"But if that's the case, then we can't even be sure that we can trust Caliskan any more. In which case,

who the h.e.l.l do we trust?"

"I still trust Caliskan," Ca.s.sandra said. "My intelligence contacts have never pointed to him having an ulterior motive."

"They could be wrong."

"Or Floyd could be mistaken." Ca.s.sandra consulted with her machines for a moment, then said, "There

is another possible explanation."

They both looked at the dark-haired girl.

"Well?" Auger asked.

"According to the biographical file we have on Caliskan, he had a brother."

"Yes," Auger said slowly. "He told me about him."

"And?"

"Caliskan reckoned I had a grudge against Slashers. He didn't think it was justified. He said that if

anyone had a right to hold a grudge it was him, because of what happened to his brother."

"The biographical file says that his brother died in the final stages of the Phobos reoccupation, when the Slashers were ousted," Ca.s.sandra said.

"Yes," Auger confirmed. "That's what he told me."

"Maybe he believed it, too. But what if his brother didn't die?"

"She could be right," Floyd said. "You know the link was open just before the reoccupation. It's the only

way those children could have come through."

"But Caliskan's brother wasn't fighting on the side of the Slashers," Auger said.

"Maybe they got to him," Floyd said. "Maybe they took him prisoner and got to him later. Maybe he

sneaked through at the same time."

"And you just happened to b.u.mp into this man in E2?"

"I'm just telling you what I've seen."

"You told me nothing about any children," Ca.s.sandra said.

"They weren't children," Floyd said. "They were like you..." He paused. "Only uglier."

Auger sighed. Now that Floyd had let the cat out of the bag, nothing would satisfy Ca.s.sandra until she

had an explanation. "Neotenic Infantry. War babies, we called them. They must have opened the link to the ALS during the Phobos occupation twenty-three years ago."

"And they've been there ever since?"

"They're not exactly a pretty sight by now."

"Most of them would have already died," Ca.s.sandra said. "Those first-line neotenics were never designed for longevity. Any survivors must be near the ends of their lives."

"They look like it. They smell like it," Auger said with disgust.

"Why don't you just tell me what they were doing there? As I said, I can always suck it out of your brain if you don't. I'd rather not, but-"

"All I have is guesswork," Auger said. "They were making something, some kind of machine-a gravity-wave sensor, I think-for establishing the physical location of the ALS. The trick was that they had to construct it using local technology."

Ca.s.sandra mulled that over and nodded primly. "And the purpose of this data, once they obtained it?"

"To enable them to reach the sh.e.l.l from the outside."

The ship rocked, hitting turbulence. The floor quivered, as if about to spring up and around them in a

protective embrace.

"What do they want with the ALS?" Ca.s.sandra wondered, frowning.

"They want to depopulate it. They want to seed the atmosphere of the duplicate Earth with Silver Rain."

"That's monstrous."

"Genocide generally is. Especially on this scale."

"All right," Ca.s.sandra said, still frowning as she a.s.similated the new information. "Why not deliver

Silver Rain via the link itself?"

"They can't. There's a barrier that prevents anything like that from entering Floyd's world. The only way in is to sneak around the back."

"But there's still the small matter of breaking through the sh.e.l.l," Ca.s.sandra said. "Ah-wait a minute.

We've covered that already, haven't we?"

"The theft of the antimatter drive from the Twentieth," Auger said.

"That's their-what did you call it? Molotov device?"

"So it would seem."

"The neotenics couldn't have put this together by themselves," Ca.s.sandra said. "They're resourceful and clever, but they were never engineered to think strategically, especially not for twenty-three years. There must have been others privy to the same plan."

"We already know about Niagara."

"But Niagara had no easy means of communicating with the neotenics. Those children needed leadership and co-ordination, someone to give them orders. Adult-phase Slashers, perhaps," Ca.s.sandra suggested.

"No," Auger said. "Not unless they were prepared to live without their machines. It was all right for the war babies: they're purely biological, with no implants. But no one like you could have followed them through the censor device with all that nanotech running around inside them."

"Then an unaugmented person: a normal human being-like Caliskan's brother."

"Possibly, if he decided to turn traitor."

"And if there was one such, there might well have been more," Ca.s.sandra said. "A lot of people died or went missing during the reoccupation."

"They could all still be alive," Auger said, "living in the ALS, meddling with the course of history."

"But why would they meddle?" Ca.s.sandra asked.

"To hold things back. To stop Floyd's people developing the technology and science that might actually have made them a threat to their grand plan, as soon as they realised their true situation."

"Given time and the acc.u.mulation of random changes, the two timelines would be bound to diverge eventually," Ca.s.sandra said. "How can you be sure there was conscious intervention?"

"Because it's all too deliberate. In Floyd's timeline there was never a Second World War. Whoever went through the link twenty-three years ago knew just enough about the actual course of events in nineteen forty to change them. All they had to do was get the right intelligence to the right people. The fulcrum was the German invasion through the Ardennes. It came close to failure in our timeline, but the allies never knew how vulnerable the advancing forces were. No one acted. But in Floyd's timeline they did. They got bombers into the air and pounded those tanks into the mud. The German invasion of France collapsed."

"So there was never a second global war. I presume millions of lives were spared because of that."

"At the very least."

"Doesn't that make it rather a good thing?"

"No," Auger said, "because those lives were only spared so that billions could be extinguished now. It

was a purely clinical intervention. Saving lives had nothing to do with it. The only motivation was to

keep those people in the dark."

"Then a crime has already been committed. The children will soon be dead. But their leader-or leaders -must be found and brought to justice."

"Then you need to find the ALS as well," Auger said, "before one crime becomes another."

"Niagara's allies must indeed be close to acting," Ca.s.sandra said. "They wouldn't have moved on the liner unless they were ready to attack the ALS. This is very grave."

"You said it, kid," Floyd commented.

"The more I think about it," Ca.s.sandra said, "the more I wonder if this entire attack against Tanglewood

and Earth isn't a diversionary tactic. They never really wanted our ruined Earth back, did they? They always had their sights set on a bigger prize."

"We have to stop them," Auger said.

"Agreed," Ca.s.sandra said. "But do you think Caliskan will be able to help? Do you think he can even be trusted, if his brother is indeed a traitor?"

"He thinks his brother died," Auger said. "I'm inclined to take him at his word. Anyway, we can't afford not to trust him. He has contacts, including allies in the Polities."

"So do I," Ca.s.sandra said.

"But Caliskan has political clout. At the very least he can publicise the Slasher plan and maybe shame them into not acting."