A microscopic a.n.a.lysis of the GiantKiller's surface would reveal something very like capillaries inside an organic body, channelling resources and information through a highly complex bundle of exotic matter held in check only by the shaped fields that contained it.

Without warning, the shaped fields that surrounded the GiantKiller vanished, and the silver ball now dropped to the floor of its containment chamber deep within the heart of Bourdain's Rock.

That same microscopic a.n.a.lysis would have then revealed those containment fields dissipating without warning, allowing a torrent of programmed matter to crack through the dense walls of the chamber, in just a few millionths of a second.

It was exactly as if a bomb had gone off.

The alien device underwent explosive decompression, extending microscopic feelers deep into the ancient flesh of the asteroid, spreading and dissolving the molecular bonds of almost everything it touched, reducing the solid matter of Bourdain's vast, pressurized folly to dust and gravel in an instant.

The irony was that the GiantKiller had been intended as a practical resource for mining rather than as a weapon. And now it was transforming the asteroid into essential components that could, under more typical circ.u.mstances, be more easily collected by mining ships.

Dakota kept edging backwards, keeping the fountain between her and Moss. She was pretty sure he'd be careful about getting too close to running water while he was wearing . . .

And then it came to her. Everything here, the trees above, the ground under her feet, was wet, so there must be some kind of sprinkler system, some method of generating artificial rain . . .

Piri! If there's any way to turn the water on in here, do it now!

In response, Piri Piri fired fresh instructions into the local network, again feeding false information to the asteroid's computer systems. fired fresh instructions into the local network, again feeding false information to the asteroid's computer systems.

Dakota hauled herself up over the lip of the fountain and dropped into the pool, standing up again next to the splashing foam emerging from the dolphin's mouth. Moss stood scowling at her, but kept his distance.

Something rattled and spat in the dimness overhead.

They both glanced up.

All at once, throughout the entire Rock, it began to rain from ten thousand steel nozzles.

A torrent descended from the dome above, soaking them both immediately. Dakota propelled herself instantly away from the fountain and hit the ground rolling. Moss began screaming as the artificial rain shorted his lightning gloves, and she almost gagged from the awful stink as he jerked and writhed in an expanding cloud of steam. Fresh torrents continued to drench him from above.

The stricken man staggered blindly towards her, and then he fell face-forward right into the pool.

Just then a sonorous boom sounded from somewhere deep within the asteroid, so faint at first that Dakota wondered if she'd imagined it.

But more, heavier vibrations followed, rippling underfoot in regular pulses, each growing slightly stronger than the last. She heard yelling, and voices calling to each other, back in the general direction of the plaza. But then the voices faded, as if moving further away.

Then there was a sound like the sudden onrush of an ocean tide. It lasted several seconds, before silence fell again.

Dakota remained rooted to the spot for another few moments, desperately wondering what the h.e.l.l was going on.

She then crept back along the walkway leading to the plaza, noticing how the lush, damp gra.s.s below her now-shone with thousands of fragments of shattered crystal from the gazebo roof. Without warning, the entire plaza shook so hard she was almost sent tumbling over the railing to the ground some metres below.

No wonder Bourdain's soldiers had fled. Whatever was going on here, Dakota wasn't their priority any more.

The rumbling faded as quickly as it had started, whereupon Dakota made her way down to the ground level as fast as she could. She was conscious of gla.s.s crunching noisily underfoot, but that hardly mattered now there was no one around to hear.

Or so she at first thought. Two security personnel, their weapons already raised, emerged from where they'd taken cover under the dense foliage. Dakota gave a shriek and dived out of the way just as bullets whined off the tree trunks right next to her.

The ground rolled and rumbled beneath her with considerably more violence. Then it tipped sideways, suddenly transforming into a vertical plane.

Dakota went tumbling into some bushes, her senses spinning with the sudden shift in gravity. Her stomach twisted with a surge of nausea, and she desperately grabbed some branches, her legs dangling in empty air. The sidewall of the plaza was now several metres beneath her swinging feet.

Something was very, very wrong with the planet engine.

One of the two security men had grabbed hold of a tree trunk somewhere above her, then lost his grip and plummeted past her with a yell. He crashed into a concrete pillar supporting one of the walkways, his neck twisting at a sickening angle. His companion already lay dead nearby.

A steady shower of broken gla.s.s fell past her and on to the two corpses, but fortunately the dense foliage of the bushes sheltered her from most of the tumbling shards.

Then gravity began to right itself, just as she could feel her grip starting to weaken. A few seconds later the world had returned to normal, and Dakota found herself kneeling on the soft, wet gra.s.s again.

It took her a while to find the courage to stand upright.

Someone had clearly activated the GiantKiller.

Someone who wasn't her.

There came another series of dull booms from far beneath Dakota's feet, each one sounding closer than the last. Cracks began to appear in the nearby walls and in the gra.s.s. The plaza suddenly split into two halves, drawing away from each other. Dakota threw herself over the yawning chasm, landing safely on the other side, and ran for her life back the way she had come.

The constant tug of the Rock's artificial gravity began to fade. Suddenly Dakota was swimming through the air, carried forward by her own momentum. A howling maelstrom of escaping atmosphere roared up from the lower levels of the Rock, spilling out through the yawning crack in the plaza's floor and rushing upwards through the shattered roof.

Dakota activated her filmsuit and, under her clothes, it coated her bare flesh within moments. Her lungs shut down automatically and, as always, it took her a moment to get over the sensation that she was suffocating.

She then hurriedly discarded everything she was wearing, wanting to move as freely as possible. But first she removed the Shoal's gift from the pocket it nestled in, and clutched it firmly in one night-black hand.

Unfortunately for them, n.o.body else on the Rock enjoyed the benefit of stolen Bandati technology such as her filmsuit. Most of those guests she'd seen in the Great Hall earlier were either already dead or very soon would be. The only others likely to survive were the Shoal-members and the occasional Bandati she'd seen there. The priests she'd spied with their Pope-avatar were vacuum-proofed and radiation shielded, of course, as all their kind were. But whether they were alive or not in the first place was a matter of conjecture and religious inclination.

Now the only thought in Dakota's mind was how to escape.

'What did you say to her?' Bourdain demanded from inside his own protective bubble of shaped fields. In a corridor filled with people desperate to find a way out, he'd caught up with the Shoal-member that had spoken with Dakota earlier. 'How could you let her go?' he screamed. 'For G.o.d's sake, look at what she's done!'

There was no sign of Moss, but Bourdain had received a verbal report from one of the squad he'd sent after her of how she'd threatened to activate the GiantKiller. Bourdain raged at the thought of her actually following through, and right behind that thought came the appalling awareness that he had so badly underestimated her.

As soon as he had things under control, he was going to hunt that murderous little b.i.t.c.h down remorselessly. And when he had her-well, he was going to take his time over what happened then. It would require time and imagination.

'Simple enquiry made concerning Dakota's cargo, nature of,' the Shoal-member that called himself Trader-In-Faecal-Matter-Of-Animals replied. 'Perhaps to peruse Mr Bourdain's thoughts concerning aforementioned matter?'

Anarchy now reigned throughout the ruins of the Great Hall. One of the ceiling b.u.t.tresses had given way during the initial panic, sending a mighty spray of water across the cavernous s.p.a.ce as the structure began to tumble into the artificial lake. Small decorative fish twisted frenetically in air that was misty with water now free of gravity's grip.

Like Bourdain, a very few humans were wealthy enough to afford personal shaped field technology. Those had long fled, along with anyone else who had been able to reach the docks before the atmosphere gave out. But most of the rest hadn't got that far, and their corpses littered the air all around.

Trader recognized that Bourdain was angry. It was very amusing to observe.

'Your planet engines are guaranteed never never to fail,' Bourdain bellowed, his eyes showing white around the rims. to fail,' Bourdain bellowed, his eyes showing white around the rims.

A strong gust of wind whipped constantly past them, rapidly increasing in intensity.

'I'll rip your f.u.c.king fish guts out in court. I'll see you in h.e.l.l. I'll-'

'Terrifying power of the most illegal variety has been unleashed, a much prized and non-leased technology, most dangerous in hands of irresponsible species. A GiantKiller, I believe you would phrase it.'

Bourdain sucked in a deep breath, and his eyes narrowed. 'Prove it.'

'With ease. But also note that planet engine fully operational under normal optimal circ.u.mstances, such circ.u.mstances invalidated by presence of activated GiantKiller. Therefore the Shoal can accept no blame.'

'I should never have done business with your f.u.c.king kind,' Bourdain snarled. 'Really, outside of your box of magic tricks, all you lot are f.u.c.king tubeworms with att.i.tude.'

'Correct surmise,' the Shoal replied. 'But very powerful, very wealthy tubeworms. Note also that safety lies within personal protective bubble, as world dissolves like salt. Mr Bourdain advised to make use of such tube-worm technology by way of escape. Should reparations be sought, if still unhappy after conclusion of this sad woeful day, honourable tubeworm suggests further thoughts concerning embarra.s.sment of criminal charges for procuring GiantKiller. Non-loss of species access to leased technologies in the face of such criminal acts might be considered extremely lenient.'

Bourdain was starting to say something else, but Trader failed to catch it as a vast crack rent the Great Hall totally asunder, rapidly opening out into a chasm below them.

Trader propelled himself upwards as the roof collapsed, revealing the stars beyond. He left Bourdain to find his own exit, ignoring his continuing protests over their shared comms band.

Trader's human bodyguards were long gone in search of safety, and, truth be told, they were only there for show. If Trader had one real skill-beyond subterfuge and deceit-it would be a knack for survival.

He nimbly skirted a great section of the roof as it tumbled towards him, then navigated past several other sizeable chunks of falling debris as he made his way to safety far from the disintegrating asteroid.

Light sparkled from far above as the atmosphere's retaining field vainly attempted to repair itself before finally giving out completely. Now he was well out of danger, Trader glanced down for the rare privilege of watching an entire world-however tiny-disintegrate before its eyes.

The amba.s.sadorial cruiser had departed the Rock the instant the first signs of catastrophic engine failure had manifested. Any sooner and Trader would have run the risk of arousing suspicion during any subsequent investigation.

'Please to be estimating surviving population of Bourdain's Rock,' Trader messaged his human staff aboard the cruiser.

'Of two thousand, two hundred and thirteen individuals, of which two hundred and thirty-five were registered staff, there's an early estimate of just seventy-five survivors, Amba.s.sador.'

What would happen next depended on how much Trader chose to trust the information provided by the Deep Dreamers. Prior experience had taught the alien that the chances of someone successfully following a predicted course of action could be improved by narrowing down the alternative options.

So far, the Dreamers had been entirely accurate in their predictions of key events. In some way as yet unfathomable to Trader, the woman Dakota Merrick now stood at the beginning of a path that, without judicious interference, would lead to the most terrible war the galaxy had ever witnessed.

Now Trader's priority task was to make sure of staying with her every step of the way, until the root cause of that impending conflict could be discerned-and then carefully eradicated.

Before blacking out, the last thing Dakota remembered was a wall of rock rushing straight towards her. As she awoke, she was therefore considerably surprised to find she was still alive.

She remembered the plaza ripping apart down the middle, with a sound like an army of G.o.ds grinding their teeth in unison. She recalled seeing rivers of silver work their way through the ancient exposed rock, as she'd been carried upwards in a rushing tornado of air. Then a chunk of mountain had come flying towards her, lines of silver spreading through that too, before it visibly dissolved into gravel before her eyes.

The filmsuit, she knew, had kept her alive. She'd been aware that it could absorb kinetic energy to some fantastic degree, but ensuring her survival after colliding with a mountain was on a whole new level of scary.

A section of slowly tumbling debris about the size of a stadium came rushing up towards her. There was no way she could avoid it, but she braced herself nevertheless, hoping against hope.

She came into contact with the hurtling debris at bowel-emptying speed, yet she felt nothing. For a few moments, her filmsuit glowed a dull red while the rock underfoot began steaming and cracking. It seemed the filmsuit could somehow reflect the enormous kinetic energy of the impact back into itself.

Dumbfounded at this knowledge, Dakota bent her knees and kicked, pushing herself away from the shattered asteroid fragment. Her filmsuit slowly faded to its usual black, any remaining energy radiating back into s.p.a.ce. It was hard to believe the Bandati liquid shield could be capable of so much.

Gradually she built up a momentum taking her away from Bourdain's Rock by pushing herself off other chunks of pa.s.sing debris. Once she was far enough away, she finally took the opportunity to look back. Patches of dying forest were still visible, clinging to shattered asteroid-fragments that spun slowly away from each other or else collided and continued to disintegrate.

Dakota didn't even want to think about what had happened to the people left behind.

As she watched, a huge chunk of the Rock's shattered horizon split apart in a shower of grey and black dust. Trees and lichens still clung to one segment and, against all the odds, some localized emergency power circuits were still functioning, illuminating the interiors of ripped-open corridors, equipment bays and living quarters. Combined with the glow of sporadic electrical fires here and there, these lights gave the impression of a h.e.l.lish grotto. She caught glimpses of the flash-frozen corpses of deer and horses floating near by, then they were gone, caught in a disintegrating maelstrom of dust and rock that was likely to grind them down to nothing.

Piri was feeding her news reports of the disaster, as local ships escaping from the Rock continued firing live feeds into the local tach-nets. Her Ghost subsequently picked out a description of a woman urgently being sought for questioning. A woman carrying illegal machine-head implants. was feeding her news reports of the disaster, as local ships escaping from the Rock continued firing live feeds into the local tach-nets. Her Ghost subsequently picked out a description of a woman urgently being sought for questioning. A woman carrying illegal machine-head implants.

But I didn't do anything, she protested within the safety of her own thoughts. Maybe they were talking about some she protested within the safety of her own thoughts. Maybe they were talking about some other other machine-head. machine-head.

They were going to kill me. I had no choice . . .

But no choice as to what? She hadn't followed through on her threat. She'd tried to bluff Moss, and failed pathetically.

But someone someone had followed through. She had absolutely no doubt the Rock had been destroyed by the same GiantKiller she'd transported here earlier. had followed through. She had absolutely no doubt the Rock had been destroyed by the same GiantKiller she'd transported here earlier.

The appalling notion that she had been set up oozed into Dakota's thoughts like a pool of coagulating blood. People were looking for her, people who thought she was responsible for this outrage.

But who could be easier to blame than a machine-head, an illegal?

Old anger and frustration flared deep inside her thoughts. She remembered all too clearly the day they'd forcibly removed her original Ghost implants, after the fatal flaw in the technology had become clear. Just as vivid was the memory of her subsequent near-suicidal depression, a bleak period that had lasted several months. Then came her decision to acquire some crude black-market clones, furtively installed in a backstreet surgery, before slowly starting to piece her life back together.

Without doubt she was the perfect scapegoat, for no one really trusted machine-heads. Not after . . .

For a long moment, Dakota imagined her broken and beaten body being tossed aloft by a jeering mob.

Come and get me, Piri.

That's fine, Piri. Just make sure you get here before my filmsuit runs out of juice.

She was drifting towards a boulder measuring about a hundred metres across. As she got closer, she recognized the tiles adorning part of its surface: it was a fragment of the Great Hall. Both she and it were moving in the same direction at roughly similar velocities, so she managed to land on it gently. She was about to push away again when she caught sight of a human body floating nearby-a partly naked woman, with the few remaining sc.r.a.ps of an evening dress still straggling from her torso.

The corpse's eyes were gla.s.sy and frozen, the mouth open in a soundless scream. Dakota recognized her as the avatar of Pope Eliza.

As Dakota finally pushed off into the darkness her Ghost circuits tugged her gaze in a particular direction, where she saw light glinting from the rapidly approaching shape of the Piri Reis. Piri Reis.

It would take days for her to shake the hideous memory of the avatar's corpse from her restless dreams.

The Piri Piri hove closer, changing from a dull silhouette barely visible against the stars to a grey hull comprised of three joined-up sections. From a distance it resembled a fat metallic insect. From the ship's underbelly, a forest of grapples extended, seeking her out. hove closer, changing from a dull silhouette barely visible against the stars to a grey hull comprised of three joined-up sections. From a distance it resembled a fat metallic insect. From the ship's underbelly, a forest of grapples extended, seeking her out.

Dakota fell into her ship's machine embrace, like a swaddled child falling into the arms of its mother. At that moment she became aware of the Shoal's gift still clutched, by some miracle, in one black-slicked hand.