Over the next twenty hours, gory red welts blossomed on the islands and land masses of Strauli, disfiguring its genteel serenity. Although keeping track of their progress, Kat spent much of the time supervising the refueling of the Ameline and, later, the fixture of a lumpy Dho weapon to the ship's belly. The Dho called the weapon 'The Torch,' and apparently Victor's brother would be operating it.

Verne, she corrected herself. Not Victor, Verne.

Working without a break, she checked every system on the ship. She worked until her eyes were too tired to focus, and only then allowed herself a few snatched minutes of sleep on the pilot's couch. Her purpose sustained her. She couldn't afford to let herself slacken, she had to keep active. She was determined to have the ship in peak condition, ready to take it down to the surface of her home planet, to the very door of the Abdulov compound if necessary. The work distracted her from thoughts of her attack on the Quay. The numbers of potential casualties were too great to comfortably grasp. If she stopped to imagine all those people, all those faces, she had no doubt that they'd overwhelm her, preventing her from completing her rescue mission. Later, there would be time for grief and self-disgust. Right now, she had to keep her focus. People were depending on her. She had to get down there, pick up her family, and rescue her unborn child, and she wouldn't let anything get in the way of that, not even guilt.

When Verne found her, she was crouched beneath the ship, working on one of its landing struts, making sure the hydraulics were primed for a rough touchdown.

"What do you want?" she said without looking around, wiping her hands on the thighs of her overalls.

"Don't be like that."

"Like what?"

"You know."

Kat rose to her feet, shoulders hunched.

"What about Alice?"

"What about her?"

"She's your wife."

"Was my wife."

Kat turned to face him. He'd changed into a standard skin-tight black ship suit, which revealed the slight middle-aged paunch around his midriff. A large-bore pistol hung at his hip.

"She still is," she said. "You're still married."

Verne shook his head.

"Not really. Not for a long time. I'm not sure that the laws that put us together even still exist."

Kat huffed through her nose, an angry sigh.

"So?" she demanded.

"What?"

She put her fists on her hips.

"So where does this leave us?"

Verne reached for her. "Nothing's changed," he said.

Kat shook her head. Idiot.

"Have you been paying attention? Everything's changed. Nothing's the same."

"I'm the same."

She closed her eyes, remembering the way he'd stormed out of their hotel room all those years ago, trying to reconcile that old anger and arrogance with the man now standing before her, the veteran of three horrifying days on Djatt, witness to countless unspeakable atrocities.

"No, you're not," she whispered. "You're not the same."

You're better now.

She held his gaze. The moment stretched...

Finally, she shook herself and bent to pick up her tools.

"So," she said, "what are you all dressed up for?"

Verne put his hand to the butt of his holstered weapon.

"I'm coming with you," he said, "if you'll have me."

Hefting the toolbox in one hand, Kat paused. She bit her lip.

"Thank you," she said.

Later, Ed and Alice sat together in the human quarters, at a table in the mess hall, overlooking one of the Ark's internal caverns. A bonsai rainforest filled the space before them, trees and creepers reaching for the sunlamps inlaid in the cavern's ceiling. Mist rose between the branches. Occasionally, small, bat-like creatures flapped from perch to perch.

For Ed, the last ten hours had been spent swaddled in the cervical confines of the Dho weapon. Now, when he closed his eyes, all he could see was a retinal ghost of the Strauli system, all the game pieces laid out on the board, ready to play.

"How do you feel?" Alice asked.

He shrugged. He worked his jaw, mouth dry.

"My head hurts." He scratched the flaky blood crusting the corner of his eye. All he wanted was a hot shower. He thought sadly of the bathroom in his flat in London, now forever lost.

"I'm okay," he said. He missed London: missed the ever-present background noise, the simplicity of a life he'd never properly appreciated.

He watched Alice push a curl of auburn hair behind her ear. She passed him a cup of coffee and he gratefully wrapped his hands around it.

She said, "How do you think it went with Verne? About us, I mean."

Ed rubbed the side of his mouth on the back of his hand. His throat still felt raw, with a greasy taste on his tongue. He hoped the coffee would help.

"I'm not sure," he said.

Alice hugged herself. She looked at the floor. "So... what do we do?"

Ed put a hand over his eyes. His head hurt like a hangover.

"I don't know."

"You do still want to be with me, don't you?"

He looked up. "Of course I do. I love you, Alice, I really do."

"You do?"

"Yes."

"But you're worried what he'll think?"

"Aren't you?"

"Yes. Yes, of course I am."

Alice squirmed in her seat. She crossed and uncrossed her arms.

"I don't want to hurt him again," she said.

Ed reached out and took her hand.

"Neither do I." He gave her fingers an affectionate squeeze. "I have to go soon."

"Be careful."

Ed lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it.

"Don't worry," he said. "I'll be fine. I know I will."

She gave him a sideways look.

"How can you possibly know that, Ed?"

He shrugged and let her hand fall back into her lap. "I guess I don't. But look how far we've come, Alice. Look at all this." He waved his arm, encompassing the forested cavern, the Ark surrounding it, and the stars beyond.

Alice twisted her finger in a lock of hair behind her ear: a nervous gesture. He smiled at her. A flock of yellow butterflies danced in the tree canopy.

"I love you," he said.

Alice bit her lip. Before she could answer, Toby Drake strode into the room, flanked by two Acolytes. The Acolytes wore ship suits beneath their open robes, Drake wore a shirt and tie beneath his chocolate-coloured leather coat.

He looked at Ed.

"They're ready for you," he said.

Linked in to the Ameline, Kat watched the crystalline immensity of the Dho Ark recede. Further up the behemoth's hull, a thousand hidden cavities yawned open, disgorging ships like thistledown. Crewed by Acolytes, these ships were transports of inhuman design: fat, streamlined freighters designed to pick up and carry as many refugees as possible.

> Chubby little buggers, aren't they?

"Shhh."

She spoke to the ships.

"Okay," she told them, "form up behind me, as we planned." She cut the broadcast and opened a private channel to Ed Rico, cocooned like a caterpillar in the heart of the lumpy weapon now fixed to the underside of the Ameline's bow. "How are you doing?"

Ed sounded muffled, as if he had something in his mouth. He said, "Doing all right, I think, considering it's only my second time in space."

"Good to go?"

"Just find me something to shoot at, okay?"

Kat backed out of the Ameline's sensorium. She turned to Verne. He was sitting beside her, in the co-pilot's chair. He gave her an encouraging grin.

"Ready to kick some ass?"

She grinned and looked up at the screens, and saw the freighters were more or less in position, arranged in a flying v-shape with the Ameline at its tip. She reopened communications.

"All right," she told the fleet. "Follow me. We jump on my mark.

"Three.

"Two.

"One.

"Mark."

A subjective instant later, they came out of their jumps on the nighttime side of the planet. With so many ships appearing almost simultaneously, stealth wasn't an option. Each arrived in its own dazzling burst of pure white light. All at once, ten hundred flares blossomed in the vacuum, their reflected lights glittering off the waters of Strauli's darkened oceans.

On the bridge of the Ameline, Kat surveyed her fleet. The freighters were built like silver-skinned blimps, with heavy torpedo-shaped bodies and wide tail fins.

"Keep your eyes peeled," she advised them.

Below, her home planet turned. Dawn broke over the beaches of the Abdulov family compound.

The ship broke into her thoughts.

> Recollection dead ahead.

In the tactical display, an area the size of a football pitch lay directly in their path, its edges blurring into fractal spines.

> It's just a fragment, but I'm picking up microwave packet bursts.

"It's in touch with other fragments?"

> In continuous contact and capable of coordinated action, right across the system.

"Range to this piece?"

> Thirty kilometres.

"What's it doing?"