‘Yes.’ Elva stared at the near-destroyed form. ‘Yes, we do.’

  It was hard to imagine Axolon at the height of his power, with hyper-fine senses and weaponry to match a regiment. (Tom had once killed what he thought was a Jack, but in Klivinax Toldrinov terminology that had been a nymph; as a full Jack, Axolon would have been invulnerable in hand-to-hand combat.) It was even harder to imagine a power capable of doing this to Axolon, but that was what the Blight had been: unimaginable.

  And its parent Anomaly was greater and darker by far.

  Then Elva was handing Tom a crystal - the ordinary kind - saying: ‘A courier left this, an hour ago. It’s DNA-sealed, for your eyes only.’

  ‘Well’ - Tom thumbed it on - ‘I’ve no secrets from you, dear.’

  But the lightness dropped from his tone as he read the message. All its meaning was wrapped up in two, concise triconic ideograms:

  Please come immediately. It concerns Corduven. The sharp-edged configuration conveyed this: Fully urgent.

  And it was signed:

  Lady V’Delikona.

  Elva placed her hand atop Tom’s.

  ‘You can go in the morning. I’ll keep the work going here. Your absence won’t slow things down.’

  ‘I can always postpone—’

  ‘It says most urgent, Tom, and she’s never asked anything of you before.’

  ‘Perhaps ...’ He blew out a breath. ‘Perhaps I should go right now.’

  ‘In the morning, when you’ve rested. Our tent’s down that way. You can go freshen up, while I make your travel arrangements.’

  ‘We can’t afford—’

  ‘Do what I say.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  ‘And I’ll be with you in a minute.’

  ‘I ... Thank you, darling.’

  ‘Any time, my love.’

  Next morning, Tom left at dawnshift, in an arachnargos less impressive than the one which had brought them here, but functional. The pilots offered to let him ride up front, but Tom preferred to sit in the thoracic hold, alone.

  There, he reached inside his tunic, and drew out the metal stallion talisman which his father had made, a lifetime before. His fingers formed the same old control gesture, and the solid metal clove apart, revealing the crystal hidden in its hollow core.

  It was the crystal which Brino had given him, replacement to the one which had been Tom’s companion over the years, with its teaching puzzles and tales of the first Pilots. For a long time, Tom held it in his palm, smiling with anticipation, before inserting it into his holopad.

  Then he activated it in full sensory mode, and sank inside the tale.

  ~ * ~

  8

  TERRA AD 2160

  <>

  [1]

  It was a December night, black and cold over Zurich. White snow slid softly from the sky. From the false Christmas tree, formed of wide floating disks decorated with greenery, with boughs of pine and sprigs of holly, the choir’s voices rose sweetly into the chill air.

  Bystanders, their shopping temporarily forgotten, stopped to listen.

  Ro, in her heavy jumpsuit and muffler, stood between Dirk and Kian and hugged her twin boys towards her. They stiffened before giving in: they were fifteen years old, identical, alternately awkward and mature.

  Golden holoflames flickered among the children in the six-metre-tall artificial tree, while very real white snow was caked atop the green pine branches, and on the shoulders and red caps of the children. They sang:

  ‘Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht...’

  It was a small square off the luxurious Bahnhofstrasse. The miniature park was surrounded by cobblestone pathways where vendors hawked intricate craft items from tent-like stalls, and sold hot chestnuts and fat-spitting sausages from crackling braziers.

  Beyond, over the Bahnhofstrasse thoroughfare, long rows of white/gold holo stars glimmered in the air, overlooking some of the most exclusive and expensive stores in Europe. They were still open, this late on a December night: the Swiss take their Christmas shopping seriously.

  A lifetime ago, Mother had taken Ro to this very square.

  I miss you.

  But she was gone. Last year, as summer slid into autumn, Karyn McNamara had slipped quietly from the world.

  Dirk’s infostrand beeped. He wore it wrapped helically around the bronze torc encircling his neck: all the fashion this year.

  Sorry, he mouthed to his mother, as bystanders looked round.

  He walked away, muttering to the holo image lased into his grey contact lenses.

  After the call was finished, Dirk remained where he was. Frowning, Ro gave Kian’s sleeve a tug, and they went to join Dirk.

  ‘It was Josette,’ he said to Kian. ‘She’s in the café.’

  ‘The Royale?’

  ‘Ouais, d’accord.’

  ‘Well, what kind of espèce de crétin does she think you are?’

  Ro, who was as quintilingual as her sons, said: ‘Not the kind to stand her up, I hope. On m ‘a posé un lapin when I was her age, and I was pissed.’

  ‘Mother ...’ Dirk looked pained. Kian checked that no-one nearby had overheard Ro’s coarse language; in her youth, it would have been considered mild.

  ‘The thing is,’ he said, ‘Dirk’s too soft to give her the heave-ho.’

  Ro looked at Dirk.

  ‘Josette and Lorraine had a little meeting,’ he said. ‘They decided that Josette was the one who was going to have me.’

  ‘And which of them,’ asked Ro, ‘do you prefer?’

  Dirk shrugged. Kian answered for him:

  ‘Neither one of them.’

  In the artificial tree, now lit by bright white light as the snowfall grew heavier, the school choir began to sing in Latin, calling the faithful to the cause.

  ‘Adeste fideles ...’

  ‘You have to tell her, Dirk.’ Ro chucked him under the chin.

  Dirk refused to be annoyed by the gesture. He was growing up.

  ‘I know I should, but—’

  It was Kian who finished the sentence:

  ‘—I’ll do it instead.’

  ‘Now look, boys ...’

  Ro let her voice trail off. Kian was already striding away through the snow.

  ‘What?’ Dirk shrugged. ‘I’d do the same for him.’

  ‘You would?’ said Ro. ‘Or you already have?’

  ‘I—’

  ‘No.’ Ro held up her gloved hands. ‘I don’t want to know.’

  They‘re growing up.

  Dirk chuckled.

  Way too fast.

  Part of the problem, Ro concluded, as she walked arm in arm with Dirk towards the main station, the magnificent old Hauptbahnhof, was the length of time she spent away.

  A red thermoacoustic tram, with a man dressed as Santa in nominal control (the onboard AI was in charge, freeing Santa to dispense jolly bonhomie), hissed past above the snow-covered cobblestones. The lighting was a cheerful golden glow. Passengers smiled at each other or peered out, delighted at the sights.

  If I were thirty-seven, she wondered, would they take me more seriously?

  That was the age Ro would be, had she remained earthbound. In fact, she bent the ultra-relativistic mu-space geodesies to far greater limits than UNSA planners suspected. No wonder she looked more like the twins’ sister than their mother.

  They crossed the street, passed the seated statue which frowned down upon the waiting travellers, seated in their bubble-lounges waiting for trams. Inside the station proper, transparent laminate covered the stone, preserved its baroque splendour. Holo adverts gleamed in shop windows. New-fangled morphslides had replaced the ancient escalators; Ro hoped that bioarchitecture would not replace the old buildings.

  ‘Dirk? You want to go down?’

  The boys, when they were younger, had loved to descend to the platforms and watch the big yellow double-decker mag-trains whisk away, or deliver crowds of passengers, many with snow-shoes or skis, into the city’s heart.

  ‘No thanks, Mom.’

  Growing up.

  Josette, with slightly pouting lips, her honey-coloured hair drawn back with a papillon mag-clasp, was hunched over an espresso, reading the tabletop display. Fashion news, Kian guessed.

  Josette looked up, and wiped the display to neutral navy-blue.

  ‘Grüezi,’ called Alberto from behind the zinc-topped counter. ‘Wie geht’s?’

  ‘Guten Abend.’ Kian used the local pronunciation: oh-bent. He spoke Schweizerdeutsch by default, could switch to formal Hochdeutsch when required. ‘Also gut. Alles ist hier OK?’

  ‘Ja, natürlich.’

  When Kian sat down opposite Josette, he automatically switched mental gears.

  ‘Tu vas bien, Josette?’

  ‘What do you think, Dirk?’

  ‘I...’ Kian stopped. Exactly what had happened between her and Dirk?

  ‘Andre’s not too happy, either. You’d better stay away from him for a while, hein?’

  Kian thought that Josette’s elder brother was a clumsy fool, but that was irrelevant.

  ‘All right. Um, how did things go today?’

  He knew Josette was trying out for the gym team. Like himself and Dirk, she came into the city three days a week for school; the rest of their studying was in Every Ware.

  ‘Vernadski hates me. I score 75 in biochem, or he drops me from the alpha group.’

  Josette leaned back in her chair, took a tiny vial from her pocket, squirted a pleasant, understated fragrance beneath her ears.

  Why does Dirk want to break it off?

  It seemed a shame. Josette was very nice.

  He‘d do the same for me.

  ‘What about gym?’ he asked.

  Josette gave him a strange look.

  Merde. Something you forgot to tell me, bro?

  She opened her mouth as if to deliver a scathing reply, but just then Alberto came round from behind the bar, and deposited two tall glasses of warm dark Glückwein.

  ‘To keep out the chill.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Merci.’

  Alberto nodded, and set about delivering similar free drinks to the other customers.

  A touch on the back of his hand whipped Kian’s attention downwards. With a sultry smile - or as near as Josette could get to one - she wrapped her fingers in his.

  ‘You know it doesn’t matter,’ she said, ‘about my knee. Getting injured. It was worth it, darling.’

  ‘I don’t—’

  ‘You can try again. You know what I’d like?’

  Kian’s tongue was dry. He swallowed, tried not to flinch as Josette leaned across the small table and whispered in his ear.

  ‘Jesus Christ.’

  ‘Huh?’

  Kian could feel his face burning. ‘You’ve been doing what?’

  Josette, suddenly pale, sat back in her chair with a thump.

  ‘Kian ... ?’ Then, raising her voice to stop all conversation in the café. ‘You’re not Dirk. You pervert!’

  ‘Oh, merde.’ But Kian could not help smirking. ‘No wonder you strained your ligaments. Don’t you think that was a little, er, ambitious?’

  Josette’s hand arced through the air. Kian shifted slightly, and her palm smacked into the wall.

  ‘Ow! Now look what you’ve done.’

  ‘Me? All I...’

  But he let his voice trail off then as she placed her injured hand in her lap, covered her face with the other, and began to sob.

  Accusing faces, all around, stared at Kian.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ It sounded inadequate. ‘Look, see ... Dirk couldn’t face having this conversation. You mean so much to him. It’s just not working—’

  ‘Bâtard!’ She hissed, an indrawn breath between her teeth, then: ‘Espèce de con! Je te déteste!’

  ‘I don’t—’

  ‘I hate your brother, and I hate you. Both of you!’

  Kian pushed his chair back. It was time to leave. He signalled to Alberto: the universal handwriting-on-palm gesture which had survived into an age when no-one used pens.

  There was a hiss. His left eye stung.

  The fragrance bottle was in Josette’s hand and he knocked it aside. It arced through the air, bounced off a pillar onto the floor and lay there.

  ‘You bitch.’ Kian rubbed at his eye.

  ‘I didn’t—’

  He used his thumbnail to lever off the contact lens, blinked rapidly. He ought to rinse—

  But then he saw the expressions on the other diners’ faces, shock mingled with something else, and he slowly rose. There was a mirror on the far wall, inscribed with an advert for Toblerone chocolates. In the reflection, his exposed eye glittered darkly.

  Obsidian. Jet. Shining black with no surrounding white.

  A Pilot’s eye.

  Something Dirk didn’t share with you?

  Josette was frozen, the tears down her cheeks beginning to congeal. She knew that Dirk and Kian lived at the convent which doubled as the Pilots’ School. Had she never put the picture together?

  ‘Alberto?’ He fingered his infostrand-torc. ‘How much do I owe you?’

  Ponderously, Alberto came around from behind the counter, scanned the patrons of his beloved café.

  ‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘Nichts, nul. Rien.’

  Kian took a breath, trying to ignore the pain in his eye.

  ‘But you’d prefer I didn’t come back, am I right?’

  Alberto said nothing more, but his meaning was clear.

  My kind is not welcome here.

  Kian looked at Josette.

  ‘See you around.’

  He left quickly, hiding the trembling in his shoulders, feeling sickened.

  Outside, the night was icy black and unforgiving, but Kian kept his hood down as he walked, his eye burning, preferring December chill to the stony hardness of his supposed friends’ hearts.

  <>

  ~ * ~

  9

  NULAPEIRON AD 3423

  Sitting there, in the half-lit cargo hold of a speeding arachnargos, Tom wondered about the nature of obligation and duty. When Axolon was cut free and later restored, what then? Tom had the future to think of, yet no plans beyond attending a Convocation and trying out for any vacant positions. He did not even know when the next Convocation would be held.

  None of this distracted Tom from his unease, from his fear of the Anomaly’s turning its attention towards Nulapeiron, and from the memory of Siganth. Eemur had said there was a link between him and the imprisoned Pilot; she implied that her ‘gift’ could have been a shared trip to almost anywhere, yet Tom had ended up in a hellworld.

  The Pilot did look familiar. Now that Tom had spent time immersed in the old tale, he was struck by the man’s similarity to Ro and her sons. Though burn-scars distorted his face and his right hand was a claw, Tom decided he must be a descendant of the McNamaras.

  I wish I could help you, Pilot.

  The arachnargos slewed to a halt. A voice sounded in the hold: ‘We’re stopping to take on board another passenger, my Lord, if that’s all right.’

  ‘Not a problem,’ said Tom. ‘You carry on.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  The man who shortly climbed inside was a lean, taciturn courier called Markilon, who nodded towards Tom as he sat back against a bulkhead, placed an aerolute across his lap, closed his eyes and promptly fell asleep.

  A quiet companion, anyhow.

  Soon the arachnargos was under way again.

  They stopped overnight in a raw cavern in interstitial territory, away from any civilized demesne. The two pilots, Feltima - a short woman with cropped hair and shoulders as broad and muscular as Elva’s - and the older, leaner Velsevius, joined Tom and Markilon in the hold.

  ‘We could sleep outside,’ said Velsevius, ‘but I always feel safer onboard.’

  ‘Suits me.’ Tom glanced at Markilon. ‘What do you think?’