> Two.

Light blossomed. The first charge exploded, swiftly followed by the second and third. Each one hit a different part of the station. The explosions vapourised large sections of the hull. The central axle hinged apart about a third of the way down, broken by the blast waves. Chunks of wreckage blew outward. Sections of the ruined wheel spun away, torn ends spilling air and water and people into space.

Hooked into the ship's sensors, Kat felt the heat of the explosions as warm sunlight on her face. Beside her on the Ameline's bridge, she heard Victor curse under his breath. She couldn't back out of her link with the ship, couldn't tear her eyes away from the disintegrating Quay. Like a great old ocean liner holed beneath the waterline, it listed over, its back truly broken. The separated sections were moving away from each other; one down toward the planet, the other off to the side, caught in an expanding cloud of smaller fragments.

All the lights went off, and the shuttle bucked like a frightened horse. Ed cried out. Alice gripped his arm. In the darkness, Francis Hind asked, "Is everybody all right?"

"We're okay," Alice replied. She had her face pressed against Ed's shoulder.

Ed said, "What the hell was that?"

Toby Drake cleared his throat.

"It was the Quay," the scholar said, voice tight with disbelief and barely-suppressed fear. "Katherine Abdulov's nuked the bloody Quay!"

CHAPTER FORTY.

REUNION.

> I'm picking up a call from Toby Drake.

Kat shook herself. She'd been watching the expanding cloud of debris from the Quay. Now she backed out of the ship's sensorium and ran a hand through her hair.

"Put it on screen," she said.

One of the smaller displays on her console blinked and lit to reveal Drake, looking twice as old as he had when she bid him farewell, and now lit from above by low red emergency lighting.

"Katherine."

"Toby, where are you?"

Drake rubbed his forehead.

"In a shuttle. We were headed for the Quay when The Recollection struck."

"Are you okay?"

"We're fine but we're drifting. We caught the edge of one of your explosions, and it fried some of our systems. For the moment, we're running on back-up battery power."

On another screen, Kat tapped up a 2D tactical display. The Ameline illuminated the shuttle with a blinking green cursor.

"You're past the Quay, heading outward," Kat said. "Hold tight and we'll rendezvous."

"We?"

"I have Victor Luciano with me."

"Victor..." Toby's brow creased. "In that case, I have some people here who are very keen to speak with him. Can you put him on?"

Kat shrugged. She turned to Victor. He'd been staring at his own clasped hands for the past few minutes, shocked into silence by the Quay's destruction. Now he looked up, blinking curiously.

"He's here," she said.

On the screen, Drake's hand loomed into the picture. He took hold of the camera and turned it, revealing a scared-looking couple strapped into seats on the other side of the shuttle's aisle.

Victor's eyes narrowed. It was hard to make out much detail in the glow of the red lights.

"Hello?" he said.

The woman in the picture screamed. She put her hands over her mouth.

"Oh, my god," she squeaked.

"Alice?"

"Verne!"

"And who's that with you. Is it Ed? Jesus Christ, what are you two doing here?"

The man he'd referred to as Ed leaned towards the camera.

"Looking for you," he said.

An hour later, the Ameline docked with the stricken shuttle.

There was only room for one person to fit through the airlock at a time, so Ed hung back and let Alice, Drake and the Acolyte go first. His stomach churned. He hadn't felt this nervous since the police asked him to identify Verne from the CCTV footage at the Chancery Lane Underground station; to confirm that the grainy black and white figure falling into the alien portal was indeed his elder brother.

When he finally climbed through into the Ameline's passenger cabin, he found Verne with his hand on Alice's shoulder. He could see she was crying.

"It's okay," Verne was saying, soothing her. He'd lost weight and there were grey streaks in his hair. He looked strange without his spectacles; he had a faint, spidery scar under one eye, and a tiny chunk missing from his left ear. He turned as he heard Ed approaching.

"Ed!"

Ed stopped a few paces away. He pulled the rusted glasses from his pocket.

"I think these are yours."

Verne looked at them, then up at Ed.

"Are they really...?"

He took a step forward and reached out for the glasses. Ed let him take them.

"Jesus. Where did you find them?"

"In a cave, in a cliff."

Verne turned the glasses over and over in his hands. He kept shaking his head.

"You know, I had to climb that cliff half blind. Half blind and half dead." He looked up at Ed. "Did you meet those fucking creatures?"

Ed gave a mute nod. Verne made a face.

"I hated those fucking things," he said. "They almost had me a couple of times."

Ed swallowed. He rubbed his hands together. "Yeah. We, uh, we left someone there."

Verne's eyes narrowed.

"You did?"

Ed gave a nod.

Verne looked down at his feet. "I'm sorry."

Ed took a step forward.

"Look, Verne..."

His brother held up a hand. "Don't say it, Ed."

"But-"

"I mean it." Verne glanced at Alice. "I can't pretend that what the two of you did was right and I can't pretend it didn't hurt, but I never thought I'd ever see either of you again. I gave you both up for dead, years ago. Decades ago. So whatever's happened, I'm just glad you're both here now." He caught Ed in a bear hug. "You came to find me," he said. "Everything else is history."

Ed didn't know what to say. He'd been nerving himself for a confrontation. At the very least, he'd expected Verne to punch him in the face.

"Aren't you angry?" he said.

Verne released the hug, held him at arms length. "I told you, it's okay."

"Not to me, it's not. It might all be ancient history to you, but it still feels pretty raw to me."

"So, what do you want me to say?" Verne held his hands out, palms up. "I've already forgiven you."

"But I don't want your forgiveness."

"Then what do you want?"

Ed waved his arms in frustration.

"I don't know. Get mad. Shout at me. Do something."

"Would that make you feel better?"

Ed took a deep breath. His fists were clenched. "I don't know how you can be so calm."

Verne shrugged. "Things are different now."

Ed let his fists relax. "How different?"

Verne rubbed the bridge of his nose with his index finger. He didn't seem to know where to look.

"Let me introduce you to someone," he said, beckoning to a young woman standing impatiently on the other side of the room. "Ed, Alice. This is Katherine."

Alice pushed a strand of auburn hair out of her eyes and wiped her nose on the sleeve of her silver vinyl jacket. She looked the other woman up and down, from heavy boots to dark eyes and hair.

"Pleased to meet you," she said.

Kat gave an uncomfortable smile.

"Hello."

Silence fell. Ed shuffled his feet on the polished rock floor. Everything felt awkward and wrong, not at all as he'd expected. Nobody knew what to say. Then Francis Hind stepped into the centre of the group. He pushed back the hood of his black robe, revealing his wizened, bald pate.

"If I may interject? I'm afraid time is of the essence. Captain Abdulov, it is good to see you again, but I must prevail upon you to deliver us to the Ark without delay."

He turned to face Ed.

"It seems our friend here has a destiny to fulfill."

Kat left the others in the passenger lounge and climbed up the ladder to the ship's bridge.

"How are we doing?" she asked.

The ship didn't answer straight away. When it finally spoke, it sounded concerned.

> We've got a problem.

"What is it?"

> The Recollection survived our attack.

"You are kidding."

> I wish.

Kat slid into the pilot's chair and hooked her implant into the ship's senses.

"Let me see," she said. She closed her eyes and the tactical display opened up around her. She saw the wrecked Quay, the lower portion of it falling toward Strauli. Smaller fragments already burned as meteors in the planet's upper atmosphere.