Trader sighed inwardly, and mentally prepared himself to murder General Squat at the nearest convenient moment. Now, however, he would have to listen to his idiotic heresies for a few minutes more, until the priest-geneticists were close enough for Trader to flash them the prearranged signal.

Squat continued in his bl.u.s.tering way. 'Remarkable, Rigor's revelations, particularly his suggestion that our faster-than-light technology was in fact stolen stolen from another species.' from another species.'

'General, would you really see the Shoal Hegemony collapse after half a million years? Is that what you're seeking? Would you still be proud of giving away the secrets of some dried-out old idiot too tired of life to stick around to see what damage he could do before he died?'

'Of course not. The days of our earliest interstellar travels are now long ago and half-forgotten. And, as we know, the few records that still exist are sketchy at best. Yet he didn't stop there. According to Rigor, the transluminal technology has other uses so remarkable that merely possessing the knowledge of it would entirely explain our long flight from the home star . . .'

The dozen priest-geneticists, in their bright, colour-coded pressurized bubbles, were almost upon them, feigning as if to pa.s.s on by in the opposite direction. Trader watched the General glance towards them, and struggled not to do the same.

'All right, General, tell me what your price is. Please don't tell me it's anything as ba.n.a.l as power and influence. I'd be disappointed.'

'Half a million years of unbroken rule would hardly become unbalanced by a more candid att.i.tude towards our fellow citizens,' came Squat's immediate reply. 'If the Mother Star Faction's demands can't be met, then at least give them a reasonable explanation of why why they can't.' they can't.'

'That won't happen, General. Those to whom I answer will have none of it.'

'Then you're facing the risk of revolution, Trader-In-Faecal-Matter-Of-Animals,' came General Squat's immediate reply. 'Now that I think of it, perhaps your chosen amba.s.sadorial name sounds more appropriate than I realized. Most Shoal-members live far from the homeworld, but they would all rather see it orbiting securely around a stable star than lost for ever in a frozen dust cloud. Otherwise . . .'

Otherwise, what? was Trader's unvoiced reply. It was clear the General was not going to listen to reason. was Trader's unvoiced reply. It was clear the General was not going to listen to reason.

'Otherwise,' General Squat concluded after a pause, 'others like me will be sure to disseminate the truth -particularly if anything drastic were to happen to me.'

Trader gave the signal. Suddenly the dozen priest-geneticists came rushing forward. Their energy bubbles flashed as they collided with the General's, while Trader himself retreated to a safe distance.

Thirteen b.a.l.l.s of coloured light suddenly merged into one, with General Squat caught in the middle. The priest-geneticists now fell on the old warrior-fish, their tentacles ready-tipped with diamond-edged blades. The General fought valiantly, but he was old, and had been taken by surprise.

Your agents, dear General, are compromised, Trader thought to himself. Squat's plans stank of rank amateurism. Trader thought to himself. Squat's plans stank of rank amateurism.

It was over so quickly. After a few moments the priest-geneticists fell away from the General's ripped-up corpse, which began spiralling down towards the seabed, preceded by a field disrupter weapon the old fool had kept concealed about his person.

'Feed the General's remains to the Dreamers,' Trader instructed one of the priests, a near-albino known as Keeper-Of-Intimate-Secrets-Of-The-Unwittingly-Compromised. 'They can enjoy his memories.'

Keeper blinked his ma.s.sive eyes at this request. 'If we submit the General's remains to the Deep Dreamers, his once-conscious matrix will merge with and further inform the Dreamers. The memory of what has happened here would survive and, so long as it remains within the matrix of the Dreamers, what he knew at the time of his death might be rediscovered by others.'

Trader sighed, emitting a long stream of bubbles. 'And it is your duty to sift through, interpret and censor such information as it comes to light, is it not? Rigor-Mortis gave himself to the Deep Dreamers precisely because he believed the truth would emerge just as you describe, and it's your duty to ensure this never never happens. Is that understood?' happens. Is that understood?'

'Understood, yes,' the priest-geneticist replied, with a rapid string of clicks.

'Very good. Now take me to the Deep Dreamers.'

For some reason, some of the priests-including Keeper-Of-Secrets-appeared to regard Trader as almost as much of an oracle as the Deep Dreamers themselves.

'And you truly believe the war to end all wars is upon us?' Keeper-Of-Secrets asked yet again, as General Squat's body was delivered to the vast spirochetes of the nearest of the Dreamers.

Trader's reply was dismissive. 'What the Dreamers tell us is. . . well, it's rarely conclusive, is it? Sometimes, sad to say, it's even useless.'

Keeper was clearly scandalized by this suggestion, but Trader blithely continued: 'Instead the Dreamers give us clues vague enough to appear to mean one thing, then turn out to have a wildly different interpretation once it's too late to influence the course of events. Keeper, I think we rely on them too much. They're just a convenience the Hegemony can point to so they can abdicate all responsibility for their own actions. Look, they just say the Deep Dreamers predicted this, and the outcome was inevitable, whatever they might have done.'

Trader flicked his tentacles in a shrug. 'So ultimately that means an unfortunate few like myself are forced to take on responsibility for what must be done, and divert the flow of history.'

'Perhaps, but it must be . . .' Keeper hesitated.

'Continue.'

'I'm afraid of speaking out of turn.'

'You have my permission.'

'It strikes me as a lonely and thankless occupation,' Keeper-Of-Secrets continued. 'So few are permitted to know that such as yourself must manipulate events throughout the galaxy for the general benefit of our species. Yet, since such manipulations are based on the Dreamer's own predictions, and you appear not to think highly of the Dreamers . . .'

'I couldn't live with myself, if I thought any inaction on my part led to our destruction,' Trader replied. 'So, you see, to act is morally unavoidable, whatever the source of the intelligence.'

They had by now almost reached the first of the Dreaming Temples-a hovering robot submarine that granted the privileged few the means to interface directly with the Dreamers.

Trader made his farewells to his new partners in murder before finally slipping into the wet embrace of the Temple. The machine's innards opened up automatically at his approach, mechanical mandibles reaching out and securing his field bubble, which merged on contact with the Temple's own energy fields.

Trader found himself in absolute darkness, greater even than that prevailing beyond the Temple's hull. This hiatus lasted only seconds, however, before the Temple made contact with the Dreamer's collective consciousness.

Trader felt as if his mind had expanded to encompa.s.s the entire galaxy within a matter of seconds. Powerful images and sensations a.s.sailed his mind, far stronger than those faint intimations he had sensed on his journey here. He witnessed a hundred stars blossoming in deadly fire across the greater night of the Milky Way, a wave of bright destruction unparalleled in all of Shoal history, outside of the Great Expulsion.

Trader felt sickening despair. This was the worst possible outcome: a seething wave of carnage sweeping the Shoal Hegemony into dusty history. To become a had-been and never-would-be-again civilization, forgotten in the annals of the greater history of the cosmos.

Yet hope could still be detected even in the face of apparently unavoidable doom. Over the next few hours, working within the Temple, Trader was able to identify potential key factors: individuals, places and dates that might well influence the initiation of the conflict.

And even if war could not be prevented, it might still be reduced in the scale of its destructive impact. With gentle manipulation, it might even be contained, rendered harmless: turned into a historical footnote rather than a final chapter.

Sometimes, Trader had found, fate really did lie in the hands of a few sentients such as himself.

He began to make plans to ensure he would always be present in the right places to witness-and influence-these pivotal events. And perhaps even divert them away from an astonishingly destructive war that otherwise threatened to erase life from the galaxy.

Four.

Trans-Jovian s.p.a.ce, Sol System The Present

Warm, naked, her muscles tense with antic.i.p.ation, Dakota floated in the coc.o.o.n warmth of the Piri Reis Piri Reis and waited for the inevitable. and waited for the inevitable.

Ever since she'd departed Sant'Arcangelo, the ship had gone crazy at precise thirteen-hour intervals: lights dimmed, communications systems scrambled and rebooted, and even her Ghost circuits suffered a brief dose of amnesia, while heavy, bulkhead-rattling vibrations rolled through the hull.

Every incidence was worse than the last. And every time it happened, Dakota thought of jettisoning the unknown contents of her cargo hold, only to end up reminding herself just why that was a really bad idea.

Twenty seconds to go. She put down her rehydrated black bean soup and flicked a glance in the direction of the main console. Streams of numbers and graphs appeared in the air, along with the image of a clock counting down the last few seconds. She stared at the numbers, feeling the same flood of despair she'd felt every other time this disruption had happened.

Deliver the cargo. Ignore any alerts. Don't interfere with either the cargo bay or its contents. That's what Dakota had been instructed, and that was exactly what she intended to do. That's what Dakota had been instructed, and that was exactly what she intended to do.

Absolutely.

'Piri,' she said aloud, 'tell me what's causing this.' she said aloud, 'tell me what's causing this.'

, the ship replied in tireless response to a question she'd already asked a dozen times, Yes. 'No.' This wasn't the way her life was meant to work out. 'Just leave it.' 'No.' This wasn't the way her life was meant to work out. 'Just leave it.'The clock hit zero, and a sonorous, grating vibration rolled through the cabin. Floating 'alert' messages stained the air red. Meanwhile her Ghost implants made it eminently clear the source of the vibrations was the cargo bay. 'Alerts off,' off,' she snapped. she snapped.Everything went dark.Piri?No answer.Oh c.r.a.p. Dakota waited several more seconds, feeling a rush of cold up her spine. She tried calling out to the ship again, but it didn't respond. Dakota waited several more seconds, feeling a rush of cold up her spine. She tried calling out to the ship again, but it didn't respond.She felt her way across the command module in absolute darkness, guided by the technological intuition her Ghost implants granted her, pulling herself along solely by her hands, while her feet floated out behind her. The bulkheads and surfaces were all covered with smooth velvet and fur that was easy to grip. Cushions, meal containers and pieces of discarded clothing whirled in eddies created by her pa.s.sage, colliding with her suddenly and unavoidably in the darkness.The only sound Dakota could hear was her own panicked breathing, matched by the adrenaline thud of her heart. Convinced the life support was about to collapse, she activated her filmsuit. It spilled out of her skin from dozens of artificial pores, a flood of black ink that coc.o.o.ned and protected her inside her own liquid s.p.a.cesuit, growing transparent over her eyes so as to display the darkened s.p.a.ce around her in infrared.Instrument panels glowed eerily with residual heat, and she saw hotspots where her naked flesh had touched heat-retaining surfaces, making it easier for her mind to wander into fantasies of being trapped on a deserted, haunted ship.She found herself at the rear of the command module. Three metres behind her lay its cramped sleeping quarters, two metres to the right, the head. Nine metres in any direction, the infinity of s.p.a.ce beyond the hull. She ducked aft, into the narrow access tube leading to the overrides.Piri?She tried switching to a different comms channel but still couldn't get an answer.'f.u.c.king a.s.shole Quill!' she shouted into the darkness, her fear rapidly trans.m.u.ting into anger. At least her Ghost circuits were still functioning: she let them flood her brain with empathogens and phenylethylamine, brightening her mood and keeping outright terror at bay.Dakota started to breathe more easily. It was only a minor emergency, an easily fixable systems fault. She soon found the first of several manual override switches and punched it a lot harder than necessary. Emergency lights flickered on, and a single klaxon alert began to sound from the direction of the command module. The life support, however, remained resolutely inactive.One thing she was certain of. Whatever the source of her present troubles, it was surely within the cargo bay.'I can't take that kind of chance,' Dakota had warned Quill several days earlier.The asteroid Sant'Arcangelo's central commercial complex was visible through the panoramic window filling one wall of the shipping agent's office. Vehicles slid constantly along cables slung across between the two sides of a mountainous crack cutting deep into the crust of the Shoal-boosted asteroid. Birds flew in dizzy flocks through air so thick and honeyed you could almost drink it, while trees sprouted from slopes as broken and jagged as they'd been on the day of creation. On either side, both slopes were festooned with buildings and shopping complexes that literally hung suspended from tens of thousands of unbreakable cables criss-crossing the enormous void.Just a few hundred metres above this city of Roke's Folly, the narrow wrapping of atmosphere ceased abruptly at the perimeter of the containment field wrapped around Sant'Arcangelo. Beyond that lay the cold wastes of the asteroid belt.'Dakota.' When he spoke, Quill combined all the verbal qualities of a stern teacher and a favourite uncle. 'There is no risk involved. What could be simpler? My client loads an unspecified cargo into your ship. You fly your ship to Bourdain's Rock, where you then allow my client to retrieve his cargo and go on his way. Where's the risk in that?'Quill shook his head, apparently incredulous. 'Look. If it weren't for the fact I'm not a pilot with a reputation as good as yours used used to be, I'd do the job myself.' He moved over from where he'd been standing next to the window, and sat down opposite Dakota. 'So tell me how it's taking a chance.' to be, I'd do the job myself.' He moved over from where he'd been standing next to the window, and sat down opposite Dakota. 'So tell me how it's taking a chance.'She stared at Quill and laughed. 'For a start, you can stop pretending I don't know that we're talking about Alexander Bourdain himself. I know things about Bourdain that would make the hair stand up and creep off your head. I've dealt with him a couple of times before, and I'd rather take my chances stark naked in a cage full of hungry wolves. And, on top of that, I won't even know what it is I'll be delivering to him?' Dakota shook her head. 'Gangsters like Bourdain-''Wrong,' Quill interrupted. 'He's not a gangster.' He glanced back towards the window, momentarily hiding his face from her. 'All those charges were dropped, remember?'She wanted to take Quill by the throat and ram his head against the window behind him. It took an extreme effort of will not to start shouting at him. 'Well, I heard how one witness died mysteriously in an accident, and by remarkable coincidence all the others changed their testimony within a couple of days of that. Excuse me if I don't feel totally convinced.'Quill returned his gaze to her briefly. Then he walked over to the door of his office and opened it. 'You, I think, need to get some trust into your life.' He gestured her out of the door with his head. 'Or are you telling me you don't need this job so badly anymore?''Shut the door. I haven't changed my mind.'Quill closed the door and went to stand over her, arms folded. Just then Dakota felt like she'd never hated anyone more in her whole life. 'But it's . . . it's too much of a risk shipping something when I don't even know what it is I'm delivering. That's just asking for trouble!'Quill pursed his lips. 'You've still got some time to think about it: another eight hours before they need a definite answer. Though I should add, he's . . . my client . . . my client is in a hurry to finalize arrangements. Maybe I'd be better off getting someone else to-' is in a hurry to finalize arrangements. Maybe I'd be better off getting someone else to-'Dakota shook her head, suddenly weary. She was just making a fool of herself pretending to Quill she might have any choice. If she didn't do this job for Quill, she'd forfeit her ship the Piri Reis Piri Reis to him. He'd been responsible for acquiring much of the highly illegal counter-surveillance and black ops devices now installed on the vessel, and Dakota still owed him for that equipment. to him. He'd been responsible for acquiring much of the highly illegal counter-surveillance and black ops devices now installed on the vessel, and Dakota still owed him for that equipment.'No. I'll do it.''Maybe I'll-''No.''All right, then.' Quill nodded and sat down again behind the low marble desk where he did much of his business. 'We won't need to worry too much about official channels, since I'll be providing a manifest detailing something entirely innocuous-''Don't,' she said sharply, cutting Quill off. 'Just leave it. Load the cargo, tell the Consortium whatever you like, and just let me do the job. I don't want to know anything more than I absolutely have to. I don't even want to be having this conversation.'Quill gazed at her blankly for a moment, then a small smile twitched at one corner of his mouth.'You know, you wouldn't be stuck like this if you hadn't messed up that job out at Corkscrew. Way I heard it, you were lucky the Bandati didn't dump you in a hive and feed you to their grubs. They like doing that kind of thing, I hear.''I delivered-but the people I was delivering to tried to kill me rather than pay me.' Dakota's voice rose in pitch. 'I'm a machine-head, yes, but I'm not a f.u.c.king psychic. I didn't know what they were going to try.''Shame Bourdain's now got you running jobs like this as penance, I guess.' Quill smiled, watching Dakota rage in impotent silence, then gave her the details.'Okay, you're going to have to rendezvous with another ship at these coordinates . . .'A few minutes after the Piri Reis's Piri Reis's systems had ceased functioning, Dakota stepped into s.p.a.ce and secured herself using intelligent lanyards. These snaked out of a belt she wore around her waist, and embedded themselves in the hull, constantly retracting and shooting out again to attach to a new point as she pushed herself on around the hull in the direction of the cargo bay. systems had ceased functioning, Dakota stepped into s.p.a.ce and secured herself using intelligent lanyards. These snaked out of a belt she wore around her waist, and embedded themselves in the hull, constantly retracting and shooting out again to attach to a new point as she pushed herself on around the hull in the direction of the cargo bay.She was still getting used to the filmsuit she'd stolen from the Bandati during her visit to Corkscrew. It coated her naked flesh just like a thick layer of dark chocolate, protecting her from the vacuum and radiation just millimetres from her skin. It smoothed out her features, making her appear, to any potential observer, like an animated doll. Her lungs were stilled, their function temporarily taken over by microscopic battery units she'd had implanted in her spinal column. She was, in effect, a one-woman s.p.a.ceship, though there was a clear limit to just how long the suit would keep functioning before the batteries needed recharging.