‘Response to what, Captain?’

  A pause.

  ‘Captain?’

  Sorry, officer. Lot going on. They say now that unless we give in to their demands—

  ‘What demands? Whose?’

  The Neptune people. Look, I’m not broadcasting this to the field …

  Just me, Holye thought. The captain was setting up some kind of special assignment. Just for him? What could he do alone?

  Now the mild bewilderment he felt started to harden into an inchoate fear. Which he pushed down. This is the job, Holye.

  ‘Go ahead, sir.’

  They’ve just been outlining the threat they pose. You see, their damn shield is capable of blocking out the Hearthlight – and its warmth – from the whole of the planet – and for as long as they like. And you can probably guess the consequences of that.

  ‘Feeling it out here right now, Captain.’

  OK. And you can guess too that I’ve been talking to the scientists. Who are running around the Capitol buildings like rats in a sack of Venusian grain. Look. The world’s not going to just freeze overnight, even, if, when, all the Hearth’s warmth is kept out.

  ‘Sir?’

  Just think. Have you ever thought about what would happen if the Hearthlight went out? Or even, if it was blocked off, from the world?

  ‘I guess not, sir.’

  Well, I know now. Know it too well. Some of the military, the government scientists, have actually been modelling it ever since this big slaver overwhelmed that Patrol ship, and we got some reliable data. And, to say the least, we aren’t prepared for this kind of – assault.

  ‘You mean, because we depend on the Hearth’s heat. And if that’s blocked by a malevolent actor … What will happen, sir?’

  Without it, well, it seems that the water vapour in the atmosphere will hold its heat for a time. A few days. Even the air itself can contain heat.

  But when the moisture in the air cools too far – it will all just rain out, even snow. When there’s nothing left but frost on the ground, when the clouds have all cleared, there’ll be nothing in the sky to stop the heat loss, nothing to stop the fall in temperature.

  And the plants will have started to die.

  No photosynthesis, of course, no Hearthlight to enable them to grow. Bigger plants will survive for a while. Trees. They have energy banks of their own, starches and stuff, but the freeze will get them all in the end … I’m shaky on the biology but that’s what they tell me.

  Meanwhile we freeze too.

  Below zero, the planet itself, its various systems, will keep radiating heat off into space, out of the air, the ground, the oceans. Nothing to stop it. Nothing to warm us up again.

  After fourteen days, they say, we’ll have a hundred degrees of frost. After twenty or thirty days, two hundred degrees. So the science guys say. We’d be heading for absolute zero by then. As cold as it could possibly be.

  Oh, some life would cling on even so, around thermal vents on the sea floor. Even on land, in active volcanic regions – geothermal energy could provide a little liquid water, home for a few hardy bugs.

  But by two, three years the oceans would be frozen over. A mass extinction. Of creatures we ourselves cultivated and used to seed the oceans …

  ‘What about us, sir? Humans?’

  We’d be long finished by then. Mostly. Oh, there will be a few habitats – under the government buildings for one thing – but they have only finite reserves of fuel. Maybe they’ll last long enough for us to surrender to the Hierarchy. Ha!

  ‘Sir—’

  After ten years, twenty years, the very air would liquefy. It says here. Rain out. Can you imagine that? A liquid oxygen rain …

  At last it sounded like she’d run down.

  ‘Sir—’

  I’m sorry, Holye.

  ‘Don’t apologise, sir. But what’s this got to do with me? Right now? Aside from the forthcoming grisly deaths of me and my family … I’m just a cop. What should I do?’

  There are some in the government who want to make a deal with this damn Sabre Hierarchy. The one thing they will really want is people. And to deal, all we have is people. Our people. And that’s what we’ll have to give them.

  ‘People.’ And a cold knot started to gather in Holye’s stomach. Where was the captain going with this … ? What did it mean for him?

  They’re slavers, Holye. That’s the top and bottom of it. Slavers. That’s the basis of their economy. Interplanetary slavers.

  Holye could barely take this in. ‘Slavers?’

  I’m afraid so. So we need to give them slaves. Just a small … cadre. To buy them off for a while, as we figure out how to handle this. Strong, smart people who can withstand the conditions, the no doubt grimy work as this damn ship makes for home …

  They want engineers. We aren’t sending engineers. Oh, some mechanics, even carpenters – no propulsion engineers. For sure nobody who has worked on the fancy new dark-matter drive – and you should forget about that, Holye, not a word. Labourers, we are stuffing the group with labourers …

  And Holye knew what was coming. The assertion behind the captain’s words.

  And we are giving them police officers. From around the planet, to make it look like a convincing scattering. Who ought to be able to cope, once they get aboard that big fancy ship – well, maybe they’ll find a way to take it apart from within.

  ‘Not military, sir?’

  A handful, for discipline. But we need people up there who can deal with other people. The military aren’t selected for their people skills, generally.

  And for Holye it felt like the world was falling in. He knew what this was, how the call was going.

  He could only think of his mother, clinging on to her police comms.

  ‘Ah. Which is where I come in.’

  I’m afraid so, Holye.

  She had addressed him as ‘Holye’ – not by his rank … That felt even more ominous.

  There’ll be a dozen people, that’s all. But one has to be a cop. We want you to volunteer to go on this joy ride. I can’t order you. But we know we can trust you to – well, for instance, to make sure the whole dark-matter-ship cover-up stays watertight. Once in there you can lead, even, make sure the ‘traitors’ play their roles properly.

  ‘Me.’

  And others. Military. A medic. All disciplined, trained not to talk as long as possible. This is why I need police to do this. To run the show. And once aboard, if you can, take the damn thing apart from within. I know what I’m asking of you.

  ‘Do you, sir?’

  I … probably not.

  A pause.

  You have family, don’t you, Holye?

  ‘A mother. A sister.’

  We’ll take care of them. Look – I know this plan looks dumb, and it’s a low chance of survival for the volunteers, but it’s all we have—

  ‘I’ll do it, Captain.’ He said it without letting himself think it through further. ‘So, the volunteers – where do they need to go for pickup?’

  Where do I go.

  The captain sighed a sigh of what sounded like relief. Then she told him.

  And promised again to care for Holye’s mother.

  20

  As Holye had expected, he was directed to a shuttle pad not far from the Capitol, a pad usually dedicated to government business.

  Usually.

  He got a helping hand into the spacecraft.

  The door had barely closed before the shuttle rose on a fusion flame, and he just made it to a couch before being pressed down by the sharp acceleration of the ascent.

  The guy next to him turned out to be military.

  On a whim, Holye nudged him. He looked back coldly.

  ‘Tell me this. You’re military. I’m just a cop. Why don’t we fly up in a bunch of these shuttles and rip that big sail, mirror, to pieces? Hit it with guns, lasers. Those big systems they use to deflect asteroids. Punch missiles—’

  The guy shook his head. ‘Tried that. Man, the sail is the size of Neptune. You can punch holes in it, it gets holes punched all the time by space rocks. It’s just too big. Given time and a fleet of drones … Ah. I don’t really want to talk, you know? I just said goodbye to my daughter.’

  ‘Sorry. I … Sorry.’

  And then, once the acceleration was done, as soon as he could move around, following orders, he crammed his way into a pressure suit.

  It took just thirty minutes before the shuttle was docking with an interface module, a hasty improvisation with locks at either end, one to match the rising shuttle, the other evidently docked to the Hierarchy ship.

  A rough docking.

  Then they were taken out of the cabin one by one, alone.

  No windows to see out of, as they waited. Everybody avoiding eye contact.

  Holye could barely believe this was happening. And so quickly. He thought of his mother.

  He was weightless. What a day.

  Finally, he was beckoned forward to an open port, and he passed through and into the Hierarchy craft.

  They all had to go through a sharp procedure. He had to strip naked, was showered, and his head was shaved, roughly.

  He was given overalls of a drab green colour. Barely fitting, these had soft, attached shoes. Holye thought his coverall stank, just faintly. And the shoe attachments were greasy within. Pre-loved, evidently.

  Passing through, one at a time, the quarantine actually took longer than had the flight to orbit.

  After a wait that probably wasn’t as long as it felt like, a ship-side door finally opened, framing a young woman in the much-abused remnant of a similarly green navy coverall. She looked harassed, but smiled at Holye, glancing at his badge.

  ‘So,’ she said, ‘you’re one of our police volunteers.’ She glanced around. She whispered, ‘I know why you’re here. You’ll be … safe here. But we have to process you properly.’

  That sounded ominous. No backing out, now, kid. ‘Process?’

  ‘Look – I’m one of you. Or I was. I’m a slave, now. My name is Ulla Breen. Commander, assigned to the Patrol 45. When they took us, in my first few days on this tub, they – the Hierarchy officers – picked me out to help run the slave pool. All right? Which means administering some of their processes for them. So this could be worse.’

  ‘Patrol 45. I read about that. It made the news, before the clampdown. As a cop I got to hear a little more—’

  She ignored all that.

  ‘Now, look – you need to know that slaves here are controlled by force. And in particular, as a punishment, or a control mechanism – whatever – they generally concentrate on – umm, amputating the senses. Each new slave has to choose a, a sense to sacrifice, the first time they make a foul-up.’

  Holye said, ‘Remember I’m just arrived on this boat. What are you talking about? Senses? Like smell, taste, touch—’

  ‘They take them away. As punishments. Efficient, you’ll probably agree. And they think it’s – elegant, I think. These are long-term slave-owners, remember. I had to choose, when I was – inducted – into this crew. I chose to lose my sense of taste.’ She seemed to force a grin. ‘I can smell smoke from a fire, but I can’t taste the fine food they serve here.’

  Holye could barely believe his ears. ‘This really is a slave-ship, isn’t it?’

  ‘Afraid so. And unfortunately you have to lose one of your own senses. Now.’

  He tried to keep calm. ‘And if I get to choose—’

  ‘No,’ she said sharply. ‘I’m really sorry, Officer Lawa. In your case that’s not an option. As police you’re seen as too – resourceful, too dangerous.’

  ‘Then what—’

  She said sharply, ‘Your sight. I’m so sorry. They’re going to take away your sight. Right now. I’m so sorry …’

  Holye could hardly believe he was hearing this. Only just taken on board. Only a few hours since he left his station at the Capitol. He couldn’t believe this was happening.

  Only a few hours since he’d been talking to his mother.

  There was a sharp rap on the door.

  Ulla leaned forward, took Holye’s hand.

  Ixchel

  ii

  Mission date: 1512 years (external universe); 67 years subjective

  Ixchel woke with a start.

  The Companion loomed over her.

  There was no significant noise. Red lights flashed in the periphery of her vision.

  She didn’t want to wake up at all. ‘Are we still in space? Are we at the Hearth … ?’

  Her memory seemed, not damaged, maybe fragmented. And the fragments only slowly reassembled, almost randomly.

  A reply: ‘We are in space. But near the Hearth. Or, within its environs …’

  Environs. A strange word. We need a better name. Hearth. Hearthspace …

  ‘We made it. We travelled from Earth to the Hearth. Is that what’s happened … ? I don’t seem to be thinking clearly.’ How old am I?

  The Companion loomed closer. ‘You are … waking. There is no reason to believe your cognitive functions have been impaired. You were rushed to an oxygen shelter when the incident occurred.’

  ‘What incident? Is something wrong? Is my mother here?’

  The Companion actually hesitated at that.

  ‘Your memory has – gaps. These will – heal.’

  It seemed to think it over.

  Then it reached out to a side compartment – its long arms were flexible – and held out a small, felt-covered box. It opened this carefully with powerful manipulator claws, with a delicacy that had always surprised Ixchel.

  Inside the box was her mother’s brilliant green pendant, the quetzal – the pendant Ixchel had always lusted after as a child, the last gift her mother had given her as they had parted, finally, at the steps of the shuttle that was going to take Ixchel away to her starship, to the sky. Never to return.

  She had to smile. ‘And you’re trying to help me understand.’

  ‘You left your mother on Earth, Ixchel …’

  ‘Ah. Yes. I remember. She wasn’t aboard … She became ill. This ship is …’

  ‘The Hummingbird. Named for a goddess of your culture. She wooed the daughter of a mountain god. Don’t try to sit up.’

  ‘Sit up … What’s happened to me?’

  ‘The ship, Ixchel. Something has happened to the ship—’

  ‘The Hearth. A star with planets. That’s where we’re going.’

  ‘Not just any star. Not just a handful of planets …’

  ‘Are we approaching the Hearth cluster? We … How old am I?’

  Fragments of consciousness, awareness, knowledge, floating over emptiness.

  Again the Companion hesitated.

  ‘You’d smile if you could, wouldn’t you?’ Ixchel said. She’d said that to the Companion many times before. This was how it tried to reassure her. She still didn’t like it much.

  ‘Not smile, perhaps,’ it said.

  ‘Time stretches like elastic when you travel between the stars, when you approach lightspeed. That’s right, isn’t it? So, counting the days of my life as I have lived it, even though they are stretched and squashed by lightspeed—’

  ‘You are eighty years old.’

  ‘Ah. But I was thirteen years old when we boarded this ship. And if I’m now eighty … I remember now, yes, I should be eighty. Because, sixty-seven years’ elapsed time on the ship. That was the nominal target timescale. From Earth sixty-seven years, most of it close to the speed of light, so that time dilation was ferocious … And I, I am an old woman now. Older than my mother when I last saw her …’

  ‘Ixchel.’

  ‘I think I dreamed I was a child …’

  ‘Ixchel.’

  She looked up at its blank, not unpleasant caricature of a human face. She tried to remember. ‘Fifteen hundred light years, distance crossed from Sol. Fifteen hundred years elapsed in the external universe, more or less. Only – only – sixty-seven years aboard the ship.’ She looked around wildly.

  ‘Ixchel.’

  ‘So are we there? Have we arrived? I remember … we thought we had spotted evidence of Earthlike worlds, in the space around the Hearth. Roughly Earthlike … Other planet types too … Are we picking colonisation targets yet … ?’

  ‘Ixchel.’

  ‘… Ah. Something is wrong, if you say my name like that. As my mother trained you to do.’ She glanced around, still giddy from the waking. ‘Where is everybody else? How long have I been unconscious?’

  ‘Not long. Just a few days. I managed to get you into storage quickly after the incident. Others, I could not save—’

  ‘What incident?’

  ‘My second priority, after saving you, was to secure the embryo storage facility. There was no interruption to power, no physical damage—’

  ‘What incident?’

  The Companion hesitated. ‘I will show you. First I will complete your medical check. I hope you will allow me to feed you intravenously, and then I will take you to the bridge. What’s left of it …’

  Others, I could not save …

  The meaning of that simple sentence sank into her during the awkward transfer to the bridge, on a wheeled bed.

  Still she felt nothing. That would come to an end, she supposed. Maybe after whatever tranquillising drugs the Companion had administered to her wore off.

  Tranquillising. Would she ever be tranquil again?

  What was left of the bridge was one compartment, sealed from the wreckage of the rest by new airtight walls. But since there was only Ixchel to cater for now, that was plenty.

  The Companion fussed around, settling her in a couch, swathed her in blankets, gave her water to sip, set up intravenous drips for food. Then it persuaded her to allow herself a brief nap …

  Brief – when she woke, she had no idea how much time had elapsed. She didn’t suppose it mattered, at this point.

  More water, more fussing.

  Only then would the Companion show her what had become of the Hummingbird.

  And Hearthspace.

  The largest screen was lit by a central point, brilliant light.