the G-force before that happens."

"That's an interesting view of luck."

"This thing isn't made for atmospheric re-entry," Auger said. "No matter what angle we come in at."

"This isn't the way it's meant to happen, Auger. Not like this. Not after we made it all this way."

"There's nothing we can do," she said. "We can't steer this thing. We can't slow it down or speed it up. We can't even stop it tumbling." The glow, faint at first, had now intensified, flickering through shades of blue and pink like a quilt of pastel light wrapped around the ship. It was mesmerising and rather lovely. Under other circ.u.mstances, it might have been a thing of wonder. "Maybe if the hull wasn't already shot to s.h.i.t," she said, leaving Floyd to draw his own conclusions.

"But it is."

"I'm sorry," she said. "This is all my fault."

The glow flared to a hard white light, and in the same instant the transport shuddered violently. The tumbling motion became haphazard and all around her, Auger heard shrieks and groans of protesting metal as the aerodynamic and thermal stresses of Mars's atmosphere began to toy with the fabric of the ship. G-force built up with surprising speed. It was nothing at all like the smooth insertions she remembered from her trips to Earth. One moment, all that was pushing her into her seat was the gentle and steady pressure of the unchecked rotation, and the next she was being pushed and pulled in random directions, yanked against the bruising restraints of the harness. She jammed her head into the shaped restraint at the back of the seat, trying to protect her neck from the whiplashing dead weight of her skull. The ride became even more turbulent, the noise deafening. She was beginning to find it difficult to breathe as the G-load worked against her lungs. She felt light-headed, consciousness beginning to break up into discrete, interrupted episodes.

"Floyd..." she managed to say. "Floyd, can you hear me?"

When he answered, she could barely hear him over the scream of the dying transport.

"You did good, Auger."

How he managed it, she would never know, but somehow Floyd found the strength to reach out and close his hand around hers. She felt his fingers tighten, anchoring her to this place in s.p.a.ce and time, even as everything else in her universe came apart in light and fury.

THIRTY-TWO.

When she awoke, it was to the shining cool whiteness she had always imagined Heaven would be like.

She would have happily stayed in that serene white limbo for the rest of eternity, void of any care or anxiety. But the whiteness held nagging suggestions of structure: pale shadows and highlights that sharpened themselves into the details of a room and its white-clad occupants.

One of these occupants took on the form of a very beautiful girl, surrounded by a mirage of twinkling lights.

"One lying little s.h.i.t to the rescue," Ca.s.sandra said.

Auger forced her way through layers of groggy recall, pushing memories back into place as she surfaced. "You," was all she managed to say.

Ca.s.sandra nodded sagely. "Yes. Me. I'm glad you remember. It would have made things a lot more difficult if there was deep amnesia."

Auger became aware that she was lying on a bed, at a slight angle, with various twinkling machines hovering around her. Some were so tiny that at first glance they might have been mistaken for dust motes. Others were as large as dragonflies or hummingbirds, shimmering with the moire patterns of intense microscopic detail. Dimly it occurred to her that-despite the absence of any lumbering items of bedside monitoring equipment-this was some kind of sick bay or recuperative ward.

"We were falling-"

"And we were tracking you, trying to intercept your transport before it hit the atmosphere. As you may have gathered, we only just got to you in time. Our medical science can work wonders, but it can't work miracles."

Sweet relief that she had survived welled up inside her. Then she remembered that she had not been alone.

"Is Floyd all right?"

"The other occupant of the shuttle is fine. He's under observation in another room, but he didn't merit the immediate attention you did."

"And the transport?"

"The transport is gone. We jettisoned its remains as a decoy. But don't worry: we emptied the cargo first."

"Cargo?"

"The archival items. A most interesting collection, I must say."

"I didn't load any cargo. It was the last thing on my mind before we left E2." Then she remembered the snake robot. Even as part of it was busy sabotaging the link, another part would have been diligently loading the transport with Susan White's acc.u.mulated possessions.

It took a machine to be that stupid, Auger thought. "OK. Now tell me what the h.e.l.l you're doing here."

"Other than saving your life? Oh, I thought that was obvious. I'm a spy, Auger. Ever since we picked up rumours and hints that you Threshers had reopened the Phobos portal, I've been trying to worm my way into Caliskan's confidence in order to find out what's going on. And it worked, too, didn't it? That little trip to Earth was most invigorating."

"I always said you couldn't be trusted."

"Ah, but the point is that you have no one else to trust. I'm your last, best hope."

"I think I'll take my chances with Niagara," Auger said.

"Oh, yes. Dear, dependable Niagara. Shall I break the bad news now or later? Niagara was also a spy. The difference is that he was working for the really nasty people."

The white walls were curved, merging seamlessly with floor and ceiling. Fine gold threads wove themselves through the white in calligraphic swirls that oozed and flowed in a way that seemed to calm Auger on some utterly primal level.

"I don't believe you," she said, snapping her attention back to Ca.s.sandra. "Niagara showed us how to make the link work. Why would he have done that if he was working against us?"

"Because he needed the link up and running, you silly-billy." Ca.s.sandra sighed, planting one hand on her hip. "Look, I'll spell it out for you: you were all duped. Niagara was a plant, working for a particularly vicious splinter faction of the aggressors. He wasn't a moderate sympathiser at all, but your worst enemy."

"Nice of you to let us know."

"And nice of your government to let us know it had found the Phobos portal in the first place," she countered. "If your people hadn't been so keen to keep that from us, we might have learned about Niagara's activities sooner than we did."

"Or you'd have made sure you controlled Niagara."

"Are you going to keep this up for ever, Auger? Or would it kill you to trust me?"

"I can't trust you, Ca.s.sandra. You lied to me on Earth, posing as someone you weren't."

"At the behest of your government, not mine. It wouldn't have bothered me in the slightest if you'd

known I was a Polity citizen. It was Caliskan who insisted on that particular charade."

"That still doesn't excuse the fact that you were prepared to testify against me in the tribunal."

"Testify as in 'tell the truth,' you mean? Well, I can't argue with that."

"They'd have hung me out to dry."

"And you'd have deserved it. Nothing was worth risking a human life the way you did, Auger.

Especially not some useless paper relic from two hundred years ago."

"Is this the reason you rescued me? To rub my nose in it?"

"Do I detect a note of contrition?"

"Detect what you like. You still haven't explained what you were doing around Mars, if you're so

friendly."

"We were doing what we could to limit the damage," Ca.s.sandra said. "It can't have escaped your

attention that there is civil war in the Federation of Polities. That disagreement has now spread to the inner system."

"With Phobos one of the first casualties. I hope you're proud of that."

"Oh, very proud. Especially as fifty-four of my moderate friends died trying to defend your precious

little moon. You can't imagine how proud that makes me feel."

"I'm sorry," Auger said, chastened.

"It doesn't matter. They were just Slashers, after all," she said bitterly.

"I never realised-"

"The aggressors had been taking a particular interest in Phobos for some time," Ca.s.sandra said, ignoring

her. "We had been shadowing their movements, trying to infiltrate their circles, but we didn't know what

it was about Phobos that had them so excited."

"Now you do."

"You were in hyperweb transit when the moon was destroyed, weren't you?"

"Is there anything about us you don't know?"

"A great deal," Ca.s.sandra said. "I haven't read your minds. We have no firm idea where the portal led

to, or what you were doing at the other end. We don't know exactly what Niagara wanted with it, except that Silver Rain plays a role in his plans. But we have learned something puzzling about the man."

"Floyd?"

"You shouldn't have brought him with you."

"I had no d.a.m.ned choice." Auger forced herself to sit higher in the bed. As she moved, the bed effortlessly readjusted itself to support her. Beneath the silky white sheet she was wearing some kind of hospital smock. She reached up and touched the area of her shoulder where she had been shot.

No pain. No inflammation. She pushed her hand under the collar of the smock and traced the region of skin where the wound had been. It was baby smooth, revealing its healed newness only with the faintest tingle.

"We dug out the bullet," Ca.s.sandra said. "You were very lucky."

"Where are we?"

"Aboard our ship-the one that pulled your transport out of Mars's atmosphere. We call the ship-"

And her syrinx played one of its little ditties, although Auger heard none of the music in it. "I don't think there would be a lot of point in attempting a translation into flat language."

"Where is the ship now? Are we still near Mars?"

"No. We're on our way to near-Earth s.p.a.ce. There are, however, complications."

"I need to talk to Caliskan."