sounded. ‘Thorn…’ ‘Sorry. It looked easy enough when I watched you do it. Maybe there’s a bit more to it than meets the eye, eh?’ ‘You can’t fly this thing.’ ‘I’m having a damned good go, aren’t I? Now… what does this do? Let’s see…’ There was another violent reaction from the ship. More alarms sounded. But, sluggishly, the ship had begun to answer his commands. Khouri saw the artificial horizon indicator tilt. They were banking. Thorn was executing a hard turn to starboard. ‘Eighty degrees…’ he read off. ‘Ninety… one hundred…’ ‘Thorn, no. You’re taking us straight back towards the shock wave.’ ‘That’s pretty much the idea. Do you think the hull will cope? You seemed to think it was already a little on the stressed side. Well, I suppose we’re about to find out, aren’t we?’ ‘Thorn, whatever you’re planning—’ ‘I’m not planning anything, Ana. I’m just trying to put us in a position of real and imminent danger. Isn’t that abundantly clear?’ She had another go at wriggling free, but it was futile. Thorn had been very clever. No wonder the bastard had eluded the government for so long. She had to admire him for that, even if her admiration was grudging. ‘We won’t make it,’ she said. ‘No, perhaps we won’t. And my flying won’t help matters, I think. Which makes it all the easier, then. Answers, that’s what I want.’ ‘I’ve told you everything…’ ‘You’ve told me precisely nothing. I want to know who you are. Do you know when I started having suspicions?’ ‘No,’ she said, realising that he would do nothing until she answered. ‘It was Irina’s voice. I was certain I’d heard it before, you know. Well, finally I remembered. It was Ilia Volyova’s address to Resurgam, shortly before she started blasting colonies off the surface. It was a long time ago, but old wounds take a long time to heal. More than a family resemblance there, I’d say.’ ‘You’ve got it all wrong, Thorn.’ ‘Have I? Then are you going to enlighten me?’ More alarms sounded. Thorn had pulled their speed down, but they were still moving at several kilometres per second towards the shock wave. She hoped it was her imagination, but she thought she could see that slash of cherry-red coming at them through the blackness. ‘Ana… ?’ he asked again, his voice all sweetness and light. ‘Damn you, Thorn.’ ‘Ah. Sounds like progress to me.’ ‘Pull up. Turn us around.’ ‘In a moment. Just as soon as I hear the magic words from you. A confession, that’s all I’m looking for.’ She breathed in deeply. Here it was, then. The ruination of all their slow and measured plans. They had bet on Thorn and Thorn had been cleverer than them. They should have seen it coming, really they should. And Volyova, damn her too, had been right. It had been a mistake ever allowing him anywhere near Nostalgia for Infinity . They should have found another way to convince him. Volyova should have ignored Khouri’s protests… ‘Say the words, Ana.’ ‘All right. All right , God damn it. She is the Triumvir. We told you a pack of fucking lies from word one. Happy now?’ Thorn did not answer immediately. To her gratitude, he took the time to swing the ship around. Acceleration pressed her even further into the couch as he applied thrust to outrun the shock wave. And from the blackness it came hurtling towards them, a livid line of red, like the bloody edge of an executioner’s sword. She watched it swell until the rear view was a wall of scarlet as bright as molten metal. The collision alarms whooped and the multilingual warning voices merged into a single agitated chorus. Then a background of sky started to close in on either side of the red line, like two iron-grey curtains. The thread began to diminish in width, falling behind them. ‘I think we made it,’ Thorn said. ‘Actually, I think we didn’t.’ ‘What?’ She nodded at the radar display. There was now no sign of the smudge that had been behind them ever since they had entered Roc’s atmosphere, but a host of radar signatures were crowding in on all sides. There were at least a dozen new objects, and they lacked the transient quality of the earlier echo. They were closing at kilometres per second, clearly converging on Khouri’s ship. ‘I think we just provoked a response,’ she said, her own voice sounding much calmer than she had expected. ‘Looks like there is a threshold after all, and we just crossed it.’ ‘I’ll get us up and out as quickly as possible.’ ‘You think it’ll make any damned difference? They’re going to be here in about ten seconds. Guess you got the proof you wanted, Thorn. Either that or you’re about to get it. Enjoy the moment, because it might not last very long.’ He looked at her with what she thought was quiet admiration. ‘You’ve been here before, haven’t you?’ ‘Here, Thorn?’ ‘On the point of death. It doesn’t mean much to you.’ ‘I’d rather be somewhere else, don’t get me wrong.’ The converging forms had transgressed the final concentric circle on the display. They were now within a few kilometres of the ship, slowing as they neared it. Khouri knew there was no longer any harm in directing the active sensors at the approaching things. Their position was already betrayed, and they would lose nothing by taking a closer look at the converging objects. They were approaching from all sides, and although there were still large gaps between them, it would have been utterly futile to attempt to run away. A minute ago the things had not been there at all; clearly, they were able to slip through the atmosphere as if it hardly existed. Thorn had put them into a steep climb, and while she would have done exactly the same thing, she knew it was not going to make any difference. They had come too close to the heart of things, and now they were going to pay for their curiosity, just as Sylveste had all those years ago. The active radar returns were confused by the shifting forms of the approaching machines. Mass sensors registered phantom signals at the edge of their sensitivity, barely separable from the background of Roc’s own field. But the visual evidence was unequivocal. Discrete dark shapes were swimming towards the ship through the atmosphere. Swimming was the right word, Khouri realised, because that was exactly how it appeared: a squirming, flowing, undulating complexity of motion, the way an octopus moved through water. The machines were as large as her ship and formed of many millions of smaller elements, a slithering, restless dance of black cubes on many scales. Almost no detail was visible beyond the absolute shifting black of the silhouettes, but every now and then blue or mauve light flickered within the blocky masses, throwing this or that appendage into relief. Clouds of smaller black shapes attended each major
