‘And do what?’ Kandara asked. ‘The Avenging Heretic gives us options.’
‘Limited options,’ Yuri said. ‘After we pop out of this wormhole, our absolute priority is to trigger the Signal; only then can we think about getting inside the enclave. And triggering the Signal is going to create an instant shitstorm. They’ll know we’re here right away, so they’ll release the hounds. If we try and escape by flying off in real space, we have nowhere to go; we’ll be thousands of lightyears from Sol.’
‘If we try flying away, the Deliverance ships would catch us anyway,’ Jessika said. ‘Their acceleration is a lot higher than ours, and I’m guessing they’re not the most powerful warships at the gateway. Not by a long way.’
‘I expect you’re right,’ Yuri agreed glumly.
‘We originally assumed that if we could get to the enclave star undetected, we could stay invisible to the onemind after we sent the Signal,’ Callum said. ‘Now that we understand a little more about how the Salvation of Life works, I don’t think we can. At the very least we need a decoy.’
Jessika picked up some stir-fry noodles with her chopsticks and gave him a thoughtful look. ‘We could hijack another transport ship. There are twenty-seven in this hangar alone, in varying conditions; most of them are flightworthy. It could make a valiant fight for freedom and get tragically nuked.’
‘That sounds risky,’ Yuri said. ‘You’d have to neurovirus its onemind.’
‘Which Soćko proved we can do.’
‘Yeah, right,’ Alik said. ‘But here’s the thing. He was inside the transport ship, and had a direct physical connection to its neural fibres. How you gonna get inside one of them here?’
‘It’s a plan that needs work,’ she admitted. ‘But I’m still putting it out there.’
‘Okay,’ Yuri said. That’s fallback number two. But I think we should start by exploring Callum’s option.’
‘We either do it or we don’t.’ Kandara said. ‘What’s to explore?’
‘Location,’ Callum told her. ‘I’ve been riding the onemind’s local perception routines for a few weeks now.’
She grinned at him. ‘Everyone should have a hobby.’
‘There are twelve passages out of this hangar. Some are just tunnels, their version of utility channels; some are proper access corridors. And there are chambers off both of them, it seems. I’d like to send our creeperdrone spies down them to see if there’s anything suitable.’
‘And if there is?’ Jessika asked.
‘Start building up a reserve of equipment.’
‘You mean transfer the contents of the Avenging Heretic into a cave?’
‘No,’ Yuri said. ‘We won’t need that much. We can breathe the Salvation’s air, remember? So we need basic equipment, and enough food to last us a couple of months. Maybe a year.’
‘Months?’ Alik said. ‘You’re shitting me!’
‘No. Inside the enclave, time flows slowly.’
‘Says who?’ Kandara said harshly. She jabbed a chopstick towards Jessika. ‘The Neána? How do they know? If your kind weren’t here, how did they find out? And if they were here, when was it? What does that make them?’
‘It makes them a species who can neurovirus an Olyix onemind,’ Yuri said. ‘Who can extract such knowledge from an arkship memory. And even if they are cousins to the Olyix, or rebels, what the fuck difference does it make now? It’s not as if we can turn around and head for home. So far, all the information Jessika and her colleagues have provided is correct. We’re committed to this mission, and that means assuming the enclave is a bubble of slowtime.’
‘From what I’ve determined from the Salvation’s onemind, there is an enclave,’ Jessika said earnestly. ‘Just like my original information.’
‘Yuri and I talked about this,’ Callum said. ‘The enclave was built to take the Olyix to the end of time, so time has got to be flowing slow in there. Really slow. A year inside will cover centuries out here, if not longer. It has to; there’s no other way. Even if you go forwards to when this galaxy becomes quiescent and stops producing new stars, you’re looking at billions of years.’
‘What are you saying?’
‘If a human armada doesn’t come knocking within a year or two of enclave time, they never will,’ Yuri said. ‘That will be thousands of years passing outside.’
‘So what do we do then?’ Alik demanded. ‘If they never come?’
‘Please, you knew that was always possible. But we do not consider this, yes? We do not let it distract us. We continue our mission, we survive as long as we can. Then . . .’ Yuri shrugged, and ate a chunk of sweet-and-sour chicken.
‘Join the rest of the human race in a cocoon and find out what this alien god has in mind for us,’ Callum said.
‘Or go out in a fantastic blaze of gunfire,’ Kandara said wickedly.
Yuri grinned at Alik. ‘See? So many choices. And you were worried this flight would be boring.’
Alik closed his eyes. ‘Jezus H. Christ.’
*
Callum piloted one of the creeperdrone spy creatures. He was confident in the operation now, even though it was painstakingly slow. The little spiderlike thing provided a slightly weird view from its bulbous eye clusters. He didn’t understand why Jessika hadn’t incorporated a more ordinary lens, but she’d muttered something about authenticity and avoiding variance the one time he’d asked.
It was making its cautious way down a wide passageway. The floor was cut clean through the rock – a perfectly smooth surface that had dulled down the years. Walls and ceiling were a tousled weave of woody tubes – some as thick as oak trees – which were tangled by finger-wide stems, forming an enigmatic tapestry of alien browns and greys. There were fewer leaves in here, and the bioluminescent strips threaded along the bark were spaced widely, creating long stretches of shadow. Pools of liquids with sticky rims had coagulated on the floor under the fractured tubes, which Callum assiduously steered the spy creature around.
Half a kilometre from the hangar, the floor started to rise up. There were vents in a couple of the big tubes – fat, bulbous shapes that he first mistook for knots in the
