“Will it be dangerous?” Myrced asked. They sat on her roof again, the sun setting in a blaze of honey light across the water.
“A little. Once I reach my ship, I'll be safer. They can't follow me through metaspace.”
“And is it really as Kane used to tell us before they took him? That transluminal travel is completely safe, that it used to be normal?”
“Yes. I've done it many times.”
“You can go anywhere?”
“Anywhere in this galaxy, so long as I avoid Concordance. The offer still stands. You can come with me.”
“I'm tempted, truly, but no. Oh, I bought you a parting gift.” She held out An Age of Angels. “I thought Ondo Lagan might like it.”
“I can't take that.”
“I think you should. It isn't really safe here, and Ondo might be able to find something useful in it, some clue about the fall of the galaxy. And I would like you to have it.”
Selene took it from her. “I have little to give you in return.”
Myrced kissed her one more time. “You've given me plenty.”
Selene thought for a moment, then unclipped a nanosensor held within a glass ampoule from the magazine she carried on her belt. “There's this. I brought some with me to plant in hard-to-reach places.”
Myrced held the tiny glass tube between thumb and finger and held it up to the light. “I can talk to you through this?”
“Not really, our communications network is far too slow and unreliable for that. Messages can literally take weeks if they get through at all. But if you wish me to hear something, speak into this, and the message will be relayed through our atmospheric and orbital sensors and eventually reach me. Probably. Assuming I'm still there.”
“Will it endanger you if I get in touch?”
“No.”
Myrced took the ampoule and placed it in her ornately-decorated jewellery box.
“Travel safely, Selene Ada.”
“I will. Stay safe, Myrced Iles.”
Selene didn't look back as she slipped out of the back of the little house. It felt like she was shrugging a heavy uniform on as she reactivated her enhanced senses and threat-detection algorithms. She needed to get far away so that no one would associate her with Myrced. She would cut across country, pick up one of the ground transportation lines and be back at the lonely beach where the lander waited for her within six hours. Then it would be a matter of retracing her careful steps away from the planet and dodging Concordance scans before she was far enough away from the stellar mass to escape into the void. There was a possibility Concordance would now be looking for her after events at the Temple, but there'd been no house-to-house searches in the days since their escape. It appeared the chaos surrounding the carnival had covered her tracks.
She reached the Dragon without incident or pursuit. She fled the system at maximum acceleration before any ship could scramble to intercept. As she powered away from Migdala, Selene sat looking back at the planet via a nanosensor relay. The sun was setting on the wide blue ocean, the land mass upon which Senefore lay little more than a smudge of green and red.
On the ship, it was very, very quiet.
7. The Remains of Shattered Starships
“You were longer than I thought,” said Ondo. “Did something happen on Migdala?”
They were back in the medsuite, Ondo delicately picking at her artificial skin, peeling it from her substrate in long strips. The sensation was not unpleasant – once she'd switched off her pain responses across the affected areas of her body. He'd applied three separate acidic chemicals, their molecular composition very specific and none of them likely to be encountered naturally, in order to break down her bioplastic flesh. Then he used a needle-like high-pressure jet of water to wash away any residue. He worked with the utmost care, but it still felt like being stippled with a thousand pinpricks as he touched the edges of her natural skin.
“Lots of things happened on Migdala.”
He stopped work for a moment and considered her. His voice was slightly muffled through the white mask he wore over his mouth and nose. “Things you want to tell me about?”
“Some of them.”
“Then I look forward to hearing them. And then I can tell you what I've discovered while you've been away.”
“Oh, before you start on my face, there's this.” She reached down to take the book from her backpack on the floor. “A gift. It might be of interest.”
Ondo took it, leafed through it. “Where did you get this?”
“That's one of the things I can't tell you. It wasn't stolen, if that's what you mean. No one will miss it.”
“It's absolutely wonderful: a detailed account of life before the arrival of Concordance. It's incredibly rare. I'll examine it in depth later. Thank you.” He closed the book and studied her again. “And you … you took much greater care over the approach protocols. Something has changed, I think.”
“I didn't want to get myself killed. Or you, for that matter.”
“And, I have Myrced to thank for this?” he said. His words sent a jolt of alarm through her. She hadn't mentioned the name to him. Was he able to intrude upon her thoughts after all?
He responded to her anxiety with an amused shake of his head. “The name is handwritten in the front of the book. For Selene, who moves the stars. Myrced.”
Right. Damn. She hadn't thought to look. She gave him a verbal summary of everything that had occurred. She did not give him access to his alter ego inside her mind, not wanting him to have any access to her memories of Myrced, even public ones. He worked on her back as she spoke, dabbing the
