He pushed to the front again, though by now the watchers had thinned out, dispersed reluctantly to duties elsewhere in Mantell. It was much easier to hear the speaker now, and he recognised cadences in the woman's speech as she repeated phrases which had cycled around a few minutes earlier. The message was not a long one, then. Which was ominous in itself. Who crossed light- years of interstellar space, only to announce their arrival around a colony in terms which were, frankly, curt? Only those who had no interest whatsoever in ingratiating themselves, and whose demands were supremely clear. And again that suspicion accorded well with what he already knew of the crew he believed had come for him. They had never been talkative.

He could not yet see the face, although the voice was already whispering across the years to him.

When vision came -- when Falkender completed the neural interface -- he remembered.

'Who is she?' Sluka asked.

'Her name -- when last we met -- was Ilia Volyova.' Sylveste shrugged. 'It may or may not have been real. All I do know is that whatever threats she goes on to make, she's fully capable of backing them up.'

'And she's -- what? The Captain?'

'No,' Sylveste said, distracted. 'No, she's not.'

The woman's face was unremarkable. Almost monochromatically pale of complexion, short dark hair, and a facial structure somewhere between elfin and skeletal, framing deepset, narrow, slanted eyes which dispensed little compassion. She had hardly changed at all. But then, that was the point of Ultras. If subjective decades had passed for Sylveste since their last meeting, then for Volyova it might only have been a handful of years; a tenth or a twentieth of the time. For her, their last meeting would be a thing of the relatively recent past, whereas for Sylveste it felt like an event consigned to the dusty annals of history. It placed him at a disadvantage, of course. For Volyova, his mannerisms -- the more predictable aspects of his behaviour -- would still be fresh in her mind; he would be an adversary not long met. But Sylveste had barely recognised Volyova's voice until now, and when he tried to recall whether she had been more or less sympathetic to him on their previous meeting, his memory failed him. Of course, it would all come back, but it was that very slowness of recall which gave Volyova her undoubted edge.

Odd, really. He had assumed -- stupidly, perhaps -- that it would be Sajaki who was making this announcement. Not the true Captain, of course, or else why would they have come for him? The Captain had to be ill again.

But then where was Sajaki?

He forced his mind to disregard these questions and concentrate on what Volyova had to say.

After two or three repetitions, he had the whole of her monologue assembled in his head, and was almost certain he could have regurgitated it word for word. It was indeed curt. They knew what they wanted, these Ultras. And they knew what it would take to get it. 'I am Triumvir Ilia Volyova of the lighthugger Nostalgia for Infinity' was how she introduced herself. No helloes; not even a perfunctory admission of gratitude for the fates having allowed them to cross space to Resurgam.

Such niceties, Sylveste knew, were not exactly Ilia Volyova's style. He had always thought of her as the quiet one; more concerned with housekeeping her hideous weapons than condescending to engage in anything resembling normal social intercourse. More than once he had heard the other crewmembers joke -- and they hardly ever joked -- about how Volyova preferred the company of the vessel's indigenous rats over her human crewmates.

Perhaps they had not really been joking.

'I am addressing you from orbit,' was how she continued. 'We have studied your state of technological advancement and concluded that you pose us no military threat.' And then she paused, before continuing in what to Sylveste sounded like the tones of a schoolteacher warning pupils against committing an act of minor disobedience, like gazing out the window, or not keeping their compads well organised. 'However, should any act be construed as a deliberate attempt at inflicting damage on us, we will retaliate in a massively disproportionate sense.' She almost smiled at that point. 'Not so much an eye for an eye, so to speak, as a city for an eye. We are fully capable of destroying any or all of your settlements from orbit.'

Volyova leant forwards, her leonine grey eyes seeming to fill the screen. 'More importantly, we also have the resolve to do it, should the need arise.' Volyova again allowed herself an over- dramatic pause, doubtless aware that she had a captive audience at this point. 'If I chose, it could happen in a matter of minutes. Don't imagine I'd lose much sleep over it.'

Sylveste could see where all this was heading.

'But let us put aside such vulgarities, at least for the moment.' She really smiled at that point, though as smiles went, it was near-cryogenic in its frostiness. 'You're doubtless wondering why we're here.'

'Not me,' Sylveste said, loud enough that Pascale heard him.

'There is a man amongst you we seek. Our desire to find him is so absolute, so pressing, that we have decided to bypass the usual...' Volyova's smile reappeared; an even colder phantom of itself.

'... diplomatic channels. The man's name is Sylveste; no further explanation should be necessary, if his reputation hasn't waned since our last meeting.'

'Tarnished, perhaps,' Sluka commented. Then, to Sylveste, 'You're really going to have to tell me more about this prior meeting, you know. It can hardly do you any harm.'

'And knowing the facts won't do you a blind bit of good,' Sylveste said, immediately returning his attention to the broadcast.

'Ordinarily,' Volyova said, 'we'd establish lines of dialogue with the proper authorities and negotiate for Sylveste's handover. Possibly that was our original intention. But a cursory scan of your planet's main settlement from orbit -- Cuvier -- convinced us that such an approach would be doomed to failure. We surmised that there was no longer any power worth dealing with. And I'm afraid we don't have the patience to bargain with squabbling planetary factions.'

Sylveste shook his head. 'She's lying. They never intended to negotiate, no matter what state we were in. I know these people; they're vicious scum.'

'So you keep telling us,' Sluka said.

'Our options are therefore rather limited,' Volyova continued. 'We want Sylveste, and our intelligence has confirmed that he is not... how shall I put it -- at large?'

'All that from orbit?' Pascale asked. 'That's what I call good intelligence.'

'Too good,' Sylveste said.

'This then,' Volyova added, 'is how things will proceed. Within twenty-four hours Sylveste will make his presence and location known to us via a radio-frequency broadcast. Either he emerges from hiding or those who are holding him set him free. We leave the details to you. If Sylveste is dead, then irrefutable evidence of his death must be offered in place of the man himself. Whether we accept it will be entirely at our discretion, of course.'

'Good job I'm not dead, in that case. I doubt there's anything you could do to convince Volyova.'

'She's that intransigent?'

'Not just her; the whole crew.'

But Volyova was still speaking: 'Twenty-four hours, then. We will be listening. And if we hear nothing, or suspect deception in any form, we will enact a punishment. Our ship has certain capabilities -- ask Sylveste, if you doubt us. If we have not heard from him within the next day, we will use that capability against one of your planet's smaller surface communities. We have already selected the target in question, and the nature of the attack will be such that no one in the community will survive. Is that clear? No one. Twenty-four hours after that, if we have still heard nothing of the elusive Dr Sylveste, we will escalate to a larger target. Twenty-four hours after that, we will destroy Cuvier.' And Volyova proffered another brief smile at that point. 'Though you seem to be doing an admirable job there yourselves.'

The message ended, then recommenced from the beginning, with Volyova's blunt introduction.

Sylveste listened to it in its entirety twice more before anyone dared interrupt his concentration.

'They wouldn't do it,' Sluka said. 'Surely not.'

'It's barbaric,' Pascale added, eliciting a nod from their captor. 'No matter how much they need you -- they couldn't possibly intend to do what she said. I mean, destroy a whole settlement?'

'That's where you're wrong,' Sylveste said. 'They've done it before. And I don't doubt that they'll do it again.'

There had been never been any real certainty in Volyova's mind that Sylveste was alive -- but on the other hand, the fact that he might not be present was something she had carefully avoided dwelling on, because the consequences of failure were too unpleasant to bring to mind. It mattered not that this was Sajaki's quest, rather than her own. If it failed, he would punish her just as severely as if she had contrived the whole thing herself; as if it were Volyova who had brought them to this dispiriting place.

She had not really expected anything to happen in the first few hours. That was too optimistic; it presumed that Sylveste's captors were awake and immediately aware of her warning. Realistically, it might be a fraction of a day before the news was passed along the chain of command to the right people; yet more time while it was verified. But as the hours became tens of hours, and then most of a day, she was forced to the conclusion that her threat would have to be enacted.

Of course, the colonists had not been entirely silent. Ten hours earlier, one unnamed group had come forward with what they claimed were Sylveste's remains. They had left them on the top of a mesa, then retreated into caves through which the ship's sensors could not peer. Volyova sent down a drone to examine the remains, but while they were a close genetic match, they did not agree precisely with the tissue samples retained since Sylveste's last visit to the ship. It would have been tempting to punish the colonists for this, but on reflection she decided against such a course of action: they had acted solely out of fear, with no prospect of personal gain except their own -- and everyone else's -- survival, and she did not want to deter any other parties coming forward.

Likewise she had stilled her hand when two independently acting individuals announced themselves as Sylveste, since it was obvious that the people in question were not really lying, but genuinely believed themselves to be the man himself.

Now, however, there was not even time left for deception.

'I'm actually rather surprised,' she said. 'I thought by now they would have given him over. But evidently one party in this arrangement is seriously underestimating the other.'

'You can't back down now,' Hegazi said.

'Of course not.' Volyova said it with surprise, as if the thought of clemency had never once occurred to her.

'No; you have to,' Khouri said. 'You can't go through with this.'

This was almost the first thing she had said all day. Perhaps she was having trouble coming to terms with the monster for whom she now worked: this suddenly tyrannical incarnation of the previously fair Volyova. It was difficult not to sympathise. When she examined herself, what she saw was indeed something monstrous, even if it was not entirely the truth.

'Once a threat's made,' Volyova said, 'it's in everyone's interests to carry it through if the terms aren't met.'

'What if they can't keep the terms?' Khouri said.

Volyova shrugged. 'That's their problem, not mine.'

She opened the link to Resurgam and said her piece -- reiterating the demands she had made, and stating her deep disappointment that Sylveste had not been brought to light. She was wondering how convincing she sounded -- whether the colonists truly believed her threats -- when she was struck by an inspirational idea. She unclipped her bracelet, whispering the command which would instruct it to accept limited input from a third party, rather than injuring them.

She passed the bracelet to Khouri.

'You want to salve your conscience, be my guest.'

Khouri examined the device as if it might suddenly extrude fangs, or spit venom into her face.

Finally she raised it to her mouth, not actually slipping it around her wrist.

'Go ahead,' Volyova said. 'I'm serious. Say whatever you want -- I assure you it won't do a blind bit of good.'

'Speak to the colonists?'

'Certainly -- if you think you can convince them better than I can.'

For a moment Khouri said nothing. Then -- diffidently -- she started speaking into the bracelet.

'My name is Khouri,' she said. 'For whatever it's worth, I want you to know I'm not with these people. I don't agree with what they're doing.' Khouri's large and frightened eyes scanned the bridge, as if she expected any moment to be punished for this. But the others showed only mild interest in what she had to say.

'I was recruited,' she said. 'I didn't understand what they were. They want Sylveste. They're not lying. I've seen the weapons they've got in this ship, and I think they will use them.'

Volyova affected a look of bored indifference, as if all of this were exactly what she would have expected; tiresomely so.

'I'm sorry none of you have brought Sylveste forward. I think Volyova's serious when she says she's going to punish you for that. All I want to say is, you'd better believe her. And maybe if some of you can bring him forward now it won't be too----'

'Enough.'

Volyova took back the bracelet. 'I'm extending my deadline by one hour only.'

But the hour passed. Volyova barked cryptic commands into her bracelet, causing a target- designator to spring into place over the northerly latitudes of Resurgam. The red cross-hairs hunted with sullen, sharklike calm, until they latched onto a particular spot near the planet's northern icecap. Then they pulsed a bloodier red, and status graphics informed Volyova that the ship's orbital-suppression elements -- almost the puniest weapons system it could deploy -- were now activated, armed, targeted and ready.

Then she resumed her address to the colonists.

'People of Resurgam,' Volyova said. 'Our weapons have just aligned themselves on the small settlement of Phoenix; fifty-four degrees north by twenty west of Cuvier. In fractionally less than thirty seconds Phoenix and its immediate environs will cease to exist.'

The woman dampened her lips with the tip of her tongue before continuing. 'This will be our last announcement for twenty-four hours. You have until then to produce Sylveste, or we escalate to a larger target. Count yourselves lucky that we began with one as small as Phoenix.'

The general tenor of her pronouncements, Khouri realised, had been that of a schoolteacher patiently explaining why the punishment she was about to visit upon her pupils was both in their best interests and entirely brought about by their own actions. She avoided saying, 'This will hurt me more than it hurts you,' but if she had, Khouri would not have been at all surprised. In fact, she wondered if there was anything Volyova could now do which would surprise her in any way. It seemed that she had not so much misjudged the woman as assigned her to completely the wrong species. And not just Volyova, but the entire crew. Khouri felt a pang of revulsion, shuddering to think how much a part of them she had recently dared imagine herself to be. It was as if they had all pulled masks from their faces, revealing snakes.

Volyova fired.

For a moment -- a long, pregnant moment -- there was nothing. Khouri began to entertain the idea that maybe the entire thing had been a bluff after all. But that hope lasted until the walls of the bridge shuddered, as if the entire ship were an ancient sea vessel scraping past an iceberg. Khouri felt none of the motion, since the articulated seat boom moved to smother the vibrations. But she had no doubts that she had seen it, and seconds later she heard what sounded like distant thunder.

The hull weapons had discharged.

On the projected image of Resurgam, the weapons readouts recast themselves, changing to illuminate the conditions of the armaments in the moments after they had been deployed. Hegazi consulted his seat readouts, his eyepiece clicking and whirring as it assimilated the news.

'Suppression elements discharged,' he said, voice clipped and devoid of emphasis. 'Targeting systems confirm correct acquisition.' Then, with magisterial slowness, he elevated his gaze to the globe.

Khouri looked with him.

There was -- where previously there had been nothing -- a tiny red-hot smear near the edge of Resurgam's northern polar cap, like a foul rat's eye in the crust of the world. It was darkening now, like a hot needle just pulled from a brazier. But it was still hurtingly bright, darkening less through its own cooling than because it was being progressively shrouded by titanic veils of uplifted planetary debris. In windows which opened fleetingly in the curdling dark storm, Khouri observed dancing tendrils of lightning, their bright ignitions strobing the landscape for hundreds of kilometres around. A near-circular shockwave was racing from the site of the attack. Khouri observed its movement via a subtle change in the refractive index of the air, the way a ripple in shallow water caused the rocks below to acquire a momentary fluidity of their own.

'Preliminary sit-rep coming in now,' Hegazi said, still managing to sound like a bored acolyte reciting the dullest of scriptures. 'Weps functionality: nominal. Ninety-nine point four per cent probability that target was completely neutralised. Seventy-nine per cent probability that no one within two hundred kilometres could have survived, unless they were behind a kilometre of armour.' 'Good enough odds for me,' Volyova said. She studied the wound in the surface of Resurgam for a moment longer, evidently satiating herself with the thought of planetary-scale destruction.

FIFTEEN.

Mantell, North Nekhebet, 2566

'They bluffed,' Sluka said, just as a sudden, false dawn shone over the north-easterly horizon, turning the intervening ridges and bluffs into serrated black cutouts. The glare was magnesium- bright, edged in purple. Briefly it overloaded whole strips of Sylveste's vision, leaving numb voids where it had burned.

'Care to take another guess?' he asked.

For a moment Sluka seemed unable to answer. She only stared at the flare, mesmerised by its radiance and the message of atrocity it brought.

'He told you they'd do it,' Pascale said. 'You should have listened to him. He knew these people.

He knew they'd do exactly what they promised.'

'I never thought they would,' Sluka said, her voice so quiet that it seemed she was talking to herself. Despite the glare, it was still a totally silent evening, free even of the usual music of Resurgam's winds. 'I thought their threat was too monstrous to take seriously.'

'Nothing's too monstrous for them.' Sylveste's eyes were returning to normality now; enough that he could read the expressions of the women who were standing next to him on Mantell's mesa.

'From now on, you'd better take Volyova at her word. She means what she said. In twenty-four hours she'll do it all again, unless you turn me over.'

It was as if Sluka had not heard him. 'Perhaps we ought to get down,' was all she said.

Sylveste agreed, though before they headed back into the mesa they took time to crudely measure the direction from which the flash had come. 'We know when it happened,' Sylveste said. 'And we know the direction. When the pressure wave comes-through, we'll know how far away it was.

Settlements on Resurgam are still widely spread, so we should be able to pinpoint it.'

'She said the name of the place,' Pascale said.

Sylveste nodded.