'You missed the show,' said Alex.

Ghort tapped his own head. 'I was watching.'

Alex acknowledged that statement with a nod, then paused as something massive dropped into his mental compass. It lay thousands of kilometres beyond the ice asteroid, and weighed heavy in his mind through its wealth of connections, data, possibilities: what had once been Argus Station, but was now turning into an interstellar vessel, had come as close as it could by relying on the Rhine drive and was now firing up its Mars Traveller engine. Only able to access a small amount of all that lay available, Alex felt he understood Alan Saul so much more now, and understood why he had chosen that title 'the Owner'.

Turning away from Ghort, Alex wondered if any of the demolition charges inside that box would soon go missing, or if some had gone missing already. He decided he must try and find out where they would end up, and whether Ghort required expert help to deploy them. He now had an intimation of what his team leader's plans might be, and decided that he wanted to be included. All Ghort needed to do was trust him fully.

Alan was ever so careful not to infringe her territory, and Var was sure that sometimes, when she made any mistakes, he overlooked them just so long as they did not impinge upon his overall plans or threaten to result in danger. However, despite his diplomacy, she knew for certain that what she was doing he himself could probably now do with only some designated portion of his mind. That rendered her expertise impotent and, indeed, impotent was the best way to describe how every other 'expert' aboard this ship was feeling.

The section of lattice wall she stood upon, adjoining Arcoplex One, had been turned into some weird alien rockscape consisting of numerous chunks of asteroid crawling with those giant golden centipedes busy securing them in place. As she looked up to watch a chunk of dirty ice being driven into the ship's skeleton by impellers and human workers wearing EVA units, she reflected how those workers were now better off than the experts. They, at least, were finding ways to advance and adapt within the increasingly alien and frightening environment of this ship. All the experts, however, were thoroughly aware that they could never again be the top in their field, and that the ultimate expert here was always looking over their shoulders. That was with one exception, perhaps.

'It doesn't matter what kind of security you use in computer tech,' observed Hannah from beside her, 'since there's always someone who will find a way to circumvent it.'

Var glanced at her. 'So you know what it is?'

Hannah glanced up from the vacuum-format e-pad that she had stuck on the surface of a chunk of asteroid consisting of metallic bullet-shaped chunks, like belemnite fossils. 'It's an encoder rather like those used in subnet hardware. A group of the chipped have set up a a until now a secret method of implant-to-implant communication.'

'Should I be worried?'

'I don't know.' Hannah shook her head, which made a visible gesture in the VC suit she wore, but was something Var could not achieve in her heavy work suit. 'I think it highly unlikely that Alan is unaware of this.'

'Are you aware of this, Alan?' Var asked.

'Yes, I am aware of this,' he replied.

The immediacy of his reply did not lead Var to think he had been paying close attention to her and Hannah. That was just some piece of software a rather like one used in the more user-friendly fones a responding to a question directed at him. Doubtless some further piece of software, presently recording every public and probably every private conversation aboard the ship, had immediately dragged up the previous content of the exchange between Hannah and Var for his instant inspection. Of course, he did not respond to every question directed at him, just to those he considered important and relevant. That assessment was probably carried out by yet another piece of software, or a subsidiary thought process, since within him the difference wasn't easily defined. She wondered if he knew that the replies he gave were just enough to promote the idea of his being godlike, ever present and ever watching. Of course he knew.

'What are they using?' Hannah asked.

'It's quite simple,' he replied. 'The encoder attaches to their relays, and provides a list of icons they can select to contact anyone else with a similar encoder.'

'And you've cracked those codes,' Var suggested.

'In a way . . .'

'So what are they saying?'

'They are saying they must build the groundwork of their rebellion cautiously, and that, since an escape to Earth would only result in them being captured and killed by Galahad, their domain has to remain here, aboard this ship,' Saul explained. 'And for them to be truly free aboard this ship, the autocrat currently in charge has to die.'

'And you allow this to continue?' Hannah asked in exasperation.

'What would you have me do, Hannah? Have them thrown in an adjustment cell, or killed, or perhaps sent over to you to have their minds wiped?'

Studying Hannah's expression, Var saw it transform from exasperation to weary horror.

'No,' Hannah replied, 'there always has to be a better option.'

'It's just talk,' he continued, 'and talk cannot hurt me.'

'They've managed to put together this hardware,' Var protested, 'and mere talk can easily turn into something else.' She felt he was again being irritatingly dismissive and arrogant.

'And should it do so, I have something in place ready to counter it,' Saul replied. 'I wait in the hope that they will see what others receiving implants and backups saw at once and so clearly. I wait in the hope that they will cease to behave as children.'

'Who are they?' Var asked. She certainly didn't want such people working on anything important, and she was damned if she wanted to leave everything to her brother. She didn't believe the myth he was creating about himself and, as she finally admitted to herself, she didn't really trust him.

'That I will not tell you,' he replied. 'Don't you have other things to occupy your time right now?'

Suppressing a snappy reply, Var glanced up. More EVA units were now on the move above, travelling up along the length of the newly erected arcoplex spindle. And, when she turned on her visor display and inspected a work-order flow diagram, she saw that the new transformers were now being moved into position. Of course, if she had taken the time to get her own implant installed, she would have been aware of all this much sooner.

'Work to do,' she said to Hannah, before she launched herself upwards.

As Saul watched Var head away, he briefly dipped again into the communications between the would-be rebels, but everything worthy of note was already being flagged in a continuous recording. He checked these latest flags and noted that Ghort and two others had been discussing Alex. Ghort was still unsure about this member of his work team, but the others were insistent that Alex must be recruited. In their eyes he possessed the training and skills they needed and, being the last surviving clone of Alessandro Messina, having him on their side would send out a powerful message during further recruitment. Ghort had to question whether that message would be a positive one, and so their discussion had continued. Saul calculated that they would shortly make their first approach to Alex who, though emotionally less complex than most other human beings, was very smart in many other respects, and would respond positively and join them, just as Saul had predicted.

He next watched the final chunks of ice being ferried in and roped down amidst the asteroid matter on the lattice walls of the station wheel. This even distribution would reduce distortion of the warp bubble, though there was a small chance they would lose another chunk of the docking pillars. Meanwhile, Var was now ensuring the locking down of the transformers being installed at the upper pole of the ship.

As he watched through nearby cams, he reflected how he had handled his sister's most recent . . . error. The transformers were heavily insulated, as were the cables leading inside from them. The insulation Var had intended to use had been more than adequate to deal with a potential two megawatts running through the station, but were not sufficient to deal with any of the possibly huge fluctuations above that, so Saul had found it necessary to intervene. However, at the same time he had deliberately speculated with her on the insulation requirements of the space planes that would serve as the anode and cathode they intended to plug into the Io flux tube, so her annoyance was ameliorated by him accepting her suggestion that they use old Mars Traveller solid-fuel booster tanks retrieved from around Jupiter for that purpose. She had, in essence, responded as predictably as Alex. Saul hadn't even been disappointed, which told him that all those parts of himself he still defined as human were now less so.

Saul briefly considered how, even before Hannah had put the biochip in his head and before he loaded Janus, he had rather stretched the concept of what the likes of Hannah would define as human. Now his human aspects were changing even further as he evolved mentally. He retained the survival instinct, but knew he was growing more and more distant from ordinary human concerns. He had moved beyond contempt, beyond boredom, beyond exasperation. As he was now, he knew that he would have much more closely analysed his previous almost instinctive decision to rescue his sister from Mars, and perhaps decided to leave her there. And now he was seriously considering the benefits and disadvantages of maintaining a human population at all aboard what had become his ship, and considering it very carefully.

The last chunk of ice set on course for its final position, the EVA workers were departing, leaving Saul's robots to rise up from their plain of boulders and field it. His ship now possessed much more water than its occupants required, but Saul was thinking both towards the immediate future and far beyond. As power became available, the ice would be melted down and piped in between the blast walls and layers of composite armour that now filled the outer ring, around the vortex generator. Then, at some point in the more distant future, when the new arcoplexes were built, he had decided that one of them would become a mostly aquatic environment and therefore much of the water could go there. He visualized a cylindrical sea with land masses positioned at either end, perhaps dotted with islands between over a central barrier designed to contain the pumps that would shift water from one end of the cylinder to the other, to mimic the effect of tides. It would be a curious environment for the spectator a with the sea curving up on either side around the spindle lights a and one that would take some technical knowhow to balance out properly, especially when using anything other than the Rhine drive.

In that same cylinder he would utilize Gene Bank samples and data to construct a marine ecosystem. Perhaps it might be possible to resurrect extinct species like the dolphin, though anything larger would have to wait until he extended his ship into something the size of a moon, so it could contain larger cylinders. However, perhaps by then he would have had time to look into some interesting possibilities related to Rhine-drive technology and have developed that old staple of science fiction, artificial gravity, and therefore not need cylinder worlds at all.

The ice was down in place and secure, the EVA workers gradually docking and heading back to their accommodation. Var had checked the security of the new transformers, and dispatched the EVA workers there to their homes before attaching herself to a portion of the outer cage that gave her the best view. Hannah, meanwhile, had returned inside, since perhaps one viewing experience close to the engine flame was enough, and her own esoteric concerns were again occupying her thoughts. Le Roque was busy overseeing the now rote lockdown procedure required before a firing of the Traveller engine. All seemed to be operating like a smoothly oiled machine and Saul felt no need, or inclination, to deliver any warnings before he finally fired up the engine again.

The fusion flame glared as bright as the sun, and charging levels rose as rectifying batteries were bathed in the sudden light and heat. The column supporting the engine shortened, but stress-sensor readings showed nothing out of expected parameters. Var whooped in delight, the sight of the Traveller engine's power never getting old for her. Slowly, the ship began to move up towards the periphery of the Asteroid Belt. It would only take minutes to bring them to the point where solar system maps showed their clearest run on the two hops to their destination. As the minutes passed, Saul considered various plans for the other new cylinder world. Perhaps all the tropical ecologies could be transplanted there from the old arboretum, which would definitely solve some of the heating and insulation problems. Perhaps this new cylinder could be filled with moist tropical life . . .

The time arrived, and Saul engaged the Rhine drive without shutting down the Traveller engine. The effect was an astounding colour display on the interior of the warp bubble, and the production of some exotic particles that Rhine himself was already studying, having been forewarned. The ship moved, at a right angle to the thrust of the Traveller, but since that engine was now effectively firing within its own universe, it had no effect on their course in the outer universe. Heat levels within the bubble rose rapidly, while rectifying batteries distributed throughout the station sucked it up and converted it, dumping charge into super-capacitors, ultra-capacitors and other forms of storage. Saul's robots literally bathed in it as they also topped up their depleted supplies. Some of the asteroid ice sublimated, creating a fog within the ship's skeleton, but one that soon blew away as the warp shut down.

Next, Saul shut down the Traveller engine. At the cost of the tritium fuel that was now becoming depleted, he had now effectively recharged the entire ship. He looked around, seeing Jupiter as a slightly larger star far away from them round in its orbit, discerning Mars as hardly visible without magnification and the Asteroid Belt as a haze slewed about and below them.

Again the Rhine drive kicked in and dropped them into what was effectively their personal universe. Saul counted down the minutes as the drive took them up close to the speed of light, closer than they had ever been before. Hawking radiation flooded the ship's skeleton, and Saul observed an effect as close to perpetual motion as was possible as the power the drive used was replenished by the charging of rectifier batteries. Beyond the speed of light, would they rectify out more energy than the drive actually used? This was an issue Rhine had been considering at some length, but neither his nor Saul's maths was up to the job. Something new would have to be invented once they had collected enough data, which Rhine was gathering even now. And certainly there was no such thing as perpetual motion, so the cost would have to be paid somewhere, somehow.

Saul allowed his attention to range once more through his ship, taking in detail, assessing conversations, keeping his finger ever on the pulse. He saw Langstrom, Peach and one of the mentally reprogrammed, the repro Manuel, sitting playing a game of three-sided chess on their linked computer screens. This was a pastime all the police still aboard the station seemed to be enjoying, and this particular game was part of a tournament that Saul predicted Manuel would win. Hannah was already aware of this odd effect in some of those whose minds she had wiped: a tendency to borderline autism.

Tick-tock, time passed, though its effects were curious and monstrously difficult to calculate.

'Paul,' said Saul, 'tell me you're ready.'

'You know I am,' replied the proctor.

Something new to try, monitored by eight proctors scattered throughout the ship. Saul had left it just for them to handle, since he was reluctant to let such advanced minds continue solely with the many menial tasks with which they had been occupying themselves.

Paul was out on the station-wheel lattice wall, acting as a node in the network the proctors formed: closely connected to seven of his fellows but only loosely connected to Judd and to the proctor that had named itself Tull, both of whom now completely controlled Robotics. Again Saul resisted the temptation to insert himself into that network and spy on the minds he had effectively created.

'Two minutes,' Saul said, noting the Mach-drive coils already drawing power as a mackerel sky spread across the inner side of the warp bubble.

'Yes!' shouted Rhine, slamming his hand down too hard on his console, then sucking his stinging fingers afterwards. One fragment of a loosely connected theory proven true.

'I'm not sure that when you're happy, I should also be,' said Le Roque, walking over to peer at the equations on Rhine's screen, frowning, then moving away again.

'Get ready,' Le Roque announced next to the entire station, 'though what for I don't know. No one quite knows what happens next.'

They were close to their destination: laser measurements showing a slight distortion of the warp bubble caused by a huge mass in the universe adjacent to their small and temporary one. Saul made direct adjustments to the vortex generator that effectively turned the warp through a hundred and eighty degrees, then shut down the drive. They came out of warp still carrying the impetus given by the Traveller engine, but now taking them in the opposite direction relative to its previous thrust. The ship shuddered, stabilized, EM fields reaching out and feathering towards infinity, pushing on the surrounding universe. And the ship accelerated. Saul now sent images to every screen presently not in use for some other purpose. Old Jupiter gazed at them with a vexatious red eye while they slid past veined Europa, whose pallid gaze lingered upon its secret oceans within.

9.

Revolt!

The more authoritarian a society becomes, the more there are of the disaffected who are 'fighting for freedom'. Conversely, the more liberal a society is, the more people you will find who are fighting to exert authoritarian control. Oddly enough, in both cases, they are the same people. The freedom fighter is just a revolution away from becoming a dictator. The concerned and righteous, who wish to make some changes for the good of all, are just an election away from pulling on their jackboots. Never trust the activist who wants to change the world for the better, because their 'better' is usually the worse for you.

Argus 'It just doesn't feel real,' said Dr Da Vinci, his gaze fixed on a screen showing Jupiter looming close, and its moon Io closer still. Close enough to identify three volcanoes pumping sulphurous plumes out into space.

'It isn't real.' Hannah injected her latest cerebral biopsy into a sample bottle, then eyed the doctor from Mars. 'It's all light-and-colour enhanced and the perspective shortened so we can see both. It all looks very CGI out there.' She gestured to the screen.

'I don't mean that.' Da Vinci reached up to finger the small dressing at the back of his skull. 'I mean the speed of it. When I shipped out to Mars, I had months aboard a Traveller to begin to appreciate the scale of it all a to know that I was travelling an immense distance.' He stood up from his chair. 'How can we possibly be in orbit around Jupiter? How can we be sure the images we see are real?'

He was being rhetorical and philosophical a a tendency which was only a recent trait, according to the report Saul had given her access to. Da Vinci was a lost soul trying to make sense of it all, but he was also a highly intelligent and capable lost soul. On Mars he had hated the interference of Political Officer Ricard and lodged objections that would have seen him put into an adjustment cell on his return to Earth, had that eventuality not been cancelled for all of them at Antares Base. He had seemed to concur with Var's takeover there, but had ultimately backed Rhone and, according to Var, had cried over the corpses that generated.

Hannah grimaced. She had initially felt a bond with Saul's sister, but now that was evaporating. Var Delex was as ruthless as Saul which, in both cases, stemmed from the need to survive. However, with his continued transformation, Saul's ruthlessness seemed to have disconnected him from base human motives, while Var's instincts seemed to be wrapped up in resentment, paranoia and some silly need to compete with her brother. Yes, Saul was now a dangerous creature, but Hannah knew that he was no longer vengeful. Var, however, she realized, was not someone to be trusted with the kind of power Saul presently wielded.

'How can we know the images reflect reality?' Da Vinci repeated.

Hannah studied him, perfectly understanding his difficulties. After all that had gone before, he had been whisked halfway across the solar system in a partially constructed interstellar vessel by a man who seemed to be breaking every law imaginable, including those of physics. He was, Hannah felt, very much a fellow traveller, for like her he had all the moral objections and shied away from the harsh solutions.

'You know because of that.' Hannah held up a finger. 'Listen.'

'I don't know what you mean,' he said after a moment.

'Of course,' said Hannah. Being fairly new aboard and this being his first time in Arcoplex Two, he had no idea about the sounds he should be hearing. Hannah could hear it, however: the creaking and low groaning, the occasional snap and ping of a joint realigning; the ship yielding under the unsubtle touch of Jupiter a the same touch that generated the seismic shifts and volcanoes characteristic of Io. It would get worse too, once they moved between Io and Jupiter.

She shrugged. 'You can hear the gravitational stresses,' she explained, 'but if you really want the truth, then get a spacesuit and go outside. You'll soon lose all your doubts, believe me.'

'I've no doubts, as such,' said Da Vinci, 'I'm just divorced from the feeling.' He now took a look around her laboratory, his expression turning slightly acquisitive. 'I was told that, after you'd taken my sample, you'd have something for me to do?'

The station's medical personnel were underemployed, for the moment at least, so there had been no real position for him. However, he was certainly skilled enough to join her in working here. Quite likely he would have moral objections, and ones she wanted to hear, which was why she had saved until now what she revealed to people just before their biopsies.

'First you need to understand what this is really for.' She held up his cerebral sample.

'Not for growing graft tissue?' He seemed baffled.

'Come with me.' She led the way through the door leading to her production floor, which was starting to fill up with equipment and now had a scattering of employees, some of whom were even human. As she explained about the backups and pointed out the various tanks in which bioware was growing, and a small chip-etching plant busily at work, his gaze flicked attentively to every detail. As they reached the far end, he stepped over to a tank inside which resided something organic shot through with shiny wires and plastic optics, suspended in a cloudy fluid at the centre of a web of power and nutrient feeds. He placed a hand against the toughened glass, then gazed at her questioningly.

'Not here, then?' he said.

'What?' Hannah asked.

'The clones.'

That was it, right there: he'd gone straight to the heart of it. Hannah wondered if it was truly ergonomics that had made her decide to keep the cloning facility separate from operations here. Perhaps she just preferred it to be out of sight, so that her conscience would not nag her quite so severely.

Da Vinci stepped back from the tank and turned to study the perpetually growing rack of backups.

'So we can live forever a or at least for longer than our natural span,' he said. 'But, as always, such developments have their price.'

Hannah grimaced. 'I understand the thrust of your remark, but what precisely is a "natural span"?' She shook her head, experiencing a tightening in her torso like the precursor to one of her panic attacks, and felt it loosen. 'Our natural span, if you wish to call it that, is long enough merely for us to breed and pass on our genes, then everything after that is just a bonus. People have lived well beyond that span for centuries.'

'I think you understood my meaning.' He gazed at her steadily.

'Perhaps . . . but what do you reckon the price might be?'

'One that the clones will be paying, perhaps?'

'If you could elaborate?'

'Tank-grown clones are human beings who should be allowed the right to life. By using them as receptacles for these' a he waved a hand towards the backups a 'you are effectively destroying that life.'

Perhaps this was a mistake. Now, moving on from 'natural span', he was talking about 'right to life'. Was this man a doctor of medicine or one of divinity and philosophy? Her own feelings about those backups and clones related more to the cheapening of the life a person owned, and the potential for abuse.

'One has to ask where the line should be drawn,' she said. 'Does a sperm have a . . .' Hannah paused, seeing a slight twist to his mouth and suddenly remembering something more in his report. He had very firm views on this subject, ones that were in sympathy with her own: human life was nothing special; it was the human mind that was important. 'Yes, you had me there, for a moment,' she finished.

'I just wanted to be sure we are on the same page.' Da Vinci then nodded towards the backups. 'So which one is his?'

'By "his" I presume you're talking about Alan Saul's?' Hannah felt a resurgence of the anger she had experienced only a few days ago.

'I am but, being at more of a remove from him than you are, I'll continue to call him the Owner.' He paused. 'It seems the politic thing to do.'

'They're not here,' she said tightly. 'Two days ago he had them removed to his inner sanctum, along with some cloning tanks, if my reading of the ship's manifest is right. He doesn't trust us mere mortals . . .'

'I feel the need to point out,' said the Martian doctor, 'that we are all potentially immortals now.'

'Still . . .' said Hannah grudgingly.

'I'd also have to wonder whom I would trust, if I were in his position.' He gestured to the backups, as they strolled towards them. 'You tell me I'll also have one of those sometime in the future. Well, in that future I, too, can see myself wanting to take it away from here and lock it in the safest vault I could find. In fact' a he looked around a 'the lack of security here concerns me.'

'He's always watching,' said Hannah.

'That's not enough,' said Da Vinci. 'I'll no more rely on demigods than I relied on the non-existent gods from which some people claim our morality descends.'

Hannah felt herself beginning to smile a an unfamiliar sensation. She was finding herself starting to like this doctor from Mars. Var Delex had been company of sorts but, despite her great intelligence and drive, she seemed shallow. Da Vinci seemed to have depths she could drown in and, more importantly, he was male.

'So will you do it?' she asked, leaping ahead to test just how much was going on in the mind behind that quite attractive face.