outer structures won’t have any real consequences for the Risen inside. They’ll ride this out, then repair and rebuild. It’s what they do — what they’ve always done. And in the meantime, you’ve only given her additional incentive to carry on warming the Friends.’

‘They say you were a diplomat.’

‘In another life.’

‘Were you good at diplomacy, Kanu Akinya? Were you good at finding a solution where none appeared evident?’

‘No better or worse than the rest of my colleagues.’

‘And what became of them?’

‘Most of them died. We were trying to keep a peace. I don’t even know if it was worth the effort.’

‘It’s always worth it. Our argument isn’t with you, Kanu — we understand that you are acting contrary to your better judgement. But that doesn’t mean you have to surrender to Dakota. Tell her I am ready to withdraw the mirrors the moment she changes course. Tell her that, in the event of a peaceful resolution, I’ll commit all our resources to repairing the damage we’ve done. Total amnesty, no recriminations. But you must do your part, too. She’s sailing into calamity, whatever you may believe to the contrary. If there’s a way to stop her, you must do it.’

‘You forget,’ he said, ‘I’ve seen the Friends. I know they are real, and that they are viable for restoration to life. That changes everything, Captain Vasin. To you, they’re just a number — some hypothetical dead people who may or may not get to live again. But I’ve glimpsed their faces. I’ve read their names, their histories. Seen the families among them — the mothers and fathers, the children they committed to a better future. The love they had for each other, the love they had for the Tantors. I cannot abandon them. I won’t.’

‘You have my admiration, Kanu. You appear to be a good man. It’s a pity we find ourselves at odds.’

‘We don’t need to be. Turn off the mirrors.’

‘Turn around.’

‘No.’

‘And no again.’

That was the end of diplomacy.

The dispersing of the bodies began soon after. They saw it on video, imaged aboard Zanzibar, transmitted to Icebreaker, bounced to Mposi. They could doubt the veracity of it, if they cared to, but Goma was minded to believe it was as real as it looked. There had not been time to prepare a plausible fiction, and something about the process itself — the unplanned, marginally shambolic means by which it was executed — spoke eloquently of its authenticity.

The elephants began bringing bodies to the external locks. They were the thawed dead, or perhaps not even fully thawed — it was difficult to be sure. They had been removed from their skipover caskets, the caskets too heavy and bulky to be easily moved into the locks. Upon contact with vacuum, the bodies would have quickly refrozen. Zanzibar’s spin meant that they fell away quickly, soon escaping beyond the immediate effects of the mirrors.

They came out in ones and twos, threes and fours — as many as could be stuffed into the locks at the same time. They tumbled out, glittering mummies, glistening starfish, the exact moment of their committal determining the trajectory they followed. They were all still in orbit around Paladin, but those orbits were fully independent of Zanzibar now, and some of them would, inevitably, intersect with Paladin’s surface, or skirt the scorching edge of its whisper of an atmosphere, close enough to flash into a comet-tail of incandescence. They were dead already as far as their hopes of revival went, but what became of their bodies would now depend on acute contingencies of physics and timing. Some would become ash, others would spend half an eternity as ice.

They counted close to a hundred, although it was impossible to verify the exact number.

Then the dispersal stopped. There were more sleepers aboard Zanzibar, Eunice said — many thousands more. Dakota had made her point and must have been hoping it would prove sufficient.

Meanwhile, the mirrors continued beaming their energy onto Zanzibar’s surface. From the plumes of gas and their compositional spectra — the distinct tang of rare, artificially refined metals — it was clear they were inflicting significant damage to the external structures.

‘Turn them off,’ Vasin said.

Eunice withdrew her hands from the console. ‘I don’t need to. She just found her way into the mirrors’ control architecture.’

‘What?’

‘As of a couple of seconds ago. She’s busy finding her way around — closing loopholes, sealing me out. In a minute or two she’ll have complete control.’

‘You told us she couldn’t beat you,’ Goma said, affronted by this sudden development.

‘I was wrong. She must have remembered more about the architecture than I assumed.’

‘So fight back,’ Vasin said. ‘Those mirrors are the only hold we have over her.’

‘Excuse me, Captain, but you just told me to turn them off.’

‘Only while we consider our options.’

‘I’ll lay out our options,’ Eunice said, joining her hands in her lap. ‘There aren’t any. We’re royally fucked. The mirrors didn’t persuade Dakota to turn around or stop her throwing those sleepers out into space. How much more damage would we have to do before she has a change of heart? My guess is she’d just carry on until the skipover vaults were empty.’

‘She could never be that ruthless,’ Ru said.

‘You’re still thinking of her as an elephant, or a Tantor — something you can relate to. So was I, for a little while. I hoped she’d show restraint, clemency. But whatever part of her was capable of that is long gone. The Watchkeepers scooped it out and replaced it with this single overriding compulsion. Nothing will stop her. If you want proof of that, just look at those bodies.’

‘Then we’ve failed,’ Vasin said.

‘We can’t reach Icebreaker, and reasoned argument hasn’t worked. Now she’s gained control of the only instrument that stood a chance of persuading her. I’m sorry. We did our best.’

‘You’re taking this very well,’ Goma said.

Eunice gave a semi-shrug. ‘Experience. You can fight the odds up to a point, but sooner or later you have to face reality. The universe doesn’t care about temper tantrums or pity. This was our chance, and we blew it. Captain Vasin — will you turn us around?’

Vasin nodded slowly. ‘I don’t want to — not after we’ve come this far. But I won’t have more deaths on my conscience.’

‘It’s the right decision,’ Eunice said, as if offering sympathy to the bereaved. ‘Hard, I know — but it’s the only course open to us now. If you change our vector, Kanu will see it — there’s no need to make a formal announcement.’

‘I’d like to, all the same, just so there’s no confusion.’

‘If you think that’s for the best,’ Eunice said.

Vasin made her statement. It was short, to the point. She said that there must be no more deaths. To this end, Mposi was abandoning its effort to reach Poseidon. As they peeled away from their present course, they would consider their options — whether to return to Orison or attempt to make diplomatic contact with the Risen on Zanzibar. If Dakota had an opinion, Vasin was ready to hear it.

They did not have long to wait for an answer. It was the elephant this time rather than Kanu.

‘Thank you for seeing sense, Captain Vasin. I am sorry that I had to make my point so forcefully, but I think we can both agree that it was necessary to demonstrate the extent of our convictions. No, there will be no more deaths. If you wish to return to Orison, please do so. If you wish to visit Zanzibar, or are compelled to do so by reason of fuel or life-support demands, you will be treated well. But it will not be diplomatic contact. You have taken action against us, attempted to harm our world, and you will be regarded as prisoners of war. You have my word, though, that you will not be harmed. It was a serious tactical mistake to imagine that you could gain control of our mirrors and retain that control. Be grateful I have decided not to take punitive action for your error of judgement. Such an act would be unfair, though — the Friends cannot be blamed for your short-sightedness.’

The transmission ended. Even as it played, Mposi had begun to change its course, opening up the distance to Icebreaker. The engine was at full output, sending the clearest possible signal to Kanu and Dakota.

‘We took his name for the ship,’ Goma said, ‘and we screwed it up. We didn’t act wisely at all.’

‘This is the wise act,’ Grave said, his tone gently reproving. ‘This is the thing Mposi would have been proud of — that we have the sense to know when the battle is lost. No, we haven’t succeeded in the way we hoped. But we could only do our best under very difficult circumstances.’

‘People died,’ Goma said. ‘Using the mirrors ruined any chance of a peaceful discussion. How is that not a disaster?’

‘Mposi would have understood that we went into this with an incomplete understanding of the facts. We had to test Dakota to see how ruthless she was prepared to be. We know that now, whereas before it was just supposition. The mirrors were a mistake — but even I dared hope we might have gained the upper hand by those means.’

‘Then we’re all fallible. Even Eunice.’

‘Even her,’ Eunice said.

‘Eunice thought she was cleverer,’ Grave said, directing a sympathetic glance at her as she spoke. ‘It’s excusable. Most of her existence, that’s exactly what she’s been. But she forgot that being human comes with some limitations.’

‘Most of us have already worked that one out,’ Goma said.

‘Be patient with her,’ Grave answered. ‘She’s new to this.’

The crew of Mposi convened around the well, squeezed into the tight, knee-scraping spaces between its rim and the enclosing walls. It had reverted to its former function now, offering a three-dimensional view of the entire system from Paladin’s orbit inwards. They were debating their options while also plotting Kanu’s trajectory.

He was nearly at the outer margin of Poseidon’s moons. Unchecked, he had made excellent progress and was now engaged in a steady deceleration burn. The well showed a fist of bright, curving lines worming through and around the orbits of the planet’s moons, eventually terminating at some point close to Poseidon’s surface. Aboard Icebreaker, Kanu must have been faced with a similar spread of possibilities, only now able to refine them down to a set of possible choices. Given the uncertainty in his total journey time from Zanzibar, there would have been nothing gained by planning this stage of the expedition in too much detail ahead of time.

‘Six hours to the limit of the outer moon,’ Vasin said, dipping a finger into the well. ‘After that, guesswork is all we have. We still don’t know the detailed capabilities of that ship — whether the plan is to orbit and send down a secondary vehicle, or whether the whole thing can handle Poseidon’s atmosphere. It’s a pretty compact-looking ship, so maybe it can.’

‘Where would they land, if they make it down?’ Loring said. ‘Other than those wheels, there’s nothing but water.’

‘Maybe the ship can float,’ Vasin answered. ‘Maybe they intend to remain in the atmosphere. Those wheels are huge, after all — there’s presumably a lot to learn just by observing them from close proximity. If they’re content to just study the tops of the wheels, they don’t even have to enter the atmosphere.’

‘If they get that far,’ Goma said. ‘Eunice — you said the Terror always made you turn back — what’s to say they won’t run up against the same thing?’

‘They will if they go deep enough. The moons don’t allow anything to get that close to the surface without being sampled, examined, deemed worthy of further interest. That’s the test the Watchkeepers keep failing — they ring like empty bottles, and the moons don’t like that at all.’

‘And Kanu’s crew?’

‘I think they will pass the test. We always passed. It was the courage to continue that failed us.’

‘And now?’ Goma pressed.

‘I’d still be shit-scared, dear. But that’s because I’m a sane and sensible organism with a ready appreciation of the risks. Dakota is an instrument — a meat probe. The Watchkeepers have turned her into what they can’t be themselves. If she feels the fear, it’s screwed down so tight she can’t act on it.’

‘But Kanu will feel it. And Nissa.’

‘Yes. Pity them. Would you do me a small favour, Captain Vasin?’

‘That depends.’

‘Zoom in on Paladin for a moment.’

Vasin looked puzzled, and then a little troubled. ‘Our concern is Poseidon, Eunice.’

‘Nonetheless, indulge an old woman.’

Vasin played the well with her customary fluency. She centred the display space on Paladin, then enlarged it by degrees until Eunice held up a hand.

‘Good enough for you?’

‘That’s fine. This is a real-time image, right, Captain? It shows the rotational aspect of Paladin, the relative position of Zanzibar in its orbit? It’s accurate to the limit of our current observations, the combined sensor inputs from both Mposi and Travertine?’

‘Yes, but there’s no—’

‘Watch and learn. I think you’ll find this most instructive.’

‘Eunice,’ Goma said, with a slowly dawning dread, ‘what are you about to do?’

‘Nothing that your mother didn’t spell out in her notebooks, child. They were very useful. Enormously instructive. They filled gaps in my comprehension I didn’t even know were there.’

‘What is she talking about?’ Vasin asked. ‘What notebooks?’

‘Never mind,’ Goma said, with equal sharpness. ‘What’s going on? What’s about to happen?’

Eunice jabbed one finger at the little glowing mote that was Zanzibar and another at the second Mandala. ‘If this rendering is as accurate as you claim, the Mandala is not presently visible from Zanzibar. It lies over the horizon, around the curvature of Poseidon — but not for long. Zanzibar’s orbit is low and Mandala is about to start coming into view. In fifteen minutes, the former will be over the latter.’

‘And?’ Karayan asked.

‘I am about to send a sequence of commands to the Mandala. They will duplicate the effect of the command sequence Ndege gave to the original Mandala. I will initiate a second Mandala event.’

For a moment there was silence as everyone struggled to process the full import of what she had just said. Goma was as speechless as the rest of them. There was too much to consider, too much to examine except in small pieces.

How could she think of doing this? How could she be confident that her commands would have the same effect, or any effect, for that matter? How could she talk to the Mandala? How could she take this risk with Tantor and human lives? Where was she planning to send them? Was it too much to hope that she had a plan?

How could she dare to be Eunice Akinya?

‘Any questions?’ Eunice said.

‘It won’t work,’ Goma said eventually, the first of them to break the spell. ‘My mother spent months, years, setting up experiments inside Mandala’s walls. She didn’t talk to it for fifteen minutes from inside a spaceship, across light-seconds of distance. It doesn’t respond to radio, laser, neutrinos or anything we use for normal communication.’

‘Then it’s a good thing I’m not planning to utilise any of those channels. Your mother used light and shade, did she not? The selective masking of areas of the Mandala?’

‘Yes, but she was inside it, camped there, physically present. She had screens, blackout sheets, floodlamps… you have none of these things.’

‘I have the mirrors,’ Eunice said.

This was met with another silence, but it was shorter than the first and this time Vasin was the one to break it.

‘No. You lost control of the mirrors. We saw it happen. You told us she had found her way in.’

‘Ah, yes, so I did. Which obviously eliminates any possibility that I was lying, or withholding some portion of the truth…’

Ru made a lunge for her across the edge of the well and nearly got a hand around Eunice’s neck before she jerked out of reach.

Ru snapped her attention to Goma. ‘What the fuck is she talking about?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Everybody calm down,’ Vasin said. ‘Eunice — clarify the situation with the mirrors. You said she had control.’

‘That was true.’

‘And now you’re saying you do still have control?’

‘That’s also true. You should have paid more attention when I told you I was deep inside that architecture — deep enough to allow Dakota the illusion that she had regained some control. I allowed her to think she’d beaten me. I allowed you to think I was all out of options. In truth, I’d already embedded the command code — the instruction for the mirrors to swing onto Paladin’s Mandala.’

‘You want to attack it!’ Vasin said.

‘What are the odds, Captain, that any human technology could even begin to damage something that’s been there for several million years, weathering solar storms, asteroid bombardments and geological changes without sustaining so much as a blemish? No, that’s not what I wanted the mirrors for. Goma knows. Goma sees.’

‘Light,’ Goma answered. ‘She can modulate the mirrors to send a version of Ndege’s command string — talk directly to Mandala in the language of light.’

‘To initiate a Mandala event?’ Vasin asked.

‘Yes,’ Eunice said. ‘It’s not difficult. It’s the Mandala’s purpose, and it doesn’t need huge encouragement to start doing the thing it was designed to do. Especially not after all this time asleep, dormant, waiting to be reactivated — as Ndege found when she communicated with Crucible’s Mandala.’

‘You’re insane,’ Karayan said. ‘You cannot take this action.’

‘I see no alternative. Kanu is acting under duress because of the threat to the Friends. I am removing them from the equation.’

‘Stop her,’ Ru said. ‘Kill her. Whatever it takes.’

Eunice directed a look of supreme contrition at the other woman. ‘You have every right to despise me, Ru — but not on this score. I’m not hurting the Friends or the Tantors. I am sparing them further involvement in this unholy human mess. They have endured one Mandala event; I have every confidence they can survive another.’

‘No,’ Ru said, as if none of those words had reached her. ‘She’s got to be stopped.’

‘And how would you do that? I’ve told you that the command sequence is already activated. Would you like me to deactivate it? In which case, I’ll need access to the console again — and you’d better hope we still have enough time left before Mandala begins to come into view, because that fifteen minutes is a very fuzzy estimate indeed.’

‘If we allow her access to the console,’ Grave said, ‘we could be giving her exactly the opportunity she needs. Are you bluffing, Eunice? Can we trust a single word that comes out of your mouth?’

‘You can trust me when I say this: the translation event is irrevocable. It will happen. And if you wish for some good to come out of this, now would be the time to warn Dakota so that she can get a message to the rest of them.’

‘She won’t believe a word of it,’ Vasin said. ‘Not now.’

‘But at least you’ll have tried,’ Eunice said.