‘Look at them,’ Mott murmured. ‘The guards. If they were under my command I’d kick their butts. All they’re looking out for is danger to themselves, not the ship, its fabric. All they want is for their shift to end; all they want to do is get out of here. Even now—’

  ‘Who can blame them?’

  The new voice, coming from behind them, made them both jump. But within a heartbeat Ulla had turned, got herself between Mott and the newcomer, and was brandishing the knife they had stolen from the guard in the protector’s observation lounge.

  With one arm in a grimy sling, it was Doctor Quero Borge.

  Borge was walking steadily towards them. And at his side was Farre, one of the boy’s own eyes covered by a swathe of foul-looking bandage, a wrap that obscured half his small face. He was holding Borge’s hand, leading the now blinded doctor, and with the other hand carried a bag of tools.

  As he came close, Ulla registered that Farre absolutely stank of sewage, his ragged clothes wet.

  Borge grinned. ‘Sorry about the state of my young companion, by the way. He’s still working! Still taking his shift down in life support. The bits of it others of us can’t reach. Can’t be helped, if we don’t want to suffocate or starve – whatever is going on outside.’

  He stroked Farre’s head, ruffled his grimy, slick hair. He avoided displacing the bandage over the boy’s empty eye socket, though.

  Farre grinned. ‘I like it. Sometimes. You can wriggle around. I go places other people can’t get to.’

  ‘And fix stuff?’ Ulla asked.

  The boy hesitated. ‘Not – ness—’

  ‘Not necessarily, he means.’

  That was a new voice, quietly spoken. Another blinded, tapping the flooring with a metal rod – was Holye Lawa.

  ‘I like to tell Farre I used to be a policeman – I think he knows what that means. That on Earth 1, I went around “fixing” stuff. And I think he hopes the Alliance forces are going to fix everything today.’

  Ulla was starting to get the picture. ‘So you heard about the contact with the Alliance forces.’

  Mott raised her eyebrows in warning, and glanced over at the ship guards in their pairs across the deck. ‘I doubt very much that those half-trained, bored incompetents are going to intervene down here, not anymore, whatever we do or say. The mission is over, the command structure on this ship breaking down. I should know, as I’ve done my best to hurry the process. But there’s no harm in being cautious. You don’t show your hand until you need to – or it’s useful. Or until you can scare your opponent off without a fight.

  ‘But I think the news is already widespread enough for us not to have to be too discreet at this stage. The Alliance. They’re here. Advance units are already engaging Hierarchy ships. And the best thing we can do is to smuggle out as much information as we can to the newcomers, our ships.’

  Ulla smiled. ‘While doing as much damage as we can in the process.’

  Commodore Mott raised an eyebrow in mock reproof. ‘That’s a rather blood-thirsty response, Commander. But we must decide what to do next. I claim no seniority over this group – well, save for Commander Breen here, who actually reports to me – and I know you have built up your own command structures down here, and don’t bother denying it.’ And she glanced at Doctor Borge, and Holye.

  The sightless policeman had to be nudged by Farre. ‘She means you …’

  ‘Given all that,’ Mott went on, ‘I think you’ll concede that I am the most experienced, highest-ranked individual among us in terms of handling spacecraft – and indeed warfighting in space. Well, we didn’t have too many wars in my time back in the Alliance – the histories have nothing more than pirate raids since the Alliance became the Alliance, and subsumed our older world-nations into a peaceful, cooperative project. But I am a senior figure of a sort – and I’m nodding my head at you, Holye Lawa. And as for us, here—’

  Holye said, ‘I wondered when you’d get to the point!’

  ‘As for us,’ Mott said smoothly, ‘I have concocted a strategy, which will, hopefully, win your approval – and your cooperation. And it’s all going to depend on Farre here, and any other little assistants he may have.’

  ‘I’m intrigued,’ Holye said.

  Other slaves were showing interest too. And Ulla noticed that the guards, scattered around the pit floor, were now watching the gathering group with apparent suspicion.

  ‘We should spread out,’ she said. ‘A bit, anyhow. Don’t let the guards think this is a significant gathering.’

  ‘Good point,’ Mott said. ‘Though in fact this is a significant gathering – and we have assembled the right players. It starts with this little hero here.’

  ‘I’m no hero,’ Farre said, but he grinned, evidently pleased, Ulla thought.

  ‘Well, it starts with you, anyhow. And it ends – well, let me tell you about a new class of Hierarchy lightsail ships we have learned they are building. Ships called the Mass Transports.’

  Ulla was startled by the transformation in Commodore Mott. Or maybe, more correctly, the revelation of the commodore’s decisiveness, her physical presence – she seemed to have grown – and, all the petty diplomacy and manipulation done with for the time being, the uncloaked strength, the decisiveness, the determination. The ruthlessness.

  And something else. Something hard in Mott – no, not that. Something bleak in her. As if she was looking the monster full in the face.

  All in a few minutes, seconds, heartbeats.

  In that moment Ulla became convinced that, given support from the Alliance forces, though so far from home, though in the den of the brutal, powerful Hierarchy, they were going to prevail.

  And I hope to live long enough to see it when Mott wins, she murmured.

  Mott faced her. ‘You do realise you said that out loud?’

  Ulla felt her face flush. ‘Commodore – I’m sorry—’

  ‘Don’t apologise. You’ll do your duty.’ Mott grinned and let go of her arm. ‘Good response. All right. Field training. If you were me, what would your first action be right now? Your first strategic decision?’

  Ulla looked around, at the slaves gazing at them expectantly. Made sure the guards weren’t looking.

  ‘I’d take this ship.’

  The slaves reacted to this, but not enthusiastically – not convinced, and there was no reason why they should be, Ulla thought.

  ‘And how would you do that?’

  She considered, looking around the slave pit, the sheer walls rising up above to the slavers’ balcony. Aware that all eyes were on her, the commodore, Farre – even blinded Holye was facing her.

  ‘We need to get up there. The balcony, officer country. Overwhelm them. Take control of the ship. Then do some damage with it.’

  Holye nodded. ‘OK. I’ll leave the specific damage to you. But the first steps – let’s work backward. If we just burst in on the control deck, there would be guards who would shoot us down as we came through the door.’

  Doctor Borge said, ‘We wouldn’t get as far as the door. We’d be shot down here, as we tried to get to the elevator shafts, the staircases. The guards must be trained for that kind of uprising.’

  ‘Indeed. Trained to shoot to kill, shoot on sight, surely,’ Mott said. ‘And, tense, scared as they no doubt are right now – they’re already having a very bad day – they might start shooting even before that. So—’

  ‘So,’ Ulla said, ‘we’ve got to think of something else. Not a direct attack; something – sideways.’ She glanced around. ‘Anybody?’

  Little Farre stuck his hand up in the air, the thin, grimy limb alongside the bandaged eye socket.

  Ulla thought it must be a reflex from school days – a bit of civilised life that had been taken away from this little boy as soon as the slavers’ ugly ship had appeared in his skies. She felt a renewed determination to win through this day, to stop all this. Though she had only the haziest idea how …

  Mott smiled at Farre. ‘Go on, son. What do you have to say?’

  He only whispered, ‘I can block the air machines . . . That would be the quickest. I could mess up the liquid flows …’

  And Mott gave Ulla a significant look.

  Farre was already standing near one of the panels that gave access to the life-support systems below this deck floor, panels beyond which, Ulla knew, even now, children would be wading, crawling through foul urine-polluted water, pushing around leaking sacks of ordure, even vomit, all of it stained green with algae.

  And she would bet that if a relative expert in those systems, such as Farre, could get into the essential life-support systems with malevolent intent, then they could do untold harm to the ship’s crew and commanders in a very short space of time. And now—

  She turned to Farre. ‘Kid, how long would it take you to fetch any other tools you need, get in there, and, say, stop the air to the cabins? I mean, it all goes through this installation under our feet …’

  He grinned. He bent down cautiously, to indicate the complex shapes of hand tools jutting out from his ragged bag. ‘Got the tools. Keep them with me so they don’t get stole.’

  ‘And once through the hatch—’

  He frowned at that. ‘Ten big breaths. You have to take big breaths down there, the air’s never, never sweet.’

  Air bubbling out of sewage tanks, Ulla thought, no doubt as leaky and beat-up as the rest of the ship. As if the crew knew that their essential life-support systems were as shabby and worn down as the slaves used to service them. Well, they were going to pay for that lazy thinking now.

  Even Mott seemed surprised by how quickly this was developing.

  ‘Let me get this clear, though, Farre,’ she said now. ‘You can turn off the air on the control deck. You can stop the air in the guards’ quarters, but without stopping the air in the rest of the ship. Specifically—’

  ‘Here?’ He seemed oddly offended. ‘Of course, Comm’dore. I know where that is. I’m not stupid. We know which vents go where. We all do.’

  ‘I’m sure you do.’ Mott bent down, reached out, and touched his shoulder, gently, gently.

  Ulla thought he would flinch back – and maybe he did, just a little, in response. This was an abused child, Ulla reminded herself. A child who had become used only to pain from touches by the adults in his life now – certainly the crew, and no doubt some of the slaves, despite the efforts of the likes of Holye to protect him.

  But he seemed to trust Mott, as she touched that shoulder again, stroking it gently.

  ‘I know,’ she said. ‘I’m – sorry. I’m sorry for all you’ve been put through.’

  Ulla thought, And for the suffering you will sustain for the rest of your life, however this turns out, given your injuries, given the memories you will take from this place.

  Mott straightened up, and looked around at the little group. Ulla saw that more slaves had drifted over to them, as if sensing something was going on – though most of them cast furtive glances at the pairs of guards standing by across the deck.

  And now, she saw, more of the other 45 survivors, as grimy as the other slaves, were drifting over.

  ‘OK,’ Mott said. ‘Enough talking. As soon as we cut the supply to the control decks, it will take only minutes for the air to become foul enough to render it useless … Could we cut off the whole bolt-ring at once? All the offices, the corridors … Probably not. There must be safeguards of some kind, partitions to isolate leaks … We can’t assume all personnel will be incapacitated. We should cut off the officers from anything like escape pods … We should be ready to move fast, and watch our backs.’

  It took a nod from Mott for the 45 crew to scatter to these tasks.

  Holye, turning his sightless eyes, asked, ‘Where are those guards? I know there are generally two stationed down here at all times—’

  ‘There are four here now,’ Ulla said. ‘And they look – restless.’

  Holye grinned. ‘Well they might. I don’t think they’ve been relieved in an orderly fashion, not for a while. Probably hyper-vigilant, but reluctant to move, in case of being overwhelmed down here. But we should move now, before the officers pull themselves together and do something—’

  ‘I’m ready,’ Farre said. He hefted his bag, grinned, and turned towards the panel giving onto the life-support complex.

  So it began.

  Farre leaned casually – nonchalantly – across the access hatch, a wide plate attached to the floor by heavy bolts.

  From his bag, he took a gripping tool, large, visibly almost too heavy for his small hands. But with practised ease, he positioned the smart tool so that one of the floor-panel nuts sat between its jaws, which then closed neatly around the nut. Then Farre squatted down, braced himself, and, gripping the tool, pushed back with his legs.

  For a couple of heartbeats, the nut wouldn’t move, and Ulla could see the strain.

  The commodore looked concerned, and took a step forward, but Ulla touched her arm. ‘He can manage. He’s done it many times. He’s tougher than he looks.’

  ‘As are all the survivors down here,’ Mott murmured. ‘I suppose they have to be to have survived at all …’

  The nut shifted, giving with a slight crack. Farre fell back, and the bolt, evidently loosened, was easy to remove. Two more nuts around the panel edge followed, and when they were done the plate they had been fixing rose up, easily lifted by Farre.

  And sewage, stinking, thick, was released from the compartment below.

  Ulla was used to it, more or less, as were the others.

  But the commodore staggered back, covering her mouth with her hand. She glanced at Ulla. ‘I know I shouldn’t react like this. Prisoners as we are, slaves indeed despite our ranks, we have had it lucky, you and I. While the Hierarchy forces children down into their sewers. Yet this boy can think, function, even plan sabotage it seems, in such conditions.’

  ‘He’s tougher than me, Commodore.’

  ‘And me! …’

  That was when the general alarm sounded again.

  And the slaves moved as one.

  Ulla looked around at the chaos that suddenly engulfed the compartment.

  The pairs of guards who had been stationed on the slave deck floor were instantly surrounded by slaves. Freed slaves, Ulla thought, for surely the situation on this ship could never again be controlled – freed slaves most of whom could know nothing about the wider picture. Only that this was the moment the final taboos were abandoned, Ulla saw, the discipline crumbled. The cage bars collapsed.

  And the slaves fell on the guards, even fighting each other to get at their tormentors. Those guards’ screams were loud, briefly, before they were cut off by blows, kicks, even stabbings. The last Ulla saw of them, on this deck at last, was when they were being dragged, by bloody-handed slaves, to the brothel …

  Ulla felt a pang of horror – and of unexpected sympathy. The guards were only doing a job, a job she was pretty sure many, or most, hadn’t chosen. And now, this …

  Mott plucked at Ulla’s sleeve. Her eyebrows were raised. ‘I’m surprised it’s working so fast …’

  ‘Well, it’s a small ship, Commodore. Small crew. We think the slaves have always been watching them, working out how best to take the guards, when the chance came. They may have come on board subservient, but they’ve had a lot of time to think. And that chance was going to come some day. But the guards don’t matter. Captain Erbas and his officers, though—’

  Mott said, ‘But they are who we have to get to. And then—’ She walked over to Holye and Borge, and got straight to the point. ‘You two, Officer, Holye, Doctor – I’m going to have to rely on you. I need you to set up an evacuation procedure.’

  That startled Ulla. She moved a little closer, to be sure she heard everything.

  Borge seemed briefly confused. ‘You mean – you intend to evacuate the ship? Who? The slaves of course—’

  ‘Everybody. The technical crew, the guards, the senior officers. Including Pulet, definitely, for the knowledge he holds of his culture. And Captain Erbas – well, if we can – no fool, who certainly knows his ships – and probably the new technology represented by the new ship—’

  Holye nodded. ‘Ah. The big new slaver you told us about. I heard the guards gab about that. Cushy number for them, if they could get a berth in the crew. Capable of transporting thousands of slaves—’

  ‘Possibly hundreds of thousands,’ Borge the doctor said. ‘They did brag about carrying a target of seven hundred thousand people. Each single run. A major city’s whole population … No doubt the carrying capacity will increase as they work out the ship’s wrinkles. Although you would have to factor in losses through disease, technical failure. Who cares? Why not? It’s just flesh stacked up. Onboard mutinies would probably be impossible on any significant scale, given the – stacking – of the slaves. All you could mount would be something like a hunger strike …’

  ‘This comical, misshapen little ship is nothing but a test article, by comparison,’ Mott said, nodding. ‘Does the Hierarchy have the technology to reach Alliance Space? Yes, that’s been proved. But with the Mass Transport class they could bring overwhelming warfighting capabilities to Alliance Space – and the capability to transport back whole enslaved cities, even planetary populations – millions in a few voyages. It would not be a war. It would be an annihilation of worlds. The, the theft of peoples, in their thousands. The destruction of cultures every bit as ancient and as rich as the Hierarchy—’

  The doctor snorted. ‘A culture far more rich than this bloodthirsty, controlling Hierarchy – why, the very name gives away its nature …’

  ‘And that is why I see myself, from this point, having a single duty to fulfil,’ Mott said. ‘To strangle this thing in its cradle. A duty that may take my life – no, it almost certainly will take my life. And perhaps yours, you, my allies.’ She glanced around at them, Ulla, Holye, Borge. ‘You, Ulla Breen, I could order to go through this—’