Alastiar Reynolds

301
He looked at Felka, then back to Skade. Ambitious, I’ll give you that .
note 302
This other faction…the one you recovered the items from — why didn’t they make the same breakthrough ? He had the impression that Skade was framing her thoughts with extreme care.
note 303
The vacuum imposes inertia?
note 304
Remontoire sat down. I’ll stop here, if you don’t mind .
‘I don’t feel well either,’ Felka said, squatting down next to him. ‘I feel sick and light-headed.’
The servitor turned around stiffly, animated like a haunted suit of armour. note 305
Remontoire grinned at the armoured servitor. Fine for you, then .
note 306
So what does the machine do? Does all the matter within the bubble have zero inertia?
note 307
But there are other modes?
note 308 She paused, eyeing Remontoire. note 309
I’ll be fine for now. Tell me more about your magic box.
Skade smiled, as stiffly as usual, but with what looked to Remontoire like pride. note 310
I’ll bet they did.
Is there a third state?‘ Felka asked.
note 311
‘And beyond that — on the other side of the singularity? Is there a state four?’
note 312
How much testing, exactly?
note 313
And now?
note 314 Skade clapped her hands together with a creak of armour. note 315
But that’s not why you developed it . Remontoire climbed to his feet. Still lightheaded, he steadied himself against the wall. It was the closest he had come to intoxication in a great while. This excursion had been interesting enough, but he was now more than ready to return upship, where the blood in his body would behave as nature had intended.
note 316
It was for when the wolves arrive — the same reason you’ve built that evacuation fleet.
note 317
Even if we can’t fight them, you’ve at least given us a means of running away very, very quickly.

Clavain opened his eyes from another bout of forced sleep. Cool dreams of walking through Scottish forests in the rain seduced him for a few dangerous moments. It was so tempting to return to unconsciousness, but then old soldierly instincts forced him to snap into grudging alertness. There had to be a problem. He had instructed the corvette not to wake him until it had something useful or ominous to report, and a quick appraisal of the situation revealed that this was most emphatically the latter.
Something was following him. Details were available on request.
Clavain yawned and scratched at the now generous growth of beard that he sported. He caught a glimpse of himself in the cabin window and registered mild alarm at what he saw. He looked wild-eyed and maniacal, as if he had just stumbled from the depths of a cave. He ordered the corvette to stop accelerating for a few minutes, then gathered some water into his hands from the faucet, cupping the amoeba-like droplets between his palms, and then endeavoured to splash them over his face and hair, slicking and taming hair and beard. He glanced at his reflection again. The result was not a great improvement, but at least he no longer looked feral.
Clavain unharnessed himself and set about preparing coffee and something to eat. It was his experience that crises in space fell into two categories: those that killed you immediately, usually without much warning, and those that gave you plenty of time to ruminate on the problem, even if no solution was very likely. This, on the basis of the evidence, looked like the kind which could be contemplated after first sating his appetite.
He filled the cabin with music: one of Quirrenbach’s unfinished symphonies. He sipped the coffee, leafing through the corvette’s status log entries while he did so. He was pleased but not surprised to see that the ship had operated flawlessly ever since his departure from Skade’s comet. There was still adequate fuel to carry him all the way to circum-Yellowstone space, including the appropriate orbital insertion procedures once he arrived. The corvette was not the problem.
Transmissions had been received from the Mother Nest as soon as his departure had become evident. They had been tight-beamed on to him, maximally encrypted. The corvette had unpacked the messages and stored them in time-sequence.
Clavain bit into a slice of toast. ‘Play ’em. Oldest first. Then erase immediately.‘
He could have guessed what the first few messages would be like: frantic requests from the Mother Nest for him to turn around and come home. The first few gave him the benefit of the doubt, assuming — or pretending to assume — that he had some excellent justification for what looked like a defection attempt. But they had been half-hearted. Then the messages gave up on that tack and