The Lollipop of Influence

Mjke Wood

Contents

Other books by Mjke Wood

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Thank you

The Lollipop of Influence is the second book

in the Sphere of Influence series

Book 1

Deep Space Accountant

Why not also try Mjke Wood’s short story collection:

Power for Two Minutes and Other Unrealities

Thanks to Janie, my persistent and ever-patient

editor at Lector’s Books.

Thanks to Benjamin Roque for another awesome cover design.

A special thank you to Sarah, for being there while I exhibited grumpy tendencies, for listening while I read the whole book aloud, and who, at no time, threatened divorce.

This book, as always, is for you.

* * *

It should be noted that no accountants were harmed during the writing of this book.

1

Fact: The Space Corps are big.

Fact: The Space Corps use a lot of paper clips.

Fact: Nobody ever counts paper clips.

It is not too difficult, given the will, and enough paper clips duplicated in multiple stationery accounts in various dummy corporations, to syphon away sufficient funds to build, say, an interplanetary battle fleet.

Bob Slicker paced around the bridge of the Queen Isabella III, a G-class carrier and flagship to his battle fleet built from paper clips. She wasn’t a fine ship. She looked pretty much how one might expect a ship built from paper clips should look. And she had that smell. Not a new battleship smell, of Ajax and Brasso, but a smell reminiscent of vehicles too long in the breaker’s yard, where creatures might have built their homes and may have died a little.

But she was Bob Slicker’s ship, at least while he had command of the bridge, and this was a pretty good time to be in charge of a battle fleet, as it hurtled down to a pinhole-sized gateway from where it would transit into another part of the galaxy.

“Five minutes, sir.”

“Thank you, Mr Unwin.”

Sir. Slicker smiled to himself. He loved this military stuff. Nobody ever called him “sir” when he was just a management accountant. He supposed he still was just a management accountant. His desk would be waiting for him when he returned from this adventure. But he wouldn’t be occupying it for much longer, not after he’d turned a profit, oh no.

Bob Slicker was 38 years old. His face seemed etched with the worries of the universe, from his tired eyes to his down-turned lips. He’d lost some weight since the whole battle fleet thing started, not from stress – though he carried plenty of that on his rounded shoulders – but from medical advice, as a possible solution to his natural oiliness. It hadn’t worked. Bob Slicker had a propensity to dampness. He had always battled uncontrollable perspiration, and people’s recollections of him were usually the same: “Oh, Bob Slicker, you mean the oily guy from finance?”

He continued to pace. A complete circuit of the hamster-wheel bridge took around a minute. The spin from the bridge was enough to give nearly half a gravity, but Slicker found that if he walked in the direction of the spin, he could get more. Enough to make the heels of his boots click in a most satisfying and military manner.

He passed the navigation station. He straightened his back and lifted his chin and gave Meera Elyss a secretive glance from the corner of his eye. She wore her skin-tight, silver Space Ranger outfit today. The one with the purple flashes that matched the metallic colour of her straight, bobbed hair, and accentuated all her bountiful curves. Rumour had it she’d only joined the operation because she had a thing for military men. Slicker had polished and worn his black boots today, just for her. He didn’t have a uniform so he’d decided to wear his fancy waistcoat with the gold and silver scrolling, and no jacket. Meera caught his eye and he found his armpits beginning to moisten, so he hurried on. He pulled his stiff white collar away from his neck and wished he’d chosen something less formal.

The other nav girl, the one with the wayward blonde hair and agitated manner – he didn’t know her name – gave him a scowl as he passed. What was her problem? He’d noticed her glaring at him a few times. She seemed to be the only one on the bridge not entering into the spirit of the occasion. They were making history today. They were about to expand the Sphere of Influence in one mighty stride.

He gave the engineer a nod. The engineer nodded back. No problems.

Fleet Control. Life Support. Catering. Fido. All nominal. Who was Fido, anyway? Slicker wondered. Once, as an orphan on the Ring, he’d had a dog called Fido, a smelly creature that enjoyed biting him.

Slicker reached the helm again. He stopped and turned towards the window, rocking up and down on his toes, hands clasped behind his back – not for effect, although that’s how it might look. No, his boots were too damned tight. And this wasn’t really a window, he reminded himself. The military types had some jargon word for it but he couldn’t remember. To him it was just a window, wall sized – it looked, in fact, as if there was no wall, except the illusion was spoiled by a handful of pixels missing in the lower right-hand corner, lending that part a fogged-over appearance for which Slicker had already earned the crew’s derision by sending a cadet out on an EVA, with a rag, with orders to clean it. But that was days ago. Hopefully forgotten.

“Three minutes, sir.”

Slicker rubbed his hands together. Deep space adventuring. Better than counting beans, that was for sure, although he admitted to having misgivings about the ultimate purpose of this operation. He had plans to turn some negatives to positives, though, so he felt he was allowed to enjoy this moment.

The door on the hub swung open. Two boots appeared, ever shinier than his own, and Martin Levison lowered himself down the ladder onto the deck.

Damn! thought Slicker.

Levison walked over to the place where Slicker stood. There was no designated Captain’s Area on the bridge, but by making Slicker concede his small patch of steel, Levison was making a point: This is my show. I’m in charge.

Which he was. Slicker was the Yes-Man. He was the Man-in-Front-of-the-Fan. This was how it had always been. Slicker’s role was to do as Levison said and, if it all went arse-over, to be the exclusive repository for all blame. Slicker vacated his tiny square of real estate and seethed.

Levison slipped his right hand into his jacket. Like Napoleon. If the arrogant sod knew what kind of shirt God wore, he’d be sure to wear one just like it, too.

“How long, Helmsman?” Levison snapped.

There. He didn’t even ask me for the update, thought Slicker. He has to ask the help.

“Two minutes, sir,” said Unwin, his voice cracking a little, not so confident with Levison watching him. Levison stood only five foot six, two or three inches shorter than Slicker, yet somehow he appeared taller. How? Levison’s receding hairline gave his expansive forehead an air of majesty, and the curly brown hair heaped on top, and ramrod-straight back perhaps added to the illusion of height. Or was it just that the people around him, his minions, always adopted a cowed, grovelling manner whenever they were in his presence? Slicker looked about at the crew stationed around the inside of the bridge wheel, and noted the supplicant postures. So, now they become engaged and attentive, he thought. The relaxed and easy tension had evaporated, replaced by quaking, self-conscious fear.

How does he do that? thought Slicker.

Slicker’s feet pained him more and more as the boots really started to pinch. He’d bought them from Rapid Naval Surplus Warehouse, on Tsanak. They seemed a good idea at the time. But he’d forgotten how his feet tended to swell when he became uncomfortable.

The pinhole target grew to the size of a penny. The three engines of Rorke’s Drift, the troop ship, obscured some of the forward view. The third vessel in the fleet was the Eddie Stobart, the supply ship, bringing up the rear. The convoy was in tight formation. This was important. The Single Large Object Gate, the SLOG, required a lot of energy, and so it could only open for a brief moment. Timing had to be perfect. Big computers were needed, and they worked, because it had been years since the last ship had been cut in half through dodgy programming. Still, nobody wanted to be in the first or last ship in a transit convoy. A Single Large Object Gate was what it said on the box: a gate that opened long enough for a single ship. Not three.

“One minute.”

And you could taste the tension.

“What was that, Helmsman?”

“One minute, oh, er, sir!”

Levison scowled. “Leave the bridge, Helmsman.”

Slicker knew it would be up to him, later, to chastise the helmsman for his lack of respect. Levison would expect no less from him than to have Unwin tossed out into space in his underpants. Slicker wouldn’t do that, of course. He’d probably say to Unwin, “Look, if anyone asks, you’ve been reprimanded, okay? Do some whimpering and stuff. Make it look good.” It was enough that Levison was a bastard. One bastard was plenty.

Unwin shuffled out and another, trembling, crewman took his place, staring at the wide gulf of space in the window in front of him. They plummeted towards the gate and watched as it grew before their eyes.

The SLOG was a circular hoop that appeared woven from fine wire. It caught the light from the stars within and around it and sparkled like a silver bracelet. When the gate flashed open it would be for the briefest moment, but in that time the stars within would vanish, replaced by a flat, milky-grey luminescence. When the ship entered the gate, every thing and every one would also enter the gate. Being inside the ship would not insulate the crew from the weirdness. They would see a grey wall flash down the length of the ship from prow to stern, passing through each one of them on the way. The passage took only the briefest of moments, but regular travellers spoke of a fleeting intense cold, not unlike diving into the surface of an icy pool of water, but only the surface, without any icy water on the other side.

“Sir, packet report from the receiving gate.” The young lad on comms looked anxious, as though he was about to spoil the mood. “There’s some sort of skirmish taking place. They report rebels with a device of some kind.”

“What device?”

“No information, sir!”

“Then get some information.”

Slicker looked over at Levison and licked his lips. “What do you think, sir?”

“Philpotts,” said Levison. “It’s got to be Philpotts. You were meant to deal with him, Slicker. More than once you were meant to deal with him.”

“Could he disrupt the gate?” asked Slicker. His voice came out small, with a slight catch. Nobody wanted to even think about the gate shutting off mid-transit.

Levison didn’t answer. He just stared ahead.

“Could we abort the transfer, Helmsman?” asked Slicker.

“Negative, sir. We’re committed to—”

“No!” snapped Levison. “We don’t abort. Not for some toe-rag accountant. Not for anybody. I need an answer. What device?”

“I don’t know, sir. Packet transmission.”

The message had come from their destination, light-years away. Direct communication was impossible. Messages had to be recorded then handed through a letterbox-sized gate, one small enough to be kept open at all times. Energy needs grew exponentially with gate size.

“Erm... ten seconds, sir.”

The mood on the bridge changed again. Wide-eyed terror replaced apprehension. If the gate shut down mid-transit their ship would be sliced and diced. Each individual would find themselves alone, sharing empty space with a lot of spinning debris and flailing ex-colleagues trying in vain to scream in vacuum.

It became a long ten seconds. Or short. Depending on whether you counted seconds left to live... or seconds left to die.

They could no longer see the rim of the gate. It was above and around them. Soon they would know.

A grey wall swept through. The shock of cold.

Cheers formed but were stillborn as a second grey wall of ice cut through the ship.

“What happened?” shouted Levison.

Nobody answered.

“Anybody?” Levison roared.

“Er...” The new helmsman looked uncomfortable. “It felt like a second gate, sir.”

“Navigation!” Levison was bellowing, now. “Confirm our position.”

All eyes turned on the spectacular Meera Elyss and her scowling assistant. They appeared to be arguing.

Elyss looked up from her screen. “Waiting for a fix, sir.”

Everyone waited, and watched. Elyss had the flushed and dishevelled look of someone who had packed all her confidence in suitcases she’d lost in the spaceport. Her assistant kept trying to speak but each time Elyss shushed her and flapped her hands for her to keep quiet. Everyone on the bridge fell silent, and in that silence they all heard the assistant’s whispered words, meant only for her boss.

“You can shush me all you like, Meera, but sometime soon you’re going to have to tell them. We jumped an open gate. We’re lost.”

“Shh!”

“Stop shushing me, Meera. Just tell them.”

The assistant noticed everyone staring, so she looked up. Raised her voice. “We jumped a one-sided gate. We’re lost. Forever. We’re all going to grow old and die in space.” Then she tried to soften the news. “Well, maybe not the growing old bit.”

2

Florence McConnachie did not want to be flying through space on some secret mission to conquer a world. Flying, yes. Flying was her thing. It’s what she loved to do. But not like this. Flying trapeze was her passion. The feel of the wind in her hair. The satisfying whack of her hands on the cloth bindings, with timing and precision after a clean triple. That was what she meant by flying, not driving a navigator’s desk.

She had the wiry, boyish frame of an aerialist, perpetually animated by nervous energy, while her green eyes seemed suited to lasering through the darkness far up in the roof of the big top in search of a catcher’s hands. Florence had a mop of golden-blonde hair, the result of growing out the short-cropped style that befitted the demands of the high trapeze. “You’ll need to do something about your hair if you’re going to work for the Space Corps,” they said. Florence knew her own mind. She’d never been one to heed such advice, but on the rare occasions when she did, her destiny was to choose the wrong advice. “Advice” got her into the wretched Space Corps in the first place. Then, three months ago, she’d taken Meera Elyss’s advice, and what a fine model of consultation she’d turned out to be.

“Just come along on this special project, Flo,” she’d said. “The money’s good, three times what you’re making now. A few months out, see a bit of the Sphere, and you’ll have enough set aside for that fancy wedding you’re always talking about.”

They were in a club in the Irish-American sector on the Ring, for a hen night that Florence hadn’t wanted. Meera saw it as an excellent idea, though. A hen night was an opportunity to go on the prowl, and Meera seemed to vacuum up men like a fusion-powered Dyson.

But the men had stayed away that night. Maybe hangball on the telly. So Florence and Meera, just the two of them, had grasped at the fall-back option. They had had a conversation.

“Tell me again, why did we need a hen party rehearsal?” asked Flo, a little late, since they’d been there four hours already.

Meera had given her answer some thought while she sipped exotic liquids through a straw that threaded its way up through a complex chicane of fruit.

“Because it will be the most important day of your life,” said Meera.

“The wedding, yeah, I suppose.”

“Not the wedding.” Meera flapped a dismissive arm. “The hen night.”

“What?”

“Think about it. Everyone rehearses the wedding, but – are you eating that blue thing? Can I have it? So, yeah, how long’s the wedding going to last, hey? Couple of years?” She leaned over the table and spiked the lozenge of blue fruit from the bottom of Florence’s glass with a cocktail stick. She popped it in her mouth and gave a delighted sigh. “But your hen night? That’s something that’s going to stay with you always. You have to get it right, yeah? It’s important. Gotta be perfect.”

Meera had given Flo a similar argument while they floated down the ZG lift following their work shift earlier in the day, after which, without further preamble, she’d grabbed Flo’s elbow and steered her over to the nearest tower. They’d zipped up to Tsanak waystation, flashing Space Corps free travel passes all along the way, then strolled through a gate into the heart of the Sphere: the Ring, the inhabited part of Old Earth where all the eccentrics hung out.

“I don’t understand it,” said Meera, casting an eye around the empty bar for the fiftieth time. “This is the Irish-American sector. There should be parties. There should be men. There’s nobody in the whole Sphere can party like the Irish-Americans – apart from the Geordies and the Scousers, that is, but no way would you get a table in those sectors, not on such short notice.”

“Short notice!” said Flo, squirting some blue liquid down her nose and dissolving in a coughing fit. “The wedding date’s over a year away.”

Meera flapped a hand at her again, and Flo could tell that Meera just didn’t understand her.

“I’m not talking about your stupid wedding,” Meera said. “You’ll get a prime spot in the Scouser sector for the real hen night, no worries, I’ll see to it myself. That’s if it goes ahead. Can’t see you sticking with – Doug, is it? – with Doug, for another year. No, I mean this short notice. Tonight. I thought it might be a bit of a squeeze in here, you know? But jeez! There’s only the two of us. There’s more action in the Space Corps canteen.”

Flo just nodded. The empty room didn’t bother her. She didn’t want a hen party, not tonight and not in a year’s time. She just wasn’t the party type. But Meera could be… persuasive.

Flo looked around the bar with distaste. It was one of those places that looked okay with the lights down low so that the chipped panelling and patchy paintwork went unnoticed. But tonight they had the lights turned up and the music switched off. Two depressed-looking customers didn’t appear to be enough to encourage the management to make an effort.

“We should have tagged along with that funeral we bumped into in the waystation,” said Meera. “I did consider it. Maybe that’s where everyone is tonight.”

Meera seemed serious. It turned out the funeral party had been going to an Irish stag do, to begin with. But the groom-to-be, Seamus, had partied-out. Dead before he’d reached the fifteenth bar.

A guy called Ryan had invited them after Meera started wrapping herself around his leg. “Honest to God, it’s not a problem, girls. Seamus would approve. It’ll be a grand wake. Never was one to spoil a good party was Seamus,” he said. “Seriously, come along. It’ll be a riot.”

She would have gone for it, too, Flo thought, except they were already wearing their pink Stetsons and “L” plates, so she guessed even Meera had some limits of impropriety.

In the end they got to talking about work, having no other shared interest whatsoever. And, with nothing much in common even at work, Meera had mentioned The Project.

“Why not join up? They want nav staff. They seem happy to pay.”

“Why isn’t it up on the notice board, then?”

“Dunno. Because it’s secret I suppose.”

“Then what is it? Where are they – you – going?”

“It’s kind of military. There’ll be commandos. Career soldiers.” Meera did a little squirm of anticipation in her seat.

“What are you telling me? It’s a secret war? You’re joining a gang of mercenaries?”

“Nothing like that. I suppose it’s... I dunno, a peace-keeping operation.”

“You suppose. Is it even legal?” said Flo.

“That oily guy from Accounts, Bob Slicker, head-hunted me,” said Meera. “Do you know him?”

Florence shook her head.

“He’s high-power Space Corps. Nice bod, too. Just that he’s a bit, you know, oily.”

“Are you even in a position to sign me up, Meera? Sounds like you’ve only just been hired yourself.”

“I can hire. At least, I can recommend. The Slicker guy said they needed nav staff. So far they only have me. I think. It’ll be good experience for you. You’ve only been in the navigation section for a few weeks. Come on, Flo, it’ll fast track your learning programme. On-the-job training. A good career kick-start. Promotion.”

Florence had only been on the nav team for two weeks. She’d met Meera at the same time and here they were, talking like old friends. But people, complete strangers, everyone, always seemed to want to give her advice. It annoyed her. Maybe she just had a receptive face. And after the mellowing effects of three glasses of the blue liquid with the funny fruit in it, Florence was feeling more receptive to advice than usual.

So she said yes.

She signed a form that meant she couldn’t tell anyone about it, not her fiancé, Doug; not her parents; not even her Kim, her ever-present imentor. Well, good luck with that one, she thought. Kim seemed to know stuff even before Flo did. Kim was, of course, with Flo and Meera on the Ring that night. If only Flo had stopped to consider what kind of people, if there were such people, would write a nonsense stipulation like “don’t tell anyone” into a legal contract. Well, people who knew nothing of the imentor/host relationship, that’s who. Non-people. If she’d thought about that, then maybe she’d have been less hasty about falling into this mess.

But she signed, and her Kim gave her all kinds of arguments against the idea which Flo ignored because, well, triple pay. They sent her to Fomalhaut to sit on a derelict warship while they “refurbished” it around her, and while they filled it with people as naïve and mis-cast as she. Then they sent her on their glorious mission, to do what, to whom, and where, nobody seemed to have any idea. So far her required navigational skills had consisted of swiping an icon marked “Go” on a touch screen, and it had sent them off to some gate. The low-skill task of swiping the button was even something of a relief, because after two weeks in the nav section, that was still just about the limit of her abilities. An aptitude for navigation did not appear to be part of her skill set.

And now here she was, with Meera, arguing again, as they had on most days of their Fomalhaut exile. This time it was about being lost in space. Nobody seemed to know what had happened. She was the rookie here, and yet to her it was obvious what had happened. The pieces, for once, just all seemed to fit. Her maths might be weak but she knew a pile of crap when she smelled one.

“We’re lost.”

“What did you say?” said Levison. He was the one really in charge. Even the oily Slicker seemed terrified of him.

“I said, we’re lost,” said Florence.

“And you are?”

“I’m Florence McConnachie. The junior navigation officer.” She made a point not to use the word “sir”. She felt a person ought to earn respect, and so far the people she had met fell short of earning anything of the kind. Levison, with his Napoleon impressions and his bullying, implied threats, seemed to be a total buffoon.

The Slicker (she couldn’t help inserting the definite article, it seemed to her more apt) leaned close and whispered, “Say ‘sir’ when you address Mr Levison.”

“No,” said Flo.

“He’s thrown people outside for less.”

“Well, he can try,” said Flo, raising herself to her full five foot nothing. She jigged about on her toes, itching for a fight.

“Ms McConnachie is correct, sir,” said Meera. “The computers cannot get a fix on any of the stars. This is unknown space.”

Meera had defused the moment.

But Florence did not want the moment defused. She fought her own battles and would not stand down from a point of principle. She wanted to take on Napoleon.

“So, as I said, sir. We’re lost, sir. We’re going to die, here.” She paused. “Sir.”

But their confrontation had ceased to be of interest to anyone. Florence realised everyone was staring out of the window. She saw movement, then she gave a gasp at the sight of a vacuum-bloated Unwin, former helmsman, former crew-mate, wearing just his Y-fronts, sailing out toward the stars.

Levison was the only one who hadn’t turned to look. Instead he continued to regard Florence. A slit of a smile formed. Only then did he turn his head, just a glance, enough to confirm what had drawn everyone’s gaze.

“Good,” said Levison. “I see from Mr Unwin’s forward movement we are decelerating.”

Nobody spoke.

Levison chuckled. “If I’d have thought ahead, I’d have had the boy take a rag with him. He could have polished your famous window on the way past, hey, Bob? What is it they call you? Squeegee Slicker?”

Levison looked back at Florence. The smile fell away and his gaze hardened. “You were saying? Something about a second gate?”

“Yes, sir,” said Florence, her voice breaking. “I believe I felt the cold from two gates. Sir.”

Levison nodded. “You have spirit, young lady. I like that. You are also the only one with balls enough to speculate on what may have happened here. You could yet be of use to us. Mr Slicker will arrange for the administering of some form of... non-lethal punishment.”

He turned on his heels and headed for the ladder and, at the snap of his fingers, Slicker followed.

Florence found that her legs were trembling. She needed to sit down. Everyone was mumbling around her. No doubt, like Florence, they were wondering what they’d got themselves involved in.

3

Levison’s stateroom was one of the largest spaces on the ship. Formerly one of the kestrel space bus hangars, Levison had had it converted. Bob Slicker still remembered the conversation.

“Look at this, Bob,” said Levison, his arm around Slicker’s shoulder. They were in the designated captain’s cabin, hours after acquiring their new ship. “Is this a fit environment for a leader? How could I command respect from my troops, from this... this box room?”

Slicker thought the room quite reasonable for starship accommodation. It was twice, three times the size of his modular apartment back on Tsanak.

“I need a stateroom worthy of the name,” he said. “You know my tastes, Bob. See to it. And make sure you set aside a decent living space for yourself, you hear?”

That had been the start of a long and frustrating process that delayed the launch of the fleet by two months. During this time, Slicker attended endless site meetings, at which Levison revised budgets and spent more money. Slicker’s own modest space was moved from the opposite side of the ship, to the space next door to Levison’s palace. The palace then grew while the Slicker annex shrank. The final revision and humiliation came when Slicker’s tiny wardrobe, large enough for only three suits, was sacrificed so that Levison could extend out enough to build a walk-in humidor. When Slicker moved into his new cabin he found that the door refused to open when there was a bed in the room. Levison would not entertain having Slicker’s door opening outward and encroaching onto his own space, so Slicker had to have the designers slice an arc from his bed, and then order a shaped mattress. Levison railed against the extra cost.

Slicker found himself rooming dog-kennel-like at his master’s whims and demands. It was intolerable. So he scouted around the ship and found a space behind the armament rack. He decorated it and called it his own. Yes, it was a small space, but at least it was his own space, and it was far from Levison’s palace.

He longed to be there now, in his quiet hideaway, where he could sit and meditate over their catastrophe. But Levison had other ideas. He needed his loyal dog beside him in his stateroom.

Two MPs were waiting for them when they arrived. Slicker’s heart went into arrhythmia. Was this his moment? Levison had already chided him for not dealing with the rebel, Philpotts.

“Mr Unwin has been removed, sir,” said one of them.

“Yes, I saw. Have his locker emptied and returned to stores,” said Levison. “You may go.”

The two MPs snapped a salute and marched out, closing the polished steel door behind them.

Slicker breathed. “Was it necessary to do that to Unwin, sir?”

“Are you questioning my authority, Bob?”

“No, sir, but—”

“Call me Martin. While none of the crew are around, we are friends.”

“It’s sometimes difficult to believe that... Martin.” Slicker always found it awkward, using his name. It slid from his mouth like a bag of fish hooks. Who knew when, and at what, Levison would take offence?

“Of course we’re friends, Bob. We’ve been together since we were boys, have we not? Now, what is your problem with my treatment of the helmsman?”

“It was... disproportionate. It was tense on the bridge. He was under a lot of pressure. We all were.”

“Indeed. And we still are. But the crew need to learn how to handle pressure, Bob. Do you understand our position? I mean, really understand it?” Levison began to peel himself out of his uniform. A dressing gown and slippers had been laid out for him on a chair.

“Well, we’re not anywhere near Serenity, I gather,” said Slicker.

Levison shook his head and placed a hand on Slicker’s shoulder. “The girl, what’s her name, put it rather succinctly, I thought. ‘We’re going to grow old and die out here,’ she said. Well, unless we can do something about our situation, she has it just about spot on.”

Levison walked to the chair and slipped into the dressing gown. He tied the silk sash around his waist. He turned back to Slicker.

“And here’s the thing, my friend. It is your fault. You were supposed to deal with Philpotts. He had more resourcefulness about him than maybe I gave him credit for. You are the one who allowed this sorry state of affairs, and you are the one who will get us out of it. Now do you understand why Mr Unwin had to eat vacuum? The crew, and you, need to know what happens to those who are insubordinate and those who fail. They need to know that when I give an order, it will be carried through. So here, Robert Slicker, are my orders to you: Fix this. Pool the best brains from the crew... and fix this!”

Levison was red in the face. A vein pulsed in his neck. Spittle sprayed from his mouth. Bob Slicker had no doubt that Levison meant what he said.

* * *

A gun rack had to be unlocked and shifted to gain access to Slicker’s hideaway. Behind the rack was a door. Nobody ever came this way. Few people knew about Slicker’s den, where there was a bed, a desk and a chest – a quiet place where a person could find a measure of peace and time to think. In an alcove he had a small freezer and a microwave oven. Slicker had brought few personal items with him on this mission, but what he did have was here. There were paintings on the wall, pictures of flowers. They were poorly drawn and the frames were a state. On the chest there stood an artificial plant in a pot. Yellow Post-its festooned the desk and walls. The roll-screen computer, seldom used for anything other than accountancy work, was furled tight. A single bright green chair, air-form fitting for exquisite comfort, stood in the centre of the space. It didn’t need to be air-form. It didn’t need to be a chair. Slicker’s den was close to the hub, where gravity was minimal. He could sit in the chair but any movement at all propelled him up and away.

So here was the dilemma: They had taken an open-ended jump. Slicker had to fix it. Somehow, yet again, all the problems were his problems.

He pulled open a drawer in his desk. Inside was a bottle of Roddick’s Djinn Spirit. Slicker lifted it, cradled it, admired the lazy, micro-gee sloshing of the amber liquid inside, and he unscrewed the cap. There had to be a bottle. The hard-bitten detective. The news editor. The tortured writer. They always had a bottle in their top drawer. It was a well-loved cliché. Slicker was a man who lived by the rule of cliché.

But he paused, then he screwed the lid back on and replaced the bottle, like a sleeping infant, into the cradling embrace of the drawer. He sighed with regret. He might be out here for a very long time. For the rest of his life. He’d only brought the one bottle. There were foreseeable times when he might need it even more than he did today.

He closed his eyes and tried to think.

Three ships had made open-ended jumps. Three ships in all of history. Now the number was four, but Slicker doubted the Queen Isabella III would make the history books in quite the same way. Queen Isabella was an illegal ship on an illegal mission. And what was Levison doing, naming his flag ship after the Last Queen, anyway? Isabella was known to be a passionate Disexpansionist. The Last Queen would have stood against everything the Space Corps in general, and this illegal mission in particular, represented. She came from a different time. A more sedate time. In some ways, Slicker rather admired her. She had hated the growth of the Sphere of Influence. Don’t abandon Earth, she said. Spend your energy on repairing all the harm you’ve done to her.

Hers was a voice in the wilderness. The damage had already been done. Back in the day, when Old Earth was dying, they built the Ring and quit the surface of Earth in the nick of time, before she gasped her last breath. But the Ring was never enough. Humans needed more room. They invented the gate, a way of skipping to another part of the universe. But at first the concept of quantum coupling, to pair gates together, was in its infancy. Early space explorers believed they could take a coupled gate, in kit form, on an open-ended jump and use it for the return. They built three ships: Destiny I, II and III. Nobody knew where they would go, but people expected them to return with tales of distant worlds. None ever did. Their fate remained a mystery. Open jumps were stopped, and from then on the human race had to make do with a cloud of Frontier Ships, travelling outward in a sphere of humanity, at sub-light speed, carrying paired gates. The ships could be manned on a rota basis, and nobody would have to give up a lifetime of human companionship to reach the stars. It was the birth of the Sphere of Influence.

Slicker did a twirl in his chair and tried to remain seated against the various forces that threatened to send him spinning against a wall. He laughed to himself at the irony of how things had turned out. He and Levison knew more about the myth of the Destiny ships than most. Some years back, Martin Levison, at the time a junior operations director at the Space Corps, came across a memo from a gate tech called Jessica Biggles. She had been heading out on holiday, and after stepping through a malfunctioning gate had found herself in an empty, old, old ship. Had she stumbled upon one of the old Destiny ships? Levison told no one, but tracked Biggles down. He found that she still had the gate records from the erroneous jump. He asked her to go again, and take him along with her. What he found was a world and a ship out of the history books. He had found Destiny II.

The surviving descendants of the crew of Destiny II were also there, on a planet they called Serenity. It was an idyllic world, filled with priceless natural treasures, and Levison decided that he wanted them for himself. That was the start of the road that led to this moment. The irony was, that in trying to conquer a ship that was lost and now was reborn, they had become a ship that was reborn and now was lost.

But, however you looked at it, history told of only three ships that had made open-ended jumps and not one had ever succeeded in returning home. Destiny II had been a fluke, and discovered from within the Sphere. Even so, the original crew had grown old and died out there. It had taken fate, not planning, and the passage of over two hundred years to stumble upon the bewildered ancestors of the first lost souls.

So all in all, thought Slicker, the chances of a quick fix seemed to be a bit of a long shot.

But he had to try. As far as he could tell there were three immediate imperatives: a) find a way to get back to the Sphere, b) find a planet they could make into a home, out here, and c) extend the survivability envelope of their small fleet long enough to achieve, preferably a, but if it came to it, then b.

He was going to need help. It was time to have a meeting. He wasn’t much use with all the gung-ho militarisation of space stuff, but hell, Bob Slicker was a management accountant. He knew how to do meetings. He knew the priorities.

“Jim, get me Catering.”

Then he remembered. No imentor out here. Things had to be done the hard way. The old way. It was sometimes difficult, too, to remember what the hard way used to be. His Jim came to him later in life than most, who were bonded soon after birth, but nevertheless he’d come to rely on him.

He picked up his phone and scrolled through the numbers. Phones were old. Imentor had made them obsolete, but they had found old models for this mission. Phones could be used outside the imentor network. In space.

He dialled.

“Hi, Catering? This is Slicker. I’m arranging a meeting. We’ll be needing pastries.”

This was going well, he thought. Then he started to wonder who he might invite. He didn’t know anybody. Meera Elyss was on his list. Meera had to come. She had spectacular legs and knew how to present them. She was also something to do with the navigation people, and you never knew when that sort of thing would come in useful.

In fact, he thought. Maybe a pre-meeting with Meera would be good. Smooth the way. Show her how much he appreciated her. Yes. He decided to send her an email.

4

Meera read the email a second time and decided that Bob Slicker could be a valuable asset, given they were here forever. He seemed well placed with Levison, and power was always useful. Okay, he scored low on the physical side, because of the oily thing, but she was nothing if not open-minded. She could give him a chance. She’d only met him a couple of times, and she conceded that the most recent of these had, perhaps, not been a good day for making an impression, him having led them into deepest, uncharted, no-way-home space and all.

Truth was, apart from the getting lost catastrophe, she was already disappointed with this trip. She’d expected commandos, real men, but the troops all seemed to be over on Rorke’s Drift. Her ship, the Isabella, the flagship would you believe, was full of administrators. Of these, more than half were female. A pretty poor show.

Anyway, if she couldn’t get beef, then she’d just have to make do with greens for the time being. Opportunities were bound to pop up, so soft-handed office types would just have to do for now. At least Bob Slicker appeared to have some influence around here. He was the one doing something about their predicament and he wanted to talk to Meera one-to-one. A good sign. This was her chance to rise above the crowd. If she could get some influence for herself, then perhaps later she could talk her way onto the troop ship.

The email said conference room seventeen at six, so Meera donned her best silver Space Ranger costume, glittered herself up, and headed for the ropewalk.

The ropewalk was the central hub, along which moved a continuous belt with handholds. The hub was under perpetual micro-gravity, so to move fore or aft (see, she was getting the hang of the naval jargon) all one had to do was float into the middle and grab the rope. Easy when you’ve used ZG lifts and worked out in hangchambers every day of your adult life, wasn’t it? Okay, so there was more to it than that. The loops were on elastic, so there was a bit of give, and this was useful if a person didn’t want to dislocate a shoulder, because the ropewalk moved along at a fair old clip, and, just like in the hangchambers, micro-gravity did not mean micro mass.

So after grabbing the hold, there was stretch then rebound then stretch again, and it was easy to become a flapping, bouncing, vomiting piece of luggage. Meera found the process quite challenging, and she admitted she was jealous of her junior officer, Florence, who had been using the ropewalk with balletic, absent-minded grace, right from day one. Even after weeks, Meera had to psych herself up for it.

Today was good. She launched herself from the access hatch at just the right velocity, so that she was able to grab the handle with little or no rebound. Before she even had time to congratulate herself, though, an ape-like figure entered the shaft from just ahead, coming in the opposite direction. He seemed, from the outset, to be making a total dog’s breakfast of the manoeuvre, and worse, he was carrying a drinks flask. Liquids were not allowed in the hub. Ever. With good reason.

The ape began to swing and cavort and curse. And, with a certain inevitability, the flask broke free, opened, and the contents started coming her way.

Meera had time to think about it. The drink was moving. She was moving. Nothing out here to get in the way. No handy gravity to add curve and uncertainty to collisions. She pulled herself tight in to the rope but it was no use. The globe of liquid zeroed in on her as though it had mind and purpose. The only question mark was if she was in for a mere soaking or a trip to Medical with scald injuries.

“Sorry, love,” shouted the ape. “It’s cold, don’t worry.”

The liquid hit with a slap. It was cold. Cold enough to make Meera gasp and pant as it redistributed itself about her person. It was also very sticky and very green. An energy drink. Lots of sugar. Meera felt her fingers sticking together as she tried to wipe the mess off.

The ape sailed on in the other direction. Despite his apology she swore he was chuckling to himself. She stared after him and he gave a little wave. She noticed for the first time he was wearing combat fatigues. And he was built… square.

Damn, she thought. But she didn’t know why this thought came to her head. No time to think; her exit hold was coming up. She reached for the strap and swung herself free of the ropewalk. Again she managed it without mishap, even bordering on elegant. A pity there was nobody about to see. She looked back but the ape was far away. She checked the time. Could she go back and change? What would be worse, arriving late or arriving in this tarnished state? And back was the way the ape with the drink had gone. Ooh, if she found him she could get a real apology out of him. But the ape was gone. She sighed and turned back to the ropewalk and tried to focus on the here and now. She needed a change of clothes. She had to be perfect. Bob Slicker would have to wait. Perfection comes at a price.

Fifty minutes later, a little disappointed at not having found the ape, but feeling better wearing a fresh silver cat suit with midnight blue lightning flashes, she was back outside conference room seventeen.

5

Bob Slicker checked his watch for the hundredth time. He had an old watch. Nobody wore watches, they had tattoos for telling the time. Tattoos were useful. They could be reset to local times when days were longer or shorter than Universal Standard Time. But Slicker cherished his watch, even when he forgot to wind it and it stopped, which was often. The watch was gold and ornate, with slender fingers, inlaid numerals of precious stone and a pearl-textured face. He’d had it all his life. It was the only material thing he owned that linked him to his unknown origins. On the back of the watch was an inscription, RGW, in curly letters. RGW. The R was for Robert of course, but GW? The only clue to his parents and his real name. He’d often speculated. Wallace, Wilkinson, Woodward…? Somewhere out there was his family and his past, and he felt his antique watch was the only way he might one day find them.

He looked at the watch again. No, it hadn’t stopped. Meera was late. Where was she? Didn’t she know how important this meeting was? Didn’t she know how important he was? He debated calling her, but that would seem weak. He debated giving up and going back to his den, firing off an email with a stern reprimand, but that would alienate her, and he saw Meera as an ally, as a confidante and, as their deep space drama played out, he saw her as the love interest. Yes, definitely that.

The door opened and the love interest walked in. Not walked, she prowled into the room with syrupy feline grace. She wore flesh-hugging silver and blue. Slicker felt his mouth go dry. His legs became liquid and only prevented him from dissolving onto the floor by good fortune rather than by mechanical activity. She nodded at Slicker. She offered no apology. She slinked over to the coffee pot and helped herself.

“There are Eccles cakes, too,” said Slicker.

“Nuh-uh,” said Meera over the top of the coffee mug. “Calories. Anybody else here yet?”

“No, er. It’s just us. I mean... The email. Didn’t I say?” He knew what he’d put in the email. He’d agonised over the wording for hours. A private meeting, a pre-meeting. Gauge the position of the nav team before throwing it open to the wider task force. Crap like that. But it wasn’t crap. It was lengthy and coherent and intelligent. His email made it clear that he valued her input. Only she hadn’t read it, or so it seemed.

Slicker took an Eccles cake and bit into it to buy some thinking time. The confection – the fly cemetery – broke into two, crumbled, then cascaded in a mess of exhumed raisins onto the edge of the conference table where Slicker made a reflex grab for them, sending half down onto the burgundy carpet tiles and creaming the rest into the crotch of his best tan trousers. He lurched, stiff legged, to a chair and pulled himself tight up against the table so that he could conceal the evidence of the corrupted trousering from view. Meera didn’t seem to have noticed. If she did she was doing a good job of ignoring Slicker’s antics.

“Okay, Miss Elyss, what I’m proposing to—”

“Meera. Call me Meera,” she purred.

Slicker smiled. He swept the cake crumbs around and into a neat square on the table, to keep his hands busy so they wouldn’t shake so much. “Meera it is, but er... only so long as you call me Bob. Yes? Now, erm, what I have in mind today...”

And it began. He’d done so well. He’d resisted more than five minutes of hip-slinking, thermonuclear femininity. But the reaction was inevitable. He felt it grow deep below his stomach, a core of heat that spun and burned and then expanded out, filling all his body with waves of high-temperature physics. The sweat began to flow, not in the gentle, seeping way of normal folk, but in a dam-busting, bottom-falling-out-of-the-bathtub way, that revealed itself in dark, flowing blooms of perspiration on his shirt, under his armpits, across his back, down his chest. This was the source of Slicker’s reputation, as one who had strayed far over to the oily side. It wasn’t just meeting attractive women that set him off, either. Any situation that involved even one click on the emotional dial would open the sluice gates.

Meera had taken a seat directly across the conference table from Slicker, and as she looked up from stirring her coffee, her eyes opened wide and her jaw dropped.

Slicker dragged a wad of tissues from his pocket and began mopping his brow. The tissues turned to soggy dumplings and still the sweat poured. It was a closed feedback loop. The more Slicker perspired the more uncomfortable he became about the spectacle and this, in turn, fuelled the engines that ran the biological pumps.

Slicker had suffered with the sweat problem since puberty. He’d assumed it was a teen thing, a thing that would go away once he reached adulthood. But he was thirty-eight years old, now, and still waiting. People who didn’t know him wondered if the affliction was the source of his unusual name, but this wasn’t true. Slicker had been called Slicker since he’d arrived at the hideaway on the Ring, at the tender age of eight, wearing a bright yellow, slick raincoat. He had run away from the orphanage. In a subculture where everyone was looking for a peg of uniqueness on which to hang a name, the raincoat made him stand out. The Ring was a space habitat. It didn’t rain on the Ring.

“Now, I was thinking, Meera, you could head up the navigation team, yes?”

Meera nodded. A slow nod. She seemed wary. She watched him through slitted eyes.

“I’m putting together a task force. A think tank. We need to pool our best resources to get out of this difficult position. Do you agree?”

Meera nodded again, still distracted. “I guess,” she said.

“The task force will break out into three working parties: Repatriation, Reconnaissance, and Colonisation. Our priority is to find a way of getting back to the Sphere. That object is paramount. I want you to head the Repatriation group. You are our number one navigator. I think this falls firmly in your patch, yes?”

Meera shrugged. “Do you know Rosalind Lee, in housekeeping?”

Slicker gave a slight shake of his head. The sudden change in direction threw him. Where was this going?

“She’s in charge of the cleaning team on my deck. She’s a dab hand at tarot readings. Pretty good on the crystal ball, too, I hear. I’m thinking she’d be your better option for finding the Sphere. Navigation needs maps and bearings and a starting point.”

Slicker said nothing. This wasn’t going the way he hoped. The way he hoped was that he’d come over all focused and organised and, well, impressive. Meera didn’t seem impressed.

“This is not a ‘difficult situation’, is it?” she resumed after Slicker had paused long enough to have passed the topic back. “We’re in the shit. We’re not going home. Ever. We’re not going to administer our way home with committees and meetings and pastry.”

“How, then?”

“Sorry?”

“How,” said Slicker, “are you proposing we do it? You’re big on how not.” He was getting warm again. Meera’s negativity annoyed him. Meera seemed annoyed, too. Her face flushed and her pupils dilated and Slicker wanted to reach out and do something inappropriate with her, something a more feral creature than he might do, in his dreams.

“Come on, Meera, tell me. You are the head of the Repatriation group. If you have better ideas than me, then your job is to tell me.”

“Who’s heading the other teams?”

“Well, there’s Jay Laboeff, the spiv guy from the Eddie Stobart. I’ve put him as lead on Colonisation. For Recon I’ve got one of the commando COs, Russ Kurasov. Do you know them?”

“A commando? Heading Recon?”

“He seemed best suited for the job. I spoke to him earlier today.”

“Here?” A glint came to her eye. “And... I would have to work with him... them? Maybe go over to the Drift sometimes?”

“Yes, I suppose. I see the four of us working closely. What do you say?”

“Oh yes. Count me in. Definitely.”

It was a sudden turnaround. Meera was on board and enthused. Damn, he was good. Now he just had to work on her off-the-clock.

6

Florence lay, bound, wrapped, and Velcroed, snug in her bunk. She couldn’t get the image of Unwin out of her head. They’re lunatics, all of them.

She thought about her fiancé on Tsanak, and about Kaydence, who was like a mother to her, and her actual parents. She thought about that other gaping hole in her life: her Kim.

“I’ll be gone for just a couple of months,” she’d told them. “They’re paying me well. It will be worth it, you’ll see.”

But they wouldn’t see. None of them would ever know what had happened, even Kim, who knew everything. As far as they’d be aware, Florence McConnachie was dead. Did it matter how long she survived out here? Because for her family, same difference.

Florence was here for the rest of her life, which, now she thought about it, might not be very long. And where was here? A metal tube hanging in a vacuum. Somewhere. The concept of “going” was meaningless because there was nowhere to go to. She was never going home. And she would share her last years with people who threw innocent helmsmen out into the vacuum of space just because they forgot to say “sir”.

She was never going home.

Unless she did something about it.

She closed her eyes and tried to think.

Her cabin, with Meera missing for a couple of hours, was a little island of peace. There’d been a lot of shouting on the bridge after Levison and Slicker had gone. A lot of blame and finger-pointing and recrimination. The nav team had taken the brunt of it. Meera deflected the criticism by sending the blame in Florence’s direction. Such a thing didn’t seem to bother her, morally.

Florence had left her to it, but Meera had followed a few minutes later. Back in their cabin she had seemed cheerful about the catastrophe, and chatted and joked, as if nothing had happened. Florence watched her in disbelief, feeling a restless irritation that she later analysed as jealousy. Meera was enjoying this. While she, herself, felt the burden of loss and disaster, Meera was clearly in her element. She’d gone through her wardrobe with obvious teenage delight, selecting clothes and accessories for some meeting. She’d decided on the ideal look then thrown it all on and skipped out of the door.

Florence embraced the blissful silence she left behind, tangible as an empty space. Meera’s personality and enthusiasm were so big they left a void when she went out of the room; made the room feel bigger. The cabin became bearable when Meera wasn’t there. It became a place where Florence could think.

The cabin was just large enough to hold their two coffin-sized bunks. Each had a surface on which to work, just big enough to unroll a flex screen. There were stowage bags down the inside of each bunk, for holding personal items. The cabin itself had enough space to squeeze two narrow clothes lockers either side of the oval door hatch. The lockers had roll-up doors – not enough space for hinged doors – and were made from plastic with a wood-grain embossed effect that might have worked better if it wasn’t coloured a vivid shade of blue. Florence had tried different techniques for toning it down, aiming for a pastel theme, but it was soon apparent that you didn’t mess with ultramarine. This was one hard-ass shade of blue that was never going to yield. So she had stuck pictures of her flying heroes on the outside of the locker door, obscuring as much of the eye-sucking colour as possible. Meera gave her plenty of stick. “Who’s this Cordona chap? Why’s he wearing tights?” And sometimes, more personal questions like, “How come there’re no pictures of hubby-to-be?” But Florence chose to treat the interrogations as rhetorical. She waved away the questions and stuck to a no-comment position. Anyway, she had to put up with an ever-changing freak-show gallery of shredded, steroidal hulks on Meera’s locker, so Meera, in turn, would have to accept Florence’s choices.

Two hours earlier, Meera, while preparing for her meeting, had been in full command of the cabin space while she selected her outfit, one of her many male-bait Space Ranger suits. The stuff she wore – what did she think she looked like? And why should it annoy Florence so much? Was it because Florence knew that she, herself, could never get away with wearing things like that? She’d feel as though she were going out naked. There’d be so many eyes on her. Meera seemed to think the opposite, that there were never enough eyes on her. It wasn’t even a date. She had some meeting or other with the oily guy who liked to believe he ran the show when Levison wasn’t around. Meera obviously had the hots for him. Florence had wished her luck with that, and had not only cheered when she left the cabin, but also offered up a silent prayer to any gods that might be listening, that Meera might find success in her manhunt. If Meera managed to shack up with Oily Guy, there’d be more room for Florence in this micro-gee broom cupboard. More time to think. More time to plan a way home.

It seemed straightforward, going home. Go back the way they’d come. But they’d appeared here without the aid of a receiver gate. And nobody knew how that worked. Not just on the ship. Nobody anywhere knew. That knowledge was the elusive holy grail. Great minds had tried. Theoretical physicists, cosmologists, chronodynamicists, tea-leaf readers. All had been brought to tears of frustration. They didn’t even know how the gates worked. The gates were a freak of technology that came before the science. If they could solve the open-ended jump problem, there would be no Sphere of Influence to constrain humanity. An ever-growing cloud would fill the universe in all directions at once. The Disexpansionists would go nuts. So, what chance did they have? What chance did she have, an untrained, ungifted navigator with a knack for amateur trapeze flying? How could she be the one to figure out the biggest question in the cosmos?

This is how, she thought. Because I am the one who wants it the most.

Florence closed her eyes and imagined herself flying. She so missed it, that feeling of freedom. People said ZG was like flying, but it wasn’t. ZG was all straight lines and vectors. You needed gravity to fly. You needed an irresistible force against which to triumph – a mastery of parabolic trajectories. Would she ever fly again? Indeed, yes, she would. She would find a way. She would find a way to fly. She would find a way home.

The door opened and Meera swung in. She’d been gone two hours. It felt like two minutes. Not long enough.

“How was your date?” said Florence.

“It wasn’t a date.”

Florence looked her up and down, at the outfit that had less substance than lip-gloss, and raised her eyebrows.

“Didn’t go well then?”

“No. Yes. It wasn’t a date, it was a meeting, I told you. Bob Slicker wants me to head up one of the sub-committees on his task force for finding a way back. He wants a navigation expert.”

“And he asked you?” Florence smiled as she said this. There was no malice. Meera had boasted many times about how she had managed to finesse her way into the job without possessing any actual knowledge.

“I’m a manager, you know that. I’m a people person.”

“Except I’m the only ‘people’ you have to manage. And you don’t manage. And if you did, you’d get that I know even less about navigation than you.”

“Well, you need to learn, girl, and quick. You should be telling us where we are. It’s your job. Okay, I’ve turned a blind eye. But I don’t know how long I’ll be able to keep ignoring your failings. You are our navigator, Flo. Start by finding out where the hell we’ve landed ourselves.”

“The computer doesn’t even know where we are. You know this.”

“Excuses, Flo. I brought you on board to do a job.”

Florence said nothing. They’d had this conversation before, after the gate. Meera seemed determined to hang all the blame on Florence. She had to. If she didn’t, then what other conclusion was there than it was Meera’s fault? But although Meera tried to intimidate Florence, Florence would not let her get under her skin. She’d have to take Meera seriously for that. How could you ever take someone like Meera seriously?

Meera began stripping out of her Space Ranger suit. The process amazed Florence each time she saw it. How Meera ever found a loose edge under which to pry her fingers to begin the disrobing process was a constant source of wonder.

“We need to get the whole nav team together,” said Meera. “Everyone. We need to brainstorm some ideas.”

“Everyone? This is the whole team,” said Florence. “You and I. So, brainstorming. Shall I begin? We’re lost. That’s my contribution, now it’s your turn.”

“I don’t mean just the Isabella team. I want to talk to the nav teams over on Rorke’s Drift, and on the Eddie Stobart.”

“I didn’t know there were any,” said Flo. “Who are they?”

“Don’t know. Never met them. But we’ll fix that. We’ll set up a meeting. Make some calls, Flo. Get things moving.”

Florence threw out her hands then let them flap down again. Meera had said she was the manager. Why, then, was she getting Florence to do all the managing? But it was okay. She couldn’t navigate, she knew that. But she could set up a meeting. At least it made her feel useful. And Meera might be right. Someone in the fleet might have an idea. It would be useful if they could team up.

“I’ll head down to comms,” said Florence. “What about you?”

“I have a strategy meeting with the other team leaders in a few hours. I have to prep.” She opened her locker and began pulling out costumes.

Florence had seen Meera prepping for meetings. It would be a long process. Meera would fill the cabin with floating, gossamer curtains of coloured fabric. For the next few hours she would be even more vain and unbearable than normal. Florence pulled herself out of her bunk, patted down her short blond hair, and floated through the door. Comms would be a good place to hang out for a few hours.

* * *

Florence ran into Winker Watson, who was coming out of the comms cabin just as Florence arrived. He was sharp as ever in a tweed suit and bow tie. Florence liked Winker. He was always upbeat. He had passions that kept him young. Among them was his restoration work on old spaceships. He always had a project on the go, in his garage up on Tsanak waystation. Florence wondered aloud what he would do now.

“Do? There’s always something to do. There is a vast archive on this ship. Our little mishap will give me time to research. I’m still rebuilding the Soyuz, you know. Things to learn.”

Florence knew Winker from her brief spell in McBain Annex. She often dropped into his office there, for coffee. Not only could Winker restore spaceships, he knew how to make coffee.

“Anyone in the cabin?”

“Yeah, the new kid’s in there. I just sent a package over to Rorke’s Drift. Some payroll query responses from last week. Florence, drop in for a coffee next time you’re up near Orange.”

Florence promised she would and pushed through the door into the comms cabin.

As Winker said, the new kid was on duty. The new kid was Erik Hupfer. He was ninety-seven years old and had worked for the Space Corps, in comms, since he was fifteen. He knew everyone. His memory for the people he’d worked with for eighty years was legendary. The people who first christened him “the new kid” were retired or dead by now.

“Hi, Mr Hupfer. I need to get a message over to the Drift and the Eddie. To the nav teams.”

“What nav teams?”

Florence took a breath.

“The nav teams on Rorke’s Drift and on Eddie Stobart.” She enunciated the words. “I need to ask them something.”

“Then you have a problem, missy.”

Florence shook her head and looked puzzled.

“There’re two nav staffers on this trip. There’s that tarty floozy woman, Meera Elyss, and there’s some other girl. I don’t know her name. But they’re both here, on the Queen.”

“There were meant to be nav teams on each ship. How do the other ships find their way around?”

“Well, I guess they do it the same way they do it on the Queen. By getting lost. Who are you, anyway, child?”

“I’m the other girl,” said Florence, to the new kid.

7

“I need to go across to the Eddie Stobart,” said Slicker.

The gate tech, his feet up on the control desk, tilted back in his seat so he could see the newcomer without the bother of swivelling his neck. He didn’t speak. It was a standoff. Then the tech peeled off an earjelly.

“Huh?”

Slicker could hear the thudding rhythms of punishing Neanderthal babe-rock.

“I said, I need to go—”

“You need? And who are you, then, matey?”

Slicker thought about how Levison would deal with the slob. He’d start by kicking the legs from under the chair, lean into the tech’s face as he sprawled on the floor and say something like, “I’m the last affable face you’re ever going to see, Smiler.” Then a couple of security guards would appear at his elbow, and with a click of his fingers the tech would be dragged, blubbering for mercy, to the nearest airlock. Slicker thought there were times when this approach was admirable. He wished he had the guts to try it now, but he’d probably stub his toe, kicking the chair legs. The chair wouldn’t budge, but the tech would lurch to his feet, snorting like a bull. He’d turn out to be about two feet taller than Slicker. And wider. And he’d have no neck. He’d pick Slicker up by the throat and then he’d kick his ass. Slicker knew this to be true because it had happened before. Bob Slicker was good with people who needed an arm around their shoulders and an encouraging word in their ears. He wasn’t so good with insubordination.

“Well, I’m, er, the First Officer. You know, kind of in charge? It would be good if you could, erm, help me out? Please?”

The tech looked at him with contempt. Then he picked up the earjelly and slapped it back into place. He closed his eyes to appreciate the mellow, death-of-music strains in seclusion, without having to look at the oily man who claimed to be an officer.

Slicker was unsure what to do next. He could go away and come back later when somebody more amenable was on duty. He sensed that this unwillingness to confront was part of his failure as a person. He had to deal with it.

He leaned over and tapped the man on the shoulder. It was a gentle tap, without any hint of aggression, but the tech ripped the earjelly from his ear, flung it down onto the desk where it made a squelchy, plopping sound, then jumped to his feet. He wasn’t two feet taller than Slicker. He wasn’t wider. He was short, pale and put together like a game of pick-up sticks.

Slicker did what he usually did in these circumstances. He apologised.

“Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to startle you. But I could really do with going over to the Eddie Stobart.”

The tech looked at him for a minute. Then looked down at his roll-screen. He tapped a few icons.

“I can fit you in at eleven,” he said. “Busy right now.”

Slicker decided not to challenge him on his definition of “busy”.

“Eleven.” He looked at his old wind-up watch. “An hour. Okay, I’ll come back.” He was about to turn and go, then he thought of a way he might salvage some honour from the encounter. “You asked who I was? The name’s Slicker. Bob Slicker. You might want to ask around to... confirm my credentials, before I come back.” He patted the tech on the wrist. “Security, you know? Can’t have just anyone flitting backwards and forwards through the gates, can we?”

And then he turned and left.

Sometimes he envied Levison. People feared him. People hated him. But at least he didn’t have to put up with jumped-up pieces of Unix like this. What was he going to do for an hour, now? He looked around and weighed up where he was. This was the high-gee rim, in the Orange sector. C corridor. He could head over to D and see if Winker Watson, the payroll manager, was in. Winker had an espresso machine.

Slicker turned left by Health and Safety. He glanced through the open doorway to see seven or eight H&S execs standing around an egg cup on a test bench, writing on clipboards. He would ask about that later.

He continued on down the orange radial until he came to Payroll. This was a nice office. Winker ran a happy team by keeping them well supplied with cakes and quality coffee. The office was full and buzzing. Slicker made his way past the fifteen or so desks to the corner office, where Winker’s desk and chair occupied an elevated position, looking out through internal windows onto his brood, as he liked to call them.

Winker Watson was about seventy years of age, though he looked younger. His hair was silver and thick and his face was kind and free from any signs of ageing. He wore a bow tie, always. Today it was sky blue, worn with a white, blue-striped shirt. He had a brown tweed suit, but the jacket was always draped over the back of his chair. He’d never been spotted wearing it. Slicker thought Winker looked like a kindly consultant surgeon who’d fully nailed the art of bedside manner.

“Hiya, Bob. Dark days, huh? Coffee?”

“Hello, Winker. Yeah, gingerbread latte, please.”

Winker Watson spun away from his desk and put on a long black apron. He began work at the vast machine with a flourish that came from years of experience. Barista practice was one of the things that kept him young. He loved making coffee, but he couldn’t drink it. Just one coffee made him feel lousy, and he hated decaf. Slicker always felt a little sorry for him and his thwarted passion for coffee.

“They’re busy out there in Payroll, Winker. What’s happening?”

“Wednesday, mate. Deadline day. Need to get the payroll boxed off by four. Always a rush. You want an English flapjack with your drink? I’ve had Robbie knock these together for me from a traditional recipe I found. Oats and syrup. They’re very good.” Robbie was Robbie Betrand, the sous chef in catering. He was always glad for any chance to diversify when people came to him with special requests.

“Yeah, I’ll try one,” said Slicker. “Er, Winker? You do know…? I mean. You have heard about…?”

“That we’re lost? Yes, Bob. I know what’s happened.”

“Then, the payroll deadline. You usually wire it, or send a package, to the bank?”

“On Wednesdays, yes.”

“So, how...?”

“Look Bob, I know what you’re saying. But you have to understand. My brood? Payroll is what they do. Mondays, Tuesdays, they build up to a peak on Wednesdays. They take payroll queries on Thursdays. Dress-Down Feet-Up Fridays. It’s what they’ve always done. People have to be paid, Bob. Records must be maintained. We cannot break the cycle. What if, a year, two years down the line, we find a way for us all to go home? No payroll records? No files for the bank? Pension data? Social Security? I’ll tell you what would happen, Bob: Anarchy. You know this. I don’t have to tell you. This is your ship. You know how the system works. My brood? They’re pros. They know they’re doing the most important job in the world. They are never going to let a little thing like being lost forever in an unchartered galactic backwater get in the way of maintaining a safe payroll cycle.”

He handed Slicker a tall glass, steamed and frothed to perfection. Then he passed him a side plate with a square of flapjack and a serviette. For himself he sipped at a glass of lemon tea and screwed up his face as though poisoned.

“Tea,” he said. “Trying it a different way. Horrible.”

The serviette had a logo on the corner, a rocket ship with the lettering “WWP”. Winker Watson Payroll.

“New logo, Winker?”

“I know, I should be more careful with my branding. The old coffee cup was more in keeping, but I couldn’t resist. I have a new project.”

Slicker nodded. Winker’s other passion, apart from coffee, was restoring old spaceships.

“Have you ever heard of Soyuz, Bob?”

Slicker shook his head.

“Old Earth. Goes way back. Pre-expansion. Pre-Ring, even. Last month’s space-junk auctions, I got me a real prize. It will blow them away at the vintage rallies, I tell you. When she’s finished she’ll be a treasure. You know, Bob, I’ve been sniffing around the old tubs here on this ship. Okay, they’re not a patch on my old Soyuz, but I have my eye on some of their kit. Wouldn’t mind taking a souvenir or two when we leave. There’s a nice row of main bus switches from above the tank status panel – straight off an old Shenzhou if I’m not mistaken. I have a place for them, waiting in my luggage.”

“The kestrels are secured, Winker. I’m sure you can’t just wander in and take stuff.”

Winker Watson gave a knowing wink. “You don’t think so? Why, even you, Bob, are equipped for a little spaceship reconnaissance. You carry the tools of the trade, always.”

Slicker looked doubtful.

“Empty your pockets. Come on.”

Slicker moved a reluctant hand towards his breast pocket.

“No, no, no. Your trouser pocket, sunshine. If I remember correctly, the back one.”

Slicker did as he was bid and pulled out a pencil.

“Ha! There you have it. That is your golden ticket.”

Winker reached into a drawer and pulled out a pencil of his own. A gnarled and stumpy old pencil with no point and with most of the red paint flaked and showing dull, pink plastic beneath. “Those kestrels, in fact most of your kestrel space buses these days, use Odin triple-flange doors. They have the most securely encrypted digital key system in the Sphere. Sixty-four characters: numbers, letters and symbols. So good is the system that when their own engineers forgot their keys, which was often, they would be goosed. The keys are a bugger to remember and once locked out you stay out.”

“Okay?” Slicker had an idea he knew where this was going.

“Well, they had to have a way of getting inside when they forgot their key codes. They built a quick-release catch and hid it behind the O in the Odin logo. It’s a little hole the size of a pencil.”

Winker grabbed Slicker’s pencil and made a jabbing motion. “So. Just poke it in and ping!” Watson roared with laughter.

“Mark my words, Bob, the only reason stuff doesn’t get nicked from those kestrels is because there’s nothing worth nicking. Except those Shenzhou switches. Little gems they are. You’re an accountant, Bob. You’d better count them before we leave this crate. Ha!”

Slicker smiled. Winker Watson seemed oblivious to reality. It sounded like he had his bags packed and ready to go. He seemed to think he would be attending his veteran rallies, and that he’d be spending forthcoming weekends restoring his old... what was it? Soyuz? And he seemed to think the payroll would, one day, get to a bank. Winker Watson was an optimist. We’ll be needing optimists, thought Slicker.

8

When he got back to the gate station he knew, straight away, that the tech had been asking after him. His attitude was different.

“Ah, Mr Slicker. Your gate transfer is ready for you, sir.”

Slicker gave a nod and a grunt.

“I do apologise for the... technical difficulties, earlier.”

What Slicker should have said was, “Technical difficulties? What technical difficulties? Stand to attention when you address me.” Or something like that.

What Slicker usually said, though, in these circumstances, and he willed the words to stay sealed behind closed lips, was, “That’s quite all right. My fault.”

But what Slicker actually said was, “Hmm.”

It seemed a good compromise. It seemed enigmatic. Perhaps the snotty tech would ponder the significance of hmm, searching for deeper meaning. Perhaps he would lie in his bunk, waiting for a knock on his door, and for two burly guards to gaffer his legs and arms together and drag him to an airlock.

But this was unlikely because already he had his feet back up on the desk and was reaching for his earjellies.

“Number two,” said the tech, pointing to a circle painted on the wall. The circle turned to a nothing, milky grey. The gate was open. It was an awkward height, a mere foot off the ground, and an awkward size, about eighteen inches in diameter. Just room for Slicker to wriggle through if he twisted his shoulders. It would be a tight squeeze. Why had they put the gate room out on the rim? he thought. He avoided using gates whenever he could, but when he had used them they had been in micro-gee where it was easy to float through. Why hadn’t they put the gate on the hub? It would have been sensible. Any crumbs of hard-earned respect he had won in his encounter with the tech were about to be erased in an undignified scramble around the skirting at the bottom of the wall. And since it marked an adjoining slice between two realities, the rim would be sharp. Damn, he could cut himself in half if he got this wrong, and that was even without the fear of the field shutting down mid-scramble. Okay, gates didn’t just close like that, but hell, the only reason he was here at all was because one did.

He lowered himself to his hands and knees and pushed an arm through the cold grey boundary. He hated the icy feel that moved up to his shoulders as he crawled forward. He knew he had to keep moving. Popular myth said that if you stopped you got frostbitten and things fell off. Slicker could believe it.

“Why did they put this thing out here on the rim?” said Slicker, to the tech. “Where there’s all these gravity-like forces.”

“Have to,” he said. “Structural integrity. They didn’t want to weaken the inner hull I expect.”

“Seriously?” Slicker’s head was about to go in, but he paused for the answer.

“Nah. That’s what they tell me to say. Truth is, the gates were in the hub. Best place. All the big rotating ships have them there. Makes sense. But I was told – rumour – that they had to move the gate room out here onto the rim, just so the boss man could have a heated ZG pool installed.”

“Oh.” Slicker dove his head through the gate to avoid further discussion. It wasn’t rumour. He was the one who had insisted they move three of the compartments off the hub and away. Levison had demanded it. Slicker was the messenger.

Sure enough, as he wriggled his body through the hole into the Eddie Stobart, that side of the gate was in free fall. As his balance changed it became easier to reach out his arms and float through.

“Hiya, Bob. I’m Jay Laboeff. Call me Jaylab. Welcome to the Steady Eddie. Let me give you a hand there.”

Firm hands grabbed both of Slicker’s and dragged him through. They were hands that didn’t want to let go.

“Wait until you try going back, Bob. Much harder the other way. I’ve only done it a couple of times. Usually I just poke my head through if I need to talk to somebody. I guess it makes me look like a big game trophy, but still warm and chatty. Scares the willies out of people, I tell you.” And he laughed. He had a huge resonant laugh that came right up from his ample stomach and bounced around the room, filling the air with spittle. Slicker looked at him, looked at his generous waistline, looked at the size of the gate hole, and wondered.

“What brings you over to the Eddie, Bob? You wanted to see me about something, yes?”

Slicker found himself wincing every time the man called him Bob. They’d never met before. Slicker knew nothing about this jolly, everyone’s-best-mate, personal-space invader. Having released one hand but converted the other hold into a two-handed shake, he wasn’t letting go, and was pulling Slicker ever closer into the spray zone.

“Mr Laboeff,” said Slicker, at last wrenching his hand free of the man’s grip. “I’m putting together a task force. A team that will either get us home or make this...” He extended his arms and swept them around. “...into a bearable alternative.”

“Call me Jaylab.”

Slicker made a note to stress the “mister” and ignore the request.

“I need someone to head up the colonisation sub-committee. Someone who knows logistics. I’m thinking you might be the man.”

“I am that man,” he boomed. Then he laughed his huge resonant laugh. “By God, if ever there was a man who knew logistics. You have a deal, Bob. Put it there.”

Slicker looked at the waiting hand from which he’d only escaped moments earlier. But how could he refuse? He reached out with all the fatalism of a man placing his hand into a spring-loaded animal trap.

Jaylab gathered up the limp appendage in both of his shovel-like paws and showed no mercy as he again drew Slicker in close. And again the tenderising of flesh went on for far too long. They were weightless, of course, and the two floated around the cabin, locked together as one, bouncing off all six walls. There was no escape. All the time Jaylab laughed and boomed his good cheer, pounding Slicker’s back with one exuberant sledgehammer blow after another.

When it was over, Jaylab placed both hands on Slicker’s shoulders and held him at arm’s length.

“This calls for a celebration,” he roared, with wet sibilants and rolling r’s that forced Slicker to close his eyes against the onrushing spray. Then before he could do anything about it, Jaylab pulled him into another hug and the two resumed their bouncing, ebullient tour of the cabin.

By the time Jaylab released him, Slicker had become disoriented and confused. A bottle of stone-matured scotch appeared from nowhere. A glass was pushed into his hand, and his fingers curled around it in a reflex action. The glass had a film over the top that prevented the liquid from exploding around the cabin in globules of enthusiasm. Slicker wished such a film were available to seal the free-flowing fluids from Jaylab’s mouth.

“We drink to a successful partnership and a triumphant homecoming,” roared Jaylab. And the spirits began to flow. Slicker was in full accord, though “home” for the moment was nothing more thrilling than the Queen Isabella III.

* * *

The full task force meeting took three days to organise. The Queen Isabella had an assembly room, four conference rooms, six meeting rooms and fourteen syndicate rooms. But the ten commandos were too hefty to fit through the inter-fleet gates, as was Jaylab, a factor that Slicker was now able to anticipate. So twenty-five committee members from the Queen Isabella crawled, instead, through to Rorke’s Drift, and Jaylab, on the Eddie Stobart, was allowed to use a kestrel, one of the fleet of space buses used to move supplies and manpower from orbit down to a planet’s surface. They all met in corridor B of the troop ship, the only space big enough to house all thirty-six committee members. Slicker had to admit, it wasn’t going well. The corridor had room for only two abreast, so the committee had to line up in pairs, wedged in amongst the crates of chainsaws that seemed to fill every available cubby hole in the ship. Slicker was in the middle and had to shout to be heard.

“Why don’t we use the hangar?” shouted Jaylab from one end. He was on his own. There was only room for one abreast in any space Jaylab occupied.

“We don’t have a hangar on the Drift,” shouted one of the commandos.

“What?”

“I said—”

“I heard you,” shouted Jaylab. “I mean, this is a troop ship. Where are your kestrels?”

“Shush!” shouted Slicker.

“We ain’t got no—”

“Quiet!”

Nobody was listening. There was pandemonium.

“Atten-shun!” This seemed to be the troop leader.

“Thank you, Mr…?”

“Kurasov, sir. Lieutenant Commander Kurasov.” He left a pause, then added, “You called me over yesterday. For a briefing. Sir.” There was no disguising the contempt in the soldier’s voice.

“Oh, yes. Lieutenant. You’re heading the Recon team.”

“Lieutenant Commander. Sir.”

“Right. Well, thank you.”

But only the commandos were impressed by their commanding officer. They fell silent while the admin team from the Queen Isabella continued to argue, and some started throwing things at each other up and down the line – pen tops, paper clips and firing rubber bands from plastic rulers. Slicker tried clapping his hands and making shushing noises but nobody seemed to notice. The troops looked at each other and rolled their eyes. Then Kurasov hefted his energy rifle and pointed it at the bickering administrators.

“One!” he bellowed. “Two!” He didn’t need to get to three.

“Erm. Now, if you could all just... I mean, if we speak one at a time. This—” he indicated the corridor— “isn’t ideal, I know.” Slicker was sweating like a sluice again. It was bad enough when he felt relaxed. He was not enjoying this meeting at all. And he’d asked for donuts. What had happened to the donuts?

“We have three priorities: Find our way home. Survive on the ship. Find a new home.”

Nobody seemed to be listening. Slicker’s voice sounded small and lacking in presence. He found himself wedged between two monolithic commandos. He felt lost. He would have liked to stand but the corridor was ZG and everyone was oriented in different directions. This alone was disconcerting.

He tried again, raising his voice until it squeaked. “We have three sub-committees. You know your team leaders. Please work with them. They will report your progress back to me.”

This was better. There were nods. This was how to manage people. This was how to show who was in charge. They would make progress. Slicker began to feel more comfortable. So long as they could avoid specifics he’d be fine. But then a voice cut through and Slicker felt his insides begin to churn.

“Ah, I see our task force is squatting in a corridor.” It was Levison. What was he doing here? He’d given the task force job to Slicker, so why was he interfering? Was he nervous that Slicker might, for once, be doing this right?

“So already the task force is a shambles. Slicker, the Queen Isabella III has conference seating for one hundred and fifty delegates. Why are you conducting business here?”

Slicker opened his mouth to explain but Levison cut him off.

“Don’t answer, I don’t want to know. What I do want is a progress report. It has been a week. This is, I believe, the first time you’ve pulled the emergency task force together. What kind of emergency do you think this is, Mr Slicker? Seven days. We eat. We breathe. We consume. We have limited resources. What progress, Mr Slicker? What have you done?”

Thirty-six pairs of eyes turned on Bob Slicker and waited for an answer. They saw a man who was perspiring in a miracle of hydrodynamics.

“Perhaps the team leaders have a solution for us?” said Levison. “Our navigation team, perhaps? Miss Elyss?”

Slicker hadn’t seen her. For once he hadn’t even thought about her. She was at the far end of the corridor where the male troop density was greatest. She was wearing silver paint, or as near as, and thigh-length boots with six-inch spike heels. Very fetching, thought Slicker, and very useful in a micro-gravity environment if one had an ambition to take a person’s eye out.

“No, Mr Levison,” said Meera. “No progress yet. We don’t have a fix.”

“No fix? None at all? Would you say we were in reach of a star system at this time?”

“Again, sir, we don’t know. The computers—”

“Yes, the computers. You said. And has anyone in this elite committee thought to look out of the window?”

There was no response.

“I assume that is a negative?” said Levison. “No. No assumption. For had anyone bothered to look out of the window they would have seen the two planets out there. Miss Elyss. You have a well-paid navigation team. Why don’t I just pay the computers? You might wish to ask your team when they last did a bit of navigating.”

He didn’t give her a chance to answer. Instead he turned back to Slicker. “Now, Bob. I suggest you devise a plan that involves finding us a place to live. Not that I would do your management job for you, but somebody has to, and you appear incapable. We need reconnaissance, we need to deploy scout ships, and we need to manoeuvre the fleet into an orbit. Do it.”

Then he put his arm around Slicker’s shoulder and drew him in, an affable, best-buddy hug.

His voice purred. “I don’t like committees, Bob. You know that. I much prefer it when I have individuals I can blame.”

9

Meera felt every eye on her. Bob Slicker was deflecting some of the shit, but most seemed to be flying her way courtesy of a fan from a gas turbine. Every eye in the room was always Meera’s prime objective, but today not so much. Her skin crawled with humiliation. This was all Flo’s fault. She should have known about the planets. She, Meera, could not do everything. Sure they were stretched for staff, but...

The meeting closed and Meera could not get off the Drift fast enough. Bad enough that Levison had made a fool of her, but in front of all those soldiers? Oh, my God. At most times a graceless robot in ZG, today Meera was a ballerina on autopilot, twisting and turning to negotiate the tight shafts and access doors of the Drift. In a fluid, unadjusted trajectory she sailed through the waystation hatch with one aim: to get away.

“Isabella. Now,” she barked at the gate tech. She would have hit the wall, hard, had the tech been faced with the usual wide choice of destinations. But here in God-only-knows-where he had a choice of just two, the Isabella or the Eddie, and not many travellers were going to the Eddie.

The gate opened with pica seconds to spare, and Meera arrowed through into the Isabella’s high-gee waystation where she dropped to the floor, went into a long slide, and in another fluid movement was on her feet and strutting. She would have been running, but you don’t run on six-inch heels.

“Florence!” She burst into their cabin. Florence was in her bunk, reading.

“Why didn’t you know about the planets?”

“The two we’re flying past?”

“Yes, the two... You knew?”

“I emailed. I gave you full details. As far as I could. I’m not so good with the orbital mechanics stuff.”

“You knew I was going into an important meeting. Come on, Flo, an email?”

“And I told you.”

“What? When?”

“Right after I got back from comms. You sent me to find the rest of the nav crew. I went to comms and found out there was no other nav crew. You remember that much?”

“You never mentioned planets.”

“I said, ‘It’s just us. The others didn’t come. They didn’t fancy it.’ And you went into a rage. Then I said about how I’d stopped off at the blister for a look outside and there were planets out there. I knew you weren’t listening. You were beautifying yourself. I can tell when you’re distracted. So I sent you an email.”

“Not good enough, Flo.”

“It’s all I’ve got, Meera. I will repeat. There are no other nav crew, just you and me. And there are a bunch of planets out there. The computers can’t see them because, I guess, they don’t expect to see them, because they’re not on their charts.”

Meera felt awkward. She remembered the email. Or at least an email. She hadn’t read it.

“You should have made sure I listened.”

“I. Sent. You. An. Email.”

“Okay, okay. So what do we do about it?”

“You’ve been to the meeting. You tell me.” Florence folded her arms then rolled over in her bunk. Her body language said, your problem, you’re the boss, I’m going to sleep.

“Come on, Flo, we’re a team.”

“Well, I’d suggest we get into an orbit so that we don’t go sailing right out of the system while we’re still discussing it.”

“Good. You get onto it. Compute us an orbit.”

“Meera, I’ve been in nav for a little over a week. Wouldn’t know where to start.”

“Use the computers.”

“Computers can’t even see the star or the planets. What are they going to compute an orbit around?”

“Work with me, Flo.”

“How about we just slow down? The star will pull us around into some sort of orbit. Should be enough to wake up the computers, do you think?”

“Good. Good. I like it. I’ll call the bridge.”

“But we don’t want to overdo it,” said Flo. “Don’t want anything too shallow. Wouldn’t want to dive us right into the core of the star. Just enough delta V to nudge the computers, show them there’s something out there with a gravity well.”

“I’ll do it.”

Meera felt better just to be doing something. This was okay. She was doing nav stuff. Flo was quick to argue that she herself knew nothing of navigation, but already she knew more than Meera. But how could Meera admit to that? She was the senior officer. This was most... uncomfortable. She had lied about her nav skills to get on this trip. Okay, she was a Space Corps navigator, but these days who needed to know anything about how to do it? They launched the Frontier Ships tens or hundreds of years earlier. Frontier Ships just pointed and went. Sometimes it was useful to know where some of them were, but hell, back on Tsanak she had staff for that.

Five minutes later and the deck began to lean. Stuff fell out of cupboards. There were screams from the galley.

“Was it up to us to tell people?” said Flo.

“Nah,” said Meera. “Bridge should have done it. They pushed the button. Their fault. I hope they told the bridge crews on the Eddie and the Drift or we’ve lost them. But not our fault.”

Avoiding blame and attention was something Meera had learned soon after joining the Space Corps. The sexy image of the Space Ranger type drew her. Then she found out about the unflattering yellow sack that was the standard issue Space Corps uniform, and so she designed her own. She wanted lots of silver and purple flashes. She wanted platforms and spike heels to accentuate her height. She wanted a ray gun. She used Old Earth comics as source material and the results got her noticed. She was soon the girl everyone wanted in their department. She had choice. She’d considered joining the commandos, but it seemed to involve lots of crawling around in mud, and press-ups, and sleep deprivation. So she figured the Guild of Navigators would get her in amongst the action without all that grubby, sweaty stuff.

She made mistakes. But she learned to avoid interactions with women supervisors, who found her threatening, and with the men, she perfected the art of ramping up the sex dial to eleven whenever she mislaid a ship. And she kept moving. She never stayed in a post longer than six months. Not until she’d achieved the level of seniority that avoided her requiring to know anything about the nitty-gritty transactional processes of navigation. Yes, she was shallow. She knew this. She embraced shallow. She made an art form of shallow. Others had depth and empathy that would make them forever miserable. Meera would never be miserable.

“Better go and man the nav desk on the bridge, Flo,” she said. “You have a feel for these things. Accept a tip from one who knows. If we look like we’re dropping into the middle of that star, make sure there’s a solid audit trail leading to the helmsman. Avoid all blame. One day you will thank me for that advice.”

She watched Flo head out through the door and felt satisfied. Two degrees of separation from blame: the helmsman then Florence. They couldn’t touch her.

Next she needed to distance herself from that Slicker guy. He was of no further use to her but he seemed infatuated. She had to be careful, though, because he was in the pocket of the top man in their universe. Let him go gently. Feed him lots of tiny disappointments. Slicker was an idiot but she hadn’t figured him out yet. He could be as shallow as she, and for a man in his position, that was dangerous.

Her comm rang.

“Meera, hi. Bob Slicker. We need to talk.”

Damn, thought Meera. Very dangerous.

10

An hour later.

“Sir?”

“Ah, Meera, thank you for calling back,” said Slicker.

“Of course, sir. What did you want to speak about?” said Meera, the words like silk-wrapped chocolate.

Slicker took a moment. He felt the dampness beginning to seep. Just her voice was enough to trigger the sweats.

“I’m taking the lead on the scout ship coding. I need to run the equations by you. Good job, by the way, on the orbit.”

The orbit around the star had been a success.

“Thank you,” she said. “Straightforward orbital equations. Not a big deal.”

“How about it, then,” said Slicker. “Can you come by my cabin?”

“Er, no, not right now. I have a... meeting. But I will send Florence McConnachie, my assistant. She is very capable. The best.”

“Well, I’d prefer—”

“And so would I, Bobby. I can call you Bobby? Yes? But I can’t avoid this meeting.”

“Well, I—”

“Flo’s good. You can rely on her.”

A click, and Meera’s comm hissed static. Slicker had heard the words of a great many brush-offs in his time. He knew the codes. He also knew that, in this world, persistence paid. He wouldn’t give up.

In the meantime, this assistant was coming by. She would be expecting to see equations. Slicker guessed it was all simple maths, he was okay with maths. He just needed to know how to apply the stuff. If this Florence was as good as Meera said she was, then he would be able to leave it up to her.

Slicker looked around the room. A pity she was coming here, to his hideaway. If he’d known he’d be dealing with the help, he’d have booked a syndicate room. Perhaps there was still time.

“Hello?”

Or not.

“I’m in here. Through the gun rack. I could get us a meeting room?”

Florence McConnachie stepped into Slicker’s sanctuary wide-eyed.

“I thought you’d have a proper cabin,” she said. “This place is worse than mine.”

“I do have a cabin. I sometimes prefer to work here.”

“It’s very cosy.” She looked around. “Nice flowers,” she said, nodding at the unframed paintings on the wall. “Not what I’d expect to find, but...” she tailed off, as if she realised she was broaching a touchy subject.

Slicker looked at her and remembered her from the day they’d gone through the gate. She was the one who had mouthed off to Levison, had been scowling at everyone and everything. It had been touch and go whether she or Unwin would be first through the airlock. Somehow Levison had decided the nav girl was the lesser of the two insubordinates.

She was short and wiry. She moved a lot. Restless. Even in the odd moments when her body became still her head was flitting about in a hyperactive caffed-out kind of way. She poked around the cabin, not content to just look, she was picking things up, examining them, putting them down, not where she’d found them. She was... a disturbance.

She picked up one of Slicker’s vat-grown sable paintbrushes.

“You paint? Did you do these?” Pointing at the flowers. “They’re very good.”

“Have you started the coding for the scout ships?”

“You should frame them, they’d look better.”

“If you could email the code over to me I could—”

“My dad’s a botanist. Sort of. Actually he’s an entomologist. Studies moths. But he’s done paintings like these. What about you?”

“What about me?”

“Did your father paint? Or was it your mother?”

“I… I don’t know. Look—”

“You don’t know? You must—”

“I didn’t know my father. Or my mother. Now can we get on with—”

“Oh, I’m sorry. What happened? Did they…”

“I grew up in an orphanage. I don’t know what happened to… Look, this has nothing to do with anything. Can we please talk about coding?”

“Okay. No, I haven’t done any coding. Meera said I should look over what you’ve done.”

Slicker sighed. “Crossed wires, I expect. No, I told her that if you could put together the code, I would look over it for you, check the maths. Yes?”

“Hm. I suppose that would be okay. I’d feel happier knowing someone was checking. Do you wonder who your parents were? I bet you do.”

“Yes. No. Please, can we focus?”

“Fine. What’s this about scout ships? What do I do?”

“Meera didn’t tell you?”

“No.”

“Well, there are two planets with rocky structure and with atmospheres.”

“I know. I found them.” She sat on the sofa and began fiddling with the Post-it notes that were stuck in a row along the cabin wall, tilting her head to read the random words, running her finger down the curled-up edges to make a flicking noise.

“Well, that’s about the— Please don’t move the Post-its.” Slicker tried to stop himself swatting her hand away from the notes. She was so irritating. “We need to do a detailed reconnaissance of the planets. We have twenty landing craft in the hangar. Each is programmed to land on one planet, the planet called Serenity. This was before we—”

“Got lost.”

“Yes. Well, you need to change the programming. A couple of ships for each planet. An automated search pattern to determine if either of the planets will sustain life, our kind of life.”

“Why not just send pilots?”

“We don’t have pilots. We have groundforce troops.”

“What? That’s nuts. Why bring twenty ships with no pilots?”

“We didn’t set out to explore. One plan, one objective. Besides, if the ships are unmanned they’ll use less fuel. Fuel is a limited resource.”

“Yeah, like food, water, air...”

“Exactly.”

“Well then,” said Florence. She plumped herself up on the sofa like she was adjusting a big cushion, then giggled as the sofa bounced her into the air. She pulled herself back down, folded her hands in her lap and looked up at him.

“What?” said Slicker.

“Talk to me,” said Florence. “What do I do?”

11

Florence suspected that fiddling with Slicker’s stuff was annoying him. It annoyed a lot of people. Florence couldn’t help it; it was how she was. Touchy feely. Things interested her. If a guy had fifty Post-its stuck to his wall, then she had to peel them off and read what was on them. Who wouldn’t? These things revealed hidden depths about a person. So far, though, she had seen nothing to make her want to revise her first opinion about Bob Slicker. He was a puppet. He had no mind of his own. He was acting against his own volition, then again maybe not, because maybe this harmless but oily man had no volition to call his own.

And he hadn’t answered her question. What was she supposed to do? Did she jot equations down on her screen? Did she access some hidden computer code in each ship? And what were these equations? She didn’t know. She suspected the oily man with flower paintings on his wall didn’t know, either.

“This Serenity: what were we all supposed to do there?” she asked, at last, sticking one of the Post-its back, in the wrong place.

“You don’t know?”

“Not a clue. First I’ve heard of a place called Serenity.”

“Didn’t anybody tell you when you signed on?”

“No. A special project, Meera said. A peacekeeping operation.”

Slicker regarded her. He seemed to be weighing her up, wondering if he could trust her with secret information.

“Serenity is a new planet,” he said. “It’s outside the Sphere.”

“Outside? How does that work?”

“Much like the way this works.” He waved his arms around to indicate the space around him. “People found it. We still don’t know where it is, but we found out how to get there. We found the gate coordinates.”

“So we were on our way to explore? Cool.” Florence reflected that this would have been good. An interesting diversion before she got herself tied down in marriage. A pity it went all random. “Why all the commandos, then?” she said. “Wouldn’t geologists and biologists and... I dunno, farmers have been more useful?”

Slicker paused again. He seemed to want to talk but was holding something back. Something he was worried about saying.

“Come on,” she said. “What was there? If it was secret, so what? I am not going to go blabbing, now, am I?”

“There were trees,” said Slicker. “Forests. And... well, a population. People who left the Sphere generations ago and made a home there. You know the history.”

“Do I?”

“Yes. The three Destiny ships. They made open-ended jumps, like the one we just did. Well, we found one of them. We found Destiny II.”

Florence stared at him.

“They made a home on a planet they called Serenity, two centuries ago. Perhaps we will find a home on one of our two planets. Perhaps we will be as fortunate as the Destiny crew. Because they found paradise.”

“A paradise with trees,” said Florence.

“Yes.”

Florence thought about it for a moment. “And we could have had a Sphere-wide party. We could have taken a fleet filled with doctors and anthropologists and psychologists and ambassadors, with big smiles and big handshakes. But instead we—you—told nobody. You got your fleet together and you filled it with troops and… administrators. Why all the administrators?”

Slicker was about to reply but Florence was on a roll.

“But… but…” She leapt up off the sofa and sailed up to the ceiling, then pushed herself back down again. “Did the people of Serenity get wind of it? Of course. They knew all about open-ended jumps, didn’t they? And they had a spare gate because they… why? Why would they have… ah, because they’d already found paradise, and so why risk another open jump to God knows where? So they dusted off their old gate and they arranged a welcome for the invasion fleet. For this invasion fleet. Ha! Random misfortune? There was no random misfortune, was there? We were rumbled. Your evil plan. And so they sent us here. Wherever here is. They didn’t know. And we don’t know. And… well good on ‘em. And here I am. I tagged along for the ride.”

“That… well, that is about the size of it,” said Slicker. “You’re very quick. I hope you’re just as quick with the coding. We need to find ourselves a new world. Because all that stuff, Serenity and invasion, none of it matters. Not any more. This is the here and now. We make a home or we roll over and die.”

“I’m getting married in six months’ time, did you know that?”

“Congratulations. Someone on the ship?”

“No.”

“Oh. Then I’m sorry. I am. You understand, don’t you, that it’s not going to happen?”

“Why not? You found Destiny II.”

“Sure. A one in a trillion chance. How likely do you think it is that it could happen again? Like buying two lottery tickets and winning with both of them. In fact, longer odds, even, than that. There are more stars than lottery numbers. A lot more.”

Florence regarded him for a moment.

“Then I’ll make my own luck,” she said.

“Give me your hand,” said Slicker.

Florence reached out. Slicker touched her fingertips.

“There,” he said. “I’ve transferred the codes we had for landing the kestrels on Serenity. All you have to do now is tweak them for the two separate planets, factor in the new mass data, do some orbital mechanical jiggery-pokery, and we can go and find ourselves a new home.”

“Okay.”

If it were only that simple, she thought.

“Now go.”

12

Twenty kestrels were jammed tight into every available docking bay of the hangar, filling the largest open space on the Queen Isabella III. With their wings folded, the kestrels in their bays looked like stubby beer bottles in a crate. Amid the bustle and fevered anticipation, Quentin Stafford-Foster rushed from one bay to the next, cajoling, instructing and belly-aching. This was his time. This was his moment.

Known simply as Q amongst his loyal staff, Quentin Stafford-Foster was chief choreographer and artistic director for the combined Hollywood Space teams of the Levison fleet. His work entailed a combination of logician, man-manager and stage technician. Every mission in the Sphere had its HS specialists, and Q was one of the best.

“Jaxon! Two men on the foot of that ladder. You know the rules. Ratio of ladder size to wheel diameter.” He was talking about the rotational wheel of the ship that created their artificial gravity. “That is a twelve-foot ladder. Jesus. Coriolis force, man. I’ll have no broken necks on my team.” He snapped a finger at one of the “engineers”, a petite brunette with oily rags in each hand. “Anastasia, get over there and hold the other side of that ladder. Move it, girl!”

She ran.

“And lose one of those rags. Only one oily rag, Anastasia. Two look ridiculous.”

Q ran his hands through his close-cropped hair, gave an exasperated sigh, and then hurried to the curved hangar doors, where a team of sparks and FX techs were setting up lights and steam vents. Every kestrel was venting steam, but it was not enough. Q wanted more. These were unmanned kestrels. Without crews his job became so much harder. Where was the human element? Where was the drama? Steam and noise became the essential elements of Q’s art. Without steam there was no show. In reality, the propulsion systems didn’t use any volatile fuels. There was no actual venting. And, of course, in space there could be no sounds. No vibration. No drama.

It has been said that the work of the Hollywood Space teams amounted to nothing more than party tricks. That no purpose was served by their showmanship. Nobody would ever have said such a thing to Q, of course, but such things had been whispered. It was a fact that deep space missions could never have been considered without the creative work of the HS teams. Space without HS was boring and dull. There was no noise and no sense of motion, just a lot of hanging around. Hopeless for viewer ratings. The only natural excitement from spaceflight came from the relentless puking during the first days of crewed missions. So, three centuries earlier, amid growing dissatisfaction about the lack of thrills in big space-adventure events, the great Maximilian Pinchas had stepped up to the mark. Cometh the hour cometh the man, as they say. Pinchas brought a dash of magic and spectacle to the show, and it came to be the saviour of the whole space-exploration enterprise.

So, when they provisioned the Queen Isabella III and the rest of the Levison battle fleet, a ton and a half of dry ice found its way onto the packing list along with synthesisers, laser rigs, mixing desks, theatrical props and Q’s thirty-strong team of FX specialists, while non-essentials, such as water and navigators, were pared down to mere wish-lists and software.

And there was no doubt that the package added atmosphere: the engineers, running around with spanners and oily rags and shouting rehearsed engineering jargon phrases like “och! I canna squeeze any more out o’ her, laddee”; the rumbling sub-woofer sound effects; and the smoke and crafty positioning of spots and lasers. The Hollywood Space team were doing a fine job and were clearly pleased with the opportunity at last to demonstrate their art. Levison had brought them along for the invasion launch and they felt cheated out of putting on a show. This was their moment. This was Q’s moment. And like all great directors, he changed the mission plan.

“What are you doing with all these kestrels? I’m only sending out one,” said Florence. “To begin with.”

Q raised himself to his full five foot two inches and inflated his chest.

“One kestrel? One? I can’t work with one kestrel, miss. Impossible. We launch them all or none.” Q shook his head. “What’s your name?”

“I’m Florence.”

“Well, Florence, you put this mission together, right?”

He could see she was about to say more than just “yes”. Q held up a hand to stop her.

“I will forgive that you did not involve the HS department in your mission planning. You are young and inexperienced and, I trust, will try not to make the same mistake again. Now I suggest you watch and learn. We are far from home. We are downhearted. We need a lift. We need pride.”

Q inflated his chest and thrust a clenched fist against his expanding rib cage. He pronounced “prrride” with great, rolling r’s.

“So,” he continued, “you understand how important this moment is? We need this. We all need this.”

13

Florence felt she was going to be sick. This thing had taken on a life of its own. True, she should have involved the HS team, that would have been normal. Weird, too, but, she supposed, normal. Somehow, she thought of HS as a thing belonging to the Sphere. This was Deep Space. This was the Final Frontier. FX did not belong here. Wasn’t there drama enough without fake smoke and soundtracks?

One ship. That was her mission plan. Why just one? Because she lacked confidence. She had done her best. She did not believe in doing anything that was not her best. But she could sense the gaps in her knowledge. Her best was all well and good, but what if her best was not good enough? What if something went wrong? One unmanned ship. Send it out with little or no fanfare. See what happens. Her mission plan. She had not kept Quentin Stafford-Foster out of the loop on purpose. If one kestrel had worked then Q and his FXers would be more than welcome to gloss up a mass launch of all the other kestrels. But this? Oh, God.

Slicker had checked her coding, or so he said. He’d even used a pencil. Florence had never seen a pencil before. People said Bob Slicker used them all the time. He kept one in his back pocket, ever-sharpened and ready to go. The pencil was such an iconic thing with Slicker that they said he had a wooden one at home. Florence doubted that. He didn’t look like the sort of man who could afford a wooden pencil. But Levison? Yes, he might. He probably even wrote with one. He’d write with a pencil and not even appreciate what he was doing, that when the last shaving of wood was gone, it was gone forever.

A group of techs rushed by, forcing her to skip out of the way. Were they FX or actual techs? Probably FX judging by their controlled histrionics. She skipped from out of the path of another, driving a forklift, to where and for what reason was beyond her. Wherever she stood she was in the way, blocking somebody’s choreographed route. Why was she even here at all? She’d done her part. She should just let them get on with it. Do their choreography. She should hide in her cabin, because – and this dark thought kept intruding – if it all went random, did she want to be somewhere where wagging pointy fingers could pick her out?

She wedged herself into a corner. An island of peace amid the noise. But then a woman with tattoos and overalls and outstretched arms was ushering her back.

“Behind the line, please. If you stay here you’ll end up sucked out into space with the kestrels.” A part of Florence, a little voice, thought this might be the better outcome today.

Florence stepped back, crossing a yellow tape stuck down on the floor. Moments later a barrier appeared, transparent but solid, segregating the audience on one side, the kestrels on the other. The room began to tilt and the clear wall became the floor. The clashing and hissing noises were undiminished. Silence would have spoilt the show. Yellow strobes began to flash and sirens began to sound. The bulkhead shook beneath her feet. A not-so-subtle vibration that had to be more work from Hollywood Space.

Below them, on the wrong side of the transparent division, a stranded technician ran across the hangar floor, screaming, trapped in an area that would soon become vacuum. The oily rag in his hand gave him away as being part of the show, though. On the opposite side of the hangar a heavy steel door began to lower. The tech ran for it. Florence weighed it up. He would not make it. Of course he wouldn’t. But the floor had been polished. The technician knew how to slide. He went down. He slid. The gap beneath the door narrowed to a slit. Too late. The first failure of the day. But no. Prostrating himself and still sliding at a pace, the technician slid beneath the door, head first. His feet cleared just as a three-inch gap became zero. Had he gone feet first his head wouldn’t have got through the gap. Bright lights on the far side of the door plunged to full blackout as the narrow slit disappeared. Jets of steam added to the spectacle, and the audience cheered and clapped their appreciation. None were fooled, but they all enjoyed it. Florence couldn’t enjoy any part of all this nonsense. She was thinking about her coding, looking for something she might have done wrong. She was thinking about how, the more Q’s team built the suspense, the farther she had to fall.

Meera came over, with Slicker attached, by an oily arm, to her waist.

“You’ve done a great job, Bob,” said Meera.

“Thank you,” said Slicker. “I think we all need a success, today. It will lift everyone’s spirits.”

Florence was in two minds. Bob Slicker was getting the praise for this. Well, fine. If the ships exploded the moment they were powered up, then he was welcome to the accolades.

Meera continued. “You and Flo work well together. Has there been... I don’t know, a spark? A little something more than a mere working relationship?” She gave them both a wink.

Oh my God, what is Meera saying?

“Has she told you about her flying, Bob?”

No, Meera, no.

“Flying?”

“Oh, she’s something of a trapeze artist, is our Flo. You know, circuses and stuff?”

Florence tried to stop her. “I don’t think Mr Slicker wants to hear—”

“You must ask her to model one of her short spangled dresses, Bob. I’m sure she has legs under all that canvas sacking she likes to wear.”

“Meera, stop it. I—”

“Oh look, there’s Russ. I need to speak to him about the away missions. I’ve put my name on the list. Stay and keep Flo company will you, Bob?” She disentangled herself from Slicker’s arm, then, horror, began to wrap it around Florence’s waist before running off in the direction of a small crowd on the far side of the viewing area.

Slicker looked as uncomfortable as Florence felt, and removed his arm, though he at least had the good grace to remove it by gradual steps, and not as though he’d just discovered that his arm had strayed into a vat of acid.

“That wasn’t very diplomatic of her,” said Slicker. “Maybe you’d like the chance to get your own back? Are there any… secrets, about Meera that you’d like to pass on?”

Florence thought about it. That Meera had an insatiable appetite for men, all men, did not seem the kind of secret Slicker was looking for. Florence longed for something, anything, she could use to tie the two together and get them both out of her life. She thought about what she knew already about Slicker himself: his thing with plants and painting them, and his wanting to discover his family roots. Then there was his obsession with Meera herself. The first two didn’t work, the latter item was good, but not something she felt she could bring up in relaxed conversation.

So she switched the conversation to the work they’d done.

“I’m not happy about the HS team sending out all the kestrels,” she said.

Slicker waved a dismissive hand. “Q has to have his show. Who am I to deny him?”

“But what if something goes wrong?”

“Like what? What can go wrong?”

“The kestrels don’t power up. They explode in the hangar. They fly off into space.”

“Nah, there are fail-safes. Nothing to worry about. You did the coding for both planets. When the kestrels are so many kilometres out, the engines fire. That’s all there is to it. Q just copied the numbers over to all the other ships and added something of his own for pizazz. You worry too much. Even if they fly off into space...” He waved it off. “They won’t, but if they did, then we’d just wait until they run out of fuel then send the Eddie Stobart out to bring them back. Relax, Florence. Just enjoy the show.”

Florence became fixated on the part where Slicker had mentioned kilometres. Yes, of course she knew that in space distances are measured in kilometres, not miles. Everyone knew that. Miles were for ground-based measurements. A stupid inconsistency that had plagued the Space Corps forever. The Hubble rule, people called it, but nobody knew who or what it referred to. She had used kilometres, hadn’t she? The back of her neck began to tingle and feel hot, and a lump came to her throat, forcing her to repeatedly swallow. She must have used kilometres, because Slicker had checked. He’d ticked her workings with a pencil, like being in school, and she remembered expecting a B minus and a “must try harder” comment. But he hadn’t done anything of the sort, so the numbers were good. Of course they were.

She edged away from him, slowly so that it didn’t look like she was fleeing, and found a nice form-fitting i-matter seat. A good place to sit and worry.

The chair moved on gimbals, and rotated Florence so she could look straight down into the hangar. She glanced over at Slicker, who was working the room, collecting accolades.

The hangar doors began to slide open, and the sound effects went into a long fade to nothing, because the ballet of twenty ships was most impressive when performed in silence. Q knew his art. He knew all about less is more.

The ships rose a few centimetres, lifted by hydraulics. They turned together, ninety degrees clockwise. Florence knew this part. She’d written it. Okay, she’d written it for one ship, not for the whole kestrel fleet, but she had to concede it was impressive in a spooky kind of way.

The hangar doors were wide open now. They revealed an expanse of stars the full length of the hangar below, and a back-lit horizon. Little Pinky. Florence’s name for the planet would have to do, she thought, until someone came up with a better one.

A countdown began, starting from sixty. The countdown was unnecessary and not even traditional as the Queen Isabella III ran on Baikonur rules. But the Hollywood Space team had their own rules, which were: dramatic tension trumps practicality.

They got this wrong, for once. Sixty seconds was too long, at least for Florence. She became fidgety. People began to rekindle their conversations.

But at thirty seconds the chatter in the room faded. The clink of glasses stopped. Those with anything to say spoke in whispers. From ten seconds a voice-over began to accompany the large digital displays. A mellifluous baritone voice, filled with gravitas and portent, delivering each number with a deliberation that seemed to slow the passage of time.

At “THREE” a business-like female voice cut in with, “All explosive bolts primed.”

“TWO.”

“ONE.”

“RELEASE.”

There was a thunderous clunk and a deep hissing sound, felt in the chest and gut more than heard. The twenty ships, in perfect synchronisation, dropped. The hangar was on the outside of the wheel and so the ships were flung outward by the rotational forces. But they looked and acted as though they’d been dropped.

For the moment there was no secondary countdown – Q was going for surprise – so Florence had to provide her own.

One. Two. Three.

On four, right on cue, the main engines fired on ships one, three, five, etc. Then two seconds later the even-numbered ships did a smart one-eighty-degree revolution before their own main-engine burn. The first burn was for the orbital injection to Old Blue Eyes, the more distant planet. The second was for the Little Pinky fleet, to drop them out of orbit and down into the planet’s atmosphere. Each burn came with tooth-rattling noise – the work of the effects team. Even the words “burn” and “fired” were misleading. The glow from the back of each ship would be colder than space itself.

Both fleets of kestrels were now mere dots to the naked eye, but three screens had lowered, one each for video coverage from cameras within the scout ships themselves, and the third showed a holographic map giving the planned flight path in green, with the actual location of each ship as a pulsating neon-blue dot that crept along the dotted tracks.

Someone began to applaud, and the cheers were picked up around the gallery. Champagne corks popped and the drinking resumed in earnest. Florence didn’t cheer. She watched the display. The injection burn would continue for some minutes, but Flo still had a nagging worry about when the engines were supposed to cut out. She looked again at the screen above, and she saw that the little neon-blue dots were right on the green line. She watched the video link from the Little Pinky fleet. Still firing. She crossed her fingers.

Florence tried to remember the programming. She didn’t understand this stuff at all. But in her gut she knew about flying and trajectories.

The engines cut out, and Florence felt a flicker of relief. She could see from the down-range figure that they’d cut out right on twenty-two kilometres and that was fine. She remembered the number twenty-two. But, miles or kilometres?

Up on the screen a gap began to open between the green line and the path the dots were taking. Tiny at first but widening. One or two people were pointing. The chatter in the room subsided, apart from a few booming and pompous voices, unaware that anything might be wrong.

Slicker walked over to Florence’s i-matter chair, in which she seemed to have become glued.

“Florence? Is that right?” said Slicker.

Florence said nothing. She forced a tight smile, gripped the arms of the chair and felt sick.

“It’s the chart,” said Slicker. “Chart’s wrong. The flight plan is fine.”

“Ballistic re-entry,” came a voice on Florence’s other side. It was a big commando who seemed to have Meera attached like a fashion accessory.

“Entry,” said Meera.

They all looked at her.

“It can’t be re-entry, because they haven’t been there before. So it’s just entry. Ballistic entry.”

“All of a sudden you know rocketry?” said the commando. “Spaceflight and navigation and everything?”

Meera, as senior navigation officer, might have taken some offence at this, thought Florence. But Meera just giggled and gave the commando a playful slap. “Oh, Russ, you’re funny,” she said. Florence didn’t think Russ was funny at all.

The camera feed from the ship at the tail end of the convoy was crystal clear and showed each of the other nine ships strung out ahead. As each ship hit the atmosphere, one at a time, it blossomed into a ruby-coloured ball of fire.

“That’s normal,” shouted Slicker, his voice sounding weak and uncertain. “Normal conditions. Looks more spectacular than it is.”

“There are bits breaking off,” said someone nearby.

“Ablative shield,” said Slicker. “Hot bits come off, but the ships are fine.”

“They’re kestrels,” said the commando called Russ. “They don’t have much of a shield.” He left a dramatic pause, then said, “And bits shouldn’t break off.”

“You seem to know a lot about spaceships for a commando.”

“I’ve flown. I have an astronaut’s licence. So, yeah. I know stuff. I know what parts of a ship are not supposed to break off.”

“Hmph,” said Slicker.

From the speakers came the sound of crackling and hissing, and a deep and ominous sustained pedal. The floor beneath their feet began vibrating again. The sound man had abandoned the buffet and drinks and had retaken his place at the keyboard, a sausage roll clamped between his teeth. He improvised like a maniac, and it seemed he had a pretty good feel for what was coming next. His timing was late though. The room shook with thunder a full second after the first ship fragmented into streamers of fire, then flickered out. About fifteen seconds later the second ship exploded. The FX man nailed it this time. He even added lighting effects within the viewing gallery to give the death of the kestrels some more immediacy. As each of the remaining ships succumbed, he refined and perfected his improvised FX routine.

The last ship was different. The last ship was the camera ship. The screen began to glow cherry red, and there was a clashing and rattling and screaming sound, then...

The screen went black.

And silent.

The man was an artist, no question.

In the gallery, too. Silence.

“Okay,” said Slicker. “Florence, we still have ten kestrels. How about we reprogram five of them to come back to Little Pinky?”

“No need,” said Florence. “Look.”

Nobody had been watching the other display. Not quite so interesting. The other ten kestrels wouldn’t be reaching Blue Eyes for another day or so. But up on the display the tracks of the ten little dots had also diverged from their assigned path.

“Oh. Right. That doesn’t look good, does it?” said Slicker.

“How long was the burn?” asked Russ, the commando.

Flo shrugged, but Russ wasn’t looking at her, he was looking at Slicker, the man who’d garnered all the praise and warm regards.

“Not long enough,” said Russ, answering his own question. “That’s not a transfer orbit. They’ve been pushed into a long elliptical orbit around Little Pinky.”

They watched in silence for a while.

“Looks good, though,” said the commando. “They’ll swing in close. A decent glide re-entry. Entry,” he corrected, looking down at Meera, who was still wrapped around his chest. “I’m thinking the first ten ships, they were the ones that should have gone out to Blue Eyes. But they were pointing the wrong way when the burn started. Yes?”

Slicker grabbed the lifeline. “Absolutely,” he said. “Damn HS section, monkeying around with the programming just to get a good show.”

Florence said nothing. She was thinking Russ was wrong. The burn on both sets of kestrels was wrong. That the second group seemed to be gliding into the atmosphere of Little Pinky on a cool, copybook incision, was nothing more than serendipitous good fortune. For now.

They watched the video link. The line of ships began to glow pink as they took the shallow route down. They were losing velocity at a careful and easy rate. Soon they would be flying aerodynamically, splitting off to encircle the planet on predetermined search patterns. It looked good. If this worked maybe people might forget about the other ten ships that were now metallic ash.

The ships entered cloud. The view became boring. After ten minutes or so interest among the revellers began to wane. Laughter and drinking and munching. Only Florence remained transfixed by the view of nothing.

Then wispy tendrils and the occasional glimpse of red. And green. Was that green? Vegetation?

The audience were back.

The scout emerged from the cloud. There was red soil, and yes, green patches. There was the glitter of distant ocean, or lakes, behind the mountains. Mountains. Straight ahead. Towering, vertical cliffs. The audience cheers turned to groans as the first scout ship slammed into the side of the mountain. A few seconds, then the next. No sound effects. Silence.

“Manual override,” shouted Russ. “We need to climb. Where’s the manual override?”

Florence looked at Slicker. Slicker flapped his arms up and down at his sides like a flightless bird.

The third ship drilled into the mountain.

“I...” he said. Then, “We...” bringing Florence into ownership. “We just code the things. We don’t fly them.”

Florence thought, but I could. I could fly one. If I knew where the controls were. It all seemed straightforward. The ships weren’t hitting the mountain near the base, they were quite high. A degree right or left would avoid the central peak. Easy.

The fifth ship hit the mountain. This time there was sound. Very realistic. A thundering explosion. Was this real sound or FX? Hard to tell.

Ship number six. Kaboom!

At this rate they might actually destroy the top of the mountain before the last ship arrived.

Boom!

No, the mountain was resilient.

Ships eight and nine showed finer detail because now the camera ship was much closer.

Ship ten had a view of only mountain and smoke. There was a charred patch on the cliff-side where the previous nine ships had died. A target shooter would have been well pleased with the tight clustering. Ship ten went straight in and the video screen went blank. There was a fine rumbling explosion. So, it was FX. There should have been no sound for the last scout ship. There was nothing left on which to record it.

14

The plant was a Dracaena, about three feet tall with long slender leaves and a distinctive yellow and red variegation. A fitting species for Levison, thought Slicker. Named for a dragon, albeit a female.

Bob Slicker stood a little distance away in a dark corner of Levison’s stateroom, trying to be invisible. He was in no hurry to speak. He waited while Levison watered the plant and removed dust from the leaves with a damp cloth. Some of the leaves had turned brown and fallen off. Levison collected these and dropped them into the recycler. Slicker thought of the extra food, or water, or oxygen, they could have brought along instead of this plant. Levison wouldn’t even know what the plant was called. It was here for status, that was all. He had a plant because it was preposterous that anyone should bring along a house plant. But he was Levison, and Levison could bring along anything he liked.

“You lost all our scout ships,” said Levison, his voice low and conversational. He didn’t look up from his ministrations as he spoke.

Slicker did not give an answer. None seemed required.

“So, what should I do with you?”

Again Slicker didn’t speak.

“I, myself, am assuming line management responsibilities for the three committees. I can trust no one. You will accompany the away team down to Little Pinky. Commander Kurasov will be in charge. You will answer to him. You will also report to me on matters of security. I trust neither him nor you with this task but, again, I have no other options. You will not return to the Queen Isabella III until you have established a self-sustaining ground base. Priority will be to acquire a source of fuel for the Queen Isabella III. The Queen must be maintained in a state of readiness for our eventual return to the Sphere. I will return to the Sphere, Bob. Perhaps I will allow you to return with me. Perhaps.”

Slicker nodded. The away team. He knew what that meant. Not all the kestrels had been lost. They had started with twenty-two. Twenty had been operational, but were now gone. Of the two remaining, one was just a test bed, a frame with a place to strap an engine and a cage where you could hang a couple of crash dummies.

So that left Kestrel Thirteen.

People had died on Kestrel Thirteen. Three people. Three separate incidents. All had taken place when the kestrel was secured and powered-down in the maintenance bay. In fact Kestrel Thirteen had never been out of the maintenance bay. She was a jinxed craft. She had never flown. And here was Levison, suggesting, no, instructing, Slicker to climb aboard fleet number thirteen, with twelve other hapless crew, and try to do what the space-worthy kestrels had failed to do: make a safe landing on Little Pinky.

The kestrels were designed for thirteen crew: pilot, co-pilot, engineer and ten passengers. But they only ever flew with twelve. Superstition. Now Kestrel Thirteen, the unlucky ship, was to fly with thirteen souls. If they had parked the ship under a ladder and brought in a black cat or two to cross their path, the portents could not have been worse. They’d be doing well to even get past the hangar doors. Slicker opened his mouth to ask who his unfortunate crew-mates would be, then closed it again. They wouldn’t live long enough to get to know one another.

“When do I leave?” he asked, instead.

“Now. The kestrel is being fuelled and provisioned. You are to report to Commander Kurasov. Bon voyage, Bob.”

Slicker thought there was sadness in Levison’s voice. A hint of regret. In the past, when Levison sent a person outside to face certain death, there had been glee in his voice. Slicker had known Martin Levison since childhood. They had grown up together as feral strays amongst the ventilator shafts on the Ring. In all that time Levison had shown neither loyalty nor affection to anyone. Yet there had always been a tentative bond between the pair of them, and Lord knew, Slicker had provided Levison with enough opportunities for him to grow weary of their association over the years.

“Right then,” said Slicker. He turned and stepped through the dilating door, out of the stateroom, on legs of scrap iron, pinned by rusty and unlubricated carriage bolts. It could have been worse, he thought. Any other crew member might have found himself floating in space in just his Y-fronts for less than what Slicker had been blamed for doing today. Instead he was taking a trip in Thirteen. Was there any difference? No. Just timing.

15

This was a real launch. Russ Kurasov wanted none of that Hollywood Space nonsense. He had banished Q from the hangar deck. Q had argued. He had threatened to go to Levison. But even Q was unwilling to go so far for his art. So he sulked and left Lieutenant Commander Kurasov in charge of “Mission Most Boring”.

Apart from that thing they sometimes used as a test bed, Kestrel Thirteen was all they had left. Kestrel Thirteen, the ship that never flew. The ship that killed.

The engineers were cautious. The last death had occurred back in the Fomalhaut yards during a routine electrical inspection when an apprentice sparks had got himself all tangled up in the aft wiring loom. He’d been missing for over a week, a week during which his colleagues had a rota for sharing his unclaimed desserts in the mess room. Then, on spotted dick night, a year-one apprentice called Geraldine went against the wishes of the others and reported him missing. Geraldine didn’t much like spotted dick. It took a further week of searching to locate the missing sparks.

Thirteen had, over her short life, strangled, fried, electrocuted and poisoned her victims. She was an unlucky ship. A mean ship. Nobody wanted to work on her, let alone fly her.

Except Russ Kurasov. To Kurasov, taming the beast was a challenge. He would fly that bitch down to a safe landing even if it killed him. He selected ten crew. An eleventh volunteered, Meera Elyss. Then there was Kurasov himself, and another, foisted on him, the oily guy who’d been instrumental in burning up the rest of the kestrels. The one who used to be in charge, but not any more. So Kurasov had thirteen crew. He accepted the attendant bad luck by supposing most of the fate would fall on that thirteenth, unwelcome, crew member. He certainly had a propensity for attracting misfortune in bucketfuls, so far.

Russ Kurasov loved this life. Adversity, lost in space, stacked odds, tension, conflict. Above all it was escape. Life had become wearisome for Kurasov, back in the Sphere. He grew up in the Fomalhaut System, on Joule, the only planet. Joule was a high-gravity world that spawned heat-resistant tough bastards. Kurasov was one of the toughest. Buzz-cut hair, steel-grey eyes, and muscle definition that would impress a geologist. He’d moved to Tsanak in his teens, worked in various security forces before joining the Space Corps, but then had acquired expensive tastes in 200 mph ZG Cycles. His were specials, modified with their heat shields removed to improve power-to-weight ratios and torque delivery, with the by-product that it kept his expensive machines secure, as few others could withstand the ferocious high temperatures when piloting them.

But Kurasov’s debts mounted. Ex-military security specialists do not command the rates of pay afforded to those in the finance or entertainment sectors, so Kurasov heeded some expert financial advice and sold shares in himself. Only twenty percent, to begin with. Kurasov soon owned only four-fifths of himself. The other fifth was owned by a single share-holder, a teenage pop singer called The Angel Flurr.

Their arrangement worked well in principle. Flurr possessed him for five and a half hours per day, average (the deal was netted over four-week months) and the other twenty-two hours of each day were Kurasov’s, for him to do with as he pleased, and the sale of the shares effectively cleared his debt. The kicker came in the small print and in the unexpected uses that Flurr made of him. The four week netting-off period, controlled by Flurr, allowed her to skip any number of days, which she then insisted he make up in service before the designated four-week period concluded. So Kurasov found himself a free man for many days, but then facing many consecutive days of slavery. Kurasov assumed The Angel Flurr would utilise his strongest skills, and this she did. She needed security. But her idea of a security specialist was to have Kurasov’s body shaved and oiled, then have him appear with her in music videos wearing nothing but a gold thong and a leather studded collar and leash. Kurasov was not even permitted to be embarrassed, because during these times he was the property of The Angel Flurr, and overt embarrassment was a breach of contract.

Kurasov sold his cycles (though first he had to pay to reinstall the heat shields) then he tried to buy back his own shares. But Flurr’s canny use of his abilities had inflated his worth and converted him into a property of considerable value. The sale of his cycles was not even enough to buy back one percent of his own shares. So he put in extra hours. He accrued a large balance of his own time and when he had enough time available he signed on as a mercenary on a one-off contract that would pay enough to buy back ten percent. He joined Levison’s adventure into space.

His spirits reached new depths when he came aboard the crew ship with his commando unit and discovered the battle carrier had been fitted out as a flying office complex. The mission seemed more like a corporate takeover than an invasion. His protests about not having enough space to drill his men were met with disdain. Why do you need to train? There will be no resistance. You have to defeat farmers and tree-huggers. There will be no combat. The invasion is a formality. Your troops are coming to harvest the trees.

And that was the scope of the campaign. They would be deployed as lumberjacks. There were no trees in the Sphere of Influence, so nobody could remember how to lumberjack. Now, apparently, there were trees and the Space Corps were in the market for some of the old skills. And if old skills were unavailable, they did what they always did: call the army.

Now the situation was different. The farmers and tree-huggers had defeated the mighty invasion force in less than a micro-second. Surely that was a record that would stand for all time. They were lost. This was the wild frontier. They needed strength and initiative.

They needed commandos.

Russ didn’t want anyone finding a way home. Home was servitude. Home was prison. Out here, this was living. Kurasov’s life was his own once more. He did not want to return to the Sphere. In fact he couldn’t. A few more months and The Angel Flurr would own him one hundred percent. Okay, that would be pretty much illegal, but Flurr was a celebrity. Since when did the niceties of the law apply to celebs, at least while they remained popular? No, this life was good enough for Kurasov. He had no wish ever to return.

“Crew ready for inspection, sir!”

“Carry on, Wilkes.”

Russ stepped over to where his unit were formed into a line. Disciplined. Tight. At the far end, though, cluttering up the aesthetic, was the Man of Oil. Slicker. Kurasov gave a nod. He set his jaw in a hard and uncompromising expression. He would enjoy this, by God. Now he was in charge. There would be no room for buffoons in his army.

“Mr Slicker.”

“Kurasov. It seems I’m joining—”

“Attention!”

The line of troops, already standing tall, seemed to elevate another couple of inches. They thrust out their chests and chins. Slicker just looked startled.

“Mr Slicker, you will address me as ‘Sir’. Is that clear?”

“Well, I—”

“Is that clear, Mr Slicker?”

“Okay, sir, then.”

“With commitment, Mr Slicker. Demonstrate, please, Ms Forrest.”

“Sir!” shouted the woman next to Slicker.

“Now then, Mr Slicker. Shall we try again?”

“Sir.” The word was spoken and grudging. Bob Slicker was sulking about his recent relegation down to the ranks.

“Sergeant Smith.”

“Sir!”

“Our new recruit, Mr Slicker, will be needing to see some of your charm and sympathetic people skills. He is in need of some discipline. He is in need of a little breaking in. Something real to sulk about? See to it, please, Sergeant.”

“Sir! Yes, sir!”

Kurasov was almost disappointed not to have the pleasure of breaking him himself. It would be fun. He couldn’t go too far, of course. Slicker was a civilian. But this was not the Sphere. Discipline was necessary. Let Sergeant Smith have a little fun.

Kurasov walked back down the line of troops to where the other civilian waited. This one was far more decorative.

“Glad to see you with the away team, Meera. I’ll have one of the men load your kit onto the kestrel. You will, of course, join me in the cabin for the flight?”

“Aw, Russ, you’re not going to have your sergeant discipline me?” said Meera, with a smile.

“Oh, no,” said Kurasov. “I’ll take that as my personal responsibility.”

16

Slicker handed his kit bag to a techie who took it to be stowed in the hold of the Killer Kestral. He carried it one-handed. Slicker’s life condensed down to a canvas sack that weighed less than three days’ laundry. In fact, apart from a couple of bits and pieces, three days’ laundry was exactly what was inside.

The troops turned and marched towards the ship. Slicker dragged his feet and slouched. Yes, he could march, he knew what he was supposed to do, stamp about and swing his arms, but he was not one of Russ Kurasov’s grunts and he had no intention of acting like one. His demotion, he had no doubt, was temporary, and once he resumed a position of authority, he would make sure that Kurasov and the insufferable Sergeant Smith were paid back in full. Naïve of them to imagine any other possible outcome.

Meera was ahead. She crawled through the hatch and turned left towards the pilot’s cabin. Interesting. Her presence on this trip had come as an unexpected surprise. Why was she here? Had Levison added her to the punishment roster, too? Was she also implicated in the twenty-kestrel catastrophe? She should be. After all, that Florence girl was no more than one of Meera’s staff. Her only staff. Meera had to accept some culpability, just like him.

Meera would tire of the Neanderthal, Kurasov, over time, of this Slicker felt certain. Then she would realise who was actually running things both up here and down on Little Pinky. Down there, under conditions of true adversity, she would see Slicker for what he was, a leader of men.

“Come on, move it!” barked Sergeant Smith, with a prod from his rifle butt.

Slicker continued up the loading ramp, through the small hatch, into which he had to crawl. He shuffled to the right through the cramped space into the main cabin, where the soldiers were settling themselves into two rows of seating, five to a side. He saw that the arrangement was five on the right, four on the left. The space on the right had only four seats because the place for the fifth seat, crew member thirteen, was always used as storage. Only now a canvas frame chair had been erected in the corner, in amongst the crates of chainsaws and other loose equipment. He knew, with tedious inevitability, that he, Slicker, would travel in the thirteenth seat.

Well, what did he care? He wasn’t superstitious, or at least not very. Okay, so he would never turn the volume control on his ground-car stereo to thirteen, but that was no different to anybody else, right?

The canvas seat was not enticing. It looked like a camp seat. There was a steel frame and, well, canvas. With rope loops. He eased into the contraption with caution, and with all the elegance of a first-time hammock-user. It creaked and groaned under his weight, and this did not bode well. The position of the hangar deck, being away from the rim of Queen Isabella III, meant there was only a little less than half a gee here. When they hit the atmosphere of Little Pinky the telemetry from the ill-fated scouting mission suggested they would be facing four or five gees for upwards of two minutes. Of course the trajectory of that mission had been far from optimal, but still...

Slicker looked at his comrades. Their seats were square and bulky, and as each commando settled, a sensor began adjusting for optimal support. Then, with a hiss and a whiff of solvents, quick-setting foam was injected into the outer lining to give a perfect body-formed fit. Those seats were so comfortable some of the commandos had already succumbed to sleep. Slicker’s seat, in contrast, was constructed from rods and spikes that delivered pressure to every sensitive part of Slicker’s anatomy: his hips, his kidneys, behind his knees and elbows, between his shoulder blades, on the point of each shoulder blade. Already he was wriggling and squirming. Just above his head a ton of loose equipment was stacked, secured by dodgy-looking webbing and half-engaged metal clasps that looked ready to spring loose and take an eye out.

Slicker had been given a commando’s desert-kit helmet, graphene coated, designed to stop bullets. He decided that now would be a good time to wear it. He cinched the chin-strap and closed the visor, and he noticed how the back of the helmet, just across his neck, managed to catch the edge of the seat in a way that couldn’t have been more irritating if a team of designers had given up their evenings and weekends to engineer ultimate discomfort into the arrangement.

There was a lateral nudge, then a dropping sensation. They were under way, and the hatch wasn’t even closed yet. This defied all safety protocols. What about checklists and countdowns? What about Go/No Go from EECOMs and FIDOs? Where was the ceremonial Russian to pee on the undercarriage? This all had the makings of a rush-job, of that Kurasov guy showing off to the girl in the co-pilot seat, to his Meera.

“This seat is a bit dicky,” Slicker announced, to anyone who’d listen. “Who rigged it? It’s creaking a bit.”

“Seat’s fine,” said the commando across the aisle, on his right. Tanya. One of the three women soldiers. She spoke with a deep and weary tone in her voice. “It looks flimsy. Just don’t puncture the fabric and it’ll take a couple of tons of gee. Your scrawny body’ll break long before the seat.”

“What if I puncture it?”

“Just don’t, okay? It’s like that food wrap, you know? The kind that’s impossible to get inside until you cut it? But then it’s useless because the integrity’s all shot to hell?”

“Yeah.”

“So don’t stick it with anything pointy. Like your elbows.”

Slicker looked above his head at the rack filled with rifles and knives and rolls of barbed wire.

The hatch closed with a hiss and a clunk. Once again there was a nudge through Slicker’s seat. No announcements. Nothing. He wondered what was happening outside. Were they ready to launch?

Then the bottom fell out of his world.

It wasn’t as though Slicker was unused to zero-gee. He lived in a real world of ZG lifts and hangchambers. But when ZG kicked in without warning, it still managed to startle, and an involuntary cry escaped from his lips.

“Whoa!” he shouted.

The other commandos looked over at him with expressions of disdain. A newbie. A dweeb. What was he doing out here? What was he doing with them? Slicker supposed most of them had no clue that he had once been the main man, that he had coordinated, masterminded and financed this whole sorry enterprise. To them he was no more than a civvy, come along for the ride.

Slicker ignored them all and tried to relax. At least for the moment he could ignore the discomfort, although even in zero-gee there were things sticking into him that shouldn’t, mainly the restraining shoulder and lap belts that seemed to work like bacon slicers. The soldiers didn’t speak to him, nor to each other. Some occupied themselves by playing with their weapons, dismantling and reassembling. Why they needed weapons on an uninhabited planet was a mystery to Slicker. He assumed that, to a soldier, the act of stripping down and rebuilding a gun was a little like playing with worry beads.

Then came the vibration. Gradual at first, but building. The first tendrils of Little Pinky’s atmosphere began to have an effect on the ship. So, Kestrel Thirteen had set a new endurance record for herself. She’d already done this just by getting through the hangar door. But now the stakes were raised. Kestrel Thirteen would soon be flying through an environment of substance. Her wings would be cutting into soupy air and trying hard to support the mass of her fuselage without dropping off. Her heat shield would be working to prevent a zillion degrees of roiling plasma from punching through the floor and rendering Bob Slicker’s rickety camp chair irrelevant.

The vibration moved up a notch. The kestrel bounced and rocked, thrown around like a Godzilla plaything.

After several minutes and with no sign of anything dropping off, the vibrations began to smooth and merge into a steady and determined pull. The gee forces grew. With groans and creaking protests, the structural integrity of the ship was questioned, but still she held together. Meanwhile, the structural integrity of Slicker’s camp chair was being not so much questioned, as interrogated, by neckless bald men with lead pipes. The chair felt as comfortable as a bucket of chisels. Something snapped beneath Slicker’s left buttock. Something probing and sharp. His pencil. He always carried a pencil in his back pocket. What did Tanya say about the plastic? Don’t cut or puncture it. But there was half a pencil jabbing into his backside, and if one end was sticking into his backside the other end, the pointy end, must be sticking into the seat fabric.

The seat swab didn’t rip, it just ceased to exist. One moment it was there, the next it was gone, and Slicker found himself dropped into a scaffold of harsh angles and sharp objects, a hunted animal falling into a pit of spikes. The timing was excellent. Gee forces were peaking. Cross members and spars snapped and pinged everywhere except under his knees and his back, and forced Slicker down into strange contortions until his knees were above his ears and his arse was flat on the cold steel decking. Only it wasn’t cold. Zillion-degree plasma had managed to warm the floor so it felt like sitting on a halogen hob. Slicker could smell something. The smell of trouser combustion. If he didn’t do something soon his buttocks would come out of this looking like a pair of beef burgers abandoned for too long on the griddle. He wriggled and arched his back against four gees of determination. His bottom lifted from the floor but still he hung from two rails of steel, with what felt like a night-safe balanced on his chest. If anything else cracked it would more likely be bones than chair.

The pain and discomfort went on and on, minute after minute. Slicker was not brave. He didn’t suffer these woes in silence. His cries and wails were terrible to hear. Even some of the soldiers, who had seen and heard much torment in their military careers, exchanged glances: Stop the noise. Please.

And then it was over. No, not over, but for Slicker the nature of the distress altered. A heavy impact propelled him out of his nest of pain. He landed on two of the commandos who pushed at his limp body and cursed him. Another impact, another flight, more protesting commandos. Slicker kicked and squirmed. Commandos pushed him aside once more. And then it was over. No more movement. No more sounds except the creaking and pinging of cooling metal. It could only mean one thing. They had landed.

The cabin door opened and Russ Kurasov put his head out.

“How about that for a landing?” he said. “Smooth as baby’s bum fluff. Welcome to Little Pinky.”

He flung open the hatch and they all squinted at the unfamiliar sight of blue sky, clouds and bright natural sunlight. And there was something else. The smell of the ocean.

17

The hangar felt huge with the last of the kestrels gone. The final launch had been nothing like the others. There were no sound effects, no light show. The crowd of well-wishers comprised Florence herself, and two tech crew. Real tech crew. No greasy rags and dramatic home-run slides under doors. They pressed a few buttons and sent Kestrel Thirteen out into the void. Florence watched alone from the viewing gallery, with no accompanying buffet and no band. And when the kestrel had gone, they closed the hangar doors, re-pressurised, and retracted the transparent floor. The hangar was empty; the biggest space Florence had seen since she’d left Tsanak and joined the fleet. She walked around, her heavy boots clanging and echoing on the deck.

She felt lonely. It was a strange feeling, because she’d felt lonely ever since she had come aboard, so why was this any different? There was nobody here she liked, nobody she could relate to. Who was missing? Just a bunch of soldiers Florence had never even met, and Meera and Kurasov. And Bob Slicker. These were people she would not miss. Kurasov was an ape. Meera and Slicker had stitched her up. How many times was she supposed to tell them that she knew nothing about coding an orbital mechanical route amongst planets in a system she had never heard of before? She’d told Meera, and Meera knew her background. She knew that Florence was new to the navigation game. And she’d told Slicker, who’d shrugged and said he’d check her work, then had just ticked a couple of columns with that stupid pencil.

And they blamed her. Sure, nobody was saying it outright. No pointy fingers, as Slicker liked to say. But they didn’t need pointy fingers. Florence could tell. She could read it in their eyes. She could tell from their body language. The fact that right now she was here, alone, in the largest enclosed single space in the whole battle fleet. That told her they blamed her. She’d never had friends in the Space Corps. She’d barely had acquaintances. Now she had enemies. People who looked at her and said, “There goes the girl who lost us in the far reaches of the galaxy with no hope of return. We can’t jail her. We can’t punish her. But we sure as hell don’t have to be nice to her.”

She wanted to go home. She wanted her mum and dad, and Kaydence. Oh, and yes, her fiancé. What would he do now? Would he marry someone else? Florence felt sure he would. And why was this the first time she had thought about him in weeks? How come she thought about him as her fiancé and not as... erm, Doug? She had paused. Wow, this was her stream of consciousness, and she had paused while her memory circuits had to search for his name and slot it into the blank space. She’d forgotten Doug’s name. What did that mean? Did she love Doug? Of course she did. And she wanted to be there, with him, going through the last preparations for their wedding. The chances of that ever happening were even more remote than they had been just yesterday. And whose fault was it?

She kicked a hose locking ring, lying in her way, and it rolled and clattered across the deck. What was she saying? Would she be happy if the remaining kestrel augered into the soil of Little Pinky leaving no trace of Meera or the Slicker creature, save for some dark spots of burnt carbon on the ground? Of course not. She would never wish anything like that on a person. But did she wish them well? Did she hope they had a wonderful time together down there on the planet? And did she hope they would come back and fill the empty space that seemed to have opened up in her vacuum of a life? No, not at all.

She worried that her thoughts were turning vindictive. This was not like her. She needed to occupy her mind. They’d relieved her of her navigational duties. So what? She wouldn’t go crying about it, because she was never a navigator, and besides, crying was a thing she never ever did. But she had to do something – something she loved. She had to fly.

She looked up at the cavernous hangar roof. She looked at the trusses that supported the roof high above her head. And she thought, yes. This is the place. I can do this. I can do it here. I can build a trapeze rig and I can fly.

She searched around the hangar looking for things she could use. She would recognise them if she saw them. She picked up the hose ring she’d kicked away and hefted it. In a corner: braided hose. What else? Carbon fibre tubing. ‘U’ clamps and bolts. She gave the hosing an experimental flick. There were yards of the stuff. They wouldn’t be needing it now, would they? There were no kestrels left to refuel.

Florence lashed the hose to her belt and began to climb up one of the support girders, hand over hand, a fluid and practised motion. Already this felt good. It felt right.

Doing what felt right was a principle that had guided Florence since childhood. Her parents were academics and Florence grew up on the campus of the University of Catalonia, near Tsanak. Both parents were distracted most of the time by their specialisations. Her father, Winchell McConnachie, was an entomologist specialising in high-temperature Joulian moths, and his studies often took him to Joule, in the Fomalhaut system, for months at a time. (In truth, Winchell McConnachie’s passion, as a student, had been for words. His interest in insects only developed after he signed up for what he thought was the university’s Etymological Society. He’d been to three meetings before he realised the spelling error on the flyer.)

Florence’s mother was Diamontina Arriaga, a scholar of Medieval Spanish history. When she went on research expeditions it was to the surreal and cavernous library vaults, deep below Dali Hall. Her isolation was such that she might as well have been moth hunting with her husband, in a star system far away.

So Florence, for the most part, was brought up by her parents’ friend, Kaydence Wilson, a drama professor. Kaydence had eleven children of her own, so barely noticed the addition of an extra one. To Florence, it was as though she had acquired brothers and sisters. She missed them all, and unlike her fiancé, she had no difficulty recalling their names and putting faces to each.

Florence loved Kaydence as much as she loved her own parents. Like them, Kaydence was a free spirit and would never do anything to stifle the imaginations of her children.

On one of the few occasions when Florence had opened up to Meera, she had told her at length about the time when Kaydence took them to see the circus.

“Kaydence was wonderful,” said Florence. “She loved to wear flowing gypsy skirts and she never wore shoes. She never walked, she danced. No single movement of her body was wasted. There was expression in everything.”

“I can see it rubbed off,” said Meera. “You’re not one for small movements, yourself, are you?”

Florence waved her hands and began a twirl, then stopped when she realised Meera was making fun of her. What was wrong with it? It was one of her mannerisms, that’s all. Perhaps she did get that from Kaydence. For a while the thought made her self-conscious, but within minutes she was skipping and dancing as she spoke, once again.

“Kaydence got us all together. I was five, I think. Not the youngest, that would be Nikki, who was three. Then there were the twins who were nearly my age, and the others went up in short increments to Banyan, who was our big brother. He’d have been about fifteen, I guess.

“Anyway, Kaydence had this thing. She’d clap her hands and start to twirl, and we all knew to make a circle around her because she had important things to say. Kaydence would spin around until all twelve of us were in place. A perfect circle because her skirt would swing out and we all liked to get just close enough to let it brush our faces.

“‘Today we are going to the circus,’ she said. ‘Do you know what I mean by the circus?’

“I didn’t know. Banyan and some of the older ones nodded and got excited, and it was infectious and soon we were all jumping up and down. We each packed a little bag with sandwiches and drinks, and we lined up in twos and headed for the tram station into New Leicester.

“The circus was the real deal. A ring marked out with straw bales. A big striped tent. Sawdust made from coloured polystyrene beads. We sat on benches and Kaydence stood up on one of the straw bales, just before it started, and she began to talk. Everyone listened. Not just the twelve of us. She captivated the whole audience, too. ‘This is the circus,’ she said. ‘The circus is drama. It is life reduced to its basic elements: living, dying, joy, sorrow, passion and perfection. You will see much perfection, here, today. The result of hard work, dedication and commitment. Always remember what you see here today. Always remember what true commitment and passion can yield.’

“I was only five but I remember her words as though it was yesterday. She made a big impression. I remember how she danced on that straw bale as she spoke, how her skirt swirled around her, and how she built our expectations about what we were about to see, and made it something truly special, something big and important. Everything Kaydence ever did with us was like that.

“Then the band started to play, and there was a parade with clowns and acrobats, and I loved it all. It was fun.

“And then came the flying trapeze act. Suddenly it was more than fun. Kaydence’s passion for the circus became mine. I remember, there was a girl, no more than eleven or twelve. She was tiny. She climbed the rope high into the roof of the tent. She climbed hand over hand, as easy as walking, but every move had style and grace and strength.

“She started to swing. Bigger and bigger swoops on that trapeze bar. She leapt and she flew through the air. And before she even caught the other bar, I knew what I wanted to do, what I wanted to do more than anything else. I wanted to fly.”

Meera had laughed. She thought it was funny. She pointed things out on the photos Florence had up on her wall, and she made stupid comments about the short spangled skirts she’d have to wear to perform, and how she wouldn’t look much of a trapeze artist wearing her usual cargo pants and chunky sweaters.

Florence had straight away regretted telling Meera. She’d opened up a precious corner of her heart to someone who could never appreciate what it meant to her.

“Who are the guys in tights?” she’d asked, indicating some of the pictures.

Florence had waved her off. She wouldn’t tell her any more. The “guys in tights” were her heroes. Alfredo Cordona, the first flyer to do the triple. This wasn’t actually true, the first was a woman, Lena Jordan, but Cordona was the first to do it with ease and to do it consistently. Many said that Alfredo Cordona was the handsomest man the circus had ever known. Florence couldn’t argue with that. But Lena Jordan was special to her, too. What guts and dedication it had taken to do that first triple.

Then there was Miguel Vasquez. His was the first quadruple, back in the twentieth century. Performed only on rare occasions, and never bettered, a feat believed impossible for any human. Florence could manage a triple, sometimes, but even then she did it in low-gravity conditions where the reaction times could be slower. Conditions like these, on the hangar deck of the Queen Isabella III. Yes, that would be something to restore her equanimity. The first ever triple outside the Human Sphere of Influence.

Of course, for such a feat to stand it would have to be performed. It was no good doing it alone, in training. Only live performances counted. Vasquez did his quadruple a number of times with just the family to help, but it was only that performance in 1982, in a place called Tucson, that put him in the record books.

And that got Florence thinking about family again. She needed Nikki, her surrogate little sister. Nikki was her catcher. You can’t do triples or even proper singles without a catcher. There was nobody here who could do that job. Even if she could draft in some willing soul, there was nobody she would ever trust with the job.

Florence tried to put it all from her mind and continued to work, stringing up the makeshift trapeze. Okay, so she wouldn’t be able to try for a triple, but even alone she could still fly a little. It would be something to cherish, to feel the bar in her hands once again, and to see the ground, far below.

She was ready. She gave the trapeze an experimental push. It swung out and back, and she caught the grab tape to pull it back in. She didn’t have a proper launch platform and she didn’t have a net. Her dismount would not be graceful, but so what? Who was there to see?

She jumped. She swung. She reached up her legs and hooked her feet over the bar and round the ropes. She let go with her hands and lowered her head, swinging just by her feet. The wind rushed through her hair. The deck was far below her head. This was wonderful. This was flying.

It didn’t feel right though. She wanted to try for the other bar she’d let hang, but she knew she couldn’t. There was another force at play. She could feel it with each swing. Coriolis force. It was tugging her sideways. Could she do it? Could she compensate?

Yes. What could she lose? Florence took hold of the bar with her hands once more. She built up the swings, one after another, whiplashing her legs, gaining momentum. The air roared past her ears with each powerful swoop. She focused on the other bar. She waited for the precise moment.

She leapt. She flew. And the bar... seemed to twist out of reach.

18

Kurasov set about assessing the local atmospheric conditions. Slicker expected some sort of science: tests for toxins, tests for radiation, tests for biological hazards. Instead, Kurasov opened the hatch a crack, sniffed, said it seemed okay, then flung it wide and pushed Slicker outside.

“You’re the only one not strapped in,” he said. “Go and poke around outside for a bit. See if it’s okay. When you’re happy you can give us a shout.”

Robert Slicker thus became the first human to set foot on the planet known as Little Pinky. He clambered down the ladder and, with deliberation, he made a footprint. Then he activated his comm tattoo and photographed himself making the footprint. Then he photographed the print, and his foot, and did a panoramic of the view. He put the back of his hand up to his mouth and told the phone to make an audio recording. He thought about what to say. His mind was blank.

“Go and look around,” shouted Kurasov. “Stop faffing about.”

And so it was that Robert Slicker’s first words on a new planet went into the history books.

“Piss off, Kurasov, I’m getting to it. I’m a bit sore. I need to stretch. And I’ve got half a broken pencil stuck in my ass.”

He lowered his phone tattoo and looked out at the view for the first time. He shouted his first impressions back over his shoulder to the waiting ground force.

“The soil is sandy, with a sparse herbaceous covering. Monocotyledonous graminoids, or similar. A little like sedge, or Cyperaceae.”

“What the hell? In English, Slicker.”

“Well, it’s grass. And sand dunes.”

“Thank you. Any bugs? Or anything that might make a meal of us?”

Slicker bent to examine a grass stalk.

“No, nothing I can see. There’s a range of higher dunes just ahead, and I can smell ocean.”

“Yeah, you should. I flew us in, remember. I saw the ocean. Big. And blue. Hard to miss.”

Slicker took a few steps so he could look around the body of the kestrel. The grass became denser away from the direction he guessed the ocean lay. In the far distance, rendered purple and hazy, he could see a range of mountains. Little Pinky seemed pretty much the same as Tsanak, at least the bits of Tsanak without cities.

“It seems safe enough out here,” he shouted.

Kurasov didn’t acknowledge him, he started shouting instead, and soon the soldiers were running up and down the ramp, carrying boxes and canvas bags, and piling them up on the sand. When they had unloaded the kestrel, Kurasov called the unit to attention.

“Two scouting units. Six in each. I will head up A team and Sergeant Smith will command B team. Sergeant, take your unit along the beach, north, that way, stay high on the dunes. I will take my unit south. Constant radio communication. Slicker, you will remain here and establish a base camp. Do you understand?”

“You’re asking me to put all the tents up. Yeah, okay.”

“Not asking you. It is an order. Do you know how to put up a tent?”

“Yes.” Slicker had been on a camping trip once. It was a rehabilitation exercise back when he was in prison. Good enough for a “yes”. His prison term was not a subject he wanted to get into, not with Kurasov and certainly not with Meera listening.

Slicker wondered what Meera would be doing. Would she be staying behind helping him set up the camp? This seemed the most logical thing for her to do. But before he’d had time to even savour the thought, Kurasov had divided the soldiers into two units, and Meera was the first selection for his own A unit.

“Right, we’ll aim to be back before nightfall,” said Kurasov. “It’s two hours before noon local time, so nightfall should be in about seventeen hours.”

Sergeant Smith yelled for Slicker to come over. When he did, the sergeant stood with his face about two inches from Slicker’s and when he shouted his next commands a rainstorm of spit came with the words. “Don’t wander off, Slicker! Don’t fiddle with anything in the kestrel! Set up the camp, and stay out of trouble!”

Slicker nodded. He could tell Smith was waiting for a “Yes, sir” and he was not about to supply one. “Have fun,” he said, instead.

Smith went red in the face and stomped off. Slicker guessed he would be thinking about how to handle him. From second in command to foot soldier was a monumental drop in status, and Smith had to process that before he started breaking off bits of his new recruit’s body.

Slicker followed the two units to the ridge of the high dunes. A couple of the men held back and walked with him, and when Smith wasn’t looking, one of them clapped a hand on his back and they both gave sympathetic shrugs and apologetic smiles. Slicker didn’t know the names of either of the men but realised he’d found allies. He guessed that they, also, were not best buddies with the charming Sergeant Smith. Any unfairness aimed at Slicker would only serve to help him bond with the more put-upon ranks. Perhaps, without knowing it, Kurasov had done him a favour by setting the sergeant against him.

He watched as the two units separated and quick-marched north and south. From this vantage point he could see the rolling ocean. The waves were bigger than any he’d seen before, and slower. Little Pinky had lower gravity than his home planet, Tsanak. It was always good to be on a low-gee world, though Slicker knew there would be the inevitable payback one day, once his muscles atrophied. Or would there? Perhaps this was to be his new home. So far, not so bad, he thought. The planet was pleasant enough, and now, well, maybe he’d found some friends.

Slicker noticed an emerald-green plant growing in the dunes, tight bunched leaves, almost lettuce shape. He got down on his knees to study it. It was unlike anything he’d ever seen before. Of course it was. Everything he saw growing here was going to be a new species. He had dreamed of a field trip like this, but never dared tell a soul. He pulled out the sketch book that he kept with him at all times, and recovered the remains of his pencil from his back pocket. People thought the pencil thing was an idiosyncratic quirk, a tipping of his hat to the past. Not at all. The pencil was for sketching. It was only a quick field sketch. He knew not to take too long over it; he certainly didn’t want to antagonise Kurasov and the others any more by having them come back to tents that were still in the bags. The sun felt warm on his back. Down amongst the vegetation there was a not-unpleasant smell of growing things, and Slicker thought how, in hindsight, this was working out much better than he had anticipated. This unprepossessing little leaf plant might be the one, the plant they’d call... what would they call the lettuce-like species? Lactuca sativa slickerii. Yes. It had a noble ring to it. Life on Little Pinky could be good. Levison was out of his life, at least for the moment. He could get used to this existence. This was perhaps something akin to the life he had dreamed of in those long dark days living in the air conditioning of the Ring.

He finished the picture and uprooted a promising specimen with the intention of sketching a dissection later. He straightened his creaking back and looked around. Okay. This would be a fine place for a camp. High ground, overlooking the sea. He visualised how the camp would look. Here was his opportunity to impress. The two units would find it hard, marching up and down the dunes for seventeen hours. They would be pleased to come back to a camp that was homely, welcoming and light; with a hot meal bubbling away on a campfire.

The dunes were the best place for the tents. A fine view of the sea. Soft sand for comfort. A little further along the coast he could see a pond set in the greenery. A pond meant water. Always good to place a camp near to convenient potable water. He could position the self-rooting bowser there and then site the tents opposite.

The cooking area should be on the beach. It would be good to have a campfire blazing on the beach. The sound of the waves breaking. Excellent. And far away from the latrine, which he wanted downwind of the camp to avoid unpleasant smells, a trench dug deep into the firmer soil of the grassy plain. It would be the perfect camp. Every aspect considered. Slicker began dragging the tent bags, two at a time, up onto the dunes. He was excited to start work.

The ground needed a little prep first, because there were pebbles and seaweed strewn around, and he didn’t want anyone finding they had a pebble sticking in their backs in the middle of the night, and the seaweed was unsightly and spoilt the ordered look of the camp. The tents were semi-intelligent, self-erecting, and went up at the flick of a switch. Each seemed to align itself in the wrong direction though. You’d think they were doing it on purpose, thought Slicker. Odds must favour at least half of them pointing the right way, but it was a minor inconvenience to turn each unit to give the desired sea-view. The sand was soft and he didn’t even need a mallet to drive in the pegs, he just pushed each one in with the heel of his boot. He closed one eye and aligned the tents in straight lines. Perfect.

Outside each tent he placed a kit bag, one for each commando, not so much to be helpful, but to ensure that Meera’s kit bag and tent were next to his, and far away from the Neanderthal, Kurasov’s.

Amongst the equipment they had removed from the kestrel he found a set of powerful lamps on telescopic pylons, and he positioned these at the four corners of the camp to add to the cosy atmosphere and to provide that sense of security. The batteries were heavy and there were eight of them, but he managed to drag them along the grass, below the dunes, and get them close enough to connect into the wiring ring. He also found a box with what looked like a generator. It was in kit form, though, and he didn’t trust himself to assemble it himself, so he unpacked the components with care and stacked them on the beach near the food prep area, where he’d installed two more of the heavy lights on pylons. Also on the beach were two long, open-sided tents that he decided must be the mess tents, and into these he placed two long cases that he guessed were i-matter seating matrices. A flick of a switch and they sprung to life, forming bench-like seating, but which were more sofa-like in their apparent comfort. Knowing all about the properties of i-matter seating, however, he elected to leave it to the troops to have first dibs on electrocution.

The camp was looking good. Next up was the bowser. Slicker had been looking forward to this. He’d seen one in action before and found them fascinating. He wheeled the bowser to a spot near the pond, made sure it was stable, then hit the green button and watched the robotic roots come snaking out of the machine and bore into the ground in a frenzy of water-lust. It wasn’t long before he heard dripping, then gushing into the storage tank.

He noticed the shadows growing longer and checked his watch. The two units were due back in less than an hour. Time had run away. Still, the camp was ready. He just needed to prepare a meal and the homecoming welcome would be complete.

He decided not to go too elaborate with the cooking. A simple stew would suffice, and the relaxed timing would be useful as he did not know for sure when the scouting parties would be back. He filled a giant mess pan with fresh water from the bowser and set it onto the electric range to boil. He selected meat and veg for rehydration then tipped them in the pan together with seasoning. As soon as the water began bubbling, wonderful aromas curled and drifted into the air. The stew would be excellent. They would smell it long before they reached the camp. It would pique their appetite.

Now the sun began to cast red reflections onto the ocean. The sensors switched on the lights around the camp, and, far in the distance to the north he saw the ant-like shapes of the first returning scouting party. The timing was impeccable. The camp resembled a five-star resort in a glamping holiday brochure. Between the four corner floodlight pylons, Slicker had strung lines of bulbs that turned out to be multi-coloured, and added a festive element to his camp. Slicker gave the stew another stir and waited for the returning soldiers. He could see both units, now, coming in from the north and the south. Some had broken ranks and were running. Slicker smiled. It looks so good, here, they couldn’t wait to get back.

He noticed the stew wasn’t bubbling any more. This was strange. Had he turned the heat down too far on the hob? No, the nob was on full. And the lights were beginning to dim.

The two runners from the northern unit were waving their arms. Slicker waved back. They were shouting but the tide was coming in, and the nearer, louder, crash of the surf carried the sound from their voices away. He walked along the beach to greet them.

“Turn the bloody lights off!”

Slicker stopped.

“Oh my God, look, he’s cooking, too. Turn it all off!”

The leading runner approached. It was Tanya. Still running hard, she ignored Slicker, went straight past and up to the nearest floodlight pylon. She grabbed the wire and yanked the large blue plug and socket apart. All the lights went out.

“What else?” she shouted.

Slicker shrugged, baffled and a little upset that his cosy camp scene was now dark and cold.

“What else have you got plugged... oh, Jesus.”

The soldier ran over to the hob and threw the master switch.

Some of the others were running up the beach now. They seemed upset.

19

Florence opened her eyes. Everything was white. Even the people around her were white.

“How are you feeling?” The woman’s voice was muffled by her mask.

Florence tried to speak but the words wouldn’t form.

“You have a concussion. It will take a while for your head to clear. You also have a shoulder sprain and rope burns on your left arm. They will hurt.”

The first woman in white appeared to be a doctor although Florence thought doctors were meant to be caring and sympathetic. This one seemed mean.

“A lot of people have troubles right now. They are getting on with their lives, taking small steps, one at a time. I have better uses for my one-day-at-a-time schedule than repairing stupid, selfish girls who try to take the quick and easy way out.”

“Oh. No, I didn’t try to—”

“You are the one who lost the kestrels, aren’t you? Thought I recognised you.”

“I...” She couldn’t form the words. Her mind seemed to be running slow.

“The arm isn’t serious. The nurse will give you painkillers. If I had it my way you’d get nothing, but, there we are, there are things I can and can’t do.”

Florence wondered where they’d gone to recruit such a doctor, but then, she thought, they’d have used the same employment agency they used to recruit their navigation staff.

“You were found dangling from the hangar roof, caught up in stray fuelling hose. I suppose you were lucky.”

Florence remembered. She didn’t have a safety net so she had strung lengths of hose across the hangar to grab if she fell. It was no more than a nod to safety procedures but it had paid off. When she flew, always, Florence’s reflexes went faster. It was as though she over-clocked. It was how she managed acrobatic skills like the triple. It came with practice.

She’d flown, but not straight and true. Her flight had curved and she’d missed the other trapeze bar by a long way, and down she came. It hadn’t felt like a fast fall, because of the way her head always accelerated time. She’d watched, almost detached, as her lifelines sailed past, out of reach. One, two, three. Then no more. The last line was far out of reach and she was headed for certain death. Except the same curving flight that had almost killed her, had also saved her, because her fall also curved. Close enough to the last lifeline. Coriolis force. This was not a gravity well, it was a spinning wheel. Had anyone ever tried to do trapeze in an artificial gravity habitat before? she wondered.

She’d reached out for the line, caught it, wrapped her arm around it, and it had saved her life. Then she had swung into the wall and that was the last she remembered. Entangling herself in the rope had been instinct and it had saved her.

The doctor regarded her without speaking for a few seconds, then she turned and left the room. The nurse, also, was glaring at her while she worked, then she too, turned and went out without saying a word, leaving Florence alone with her thoughts.

“You are the one who lost the kestrels,” the doctor had said. Yesterday she could have counted the number of people who knew who she was on one hand. She was just “the other nav girl”. Today everyone on the ship knew her as “the one who lost the kestrels”. And this was her world forever. Her universe. There was nobody left with whom she’d ever get the chance to make a first impression. She had never missed her Kim so much. She’d brought her smart clothes with her, not thinking about it when she packed, but her imentor, her Kim, could never follow. Not into deep space. She felt so lonely. Florence’s thought processes were fast coming back into focus. She found herself wishing for more concussion, more oblivion. It had been a happier place.

* * *

Thoughts of her Kim, her friend and confidante that she would never speak to again, and of Kaydence and Nikki and her other “family”, made Florence dwell some more on her childhood. She remembered her father, sitting in his moth cage.

“Come in, come in, they don’t bite.”

Florence took a seat opposite. Some of the giant moths settled on her arms and on her lap. She watched them. She didn’t speak for a long time. She didn’t know how to raise the subject.

“You have something on your mind, Luna?” Her father always called her Luna, after the laser-green moth that lived in polar regions of Appalachia, the same colour green as Florence’s eyes, he said.

“I went to the circus.”

“I know, Kaydence told me. You enjoyed it?”

“I loved it. I loved it, Daddy. I want to do trapeze.”

Her father had stopped marking moths and looked at her.

“I know, it’s a silly thing to want to do, Daddy, but I so want to fly.”

“Nothing for which you have a passion is ever silly, Luna. How much do you want to do this thing?”

Florence had thought about it then held her arms wide. “This much.”

“What if I said it was dangerous? What if I said it was a foolish wish?”

Florence said nothing but her bottom lip quivered. Her father smiled.

“If you have a dream, nothing, nothing, should ever stop you. Always remember this. If it is not a true dream, then you will soon know. But do not confuse the loss of a dream with the pain of the hard work that you will need to accomplish it. A true dream will always overcome the pain of learning. You want this?”

Florence nodded.

“Then, you will do it. You are only five. A little young to run off and join the circus, perhaps. So we shall bring the circus to you. This is a university, a place of learning. I will see if we can’t find a way of introducing circus skills into the curriculum.”

And it was exactly what he did. Signora Fiscella came to the University of Catalonia, and circus skills became a popular course for many of the students. Florence became Signora Fiscella’s star pupil.

If you have a dream, nothing, nothing, should ever stop you.

So what was her dream now?

Her dream? Florence wanted to go home.

20

A silence as frigid and as cheerless as the cold camp hob pervaded the mess tents that evening. The soldiers sat in two lines on the collapsed i-matter benches and picked, without enthusiasm, at the half-cooked, cold stew before them. There was no light. The batteries were dead. Most of the generator components had been retrieved from the sea, from where the incoming tide had washed, polished and rounded them. The generator would have been unsalvageable, even if they could have found all the missing bits.

Slicker attempted to cheer everybody with jokes and a communal sing song, but he was a community of one. He wondered how the soldiers, as they alternated their glares between himself and their bowls of workhouse stew, could possibly think that blaming him would make them feel better. Perhaps it was that they were fantasising over what they would do to him given the chance.

Slicker looked over at Meera. She was sitting next to Kurasov, fussing over him. Fussing over his food. She’d added some green salad to their bowls to perk up the unappetising fare. Slicker wondered where she’d found salad leaves. They were a vivid emerald green that was not part of... Oh. They were eating his botanical specimen. He’d been sketching the dissected parts while waiting for the ever-slowing boil of the stew. She must have found the chopped-up pieces and made assumptions. Well, they appeared to be enjoying it. Slicker supposed he would find some more in the morning.

“We’d better move the mess tents,” said Kurasov, without enthusiasm, putting down his empty bowl.

The commandos groaned and clambered to their feet.

“Is that really necessary?” said Slicker. “This seems to me a splendid place to eat.”

Kurasov looked at him. He indicated the ocean with his thumb. “See that big wet thing? The sea? Well, it has a tide. The same tide that took the generator will take the mess tents, the hob, the freezer, although those particular pieces of kit might as well go with the sea, for all the use they are to us now. The frozen meat might keep for a couple of days if we keep the freezer door closed. Anyway, I’d say we have about half an hour.”

“The tide must be on the turn by now,” said Slicker. “It’s been coming in for hours.”

“You don’t think the long days on this world might have some effect on the tides? This is not Tsanak, Mr Slicker. This is another world. The days are long. The tides are slow. But there’s a big moon”—he indicated the huge gold-coloured arc nudging up over the mountains— “and the tides are relentless. You’ve lost us our power. Thank God I came back in time to stop you losing everything else we have.”

Slicker didn’t answer. The man was a bully.

“At least the tents on the dunes look okay. I see you thought to put them above the seaweed line. I suppose you at least got that part right although you’ve got them pointing the wrong way. Strange, that. They’re meant to be smart as well as self-erecting. They should have oriented in the proper position when you put them up.”

“They’re facing the sea,” said Slicker. “The best view.”

Kurasov sighed. “We’re not here for the view, Slicker.”

Slicker thought about that. Why not? Why did everything military have to be dressed up with excess hardship? Then he thought about what Kurasov had said about the seaweed line, the grudging compliment. It wasn’t deserved, he had moved the seaweed, but he had no intentions of telling Kurasov; the seaweed thing had been the only complimentary word the commander had uttered since returning to camp, and Slicker was reluctant to give him the opportunity of withdrawing that small morsel.

Slicker got up from his place at the table, where nobody else had chosen to sit, and began to loosen the ropes of the mess tent, only to find his hands slapped away by one of the soldiers, one of those he’d hoped were his new friends. The troops were tired. They’d marched on loose sand all day. They needed rest. But it appeared they’d be damned if they’d let Slicker play any more part in their camping activities.

So he stood aside and watched as they dismantled his lovely camp and moved it onto the top of the dunes.

* * *

Little Pinky seemed intent on doing everything at a slow and relaxed pace. The tides were slow. The waves were slow. And when night-time came, it came in on the back of a long and lazy twilight. Sunset lasted for an hour, and was worth watching. Slicker sat in the entrance to his tent and appreciated the rich orange colours and the long thread-like clouds that drew hatch marks across the sky, like vapour trails. And with can’t-be-arsed foot-dragging haste, the colours faded to grey and the stars began to appear.

The work was done. The mess tents were stowed, ready for rebuilding in the morning, somewhere. The troops retired, one at a time, with weary movements to their assigned bivvy tents. Slicker waited.

There was a big, bright, half-moon and a billion stars and... one of the stars was moving. Fast. It came from behind the mountains and crossed the sky, a light so bright it made shadows that swooped across the camp and out along the dunes.

“Look,” said one of the soldiers. It was one of the two who had been kind to him that morning. Neither of them had spoken to him since they’d returned. They met his eye with hard-lipped glares.

“What is it?” said the other.

“It’s home,” said the first. “There are three light sources, a big one and two others. The big one’s Queen Isabella III.”

“How long before we’re wishing we’re back up there?”

“By tomorrow, I’m guessing. Feel that breeze? There’s a cold edge already. It’s what, a fifteen-hour night, here? Gonna be cold by morning with no genny for the heaters, I’m telling you.”

They each gave a long drawn-out breath of the night air. They stooped and crawled into their tents. They were right, thought Slicker. It was getting cold.

Slicker waited. Meera was coming up the beach. She’d taken off her combat boots and was walking barefoot. Even tired she slinked along with feline grace. She was with Kurasov, but they’d split up soon, Slicker knew; their tents were at opposite ends of the camp. Bob Slicker crawled forward, further out of his tent doorway to see better. He’d get a chance to talk to her. They hadn’t had an opportunity to rekindle the magic since before the flight down.

“It’s getting cold,” came Meera’s voice from the dark.

“Gonna be a long night,” said Kurasov.

“Sleeping bags are awfully thin,” said Meera.

“Yes,” said Kurasov.

“Well, there we are,” said Meera.

“There are always options,” said Kurasov.

“Options, Russ?”

“Well, you know. Shared bodily warmth.”

Meera giggled. “Your tent or mine?”

“Yours is nearer.”

“Well then. Mine it is.”

Slicker ducked into his tent and made a play of punching the lumps out of his sleeping bag. It was an act because his sleeping bag was so thin there could be no room for lumps. He remembered from that long-ago prison camping trip how sounds from outside passed through canvas without any apparent inconvenience. Tents were not private places. He buried his head inside the sleeping bag. He covered it with his kit bag. It made no difference. He heard the zipper close on the next-door tent. He heard giggles, then lower-pitched chuckles. The tent in which Meera and Kurasov began to consummate their relationship was no more than four feet from his. He might as well have been sharing their bed.

“Ooh, Russ. Cold hands.”

“Wait until you feel my feet.”

“Eek!”

To Slicker’s right there were sounds that were more natural and easy to live with.

“G’night, Al.”

“Hey, goodnight, John-boy.”

“Goodnight, Jim-Bob.”

“Goodnight, Elizabeth.”

An age-old goodnight parting sequence from some long-lost popular culture, repeated in camping grounds throughout the Sphere of Influence. And beyond.

To his left, though, the giggling and squealing and squeaking of fabric became grunts and groans and rhythmic cries of “Oh, oh, oh.”

Slicker put his fingers in his ears and wiggled them to block out the sounds that became louder as the night marched on. And it was a long night. A long, cold night. Slicker wondered at the stamina of the pair. Did they ever sleep?

The wiggling fingers worked, to a fashion. Slicker didn’t sleep but worked hard to obscure all but the louder cries under the white noise of index-finger-agitated ear hair.

It was a pity. Had he listened he might have found solace. He might have enjoyed the show. The rest of the troops did.

* * *

“Ooh, Russ. Cold hands.”

“Wait until you feel my feet.”

“Eek!”

“Okay okay, enough.”

“What? Russ, you’re not going to sleep?”

“No, just… Give me a moment. Not feeling so good.”

“You mean, ill?”

“I’ll be okay. Just something— Do you have a bowl? Or a bucket?”

“Yes, Russ, I always bring a bucket away into space with me.”

“No need for... ugh! Pass me something, quick!”

“Here.”

“Uuurrrrgh!”

“Oh my God, what is it?”

“Oh, oh, oh.”

“Russ?”

“Something I ate. Can still taste it. That green salad stuff. Where did you get salad out here? Uuuurrrgh.”

“Oh, my poor boy. Russ, are you okay?”

“Give me a moment.”

“Not feeling so good myself now.”

“Did you eat the—”

“Yes, quite a lot of it. I... Uuurrrrgh.”

“Meera, give me the bowl, quick.”

“It isn’t a bowl. It’s your helmet.”

“Uurrrgh.”

“Uuurrrrrgh.”

“Uuuuurrrrrgh.”

Slow and lazy and with foot-dragging urgency, the first night on Little Pinky stretched on.

21

The trapeze rig still hung from the hangar rafters. Nobody had tried to move it. Florence looked up. For a moment it had been like old times. Flying. Could she do it again? She looked at the bandage on her arm. It would be a while.

Above her head was the lowest of the safety lines. The one that had saved her life. She reached up with her good arm and jumped. It was just out of reach and as she landed, a jolt of pain shot up through her shoulder. Out of reach, but only because she had not tried hard enough. She prepared herself and jumped again. This time her fingers touched the line. She stretched and grabbed and felt the line become secure in her grip. She swung, one-handed, her feet only inches from the floor. She closed her eyes and imagined. She swung some more to feel the wind in her hair. She arched her back, then flicked and her legs were over the line. She let go with her one hand and hung, inverted, the line hooked under her knees.

Florence stayed like that for a long time, minutes, perhaps an hour, swinging, enjoying the clarity of thought that came from all the oxygenated blood filling her head.

She looked around the empty hangar from this new perspective. Almost empty. At the far end was the framework of the test bed kestrel. Just a frame with an engine. Not even a place for a pilot. She guessed the pilot was just meant to lash him or herself to the cross-braces whenever the contraption was taken out for a flight. If it ever was.

Flight?

No. Flying a kestrel was not flying, it was... What was it? What was it if it wasn’t flying? It could be more than hanging around from an old cable by her knees, couldn’t it? She’d never flown a ship in space. She wondered what it was like. Was it anything like true flying?

Florence reached up with her good arm and in one fluid, non-showy movement, she produced a cat-like dismount that had her running to the far end of the hangar, to where the twisted hulk of the bedstead rested.

She stopped and reached up an arm to the skeleton frame, and caressed it with a tenderness that said, Aha! You poor neglected beauty. Now you are mine.

* * *

“Quiet in here today, Winker,” said Florence.

“Dress-Down, Feet-up Friday. A good day for coffee. Yes?”

“Love some, thank you. How’s Mrs W?”

“She’s good. Hydroponics are keeping her busy. Now, Americano, black, yes?”

Florence laughed and nodded. Winker had remembered her preference from, what, two, maybe three visits to his office in McBain? Must be seven months ago now.

Winker put on his apron and got busy on the espresso machine. Today he was going all out for the dress-down look. He wore knee-length shorts and hiking boots, and a hand-knit, artisan-spun Joulian Jumper. Joulian lambs’ wool jumpers had the consistency of spider webs, yet they were hard-wearing, non-chafing, and good protection against extremes of heat or cold. They were the favoured garment of space racers and antique rocket enthusiasts alike. Winker topped off the ensemble with a green and yellow cap with a winged rocket emblem.

“I like the hat,” said Florence. It was a good way to lead the conversation.

“Korolyov Owners Club. It’s a Soyuz TMA, the antropometricheskii variant. I’m restoring one in my workshop up in Tsanak waystation. Beautiful ship.” And then his eyes seemed to cloud over and become waterlogged.

“I know,” said Florence. “We all have something we’ve left behind.”

Winker looked at her, then, as his thoughts came back into focus, a look of stricken anguish came to his face.

“I am so selfish,” he said. “I’m wrapped up in my own petty losses. I forgot, you have a fiancé. Oh my dear. How long?”

“The wedding? It’s in, I guess, five months. Not sure. I’ve stopped looking at calendars. They don’t mean an awful lot out here, do they?”

“No, child. No, they don’t. But, you must be heartbroken. How are you even functioning?”

“I manage,” said Florence. The truth was, she hadn’t thought about Doug in quite a while. Yes, she should be heartbroken. She should be in a dysfunctional state, rattling with antidepressants. But she wasn’t. She thought about that. Was it because she was so far from the Sphere? She might as well be in a different space-time continuum. Doug was as intangible to her as fiction. But that wasn’t it. She’d let him go too easily. She missed so many things, her family, her friends, her imentor... But Doug? Well, no. And she felt guilty as hell about it. She needed to miss him. She wanted to be able to cry. It was important. Crying and ice cream. That would be normal. What was wrong with her?

“I’ve opened up a wound, haven’t I?” said Winker.

Florence thought about it. “No,” she said. “There is no wound. Does that make me a bad person? I think it does.”

“It doesn’t make you a bad person, at all,” said Winker. “I think you are, maybe, deep in denial? I think the reality might become a little closer to home as the wedding date draws nearer. I think, then, you might need friends around you.”

Florence smiled at him as he passed her drink over to her.

“And when that time comes, you know where to come for coffee.”

“Thank you, Winker. Right now I think you are the only friend I have left. I seem to be the focus of blame for our whole predicament. That upsets me more than my lost wedding, I think.”

“Ach, you are just unlucky. People do not like to be left with only fate to blame for their problems. They like to anthropomorphise their misfortunes. They prefer to blame people rather than circumstances.”

Florence knew he was right. But he wasn’t offering a solution. Because what was, was.

All this talk was making her gloomy and, as a hard rule, she didn’t do gloomy. Ever. It was time to bring the conversation on-topic.

“I can help with your lost love, Winker.”

Watson raised an eyebrow and paled.

“No, no, not... I’m talking about your spaceship. I don’t have an old Suzy for you, but I do—”

“A Soyuz?”

“Yeah, no. Sorry, I don’t have a Soyuz. But I do have something. Down in the hangar.”

“The hangar’s empty. All the kestrels are gone,” said Watson. But there was a look in his eye.

“When do you finish up here?”

“An hour. I could leave now, but... I have to be an example to my brood. They need that. We have to feel... purpose? All of us. You understand?”

“Well, could you meet me in the hangar, in one hour? Please?”

“Mrs W is working late, today, anyway. So... Yes, okay. I’m intrigued. One hour.”

* * *

He wasn’t an hour. He was fifty minutes. Florence met him at the gallery access. His eyes looked around in wonder.

“You haven’t been down here before?”

“No.”

“I’m surprised.”

“Too much pain. A hangar. The empty docking racks. All that unused fuelling hose – though I don’t know what they’ve been doing with the hoses up there. Some nutter’s run amok with them. That is not right, even though we have no ships.”

Florence followed Watson’s gaze up to the rafters.

“Oh, yes,” she said, colouring.

She grabbed his elbow and steered him away.

“Come on,” she said. “The thing I want to show you. It’s over there in the corner.”

They walked across the empty hangar floor, their footsteps echoing.

“So sad,” said Watson in a subdued voice. “To see this place deserted. It’s wrong, you know.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No, no, I’m not blaming anyone, or you. Not at all. It’s just...”

And then he saw it. He stopped walking and stared. Florence got a few paces ahead and had to come back. She saw the wide-eyed wonder in the old man’s eyes, and... was that a tear?

Then he was running, a short-step shuffle of a run, his knees bent, his arms flapping, wide out.

“It’s an X72-B. Oh my God, oh my God. This is old. What the hell is it doing here?”

“Supposed to be a test bed. For the engines. I guess, when they put the fleet together, on a budget, they picked up anything that was old and cheap that the Fomalhaut yards were happy to be rid of.”

“Yes. Yes, I suppose... But look at her. What have they done?”

“That’s what I wanted to ask you. Can she fly?”

“The wings are gone. Not even the frame for the wings. She’ll never do re-entry. She’s a two-pilot mini-kestrel. There’s no cabin. She wasn’t designed for that engine, either, but... I suppose she would... Oh, what have they done to you, girl?”

“But Winker, could she fly?”

“Fly? Ha! Not a chance. She’s gutted. She’s scrap. She’s an engine in a frame.”

Watson looked up at the overhead crane. He walked over to a pile of scrap in a corner. “No, no, no. Oh, this is terrible.”

“It’s not a project you could do anything with, then?”

“Not a project? Not a project? Ha, you should have seen my TMA when I first got her. There wasn’t even a frame. No, this one’s scrap, all right. But she’ll be flying in two months if I have anything to do with her. I’ll need help, though.”

“Well, I can help, where I can.”

Watson patted her on the shoulder, then continued walking around the skeleton, caressing the ship’s frame, lifting hatches. Tugging on the lengths of exposed wiring loom.

“I’ll talk to Jaylab. He’ll be able to round up most of the parts we need. He’ll want to roll his sleeves up on this one, I think, too. If we can get his belly through Eddie’s gate, that is. Then there’s Irene Loewenbach, and Abdulfataah Andrada, yes Abdul will love this. And of course Mrs W.”

“Your wife likes to tinker with spacecraft?”

“Mrs W? That’s how we met, working on an old Frontier Ship cabin. Yeah, there’ll be no stopping Mrs W when I tell her about this. I don’t see any tiles kicking around but Mrs W will be cooking up new tiles in the galley bread oven before the night’s out, you watch. It’ll be cold teas for me for the next few weeks, I tell you.”

“So.”

“So, two months. The old girl will fly. She won’t be thoroughbred X72 that’s for sure. But she’ll be... something.”

“I was kind of hoping...”

“Yes?”

“Well, that I might be able to fly her.”

“Well that’s good, because I sure as hell don’t want to risk my arse in her.”

“But... Don’t you...?”

“Fly them? Hell no. I’m an engineer. I build the things. I restore them. I wouldn’t fly them. Florence, you want her, you can have her – when we’re done. But you fly her, you hear? Not any of that remote programming nonsense. You strap your arse in her and you fly. And you keep her safe, you understand?”

“I do. I do understand.”

“Florence, I thank you. Thank you for this. I never thought I’d...”

He wiped away a tear from his rheumy eyes.

“Really. You have made a tired old man very happy.”

22

Slicker must have slept. He had dreamt about, or been half aware of, the thunder of breaking waves and flapping canvas and loud military language.

The sun was up, warming the space in the tent, and Slicker was unwilling to waste any of the heat by opening the flap onto the outside, or even leaving his sleeping bag. But curiosity took hold, and he had to investigate the raised voices and noisy activity. He unzipped his cosy nest and crawled into the inch-deep puddle of icy sea water that filled his tent at the door end. The movement was enough to have the water trickle into his sleeping bag, eliminating any chance of returning to its warm embrace once he’d found out what was going on. He had folded his yellow, standard issue, Space Corps fatigues in a tidy stack close by the tent entrance, and they were doing an excellent job of absorbing much of the incoming water. His boots, too were filled with water, so any further contribution they could make to diverting the flow away from the sleeping area had come to an end.

Slicker unzipped his tent and crawled outside, sans boots and uniform.

Almost half the tents still stood, or at least still remained in situ, but there were many gaps. Slicker had built the camp in uniform rows, but his fine camp order now resembled the smile of a chocaholic accustomed to shunning all dental care.

To Slicker’s left was a pile of wet canvas that used to be the shared tent of Kurasov and Meera, who, at that moment, were kneeling outside the sodden debris, dry-heaving into what looked like Kurasov’s helmet. Slicker had never seen people with green faces before. These were green faces. Green as botanical specimens. This delighted Slicker. He nodded his head and chuckled.

Slicker watched as more of the soldiers emerged from the remains of their tents. They looked as though they’d been up all night and the tents were being used more as blankets. Most of them collapsed on ejecting their occupants, and it was clear that the damage was widespread. Those tents remaining upright only did so because their occupants were sitting up inside. In fact only one tent remained standing, and that one was Slicker’s, at the end of the line, on slightly higher ground than all the others, so the presence of water in his tent seemed, all of a sudden, to be something he should not complain too much about. Already his tent was receiving covetous attention. How was it that the builder of the worst camp in galactic history had the only tent that hadn’t been swept away? It had to be deliberate.

“Bastard,” spat one of the soldiers, as he passed.

It seemed that Slicker’s attempts at integration and camaraderie were foundering on the reefs of good fortune. Bob Slicker went back into his tent and zipped the flap closed. He curled up at the dry end of the tent and wrapped the dry parts of his sleeping bag around him.

“I had a bad night, too!” he felt like shouting. “I had noisy neighbours having sex next door.” But then he heard the lovers heaving into Kurasov’s helmet, and knowing that he was, in a small part, responsible for that misfortune also, decided that silence and concealment might be the better strategy.

* * *

Russ Kurasov had nothing left to vomit, but his stomach didn’t seem to know this, so it kept on trying. The only thing that hurt more was watching Meera having to do the same. He watched her with a feeling he had never before known. It was a tenderness and a need to protect.

This trip to unknown space had given Russ Kurasov everything he never knew he wanted. He put his arm across Meera’s shoulder and gave her a rub. They would get over this. They would carve out a life on this planet. Never again would he have to perform as a rock star’s pet. And despite the efforts of the idiot, Slicker, he was soldiering in the way he always wanted to soldier. Or almost. And so what if he didn’t get to shoot anybody? There was always Slicker, the idiot who’d built their camp below the tide line. But if he wanted to shoot Slicker he’d have to move fast, because the rest of his men were lining up for the chance to be the first at taking a pop at him.

* * *

Meera Kurasov. Yes, that works for me, thought Meera.

She felt secure and safe with his arm warm around her shoulder. Could she live out the rest of her days on this planet? Yes, she thought. Yes, she could manage that, just so long as Russ was here with her. She felt confident in him. He was someone who could turn this world into a home. Someone who would be there for her, always. Like last night when they were both unwell, but he stayed close by her side and mopped up after her, even though he was ill himself.

Meera had never felt this way about anyone before. Meeting Russ was like… like reaching the end of a romantic movie, where the couple find each other at last, and the camera zooms back to show them backlit against a pretty sunset. Happy ever after. The story is over and the credits roll up the screen. She’d never enjoyed watching that kind of movie before, they made her want to throw up. Well, she’d just come through a lifetime’s worth of throwing up, and she imagined she could take a romantic story without discomfort.

The tent lay in shreds about them, but they would build it again. On Little Pinky they would build something better than a tent. She snuggled closer into Russ, lifted her shoulders and sighed in contentment. Right on cue, out to sea, pink tendrils of light began filling the sky. Sunrise. Okay, not as cinematic as a sunset, but the symbolism was better.

23

It was her ship. Winker Watson had as good as said so. You fly her, was what he said. She looked upon her as her ship, and even named her. She was the Kaydence Wilson, after her childhood earth-mother.

But it all fell apart six weeks into the rebuild, when Martin Levison got word of the existence of the Kaydence Wilson, and claimed her for his own. The small team of new friends, those who had worked with passion to restore her ship each day, had lost the love for the work. A mood change had turned the restoration into a chore. They were no longer repairing the ship for the pure joy of it, or for Florence. Instead, they were doing it because the Emperor told them to do it, and had threatened them with forfeits and penalties for non-performance, and that was a whole different tube of Smarties.

Levison wanted a pressurised cabin, a stateroom with a sofa. He wanted plumbed-in life-support. He wanted a music system with surround sound. He saw the Kaydence Wilson as his Royal Yacht, a vehicle in which he might flit between his colonies on Blue Eyes and Pinky and any other new worlds he might stumble upon along the way.

The day he announced that he intended to call her Britannia, was the day when Florence decided to steal her. It wasn’t stealing, anyway, she rationalised. She had found her. She had talked her friends into refurbishing her, and they had done the work with pleasure and pride, for her. Kaydence Wilson was Florence’s ship. They even painted her pink, a bad colour for a spaceship. The colour Florence wanted. Not a colour fit for the Space Corps. Not a colour fit for an Emperor.

Florence waited until Last Dog Watch, a time when the crew were least attentive to anomalies, thinking about meal time, not on shift long enough to get involved in any alarm-investigation shenanigans, especially if any such investigations might involve post-shift form-filling.

Florence visited the galley with a sack. She visited the cold store and hydroponic chest. She went over to the Eddie and made a case for an EVA suit and thermostatic undies. Then she gated back onto the Queen Isabella and sneaked down to the hangar.

The Kaydence Wilson was yet to fly. She’d been ready for her first trials when Levison stuck his oar in and started making demands for velvet curtains and such crap. The hangar, normally bustling with activity at all times of day – the renovation crew had got into the habit of bunking off their work shifts to come down here – was empty. Levison had killed all passion for the project. Florence had the place to herself.

There was still no cabin. The installation of the cabin had been delayed once Levison started demanding all the luxury fittings. The Kaydence Wilson was a pink frame with pink engines. Nothing more. The central carbon upright had been retro-fitted with an eight-point harness, a crotch strap and some cushioning for lateral support. Flying the Kaydence would be like flying a garden gazebo with rockets attached.

Florence strapped her sack of food to one of the cross members and lashed herself to the upright. She had brought the remote for the hangar doors: a box, with a dial, on a long curly lead. She hit the open button, set the dial to close the hangar doors after three minutes, and let the box go. It sprung out of her hand onto the hangar deck, pulled by the tension of the curly wire. Three minutes would be plenty of time. She only needed to get out. Florence had no plans on coming back for a while. She was off for a bit of flying, then on to Blue Eyes.

Florence looked at the controls. They were familiar to her; she’d helped fit them. She threw the main bus switch and lights came on red, turning to green one at a time as each system self-checked. The fuel pressure stayed red. If the fuel wouldn’t pressurise, then it was game over. She would be going nowhere. The hangar doors had opened and alarms would now be going off all over the ship. The crew on Late Dog would be slow, but not that slow. They would come. They would come with guns. They would drag Florence out of the Kaydence Wilson. (Out of, off of? Terminology was questionable when talking about a lattice of scaffolding.) The Kaydence Wilson would become the Britannia for all time, and they would throw Florence in the brig, not so bad; or out of the airlock, not so good. Either way the last hopes for freedom would be over.

The fuel pressure light stayed red. The hangar doors began to close, their allotted three minutes at an end. Florence slapped her hands on the cross member in front of her and cursed. The fuel pressure had been fine, yesterday. Flo began ripping at the fastenings of her harness. Why so many of the damn things? She scrambled free and crawled onto the fuel tank. The lights above the inner doors turned amber. The alarm had attracted the attention of someone, or many someones, and they’d begun re-pressurising the hangar even before the hangar doors were closed, in their urgency to get inside. Great! Beside the door was a screen showing who was on the other side. It was a small screen and far away, but not far enough to hide the image of a small army, waiting to get in. And even from here she could see they were hopping like kids on Christmas Eve.

Flo looked down at the fuel tank. It was just a fuel tank. The pump was inside. No knobs, no levers. Nothing to press. Just a red light, mirroring the one on the dashboard, steady and implacable.

Flo screamed at it. Then she did what any self-respecting engineer would do at a time like this. She gave it a good and hearty kick.

And the light went green.

Florence gave a little squeal. She jumped off the Kaydence and ran over to where the door actuator had been pulled by the curly wire. This time she didn’t bother with the close timer – let the security people handle that part – she just hit the open button and ran back to the ship. She fastened one strap. She hated wasting time with it, but she’d never flown the Kaydence Wilson before, and if she fell out of her seat, pulled by unexpected forces, then she would also fall out of the ship, and that would not be good.

Alarms were sounding now, but then they faded in a whoosh as the air gushed out of the hangar doors once again. The door to the corridor was also opening, but it snapped closed again when the bouncing army realised there was no air on the other side. A detached part of Florence’s mind wondered at the lack of safety protocols that allowed all the doors to open at once if people chose to press the buttons. But then she was not surprised. Queen Isabella III seemed to have been designed by corporate architects, the sort who put doors halfway up walls for aesthetic balance.

Florence went through the remaining power-up sequence like a seasoned pro, then hit the release lock.

The Kaydence Wilson was pointing in the right direction, which was just as well, as Florence had no time for correction or feathering of the controls. The hangar interior became a blur and in an instant she was outside, flying, strapped to an engine. A tweak of the controls and Florence felt the responsive agility of her ship. She threw back her head in exhilaration.

“Yee haw!” she shouted.

24

They blamed him for the kestrel batteries. This was not fair. Okay, the camp had been a bit of a cock-up, but that was over a month ago and still nobody would speak to him. Because they blamed him for the kestrel.

The kestrel batteries were not his fault. A light left on. Something. How was that his fault? He hadn’t even been allowed back inside the ship since they landed. More likely Kurasov himself, with more of his attention on feeling up Meera than on switching things off after flying them in. He was probably at it while he was doing the piloting. It’s a miracle they got down alive.

But Slicker was their “battery man”. He’d drained the camp batteries and trashed the genny, so anything at all that was bad and related to moving electrons must be his doing, right? They drove Slicker out of their camp. He moved over to the other side of the kestrel and tried to make the most of his cold, dark and miserable new location. The troops had created some order in their own camp. There was a good fire. The tents stayed up. There was camaraderie. They rigged up a solar panel to trickle-charge the kestrel’s batteries, so maybe, in a week or two, there’d be enough juice to fire up the main engines and resupply from the Eddie. Maybe then he’d get to leave this refluent dump of a planet.

He supposed he was lucky. They blamed him for losing the kestrels, and he accepted, that in part, he could hold up his hand and take a share, along with that loopy Florence girl. And before that, Levison blamed him for failing to solve the Elton Philpotts problem, and that was why they were stuck out here in the first place, and okay, for that too, he could be culpable in an insignificant and microscopic way. Now, the fleet’s only hope lay with the away team. They needed food, water and fuel, and here he was being blamed for the away team fiasco, too, at least by the people here, on the ground. There wasn’t enough battery power for the radio, so up in the Queen Isabella III they knew nothing of what was happening down here, apart from news of the initial landing and exploration. As far as the fleet knew, they had been eaten by indigenous mega-beasts or something. What a mess. But it was not Slicker’s mess. He supposed it didn’t look so good to those people who didn’t know all the facts. People like Levison.

Bob Slicker had had a long and strange relationship with Martin Levison. He was a man lacking conscience. On the day when God handed out scruples, Levison was hiding in the toilets having a quick smoke. When anyone let Levison down he showed zero restraint – dismissing, maiming, dumping-into-space-without-a-suit, it was all the same to him. Yet Slicker had crossed Levison many, many times over the years and he had survived. Sure, he had taken his turn in the dog house, but the moment always came when Levison would set him loose and allow him to return to his position as right-hand man.

With time on his hands, and the away team having ostracised him, he found he had time to think about his past and about what it was that might have made Levison more forgiving with him than with others.

Slicker’s first memories were of the orphanage on the Ring. He knew nothing of his parents. He knew of no siblings. Orphan kids weren’t entitled to an imentor, so Slicker only learnt about the rights and wrongs of life from his fellow orphans. He got his imentor, his Jim, in his teens after he was released from jail. By then everyone else had been through childhood and adolescence, paired with their Jims or their Kims.

One of Slicker’s very first memories was of Martin Levison beating up some little kid and taking his sweets. Slicker had weighed in but at three years old he was no street fighter. He knew right from wrong though, even without a voice in his ear chipping in with commentary and opinion about every one of life’s missteps. That was how he later regarded his Jim, as being more like a probation officer than a friend and confidante.

When Levison organised the breakout from the orphanage, Slicker had been just five. He reckoned it was wrong but everyone else was up for it, and everyone else did what Levison told them to do. It was the first decision he made that he knew to be wrong but he made it anyway. It had been a defining moment. The decision had tied him to Levison ever since. But it still didn’t explain the bond. Others had made the same mistakes as he, and most were no longer around. The prisons were chock full of Levison’s old associates. So were the cemeteries.

Slicker wondered if it went back to that time when he shopped Levison and watched him go to prison. They’d swapped places soon enough afterwards, mind, and Slicker had expected wrath and retribution from their gang leader. It didn’t come. Somehow Levison seemed to have gained a new respect for him as a result of the incident. Slicker was ten at the time. They’d been together all their lives, at least the parts Slicker remembered. No other had survived Martin Levison quite so long. There was that time when Levison had gone back to the orphanage. When was that? Slicker had been fifteen, sixteen? Levison had broken into the records office and accessed some of the files. He was looking for his own history. He never said if he found anything but he found plenty about the other orphans, and he used it to control them as they entered adulthood.

“I know who you are,” he told Slicker, once. “You would like to know, wouldn’t you? Well, one day perhaps I’ll tell you. But for now you do as you’re told. I decide when you’ve earned the right to your history.”

“What do you know?”

“I know your name for one thing, and it isn’t Slicker. How about that?”

It wasn’t a surprise. He’d been named after the yellow raincoat he was wearing when he turned up at the escaped orphans’ den in the ducting. It was strange because this was the Ring. It didn’t rain on the Ring except for in the agri sectors. So where had he found a child-sized yellow slicker? Just one of the mysteries that haunted Slicker each day. Who were his parents? Where did he come from? He longed to know. Martin Levison was dead right on that one, at least. Bob Slicker lay awake at night wondering about his parents, what they did, why they abandoned him. He carried the orphan’s dream around with him, that a rich financier, or asteroid developer, would appear and lay claim to him. At thirty-eight though, he reckoned the Orphan Annie dream might be wearing thin, but he held on to his dreams. Even here, in the arse-end of the unknown universe, with one knackered kestrel and an invasion fleet that was more knackered and lost than a... a… than a knackered and lost thing, even here he held onto the dream. Because Martin Levison knew something. It might be another Levison lie.

Or it might not be.

He watched the sun go down, ending another long, lonely day on Little Pinky, and prepared for another brass monkey night.

He bent to unzip the flap to his tent when a voice stopped him.

“Oi!”

Slicker turned. Gunner Behr, the one they all called Gummy, was standing a few yards away. They called him Gummy because he was a bit soft.

Slicker looked around for others. It was unusual, now, for any of them to come over and speak to him. Gummy wasn’t pointing a gun or holding a knife, so if there was a threat it wasn’t obvious.

“They sent me over,” said Gummy. “For plastic cups.”

“What?”

“Plastic cups. Only three left. They said you’d been nicking them. In the night, like.”

“And you’re asking? Why don’t you do what you usually do? You know, beat me up then cut a hole in the tent and ransack my stuff?”

Gummy shrugged.

“Look in the tent. Do a body search. You won’t find plastic cups. What would I do with plastic cups?”

“Well, they say you’re a bit, you know.”

“I don’t know. A bit what?”

“You know. Couple of bits short of a byte, like.”

Slicker glared at him.

“They said it must have been you, took ‘em.”

“What the hell would I do with plastic cups? It’s just like the kestrel batteries and everything else. Something goes wrong, someone cocks up, let’s all blame the civilian. He’s not military. Not one of us,” said Slicker.

“Gotta ask, that’s all.”

“Well, you asked. Do you see cups?”

“No.”

“Well then.”

“Er… could you put your tent down?”

“What?”

“The guys are gonna want to see evidence. I’ll say I knocked it down. Cut it up a bit. They’ll be happy. Better for you. Better for me.”

“Better for me?”

“Well, otherwise I’ll have to knock it down and cut it up for real. I’m not good at it, you know, being… assertive.”

“They can’t even see my tent from their camp.”

“They’ll come and look. Go on, lay it down. Leave it an hour. Put it back up. Yeah?”

Slicker sighed. “Yeah, okay.”

“Thanks. See yer.”

Slicker watched him go. There wasn’t even sport for the soldiers in taunting him any more. For weeks Slicker-baiting had been the main form of entertainment for the soldiers on Little Pinky. They stopped sharing their food. He had to eat scraps and leftovers from the bins. It gave him a sense of the past, from when he’d scavenged food on the Ring as an orphan. Only then he had other orphans as friends and allies. He’d hoped to find allies amongst Tanya and the other two women soldiers. He assumed they’d be more kind hearted, but they’d been the worst. They’d invented the target game where they shot holes in his tent from afar while he was out. Sometimes they even did it while he was in the tent.

The nights were cold. And long. Slicker hardened to it. He’d picked up a few tricks, like lining the inside of his sleeping bag with moss that he’d taken from around the pond and dried. His home was still more like a one-man refugee camp, though. He’d seen the soldiers’ camp, but only from afar. Their tents in precise rows. Sharp lines. Rich aromas from the nightly cooking. Order restored from the initial chaos. But only while Slicker stayed away. And they enforced that rule with live rounds.

A week earlier on a clear, frost-cold night, despite the extra layers of moss he’d used to line his sleeping bag, Slicker had woken in the dark feeling miserable. The intense cold had set his chest aching, numbed his back and pained his jaw from the constant chattering of his teeth. Had something disturbed him? Well yes, the cold had disturbed him, he was freezing.

He opened his eyes with pain and caution because they seemed to be crusted in a brittle layer of frost. The stars were out, filling the sky in a cascade of a million tiny lights. The night was cloudless. That would make it colder. What else?

His sleep-fogged brain worked hard. When the answer came he snapped awake. Stars? How could he see the stars? He sat up. The groundsheet of his tent lay undisturbed under his sleeping pad, but everything else was gone: his possessions, his clothes, his tent. A neat oval marked where they’d cut his tent away from around him. They returned it the next day, by draping it over a thorn bush. It had taken Slicker two days to sew it back together. They’d scattered his clothes in a mile-wide circle around his camp.

At least tonight Gummy had been reasonable, but Slicker knew he’d have to sit beside his collapsed tent until full dark or they’d be back in the night with their knives. And it was raining. He hated them.

Slicker looked over at the dark silhouette of the kestrel. He was expressly banned from entering. Because of the batteries.

Well, bollocks to them, thought Slicker.

He walked over to the hatch and pressed the “open” button. The keypad flashed, demanding a number, a secret number. Locked, of course. Only Kurasov had access. Slicker wanted to try a few numbers, Meera’s birthday, perhaps. But he didn’t know her birthday and he felt sure that any tinkering would set off alarms.

His fingers were numb. His hat didn’t cover his ears and the wind had chilled them so much they’d become brittle enough to snap off at the base. The rain felt lumpy, with sleet and the occasional bullets of hail.

The smell of coffee came to him. Not real coffee, some dastardly chemical stuff they brewed in the main camp, but it triggered a memory, clear in Slicker’s mind. He remembered drinking excellent coffee and... Winker Watson, yes. Why was he thinking about Winker Watson? A conversation they had weeks, felt like months ago. He looked again at the closed door. “Engineers forgot their keys,” Winker had said. In the bottom right-hand corner of the white-plastic-coated door there was an ornate letter “O”. The Odin logo. A small plate covered the space in the centre of the “O” and the plate could be twisted out of the way. Slicker moved the plate. Behind was a small hole. Slicker smiled. He reached into his back pocket, wincing a little – his buttock was still sore from the month-old pencil injury – but the pencil, in two halves, was still there. Of course it was. As Winker had said to him: Bob, a space engineer always carries the tools of the trade. So do accountants, thought Slicker. On this occasion the trade was spaceship burglary.

Slicker inserted the pencil. Nothing happened. He jiggled it and felt it crunch as bits of fractured plastic broke off in the hole. Then with a hiss and a gritty, grinding, underfunded-public-transport sound, the door slid out a couple of inches, then swung aside. The internal lights came on. Slicker reached around the door and switched them off. He knew all about wasting batteries.

He reached out for the close door switch, but his hand hovered over the big red button. What made him pause? Who’s to say? What Slicker saw was a bright green light on the control panel, and what he did next had never been his intention. Up to now a warm night’s sleep was all that had driven him. But that green light stayed his hand and made him pause. And think. Then move.

Before he could even process his own motivations, he was outside once again and scampering over the pebbly, sandy ground, to the pink boulders on the far side of the pond. He stumbled many times in the dark, with only the odd photon of star light to guide his way. But he knew the route. This was a path he had trodden many times. Nestled behind the boulders lay thirty-five plastic cups, on two trays, and in each cup was a tiny, baby plant.

He took each tray of plants, and after two more return trips had them safely stowed in the kestrel.

Then he closed the door. His heart beat a samba in his chest, and it had nothing to do with the hurried, midnight excursion. It was because he was packing. He knew this was a course from which there could be no return. Even Levison’s uncharacteristic but repeated forgiveness for Slicker’s transgressions would be stretched and broken when word of this act of treason got back to the Queen Isabella III.

His fingers tingled as he slipped into the body-hugging comfort of the pilot’s seat. Slicker had never flown a spacecraft. He was no pilot. But how hard could it be? There was only one direction that interested him, and that was up.

The green battery light was still green and still the only illumination in the cabin. What did it mean? There was enough power to run basic systems? Would it turn red the moment he switched on the cabin lights? There couldn’t be a full charge in the battery yet. The manual said a full charge from the solar accumulator would take ten days. They had discussed this and called him on it, many times. They had connected the solar panels just five days ago. So maybe green meant a half charge?

Except.

A smile stretched across Slicker’s face. He reached up and began snapping switches into the “on” position. Light flooded the cabin, light sucked from the lifeblood of the ship’s batteries.

Except.

And this is why: A day on Little Pinky lasted seventy hours. Long cold nights, yes, but also long, very long, hot days. Yes, it took ten days to charge, but they were Universal Standard days. Twenty-four-hour days. Of course the batteries were charged. Charged and brim full. Kurasov was a grunt. One dimensional. To him, a day was a day and he had ignored all the contrary evidence laid before him.

So, how to drive this thing? There were a lot of dials and switches, and now a lot of coloured lights and twitching needles.

Ahead of Slicker there was a Post-it stuck to the main panel.

Auto launch sequence. Select ‘A’ from main menu.

Slicker smiled. He pushed the “on” button beneath the main screen.

The screen lit up.

<Welcome, Commander Kurasov. Please enter password.>

Slicker’s smile faded. His fingers hovered over the keyboard doing a little air dance in irritation. He typed 1234. Who knows? Russ Kurasov might be as bad with passwords as he was.

<Incorrect password. Please try again!>

Slicker threw up his hands in exasperation. He tried again. ABCD.

<Incorrect password. Please try again! You have one more attempt remaining.>

Damn, thought Slicker. One of those where they lock you out. He knew that if he tried again and failed, even Kurasov wouldn’t be able to get back in.

Then he noticed an icon at the bottom of the screen. <New User.>

He pressed it.

<Please enter a user name.>

He keyed SlickerR. Why not. That was his user in the accounting system.

<Please enter a password.>

He typed Bob.

<Please use a combination of letters, numerals and symbols.>

He typed =B0b

<Too few characters. Please use at least 16 characters.>

Slicker sighed, then keyed in a string of numbers, symbols and four-letter expletives. He kept his hands well clear of the “enter” key. He took out the pocket notebook that he used for his botanising, and with the stub of his pencil that he’d wedged behind his right ear, he wrote down the password, careful to differentiate the ohs from the zeros.

Then he pressed enter.

<Please enter the password again.>

He was glad he’d written it down. He keyed the string of characters again. Then he rubbed his hands together… and pressed “enter”.

The screen went ping and filled with text. Lists and options. The header said, <Welcome New User, SlickerR>. Slicker glanced again at Kurasov’s Post-it instructions. He punched <menu options> and <pre-programmed sequences>.

<Option A. LAUNCH>

Slicker stared. Could it really be this simple? He flexed his fingers. He reached out, then stopped.

He searched behind each shoulder for the seat belt, pulled it tight and snapped close the catch on his chest. Then again he reached forward with his finger.

Should he do this? Was he being stupid? Monumentally stupid? You don’t just joyride a spaceship.

“Sod it,” he said.

He punched the “A” icon on the screen. It went red.

<Engage launch sequence. Are you sure?>

He punched “Y”.

<Are you absolutely sure? Really?>

This time he didn’t just touch the icon, he jabbed at it in irritation.

“Yes,” he snarled at the machine. “I’m bloody sure.”

The lights in the cabin dimmed, then turned red. At first Slicker thought this meant he’d used the batteries up again and his heart sank. But then something went thunk under his seat and the kestrel began to lift, born aloft on its ZG field until it was an impressive three feet in the air. This is one powerful piece of ZG tech, thought Slicker.

The message on the screen changed to <Abort?> and a countdown started. Three, two, one. No more. Not even enough of a count to think, Oh shit, and reach out to the screen, because then a whole bunch of thrust kicked him in the small of his back and the kestrel blasted forward, gathering speed at an alarming rate, not up, but straight along the ground, straight towards the away team camp. Slicker lifted his hands to react but had no clue how to stop it. Too late, anyway, he was there already. He blasted through the soldiers’ camp, skimming the roofs of the tents. The kestrel had accelerated enough to be thrusting aside a decent pressure wave, enough to level the geometric rows of canvas, washing lines and camp fires. Enough to scour them all from the face of Little Pinky.

And then he was heading out to sea. Still flat and level. Every now and again a large wave reached high enough to touch the kestrel, where it sizzled and vaporised.

Why isn’t the bloody thing going up? thought Slicker. “Up!” he shouted. It was fine going straight over the sea. Exhilarating. But sooner or later he was bound to make landfall again, and there he might find objects that were a little taller and harder than waves. Things like mountains.

He scanned the control panel with a desperate eye. There must be something. “What the hell kind of automated launch sequence is this?” he shouted to no-one. But even as he put the question he knew the answer. It was the hell kind of automated launch sequence that launched from a hangar, in space, where there was no Up and there was no Down, just Go.

The horizon was no longer a straight line. It was knobbly and getting nearer. There were fluffy clouds that marked the existence of something other than air. The sort of clouds that like to gather along the ridges of mountains. And the tops of the knobbly bits were white. Snow-capped peaks, then? Okay. His current cruising altitude of about three or four feet was not going to be a lot of use to him. So if he was going to go switching off auto, and learning to fly this thing, then he supposed it might be better to do his trial-and-error stuff over something soft, like the ocean, although at his current speed he doubted it would make much difference. He’d better rethink the error part.

Slicker took hold of the stick in front of him. He took a breath and pulled back. Nothing happened. The mountains ahead got larger. He could see sharp, jagged lines now. Sharp lines meant mountains that didn’t erode much. Mountains made of hard stuff, like granite. Though again, it didn’t much matter if this world had mountains of marshmallow, because he was now moving so fast that even the air was hard. In fact the air was so hard it glowed cherry-red on the kestrel’s leading edges.

The stick had moved, with some resistance, but it had had no effect. Why?

Because the light that said “Auto” still glowed green. Slicker punched it. It went red and he learned everything about inertia and gee-forces and losing his lunch, all in about one pico-second. Of all the wild and random directions the kestrel could have chosen in that moment, by the grace of God it chose up – the one direction that did not result in spreading chaff, blood and powdered bone across Little Pinky’s pristine ocean. Slicker understood this and had time to be grateful, despite the bleeding ears and the bruises.

The white sky became blue as the kestrel blasted through cloud. Then everything went red and tunnel-like as Slicker started to black out. When he came too again, only moments later, the sky was turning purple then black.

Slicker knew enough about ballistics to realise that at some stage it would be prudent to disengage the thrust, but three things prevented him from doing this: a) the fear of doing it too early and tracing a nice parabolic arch back down to the ground; b) his arms were too heavy to reach out to the controls; and c) had his arms possessed superhuman strength, he did not know which button to press to achieve the desired result. There was also a fourth reason: that he was passing in and out of consciousness under the relentless gee-forces. It was a problem indeed.

Slicker decided his best option was to try to re-engage the auto launch sequence, assuming that, by now, the sequence might have reached a point where it had had enough of zooming about and would bring the ship back under control. It was easier said than done. His arms were feeling the absence of athletic attention he had lavished on them for the past twenty-odd years. He also doubted if his brain might be, at this moment, in tip-top condition, what with all the skull-crushing and what-not.

He used the chair arm for leverage and walked his fingers, dragging an arm that felt like towing a dead moose through wet sand, all the while hampered by the other moose that sat on his face. In a final, valiant effort he threw his arm forward and hit the auto button once again. Lots of lights flashed, an alarm went off, and Slicker crashed forward in his seat as though the craft had driven into the gates of an iron foundry.

But then there was peace.

25

With each twitch of the column and foot controls, Florence felt the Kaydence Wilson respond. She felt it through her bottom, and down her spine. She felt it in her neck muscles as she fought to keep her head perpendicular to her shoulders. In under a minute it felt natural. In two minutes it was boring. There was just black space and the tug of inertia. Florence wanted real flying. She turned back to the Queen.

Queen Isabella III comprised four concentric cylinders: a long hub, a stubby outer cylinder and two medium-length cylinders inside, all connected via a thick web of spokes that were the communication shafts and corridors between the four levels.

The whole ship was, of course, turning, and Florence reckoned a route between decks, weaving through the moving spokes, would be challenging enough to test her flying skills. She imagined that if anyone had thought of such a stunt as an option, someone else would have forbidden it. But they hadn’t and so it wasn’t, she hoped. She would do it anyway, thought Florence. There was nothing more to lose. She was a renegade and it would end here or it would end elsewhere. What did it matter?

She made her first pass at half throttle, because, hey; she was still learning. The second time through she opened it up a bit, adding some spin of her own to spice it up. Word had got out, and on her second pass she saw lots of faces pressed to windows. She saw wide eyes. She guessed that a third pass would see blasters and laser cannon and similar flavours of mutually assured destruction. That was not the way she wanted to go.

What next, then? She had a ship. She had independence. What should she do with them?

Florence turned the nose of the Kaydence Wilson and pointed her at the brightest white dot, the planet called Old Blue Eyes, a name that had stuck. She’d find peace there. They only had the one kestrel, already landed and out of contact on Little Pinky, so unless they chose to use the Queen herself for a pursuit – utter madness – then she would have a whole world to herself, at least for a few months. It was good reasoning. They would not bother to chase her, not yet. Her time would come, she was sure, when they tired of Little Pinky and decided to explore the other world, but by then it would be her world, and she’d be ready for them.

* * *

The kestrel hardly pulled a curve as it left the gravity well of Little Pinky, such was the magnitude of her escape velocity. Slicker scanned the alien instrument panel for inspiration. How do I drive this thing? he thought. There were a lot of controls and a lot of lights, most of them flashing red, which, Slicker thought, could be a bad sign.

The navigation computer was on an old hard-screen unit with a keyboard, and there was a Dymo tape stuck on it that said “Navigation Computer”. For Slicker it was like coming home. He had spent much of his working life perched in front of a terminal like this, and while his had been a gateway to the world of Finance, he did know how to find his way around, and he had at least done some studying on Orbital Mechanics and Space Nav. They were just maths, and neither presented much in the way of a learning curve.

The computer asked for a user name and password, and the same ones Slicker had set up for piloting took him straight in. There was a menu system, and that all looked pretty good, and the second upside – each menu choice took him to a place that worked, and this was an alien concept after years of cursing at hung and crashing finance software, in a decreasing spiral of usability and botched data migration after successive “upgrades”. Oh my goodness, thought Slicker. This is smooth.

It took him fifteen minutes to alter his trajectory to one that would intersect with the place in space where Blue Eyes would be in three days, the estimated transit time. The computer had automatically added records for each celestial body, and a quick scan updated the database and extrapolated planetary movements. I don’t even have to drive the damn ship, thought Slicker. The computer will do it for me.

He noted how, already, there was more information flowing into the database. Blue Eyes was the outer planet, with an orbit of 449 days. Little Pinky was smaller and faster. A year on Pinky lasted only 151 days. Fortune smiled on Slicker, because at this moment the two planets were at their closest to one another. Blue Eyes was a bright and obvious disc against the backdrop of twinkling stars.

I can almost navigate by point-and-shoot, thought Slicker.

Coming back might be a different matter, but Slicker was not into that brand of negative long-term thinking.

What would happen when he got to Blue Eyes? How might he land? These were issues for another day, and Slicker made a deft sidestep of the problem. Right now he was in control. Green lights. His debut as interplanetary pilot and navigator could not be going better. Why spoil it?

He looked around the cabin for celebratory goodies to improve the quality of life during the journey. He found them in the form of a refrigerator stocked with beer.

“Well, well, well,” said Slicker under his breath. “The beer is cold.” Slicker saw the implications straight away. The all-galactic hero, Kurasov, had forgotten to turn it off when they landed. I’m no expert, thought Slicker, but I’d guess a big old fridge like this has got to be pulling amps out of idle batteries by the shovel-full. At last we know who was to blame for the ship’s power drain, don’t we?

“Cheers, Russ,” he said, downing the first of the ice-cold Fosters. “If we ever get a chance to reminisce about all the fun times we had on Pinky, I’ll be sure to bring it up.”

There wasn’t much else in the cabin to play with, so Slicker went back to the nav computer to see what other fun stuff was hiding in there. The records of flight plans from the Sphere were of little interest, but he did find a record of the fleet’s arrival into Pinky space, as he liked to call it. The details were incomplete, with some corrupted files, but they had the effect of making Slicker feel wistful. Here was enough info for him to tap into the computer and have it retrace their steps and go straight home. Except there was no gate. Just... what? A big hole in space? What hole-like thing did they pop out of? This wasn’t an area with much research. The only people who’d ever tried going through an open-ended gate hadn’t come back, apart from the hippies on Serenity. It occurred to him that he was in a unique position to go and look. But who would he tell? He was in a small club of people on the wrong side of open-ended gates who were unlikely ever to be going to a convention where they’d swap tales. The thought was getting him depressed. Or was it the beer?

So he tilted his seat – there was enough constant thrust to keep him in the seat – he closed his eyes, and he began to snore.

* * *

Florence began to have doubts. It was all very well pointing your nose at the distant white dot that was Old Blue Eyes, but was she sure? There were an awful lot of white dots out there. Sure, this one seemed bigger and brighter than the others, but Kaydence Wilson had no deck, no roof, no walls. She was a mere frame. Space was all around. There is a lot of sky in space, it’s not just in the place where you look “up”. On land you can see half the sky. Well, not even half, because near the horizon the thicker atmosphere obscures all but the brightest stars, and often there are hills that get in the way. In space, the sky extends in every direction, and no part of it is any less clear than every other part. So, yes, space is big, and in all directions there are more visible stars. Every direction in which Florence turned the ship there was something bright enough to be Blue Eyes, except, of course, for the pink ball of Little Pinky, and the big, sun-like star they called Sun, and when she turned that way she just went blind for a while.

It occurred to her she could fly this ship like a natural, like it was an extension of her limbs; she could handle it just like a trapeze, but she couldn’t find her way anywhere. She didn’t have the slightest idea how to navigate, and by the time she’d confirmed this startling truth, and realised that it might just be better to head back to the Queen, then the Queen herself had gone, reduced to just one of the trillion or so stars.

So, she decided it would have to be Little Pinky, with its away team comprising: commandos, her nymphomaniac ex-boss, and the slimy reptile, Slicker. It would have to do. She turned the ship and headed for a shallow orbit. Then it happened, just above the horizon: another star rose into view. No, not a star, this one was blue and it wasn’t a pin-point light source, it was a full, bright disc. No question. She’d found Blue Eyes.

Florence smiled. She pulled up the nose of the Kaydence Wilson and bounced off the atmosphere of Pinky. She was heading for a world all to herself. She was heading for Old Blue Eyes.

How long would it take? She’d heard mention of it being a two- or three-day transit. Maybe less, because her stripped-down ship wouldn’t be carrying any unnecessary weight, like supplies… and bodywork. She had plenty of life support and her suit was plumbed-in for food and drink. But three days in a suit? Not good. She opened up the throttle until she was pulling over four gees. She’d be damned if she was going to hang around for three days. There were worse things than a bit of weight on her chest.

* * *

Blue Eyes was so called for the two round patches of blue that dominated telescope views. As Slicker came nearer, he realised they weren’t two patches at all, but one large blue ocean. Cloud cover, an unusual banding between the ice caps, had given the illusion of two bodies of water, and for a while Slicker worried that water would be all there was of Blue Eyes, but he could see land masses, small islands and archipelagos – a lot of them. They were green. Slicker had never seen such green land. He looked down at his beloved trays of plant specimens from Pinky, and decided he was going to like Blue Eyes.

First, though, he had more pressing matters: how to get his ship and himself down onto one of those islands without catastrophe. His navigation had been spot on so far, but there was still the basic problem that he didn’t actually know how to fly the ship. He’d spent a long time at the nav computer hoping to find an automated sequence, but, he realised, up until last week this whole segment of the universe didn’t even exist in the computer. The only items in her database consisted of no more than a wish list of places maybe good for a visit.

He thought it through. His navigation had been so good that his trajectory still pointed straight and true at a point that bisected the equator. What little he did know about spaceflight included the knowledge that perpendicular to the ground was not so good an angle of attack. At his current speed he’d be in the atmosphere for only about twenty seconds, a fireball. By the time he reached the surface both he and his ship would be as substantial as flatulence product. So he needed to slow down and he needed to do it soon, and he also needed to come in a little shallower.

He set to work on the computer again, until, with a whoop of delight, he found what appeared to be a program for attaining an orbit. It might not be a good orbit, given that the program was generic, and things in the world of spaceflight worked best when specific, but he was fast running out of time and options.

He hit “Go” and the computer began to do rapid and encouraging things. It took measurements and readings. It showed graphics depicting planetary circles and orbital ovals, and then, without prompting, began firing attitude jets with an attitude. Slicker found himself bouncing around the cabin like ice in a cocktail shaker.

It worked, though. It took a while. There were several devastating manoeuvres that Slicker guessed were the thing he’d heard of called aerobraking. His engines punched and burned in explosive ways that suggested he was a key player in a theatre of war. Then, after the violence ended, after Slicker had imprinted his face onto most of the hard flat surfaces inside the ship, a notice came on, in big, red, flashing characters, that said “Fasten Seat Belts”.

From what Slicker could see of the display, he was in a nice, circular, equatorial low orbit and poised for entry into Blue Eye’s atmosphere at the press of a button. Slicker knew, though, that his real problems would start from then on, because once in the atmosphere, once the trauma of entering the atmosphere was over, he was going to have to fly this thing. He was going to have to fly her and set her down on one of those tiny green dots in the expanse of blue. That the dots were green could also be a problem. If he could see green from all the way up here, the chances of finding a nice flat plain or desert were remote. The green suggested his landing gear wheels might not be of much use.

It took him a dozen orbits to pluck up the courage to hit the button. Because he had just three choices: to fly back to Little Pinky, to hit the button and see what happened, or do nothing. “Do Nothing” was the more certain option. He would stay up here forever. Going back to Little Pinky would merely delay the same three options for a couple of days.

Slicker hit the button.

This time the result was stately and controlled. A gentle nudge, a shift in the horizon, a bit of vibration, a bit of fire out of the window, and then a simple note on the computer screen: “Auto sequence completed. Assume Manual Control.”

Slicker took hold of the control column and gave it an experimental tweak. Stately and controlled came to an end. Catastrophe and violence resumed.

26

Florence found that reaching Blue Eyes was not so easy as just pointing the nose. Blue Eyes kept moving out of the way. Florence had to make constant adjustments and her route between the two worlds became neither transfer orbit nor straight line, it deteriorated into an inelegant zig-zag. Her constant readjustments meant she was, at least, flying the ship, but not in the economical way she would have preferred, because she wanted speed; her number one priority was to get out of the spacesuit, which was starting to smell lived-in.

Blue Eyes looked promising though. A lot of ocean. A lot of islands. Even if the others came for her, finding her amongst the fairy-dust of scattered islands would be a challenge for them, and so far the Queen’s rag-tag band of reluctant invaders had not excelled in meeting challenges. They’d lost the planet they came to invade, they’d lost the Sphere of Influence, and they were lost in uncharted space. They had also lost (and for this, Flo admitted she might be partly to blame) their entire fleet of kestrel landing ships, save for one clapped-out jinxed ship and another built from space junk. No, she felt quite confident she would have, for months, years or forever, if not the entire planet, then at least a whole island, to herself.

Florence pulled into a clean orbit and studied the best place to land. Every island looked difficult. No flat, wide open spaces. Lots of green. This was going to be fun.

Then, on her screen, she saw the other kestrel.

It was taking an eccentric orbit. A wild orbit. A wasteful orbit. But it was correcting, in its own way, in some weird, blast-and-react fashion.

Florence watched and adjusted her own course. She was fortunate to be behind the other ship and able, in a few short tweaks, to put much of the planet between them, so that as the other kestrel at last settled into a sensible orbit, it stayed ahead, dropping just on the horizon. They’d be searching for her, but the last place they’d expect to find her would be looking back down their own tail pipes.

For a few orbits they continued their dance without change. Then the kestrel began to drop into Blue Eyes’ atmosphere. This time the manoeuvre was controlled and efficient. Too controlled. Automated. The kestrel slipped into Blue Eye’s atmosphere with little fuss and minimum burn. Florence stayed in her own orbit, gaining on the kestrel, now, but safe from detection as the other ship boiled up a nice and convenient ionisation barrier. Florence would track her down, note where she landed, then find a cosy little island of her own on the other side of the planet. They could search for a dozen lifetimes; they’d never know she was there.

But then it all began to unwind. The Jinxy, as Florence now thought of her – it must be Kestrel Thirteen – was just a blip on her scanner, but she was a blip that was pin-balling all over the stratosphere. That the crew had big problems was obvious. The Jinxy had become an aircraft, and the way she was handling she might soon be painted across this new landscape with nothing bigger than a black box and scorch marks to advertise her arrival. What was wrong with them? They could land her vertically. Why were they going in as though looking for a long runway? Florence made a scan of all the possible islands the kestrel might try for. She worked fast because she herself would soon be heading over the horizon and the kestrel would be left to her crash-landing all alone, behind Florence and out of sight. The pilot had chosen one of the least favourable parts of the ocean to bring her down, as if anywhere at all, on this bumpy, island-dotted planet, might be favourable. He or she were down to only three possible crumbs of land from which to choose.

Then Florence was over the horizon. The outcome seemed certain but Florence would have to wait until she came back round.

Damn! she thought. Damn them! She wanted this world for herself. If she couldn’t have the whole world then, okay, she would have been content to make do with one island. Just peace, quiet and solitude. Not a lot to ask. But she knew she was going to have to get involved. She couldn’t just ignore Jinxy, because the way her stupid pilot was carrying on there could be zero chance of survivors. Florence knew she couldn’t just make that assumption and ignore them. She had to look. She had to check. There were just two ships in a gazillion parsecs of space, and she rode the only one that wasn’t crashing. She was going to have to return to the real world and once more involve herself in the affairs of man.

She spent the fifty-minute orbit reviewing images she’d snapped of the three possible island landing sites. She reviewed her own options for de-orbit. Her ship had no heat shield so she would have to lose most of her velocity outside the atmosphere then come in sitting on her own thrust. It was wasteful, it took her past a point of no return, but it had always been the only real option. Proper kestrels offered the re-entry-bag method, but that involved leaving the Kaydence Wilson aloft while making de-orbit trussed up in a foil bag like an oven-ready chicken. And it was still a one-way ticket, and with less choice of landing site.

As the first island came into view, she zoomed in with the telescope, her only tool, and began a search. At least the few landing options reduced the search area. If the kestrel went down in the ocean, then it was game-over anyway.

She scanned the island but saw no differences between the island now, and how it looked on the images she’d snapped on her first pass.

The second island, though, showed scars. A long, smoking line drawn across the greenery. The final resting place of the good ship Jinxy. There would be no survivors, that was clear. Florence wondered if she should take that as read and look for a place of her own. But she couldn’t. The deceased crew at least deserved a story. Her duty was to view the scene and report back to the Queen. It was the right thing to do.

Florence set about the careful task of de-orbiting. She didn’t want to end up in the same funeral pyre. She was short on instruments. She’d have to do this by eye. Another orbit for thinking time. Another for marking the braking point against landmarks below. Then on her next lap she flipped the ship over and hit the thrusters.

* * *

Bob Slicker had fantasised, as many have done, pretty much all the way back to Orville and Wilbur, about how, as the only survivor of a bad-fish-dinner episode, it had fallen to him to bring an airliner down into a successful landing, amid cheers from those passengers still conscious. The fantasy, as it does for us all, always ends well. Here he had a chance to try it out for real without putting any other lives at risk, save those of the indigenous fauna below, at this moment gathering warmth from their sun whilst lying on the beaches and grasslands of their peaceful island paradise, unsuspecting of the drama that was about to descend from the clear blue skies.

The “Assume Manual Control” message, in cool blue lettering on the screen, turned to a stark and flashing red. A disembodied voice, for the moment still calm and forgiving, overlaid the light show.

“You are advised, you have manual control. Please respond.”

Slicker had the control stick in both hands. He worked it as though he were stirring Daddy Bear’s porridge.

“Warning! Delta Vee exceeded!” The computer voice had acquired an edge.

“Warning!”

Slicker looked up at the loudspeaker in the centre of the console. “I’m trying!” he shouted. “Give us a break!”

He glanced down at the control panel. Every screen flashed red. Every dial was spinning. Some dials were spinning in three different directions all at the same time. Every alarm and siren screamed. The calm AI voice, coming from the centre console, ceased giving instructions and started saying prayers.

Slicker glanced forward out of the window. The clouds, the ocean, the dots of islands, everything, was spinning.

Slicker took a breath and stopped stirring the porridge. He took another breath. With a gentle tweak he moved the stick to the right and the spin increased. His eyeballs rattled around in their sockets. He pushed the stick back. Then, with a gentle nudge, he pushed it the other way. Nothing. Wait. Something. The spin began to slow. He didn’t move the stick any further, he waited. Slower and slower. Steady. He was flying the kestrel. The spin halted. Even better, it halted with the ocean below and the sky above. Sort of. They were also in a nose down attitude, spearing towards the glittering ocean.

Slicker was not a pilot. He did not have the instincts of a stick jockey. For that matter, he did not have the instincts of a Father Bear porridge maker, either. But in that moment of calm he learned how to finesse the controls. He pulled back on the stick. The nose lifted. He looked around for land but before he could spot any the ship banked to the right. Ahead was an island. The kestrel skimmed the wave tops, aimed directly for the one dot of land anywhere.

Did I do that? Slicker wondered. Then he noticed the screen ahead of him. Auto pilot has regained control. Slicker felt both relieved and disappointed. For a moment there he thought he’d learnt how to fly. At least now he would be in safe hands.

But the nose dipped, caught a wave, and the kestrel flipped. For an instant Slicker was looking back down the wake he had created. Then: Explosion. Noise. Debris. Slicker found himself encased in jelly as opposing forces sought to rip his body apart.

He opened his eyes only when he was sure all movement had stopped. He felt weight pulling him down. He felt sticky.

Slicker looked around to find himself lying amongst wreckage. There were parts of the kestrel he recognised, but not many. His crash bubble was completing the final stages of rapid biodegradation, a safety feature that prevented his drowning in the viscous buffer fluid. Unless, of course, he’d landed in the ocean. Slicker lifted a heavy arm and the noxious goo drew strands that dragged at his skin, then broke with a snap. Slicker knew that everyone had names for him, names like Oiler and Lubeman. But, oh, if they could see him now. The fluid evaporated fast, though, and while it made him shiver with cold and set his eyes weeping from the volatile smell, it soon dissipated.

Slicker dragged himself to his feet and surveyed the landscape. Ahead of him there stretched a green prairie dotted with slow, grazing creatures, and head-tall shrubs covered in many-coloured blooms. Behind him lay a scorched and burning trench, and beyond that, the sea. The sky was blue, the hot, ‘F’ class star above, warmed the last of the evaporating goo from his skin. This was not a bad place, he thought. Unless those grazers were part of a lively food chain. He walked over to one of them. It looked up at Slicker’s approach, with a quizzical expression, then continued to eat. Slicker put a hand on the creature’s back and felt warm, coarse hair. The creature ignored him. A grazing animal with no fear was a good sign, he thought. Looking around, he nodded. This was a good place. If he could find water, and the grazing animals were evidence that this would not be hard, Slicker decided that he had at last found a place worthy of the name, home. If he couldn’t get back to his actual home, then this might be a good second-best. And he had it all to himself.

A crashing boom made him jump, followed by a roaring sound from up above. Even the brave grazer cringed under Slicker’s hand. He looked up to see an exhaust plume lowering from the sky, heading straight down for his island.

Damn! thought Slicker. How? Who? There were no other ships left on the Queen Isabella III, and yet here was one, mere minutes behind him. How did they do that? How did Levison do that?

Slicker looked again at what remained of the kestrel and it didn’t take much imagination to know what Levison would say about it. Leaving him stranded and alone, here, would be too good for Slicker. Death would be too good for him. Even slow and painful death would be insufficient because the death part meant it would end some time.

He decided to put some space between himself and the wreckage. Okay, it was pointless, they had managed to follow him halfway across the unknown universe. But he could not just give up. Maybe if he stayed out of Levison’s reach for long enough they might just forget about him. There were more pressing matters calling for the attention of the lost travellers than hunting down a solitary renegade. He hoped this might be so, but then again he knew Levison. He rummaged around amongst his personal effects, lying in the remains of the goo-bubble, and found his hat, a yellow, Space Corps cap that would keep the worst of the sunlight from burning his head.

He set off at a trot.

27

For Florence there was no drama in entering the atmosphere of Blue Eyes. She retro-blasted long and hard until her skeleton ship was falling like a stone. Then she fired her main engines and slowed, sitting on her thrust, watching the fuel gauge drop to zero.

Flo reached over and gave the gauge a couple of sharp taps with her nail and breathed a sigh of relief as the needle sprang up to the quarter-full mark. She would get down okay, she might even have enough left for a spot of island tourism, but she wouldn’t be leaving Blue Eyes’ gravity well ever again, not unless she could magic up a jug of metallic hydrogen.

The planet unrolled beneath her. She had a map, of sorts. She took out the photograph of the island she was looking for and searched the ocean below. Nothing looked familiar. There were islands, but not the one she wanted, the one with a Space Corps kestrel splattered all over her landscape. Not a problem if she couldn’t find the island, because then her conscience would be clear after she landed somewhere else. At least she’d know she had tried, and she would be hidden from any search party that the Queen managed to send her way.

But then an island swung into view, and even without a map it was obvious from the brown and smoking gash that this was her destination. She couldn’t make out any details so she simply aimed for the end of the gouge.

She came in slowly, balanced against gravity by her thrusters. She was flying. Her skeleton ship made her feel naked and exposed, with a hard, unforgiving planet onto which she could fall, and it felt great. In light of her fuel situation, the chances were good that this would be the last time she could ever do this, not unless there was a chemical factory hiding in the scrub below.

Flo cracked open the visor on her helmet. She took in a good lungful of fresh air, smelling the sea and the vegetation below. Wonderful. She pulled back on the stick – yes, it was a stick, requisitioned from the Queen’s broom cupboard and separated from its mop-head. She dropped, in free fall, waiting for the last possible moment before gunning the thrusters to kill her descent and land. It felt good. The falling. It felt exhilarating.

Her timing instincts were perfect. She slowed to a stop only feet from the ground then settled. Her ship had no landing gear, but Florence placed her between two large boulders without a jolt.

She climbed down from the craft and looked around. Not twenty feet in front of her was a piece of wing, sporting the Space Corps lightning-flash logo. It was the largest chunk of the kestrel she could see.

She wasn’t at the end of the scar, though, so she threw the medikit over her shoulder and followed the destruction, on foot, to see what, if anything, lay at the far end.

It felt good to walk. Spin induced gravity was okay but it never had that full-on flavour that you got from being deep down in a real gravity well. Picking her way along the rock-strewn gash in the earth she felt a spring in her step. There was wreckage all along, nothing bigger than her hand. There was no way anyone could have survived this. Why had she bothered with the medikit? There may be body parts, but nothing more, and her mind shied away from the thought, focussing more on the subject of usable salvage. Unless a miracle happened, this was going to be her home for the rest of her life. She tried to keep the lid on the thought that without water, food, fuel and shelter, that span of time might be brief. She told herself to be positive. Because, hey, she was walking. Big strides. The sun on her back, and it felt fine.

The kestrel’s cabin lay on one side at the end of the cutting. It was intact, more or less, though the paintwork looked like it needed a touch-up. A round door hung open. Was it an ejection hatch? She peered through it, not touching the sides because it steamed and pinged while it cooled. It was empty. No pilot. No pilot’s seat. Flo felt the crushing weight of responsibility descend onto her shoulders once more. The pilot had left the ship. He or she would be out there now, and whether well, injured or stiff, she knew she had to search, even though this person had come here on Levison’s orders, and those orders were unlikely to involve bringing her cake. The other cabin seats were still inside so the pilot had been alone. She looked through into the crew section – the connecting door hung from its hinges – expecting to see mangled bodies, but it too was empty. There was no ejection facility in that part of the ship; it was used for disposable items like freight and crew. So why no crew? No co-pilot, navigator nor engineer. This presented a mystery. Why would anyone go out alone on a search-and-recover mission, or even a kill-and-have-done-with mission? It made no sense at all. Nobody had stepped out of the hatch, not with the sizzling and popping sounds of heat that made her hair frizz even from a couple of feet distant. No, the pilot had been ejected. Where?

Looking around her, she noted how the devastation was less than further down the trail. She appeared to be at the far end of the crash site. Alone and far from the other bits lay what looked like a saggy balloon. Florence tugged at it and found the pilot’s seat underneath. So, this was the ejection system. And beside it, following a meandering trail in the soft, sandy ground, were footprints. Some of them human, or at least wearing boots, and others belonging to some animal. Had this animal eaten the human? Or become their friend, or pet, or their dinner?

Florence sighed. She pulled off her helmet then clambered out of her heavy, smelly spacesuit, glad to be rid of both, then set off at a jog to follow them.

* * *

Slicker’s trot turned into a run. It felt right and it felt good. The wind on his face, the steady slap of his feet on the compacted soil, the swish of his legs through the grass.

Twenty minutes went by and Slicker continued to run, right up until a part of his mind began to shout out to him that something was amiss. Slicker thought about it. He slowed to a stop. What was it? He looked around. The grass was yellow and green and long, and it swayed in the wind like a slow ocean. Here and there were bare patches which Slicker assumed marked a recent dining spot for the peaceful grazing animals that dotted the landscape. The sky above was cerulean blue, with fluffy clouds. In the distance rose low purple hills, and Slicker guessed that beyond them was a turquoise ocean, because this was an island, a small island, and it was quite beautiful. So what was wrong?

Slicker leaned forward and placed his hands upon his knees, only because he had been running and that was what runners did after a run. But he didn’t need to, and then it occurred to him what was wrong. He was not breathing hard. He felt a little damp, but not the usual outpouring. He’d covered, what, three miles? His legs didn’t cramp, his lungs didn’t feel like three-week-old party balloons. Sweating, gasping and profanity were Slicker’s normal reaction to a brisk hundred-yard jog. His normal reaction to a fast, three-mile run should have involved paramedics and possibly even mourners.

Slicker took a long, deep breath, then let it go. It made his head spin. In a good way. This was oxygen such as he’d never before tasted. He felt super-charged. Also, a little puzzled. The bioscan readings from the kestrel had confirmed oxygen in the atmosphere, enough to sustain a person but nothing extravagant. Ten-and-a-half percent. A couple of percentage points less than that of his home atmosphere on Tsanak.

Slicker squatted down on his haunches and straight away noticed a change in the air. It was even crisper down here. He took another breath and his mind felt sharper and alert. The grass was long, almost head height. His fingers brushed the ground for balance, but he could no longer feel the soil, just a thick mossy carpet. Slicker kneeled and lowered his head for a closer look. No, not moss at all. This plant had long leaves that lay flat on the ground, overlapping and layering. In places it lay so thick the tall grasses could find no way through, leaving the bare patches Slicker had already noticed. The leaves looked a little like those of the Sansevieria, or Snake plant used extensively in gene mod form by terraformers. Except these lay flat, and the edges were tinged blue, not yellow. Sansevieria was a good oxygen producer. Compared to this, however, it was minor league, for down here Slicker felt… alive.

He scrutinised the plant, then, from his back pocket he retrieved his sketch book and pencil. He lowered himself to the ground and lay prone to better study the detail. He lifted a leaf with his pencil. He took hold of the base of the short stem and teased the plant free of the soil, exposing the root system. Slicker began to sketch.

28

It was easy to see which way the pilot had gone from the flattened, long grass that led in a straight line out onto the prairie. Where was he going? Florence could see nothing of any interest between herself and the low purple hills in the distance. She made her way carefully, not understanding anything that was going on here. Was this someone’s half-baked idea of a trap? Was someone about to leap out at her from the long grass? Or had the pilot brought a hamper, sandwiches and good bottle of wine? And would he save some for her?

Florence walked for over an hour. Her cautious approach became more relaxed until she was just out on a summer walk in the country, under a blue sky, enjoying the sunshine.

Then she saw the body.

The pilot was intact. No blood that she could see. All the limbs were pointing in the right general directions, but he was clearly unconscious. Florence ran the last few steps, fishing around in her medikit for anything that might be of use. Her fingers wrapped around an analgesic aerosol can.

“Hello? Are you okay?”

No response, so Florence held the can a couple of inches in front of the pilot’s face and sprayed.

“Aargh!” the pilot screamed and bolted upright. Florence recognised him straight away.

“Oh, I know you. What are you doing here?”

Slicker continued to scream, then his eyes rolled up as the spray took hold and he collapsed.

Florence looked around in a panic. She was, not miles, but light-years from anything resembling civilisation. Bob Slicker, the buffoon who caused all this, was clearly injured and in need of medical aid, and all she had with her was this stupid little rucksack filled with bottles of tablets and little pink Band-Aids and… well, stuff. She tipped it all out onto the grass and riffled through the contents. Had the injured party been suffering from athlete’s foot or haemorrhoids then all would have been well, but for serious trauma… Then one item, it looked like two short pencils bound together, caught her eye. The label said Copperbird EZ Evac Stretcher. She looked at it, then looked back down at Slicker, who was managing to writhe and groan despite unconsciousness. On the back of the two pencils was a label that said “Place each rail either side of patient then press button A”. Florence followed the instruction and each pencil-sized rod extended in both directions until the ends reached beyond Slicker’s head and feet, then with a smooth hum, he was lifted from the ground over a ZG field. Florence stepped back in surprise. This was Copperbird kit and yet it worked. She’d never known such a thing to happen before, but she was grateful, it gave her a purpose. All she needed to do was give the stretcher a gentle push and it began to glide along the prairie with ease.

So now, where to go? Her instincts told her the kestrel cabin was the only place – it was still intact and there might be something, some better medical aid inside, perhaps. At least it offered shelter, and although it was a bright and sunny day, there was always something comforting about having a roof over one’s head. Florence broke into a run, pushing the stretcher ahead of her.

It was good to run. Something about this place made it seem natural. In fact, more natural than running, Florence felt the urge to skip. Moving Slicker along on the stretcher was easy. She felt good about the rescue and her rapid response. She thought about how she would nurse this poor broken man back to full health and how grateful he would be.

Florence was deep into expanding the daydream about emulating her more famous namesake when the Copperbird EZ Evac Stretcher chose the moment to revert to type. The ZG field at the front of the stretcher collapsed on the only part of the trip that was rocky and devoid of cushioning grasses. They were on a short but fast descent where the stretcher had picked up speed ahead of Florence. The two front prongs dug in and the stretcher flipped. The patient, travelling feet first, was rotated through a hundred and eighty degrees then accelerated face first into the flinty gravel.

* * *

Slicker could not have been happier. His intense focus on sketching the fascinating plant drove all worries about shelter, food and water from his mind. This was the one he would send to Kew. Sansevieria slickerii would be the most dramatic and sought-after botanical specimen since the whole tulip price bubble thing back in the nineteenth century. When he had completed the sketch he just lay there, on the soft grass, and admired his plant. He felt sleepy. He felt relaxed. He dozed.

Until all hell let rip.

Hands grabbed him by the hair, lifted his head and some stinging, cold, foul-smelling chemical was sprayed into his eyes and nose. Snatched from his cradle of peace, Slicker had just seconds to register the neurological attack before his legs collapsed beneath him and his senses failed.

A bout of delirium followed. He drifted in and out of consciousness, aware of little else but paralysis and of the blinding heat of the sun which burned his upturned face.

Awareness returned. Slicker regained feeling in his hands and feet. He remained still, however, waiting until full movement and strength returned, so that when he chose to move, he would have more chance of moving quickly. He sensed warmth seeping into his legs, his arms. Tingling pain, then an ache. His arms were bound to his sides. This would be a complication, but the bindings didn’t feel so tight. He could work at them. He twisted his arms. Small movements, back and forth. Only he didn’t get as far as forth. At that moment there was a sharp jarring sensation and in under a second the blue sky was replaced by a panoramic view of the grasslands, then a brief image of rocks and boulders coming straight at him, face on. Slicker tried to throw up his hands but the bindings held. A brief flash of pain… then nothing.

* * *

Pain. All the world was pain.

Slicker experimented with a scream, then shut up when he found what it did to his head.

“You’re coming round. How are you? You had a terrible accident. Your ship crashed. You were injured. You’ll be okay now, though. I’ve patched you up. Don’t worry. Lucky I came along.”

The words just kept on coming, tumbling and gushing like a swollen mountain stream. Slicker knew that voice. He opened his eyes. Closed them. Opened his right eye a crack. His eyeballs felt as though made from cinders.

The girl’s face. The constant hyperactive movement. Hands that reached and explored and never rested. It was her. That Florence girl. The one who trashed all the kestrels.

Slicker closed the one eye again. He could hear the eyelid grating and scraping over the eyeball. The last few hours seemed to have been a mosaic of pain and confusion. Now, with his senses recovering, Slicker found he could stitch some of it together into a coherent narrative. The foul-smelling spray in his eyes. The sun burning his face. The violence of then having that broiled face hurled and mashed down onto the planet’s geology.

“Lucky?” Slicker croaked the word.

He saw a bottle of water being lowered to his lips. He flinched.

“Here, drink.”

But because he was lying down she somehow poured it all over his face, up his nose, into his abused eyes. He gasped and gagged. Not only had this maniac girl smashed his body to pulp and scabs, now she was water-boarding him.

“I got you back to the kestrel. You’d been wandering. Staggering around, delirious. The kestrel has a meditomaton – an autobones, so I put you inside and it patched you up a bit. Your injuries were extensive. I nursed you back.”

“I didn’t have injuries.”

“Oh, you did.”

“No, I didn’t! Not until you got here, anyway.” Slicker raised his voice but it hurt so he let it drop back to a whisper. “I didn’t have so much as a scratch. You did this. My God, if I’d started out with injuries like these you’d have killed me with your ‘nursing’. You’ve taken me to the edge of the abyss.”

“You were unconscious.”

“I was asleep. And I was happy.”

“You… you were burnt. All over your face.”

“You rendered me comatose then stretched me out for hours under a fierce little ‘F’ class star that’s hot enough give Satan third-degree burns. Where’s my hat?”

“You had a hat?”

“Yes. You lost my Space Corps hat? Great.”

“Sorry.”

“Yeah.”

They sulked in uncompanionable silence for a while, each deep in thoughts and resentment.

“What are you doing here?” said Slicker, at last. “I’m guessing you’re not the hunting party.”

“I thought you were hunting me?” said Florence.

“Why would I do that? What have you done?”

“Well, I built a kestrel. The only kestrel. Then I stole it.”

“You stole it?” There was a note of admiration in Slicker’s voice. “Thought I had the only kestrel,” he said.

“You went with the landing party. So, this is their kestrel?” Florence said, indicating the cabin they were in.

“Yup. What’s left of it.”

“Okay.” She thought about this. “Okay. So no one is coming to find us?”

“I guess not. Not unless they come in the Drift, or the Eddie.”

“Or the Queen,” said Florence.

“They couldn’t land the Queen. She’s just not built for it. Nor the Eddie. The Eddie Stobart is just a bunch of shipping containers with engines and fuel tanks strapped around them. I suppose they could land the Drift, at a pinch. But they’d only get to do it once, and they couldn’t bring everyone down to one of the planets, there isn’t room enough for the cast of thousands that are living in the Queen right now, that’s for sure.”

“Then we’re safe.”

“Safe is relative. We have no food, no water, and speaking for myself, I’m sharing a planet with someone whose idea of helping a person is to drug them, burn them, smash their face in, then give them water torture. I’d hate to get on your bad side.”

“Sorry.”

“You keep saying that.”

“I keep meaning it.”

Slicker said nothing.

“Are you going to accept my apology?”

“I’ll think about it.”

* * *

“You lost my hat.”

“It’s just a hat.”

“No, it is not just a hat. I have to find it. My sketchbook, too.”

“You are making a big fuss about this.”

“If you had come here with a bone saw and cut off my arm, you could not have caused me more hurt and loss.”

“Really?”

Slicker thought about it. “Well, maybe not. But you see what I’m getting at? My hat and my sketchbook. Important.”

Florence huffed and shook her head. “I’d have thought food and water and…”

Slicker fixed her with a stare.

“Okay, okay. The hat.”

“And the sketchbook.”

“Fine.”

They were eating from one of the emergency ration packs they’d found in the remains of Slicker’s kestrel. They had food for a week, maybe a week and a half. Given the dire circumstances of their provisioning it was illogical how much Slicker looked forward to the day when the food ran out. Emergency rations were horrible. Maybe, in a month or so he might think back to emergency rations with nostalgia. He hadn’t reached anywhere near that point yet though. He was still fuming about his hat and sketchbook. He felt sore and itchy in lots of hard to reach places. A sign of healing, but still… All together he guessed he was not good company right now. He hoped not, anyway.

“Why’s the hat so important to you?”

“It’s the first thing I ever… doesn’t matter.”

“It seems to matter.”

“It doesn’t. Maybe we’ll talk about it one day. Today isn’t going to be that day.”

“How are you feeling? Shall we go and look for your stuff? You up to it?”

“Okay.”

They clambered out of the bent kestrel.

“Which way?” said Florence.

Slicker gave a shrug. “I hoped you’d know. You’ve done it twice.”

“First time I was following your trail, head down. Second time, I don’t know. You were injured. I just… instinct.”

“It was only yesterday,” said Slicker. “Trail should be there, still.”

“Can’t see any sign of it.”

“Well, I headed away from the crash site. Towards some hills. Mountains.”

“Those mountains? They’re just a line. Any other landmarks? Did you aim for one mountain in particular?”

They examined the mountains. Hills. Hill. A long, unimpressive line of purple haze. Nothing stood out. No peaks. No shapes of any distinction. They looked the other way, towards the crash site. When Slicker had first looked – only yesterday? – it was dirt and destruction. Since then, nature had claimed back her own. The scar was still just visible, but as a slight depression filled with tangled greens and yellows.

“How long was I out? Everything in the crash site has grown back.”

“You slept the night, that’s all. It’s only a short night, here, too. Blue Eyes has a twenty-and-a-half-hour day.”

“This stuff doesn’t half grow, then,” said Slicker.

“Well, I think you’ve had your hat,” said Florence. “Your trail will be long gone.”

Slicker dropped to the ground and held his head in his hands. He was acting in a disproportionate way, he knew.

“When I first got a job, with the Space Corps. When I first got paid for work, with money, rather than having to steal what I needed, it was a big deal.”

“You stole everything?”

“I was an orphan.”

“I remember you telling me that.”

“Well, it’s not so easy being an orphan on the Ring. There was a bunch of us. We hid and we stole. Levison was our leader, our mentor.” Slicker thought about it for a while. “Actually he was our master. He told us where to go, what to steal.” Slicker’s voice dropped to a whisper. He had never spoken to anyone about his orphan days. About Levison. Why was he talking to this girl? There again he and she, the two of them, had become the whole universe. They would never leave this planet. They would never see home.

“But what about the hat?” Florence matched him whisper for whisper.

“Yeah, well, my first pay-day. I wanted to spend some of that money. I had it in my hand, the plastic card. I saw the digits move from zero to S$428.13.”

“You remember the amount? To the penny?”

“My first paycheque? Yeah. So, anyway, I looked around. I wanted to spend some. First thing I saw was the Space Corps’ souvenir shop, up on the Centreway. I bought that yellow Space Corps hat. I’ve kept it all my life. Hand-washed and mended it myself. A symbol. Now it’s gone.”

They sat in silence, Slicker remembering those days. What was Florence thinking? Was she wondering what it was like for him, being an orphan on the Ring? Did she feel sorry for him? He did not want that. He was no longer the raggedy-arsed orphan. That life was then. He’d crawled out of the dirt and built something to be proud of. At least he could fool himself into thinking this was so. Sometimes he found it hard to believe his own lies though.

“It’s not just the hat. I can move on from that. Just sentimental stuff. The notebook was more important. Just as irreplaceable but that notebook had value. It has the password to the computer on the kestrel.”

“The kestrel’s not going anywhere.”

“I suppose. But… I liked that sketchbook. You know, the pages were paper. Real organic cellulose stuff. From actual trees.”

“No way! What’s in it? Apart from a useless password?”

“Never mind. It might as well stay lost. Nobody will ever find us here. We have no ship. We can’t go anywhere. Notebook’s useless to me now.”

“I have a ship.”

“Yeah, but you said you had no fuel.”

“This is true. But what about your ship?”

Slicker looked around at the remains of his ship. He laughed. “As you said. She’s not going anywhere. Hey, you want to panel-beat the wings? Stick them back on with glue boiled up from plants and dirt?”

“No, but where are your tanks? Your landing looked rough, rougher than it was in reality. You survived.”

“Yeah, but…” He thought about it. “What do fuel tanks look like? How big?”

“Round things. Like basketballs. Same as the ones on mine, I reckon.”

“Would you recognise them?”

“Been sitting on them all the way from the Queen, half a million klicks. The contours are printed on my bottom.”

“Your ship doesn’t have seats?”

Florence smiled. “Nah. I don’t go in for ostentatious stuff like upholstery.”

“Well, at least we know where to look. The hole in the ground isn’t quite grown over just yet.”

Florence gave him a smile. “Saddle up,” she said.

29

They set out at first light. The going was hard. Tangled bushes and greenery filled what was, yesterday, a scar of dirt and rubble slashed across the island. Things grew fast here. Slicker realised he was becoming smitten by this world. It might be the last place he ever saw, but the island, the planet, made him feel alive.

“This place is amazing,” shouted Florence from the top of a high mound of shrubbery. She’d skipped up through the branches with light steps and easy balance, hardly making the leaves rustle. Slicker tried to follow but his legs found the gaps between the branches and he slipped and bumped like a human pinball until coming to rest in a shady den beneath the canopy. From above he could hear Florence’s laughter ringing out like bells. Her carefree optimism should have annoyed him, but he couldn’t help himself laughing with her.

He crawled out from the shrub and began to climb again. He took it slowly this time, not trying to imitate Florence’s easy, floating grace, but instead being careful where he put each foot. It was hard. Not the climb, but the restraint. He felt he wanted to leap and soar and scamper about just like he used to on the Ring when he was king of the ducting.

“It’s the oxygen,” he said, when he reached her at the top. He wasn’t even out of breath. “The plants grow fast and they produce huge quantities of oxygen. I noticed it on the plain. It’s not the big shrubs; it’s the small ground cover. Sansevieria slickerii.”

“What?”

Slicker felt his face begin to redden. He felt the familiar moistening of his armpits and across his back, though it occurred to him that maybe it wasn’t so familiar. Now he came to think about it he’d had none of the old damp problems since he’d arrived here, and even now in response to his discomfiture, it wasn’t excessive.

“It was the plant I was sketching when you… ‘rescued’ me.”

Florence just looked at him, waiting for more.

“Yeah, okay so I named it.”

“Slickerii?”

“Why not? I found it. It’s what I always wanted. To be a plant hunter. Bring back some new species. Take it to Kew and have it named after me.”

Florence tilted her head.

“Kew’s the name of the research division at La Ronde. The bottle garden? You’ve heard of La Ronde?”

“No.”

“They took all the plants there. From Old Earth. Like an ark for plants. They have catalogues. A seed bank. Millions of plant species. Every time we open up a new world they add new plants. I just… I wanted one named after me. I don’t know what my real name is, so I figure, if I name a plant I start to build something with substance around my identity. But to get a plant named you have to find a new species. That’s what was in the notebook.” His smile was lopsided and full of regret. “My sketches. Anyway, there are plenty more. I’m not done botanising yet. I’ll dig up another.” He wriggled a bit, because it was not very comfortable sitting on top of a bush. “Every plant here is new. But the Sansevieria Slickerii is special. That’s the one that makes all the oxygen. The terraformers would love it. And the one I sketched was the first one ever found.”

“You love this, don’t you? Botany and stuff?”

“Well, yeah. Always wanted a garden.”

“You have a passion for it.”

“Maybe it’s guilt. To my shame, I helped Levison trash La Ronde. We were hunting the fugitive, Philpotts, the guy who put us here. I felt bad about what I did to the garden ever since. I sent them donations to help them fix the damage. They don’t know the money came from me. Couldn’t tell them I’d been syphoning it out of Levison’s war chest. Not a problem; the war chest is all embezzled funds, anyway. Is it stealing to steal stolen money?”

“You don’t talk like a tyrant. A despoiler of worlds. How did you get into the invasion business?”

“Levison. Always Levison. My fate and his have been intertwined since we were kids.”

“The orphan gang?”

“Yeah. Do you know what this invasion was all about?”

“I don’t know anything about it. Apart from the thing you told me, about trees.”

“Trees, yeah. The new world, Serenity. It’s full of trees, like from Old Earth. Levison wants them. We brought chainsaws. There are boxes of the things stored all over the Queen, even stashed in the kestrel. Levison was serious about his lumberjacking capabilities. I needn’t have come. I’m a management accountant. I could have stayed home and done nine-to-five. I came because I wanted to thwart him. They’re the only trees. The last trees. We’ve been given a second chance. I couldn’t let him strip the place.”

“So you became his lieutenant? Helped lead the invasion?”

“The trees were safe. The chainsaws would never have worked. I made sure the batteries were crap. Paid rock bottom but charged the war chest full price. That’s how I moved money to La Ronde. Levison would kill me if he found out.”

“You’re a Disexpansionist.”

“I wouldn’t put it in those words.”

“You hate the invasion. You hate the blight of humanity being spread around the universe?”

Slicker thought about it then nodded. “I guess.”

“My God, you are a full-on Disexpansionist Anarchist right at the top of the Space Corps.”

“Hold on,” said Slicker, with indignation in his voice. “I’m not at the top of the Space Corps, not at all. But the other thing? Yeah, maybe.”

They were sitting together at the top of the bush, looking down the length of the scar. In the far distance they could see the ocean, twinkling in the early morning sunlight. The canopy of leaves, too, were twinkling and it made the cutting look like a meandering river, or a jewelled roadway.

“We should go and find your notebook.”

“Don’t you think we’re having enough trouble finding a fuel tank?”

“Easier out on the plain. None of this tangled shrubbery,” said Florence.

“But the fuel tank is important.”

“Yeah, I suppose.” Florence sounded disappointed. “My dad would say, stuff the fuel tank, go for the notebook. Follow your dreams. Follow your passion. That’s what he said when I announced I wanted to be a trapeze artist. Most dads would have said, don’t be stupid, get a proper job.” She let the thought hang for a moment. “We’ll find the fuel tank then we’ll look for your notebook. Might be easier to find if we can hover about in my ship, anyway.”

They clambered down the bush and continued along the gully. It would have been nice to have machetes, thought Slicker. He saw himself stripped to the waist hacking at the undergrowth, his muscles rippling and bulging and gleaming with sweat. A better image than his usual approach to the perspiration problem, which was large dark stains under his armpits and on the back of his shirt. And the machete thing was more likely to end in a lost toe or limb. Why was he thinking this way? This annoying, nosey girl had extracted all kinds of admissions from him. Some of these were as much a surprise to himself. Disexpansionist. Anarchist. Jeez. What was he trying to do? Impress her?

They continued throughout the afternoon. The sun moved from overhead and settled low on the horizon, out to sea. There was still wreckage amongst the undergrowth but none of it looked like a fuel tank and not much of it looked whole. They’d been out all day. They had travelled in one direction. Nothing they had done suggested the going might be any easier when they turned back. It occurred to Slicker they would be spending the night outside, under the stars. Okay, so the climate wasn’t so bad here, but what about the wildlife? From what he had seen so far there wasn’t much of a food chain. Big dumb grazing animals that ate grass. Insects that ate, what? Grass as well? The local bugs hadn’t given them a problem so far, and if any biters figured in the local food chain, then Slicker knew from bitter experience that his own blood would always attract them as plat du jour. But sleeping out worried him. Maybe night-time was predator time.

“We should be getting back,” he said.

“We’re nearly at the beach. We could camp there.”

Slicker thought about it. He didn’t have a good track record when it came to seaside camping.

“Or we could go back.”

“We won’t make it back to the kestrel before dark. Somehow I prefer the idea of a wide open stretch of sand rather than a dark tangled jungle when night comes.”

Slicker wasn’t convinced.

“Besides. Think about it. The sea. A swim would be nice.”

“You want to go swimming?” Slicker was incredulous.

“Bob, two days in a spacesuit. I’ve been in this t-shirt and pants for the best part of a week. And I smell only about half as bad as you do. We both need to go into the sea, don’t you think?”

Slicker sniffed under his armpits and shrugged. Yes, a bit of a pong, but not so bad. He’d smelled worse after a stressful budget meeting. It occurred to him once again that his sweating problem had begun to recede. Was it the oxygen-rich atmosphere on Blue Eyes or was it a more permanent physiological change? He hardly dared hope.

“I suppose we can check the last of the crash site for the tanks. Okay, we’ll press on to the beach. We’re not going to find the fuel tanks now, though. This green stuff grows too fast. There’s no way we’ll find anything under all that new growth.”

Florence wasn’t listening. When Slicker turned she had gone, already crashing through the undergrowth. He chased after. When he broke through the edge of the jungle and onto the yellow sandy beach, a line of clothes and footprints marked the route she had taken down to the sea.

“Come on, it’s lovely,” she shouted.

Slicker chose to leave his clothes on when he walked into the surf further up the beach, for modesty. He’d have to wash them anyway, he thought.

* * *

When it came time to choose a place to camp, Slicker felt the weight of his recent camping experiences as a burden on his shoulders.

“We’ll stay above this line. Above the tide,” he said.

“I don’t think we need worry,” said Florence. “No moon. So no tide.”

“What made the tide line, then?” He thought about it. “I suppose I did. Must have been the wave from my kestrel coming in. You know, when I think about it, a lot of stuff broke free when I hit. I wonder…” He ran down to the edge of the water, where small waves were lapping. He looked up and down the beach.

“Left or right?” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, if the tanks broke free when I hit the ocean they are more likely to have survived, and be easier to find. They’d float. They’re either that way…” He pointed down the beach to where it curved out to some low rocks. “Or they are… what’s that?”

They both started running. Lying on the sand, right on the ‘tide’ line was a metal ball. Basketball sized. A little further up the beach they could see another. Florence leaned over the near one and rapped it with a knuckle. It didn’t ring, it just gave a flat thud.

“It’s nearly full,” said Florence.

“Now all we have to do is figure out how to get it back to your ship.” He gave the tank a push. It moved, but with reluctance. The sand was soft and the tank was heavy. There was no way they could ever lift it. He thought about the day they’d spent getting themselves here. How the hell were they going to drag this thing all the way back?

Florence smiled and shook her head. “I’ve still got some fuel, in Kaydence.”

“Kaydence?”

“My ship. Her name is Kaydence Wilson. She has fuel. Some. It’s not like I kept the engines running until it all ran out. There’s plenty for a short hop. We’ll bring her here. The tank looks the same. I think it’s just a matter of swapping it for the empty one.”

Slicker nodded. “Okay,” he said, “but let’s roll it as far from the sea as we can. I take your point about tides, but I’m not willing to risk waking up in the morning to find the damn thing’s sailed off somewhere.”

“There is no moon.”

“I know, you said, but even though I caused the tide line, a one-in-a-million chance, I’m not up for risking two-in-a-million.”

Florence looked ready to give him an argument, but she seemed to note something in Slicker’s expression. He was not going to make that mistake a second time. He felt proud. He was learning. He could do this survival crap when it came down to it.

* * *

They lay on the sand, inches apart. The sun went down. The stars came up. The sky was clear and there were a lot of stars. Slicker tried to sleep. He could hear the waves lapping on the beach. He could hear the occasional plaintive call from some night creature, but it didn’t sound dangerous, like roaring or sniffing or scratching might. He could also hear steady breathing from Florence beside him, and could feel her warmth down his left side. If he moved his hand just one inch… he moved it half an inch. Then he moved it back. Because she was the annoying creature who lost all the kestrels and smart-talked back to Levison, putting “the Emperor” in a bad mood that led to his being here, now, stranded on an island, on a world, in a galaxy so far away nobody could even guess how far. Well, indirectly it led to this. He admitted that some of the blame for his predicament might lie closer to home. So he lay still and felt the warm glow from Florence beside him, and watched the stars rotate across the sky.

* * *

Florence lay on the sand and listened to the waves and the night creatures and the shallow breathing from the irritating, oily man next to her. She could feel his warmth down her right side. And was he quite so irritating? She had seen him as the enemy. The one who caused all this. Levison’s right-hand man. But his revelations about his childhood, how he had survived as a feral creature on the Ring. All things considered he had turned out okay. She realised that she only had to move her hand one inch and she would touch his. This wasn’t altogether an objectionable thought. She moved her hand, but only a tiny amount. Another half-inch? No. She lay awake and listened to the waves and Slicker’s breathing, and flinched at every slight movement he made, and she watched the canopy of alien stars sail across the heavens.

* * *

Morning came. Slicker didn’t know how to pretend to wake, so he made a big pantomime of it with lots of stretching and yawning and scalp scratching. Okay, so the scalp scratching was a requirement. There had been bugs living in the sand that were now vacationing in his hair.

“We should have brought more food,” said Slicker. “Breakfast would have been good.” They had packed a lunch and a flask and they’d been fine until midday.

“Well, the sooner we get back then,” said Florence.

It wasn’t like breaking camp. They got up out of the sand, brushed themselves down, and after independent visits to the undergrowth they started walking back up the cutting. Not walking, leaping, or scrambling. It had been twelve hours since they’d had a drink and both were beginning to feel the effects.

“We need to get to the Kaydence,” said Florence.

“Does she have a bar?” said Slicker.

“No.”

“Then we need to get back to my kestrel. Or find a stream.”

They clambered on. When they had come this way yesterday, they had gambolled like newborn lambs, boosted by the extra oxygen. Today the oxygen didn’t have the same magic. A glass of water would have been better. They slipped and stumbled more often. Wilful roots and vines reached out to cause trips. The tangle of branches took on a malevolent personality whose aim was to slow or lacerate the two travellers. They stopped and rested more often than they moved.

“It hasn’t rained since we arrived,” said Florence.

“It must rain sometime,” said Slicker. “All this growth. There has to be water.” He stopped and looked about. He listened for the sounds of trickling liquid but heard nothing. This wasn’t a jungle in the traditional, Tarzan-comic-book sense. There were no trees. There was no height. The ground was jungle-green-dark because of the big-leaved plants that formed an unbroken canopy overhead, but nothing reached higher than eight or ten feet. Something nagged at him though. Something he had seen and not seen. He tried to remember.

“We’ve seen water,” he said.

“We slept by the sea.”

“No. Not the sea. Fresh water. A river. We’ve seen a river.”

“I think we’d have noticed.”

“We didn’t notice. We saw a river but we didn’t notice it.”

“I think you’re more dehydrated than I am. You’re seeing mirages.”

“No.”

Slicker sat on the ground. Was he starting to hallucinate? He wouldn’t be surprised. No water. No sleep. He lay back on the ground and looked up at the green ceiling of leaves. The ground was dry. All this growth yet the ground was dry. It meant something.

“A river winding down to the sea,” he said. “Did you see anything when you landed?”

“No. No rivers. If I had they’d be further from here. Further from us than the kestrel. Pull yourself together, Bob. Half a day and we’ll be back. We’re not that bad. We can manage half a day.”

“I’m not so sure it is half a day, Florence. We haven’t been making much progress. Are we sure we’re even heading in the right direction? It’s hard to make out the line of the crash now. Everything’s regrown. We might walk for half a day and come out by the sea again.” He pointed upwards. “We could climb up above the leaf cover again, and make sure.” His voice didn’t hold much enthusiasm for the idea. Climbing was hard. In the state they were in they might climb and fall and break something. How had they got so bad? It was only a day’s walk from the kestrel to the sea. How had they turned it into such a fiasco? Slicker thought about the effort it had taken, yesterday, to climb high. Florence had done it with ease. But today she had lost all that grace and lightness of foot. He remembered how she had skipped to the top of the narrowest of branches. He had made such a meal of following, but it had been worth it for the view of the sea, and… the river.

Slicker leapt to his feet, making Florence do a little jump and take anxious looks over both shoulders. He ran over to one of the stalks that bore the huge green canopy leaves. He shook it but the leaf was reluctant to move. It seemed heavy. Heavier than a leaf should be. He kicked into the stem to make a foothold and climbed a few feet. The stem had hairs that were sharp, not like needles, but best avoided, and all along the length of the stalk. Holding them flat against the stem shredded the palms of his hands but Slicker didn’t want to give up.

“What are you doing?” said Florence.

“Getting us water,” said Slicker. “Open the flasks and be ready.” He reached up for the edge of the leaf. Too far away. He dug another foothold but it wasn’t enough and he slipped down, giving a little squeal as the stem hairs worked on his palms like barbed wire. He climbed back, then another foot. He could… just… reach the edge of the leaf. He grabbed it and swung, pulling the leaf down. A cascade of water poured down over his head and onto the forest floor.

“The flasks, quick!”

* * *

They made better progress after drinking the leaf dry and filling their flasks. The lightness was back in their steps. Also, their thought processes became coherent again.

“We should find the Kaydence Wilson, first,” said Florence. “We go past her on the way back to the kestrel.”

“Didn’t see your ship coming down this way.”

“No. I was looking for her, but we were on the wrong side of the gully. I’d be happier knowing she’s okay. We’ll use her to hop the rest of the way to your ship. Save our legs. Tomorrow we can take what we need from the kestrel then fly her down to the beach for the fuel tank.”

“Makes sense,” said Slicker. “Tell me when you think we’re close. She might not be easy to find in all this jungle growth.”

“She’ll be easy enough. I set her down between a couple of big boulders. Quite distinctive.”

An hour later she was less confident.

“It was here. I’m certain of it,” said Florence. Her voice had an edge of desperation. She looked around with nervous, darting eyes and kept sweeping her hair back out of her face. Her movements were always animated but now she moved like a predator.

“You’re mistaken, that’s all,” said Slicker. “We’ll search some more. It hasn’t gone anywhere.”

They picked their way from one side of the gully to the other, moved up fifty yards, then traversed the gully again. No ship, not even the two boulders.

“I accept some lost tribe might have found your ship, mastered the art of spaceflight through osmosis, and taken her. I’m less willing to concede they mastered space travel to the extent they were able, just for practice, to fly all the boulders up into orbit, too. We are in the wrong place.”

“I flew the ship here, all the way from the Queen Isabella III, by dead reckoning. No maths, no instruments. I have a reasonable sense of direction. I landed the Kaydence Wilson here.”

“Then fairies took her.”

“Perhaps they did.”

“Come on, Bob.” She was using his first name more and more, now. Even when she was upset and angry. Slicker noticed and found he rather liked it. He liked how she said it. He’d intended to change it ever since the R. Slicker name-plate incident. Now he was not so sure.

“It’s getting dark. We’re tired.” Slicker took her hand. An unconscious gesture that he only thought about once he’d done it. Florence didn’t pull her hand away, but then she might not have read anything significant into it. She was distracted.

“Come on,” he said, “we’ll go back to the kestrel. We need food and rest. Tomorrow we find your ship, yes?”

“But…” She panted out a few non-words, then the fight went out of her. “Yes, okay. It makes sense.”

But even as they picked their way back along the gully her eyes darted left and right. She seemed to carry worry on her shoulders like a heavy sack of rocks. Slicker tried to make light of it but Florence’s concerns were contagious. There were no boulders out here, let alone spaceships. Just a carpet of green. Perhaps Florence was getting mixed up with another planet she’d landed on, but he doubted there were many.

It was good to eat. The kestrel felt like home. They’d skipped lunch yesterday and today, so felt justified in having double rations. Rationing was stupid anyway. Either they would find Florence’s ship, refuel her and fly out of here, or they wouldn’t. If they didn’t they’d starve. This meal meant they’d starve a day early. So what?

Even after a good meal, though, Florence couldn’t relax. She went outside where she could pace. Slicker followed her. The sun had set and the sky was filled with stars. Even a day’s walk from the sea there was still a hint of ocean scent in the night air, beneath the overwhelming smell of rampant plant growth. The answer came to Slicker and he felt stupid for not getting there sooner. Starvation and a night without sleep might have had something to do with his befuddled thought processes.

“Florence, stop. Your ship is there. It’s the jungle. The plants. We headed down the gully looking for wreckage. We hardly saw any. The plants have grown over it all. Your ship, the Kaydence Wilson, is below the ground cover.”

Florence stopped pacing and looked at him.

“We said it ourselves, over and over,” said Slicker. “Five days and the gully no longer looks like a crash site. It’s become nothing more than a green valley. We just have to look for mounds and hills. We’ll find her, Florence. Come back inside, we need to be fresh in the morning. It’s going to be another hard day.”

He held out a hand and Florence took it. Slicker led her inside where she went to her bunk and curled up to sleep. Slicker went to his own bunk and felt relaxed for the first time in weeks. As he drifted off to sleep, though, he held on tight to the memory of her warm hand in his.

* * *

“I landed here,” said Florence.

They had wanted to set out at first light but had slept two hours into the morning. Slicker felt irritable even with the extra sleep. His body clock was wrecked; the seventy-hour days of Pinky were one thing, but this? In the civilised world they’d get a shot to reset their body clocks between planets.

Slicker tilted his head at her and tried not to let his impatience show. “Here? Can you be sure? There’s a lot of stuff growing. It won’t look the same.”

“Doesn’t have to look the same,” she said. “I know my way around. It was here.”

There were no boulders but there were plenty of green mounded hills. They picked their way through the tangle towards the first one. Their vantage point had been on the edge of the gully where they stood knee deep in grass. From there the gully was just a depression in the grassy plain. As soon as they moved down the slope they entered a roofed-in twilight green world that had become very familiar from their previous day’s adventure. As they approached the first mound they saw it was, indeed, a boulder, covered in a tangle of limbs and mosses. But only one boulder. It was good news, nevertheless, because it proved Slicker’s theory. All they had to do was find the right pair of boulders. But from down here it was a hopeless task. Florence tried to climb the roots covering the boulder to gain height, but everything had become slimy and hard to grip. The new growth made climbing impossible. So they retraced their steps back to their previous vantage point.

“The next hill is over there,” said Florence, pointing.

“Yeah but we can’t keep on doing this,” said Slicker. “We need a map.”

He took out his roll-screen and called up a compass app. He turned it and aligned it with different landmarks and waited while he assured himself that this planet’s magnetic field was constant and not shifting and swirling like a few other worlds he’d visited. Then he marked bearings to each of the hills.

“Come on,” he said. He began walking along the gully’s edge, back towards the kestrel.

“We’re going back?” said Florence.

“No, I need to move away and take more bearings. I need to get a decent triangulation on each of the hills then I know how far away they are from one another. Navigation. Isn’t that what you’re supposed to be good at?”

Florence pulled a tongue at him.

After ten or fifteen minutes he stopped and repeated the whole process with the roll-screen. “Okay, done. I need to do some sums. Seems a good time to eat lunch.”

They settled on the grass and took out the survival packs they’d brought. It was a good spot for a picnic. The thought came to Slicker, sitting there beside Florence, working arithmetic, sucking on a tube of chicken paste and sipping at a carton of hypotonic hydration drink, that he was, perhaps for the first time in his life, truly happy. Was he really so desperate to get out of here? What else was there? Levison’s wrath? Punishment? The loathing of this part of the universe’s entire population?

He realised that Florence was looking at him.

“It will give us options,” she said.

“What?”

“What you were thinking. I can read it in your eyes. You don’t want to leave, do you? I feel the same. But finding the Kaydence, fuelling her. It’s an option. Gives us choices. We can go back to the others, on the Queen. Or we can raid the Eddie for food. We’re more than halfway through our rations already, you know. We can come back here, then, if we like, we can look for a way home.”

“Home?”

“Yes, back to the Sphere. I have… ideas. Things to try. Wouldn’t you like to go back home?”

Slicker shrugged. Now that he thought about it, he wasn’t so sure. He didn’t have a great deal to go home to when it came down to it.

“I have a fiancé waiting,” said Florence. “Supposed to be getting married.”

“Oh,” said Slicker.

“That’s why I took the job. Get some money together to give us a better future.”

“Right.” Slicker felt that a cloud had just covered the sun, but the sky was clear. He didn’t understand the chaos raging in his own head. “We’d better get cracking then. Find your ship. Figure out a way of getting you back to…”

“Doug. His name’s Doug.”

“You’ve never mentioned him before.”

“No. I haven’t really thought about… well, no, I haven’t.”

“Okay then.”

Slicker rolled the map and they headed along the ridge until they could line up with the next hill on the list, the next nearest, then they dropped back into the green world. With the map they could go from hill to hill without having to come back up for bearings.

The next hill was another boulder. One boulder. Nothing else. It took them half an hour to confirm this, though, because the tangle of growth around it was so dense. They moved on. Slicker had more hope for hill number three; it was one of the bigger ones. It was also harder to get to. They struggled and tugged and thought they’d never get through the solid mass of growth, but then Florence saw something different.

“There’s something in there. Man-made. Metal. I think this is it.”

They worked harder. There were lots of those plants with the hairs that rend flesh without mercy, but they ignored the cuts and pain and worked on. There was a metal edge in there and from where Slicker worked he could see it stood quite tall.

“There’s a logo!” he shouted, his voice shaking with exertion.

“Oh. What kind?” Florence sounded dismayed.

“Space Corps. It’s a Space Corps roundel.”

“Okay. Leave it then. It isn’t the Kaydence.”

“Well what the hell else could it… oh.” He saw. A wing, standing on edge. Along the base was the jagged tear where it had been ripped off his own ship. Slicker backed out. Florence was waiting in the small clearing they’d made when they started the work, an hour or so ago. She looked crestfallen.

“Next hill, then,” said Slicker, trying to keep good cheer in his voice.

“Have you thought what my ship might look like when we find her?” said Florence. “I mean, it has taken us over an hour to get near enough to your wing just to identify it. We’re proposing digging my ship out of this lot and flying her?”

“I’ve considered it,” said Slicker. “First things first, let’s find your Kaydence Wilson and mark her on my map. Then, well, let’s see.”

He unfurled the roll-screen and took a bearing.

“This way. Hill number four.”

Hill number four was another bust, but at least it only took them twenty minutes to dig through. They were getting better at it. Hill number five was even quicker.

Hill number six was another tough one to reach though. The growth on their route was the worst they’d had to deal with, but when they arrived at the mark on the map, they could see straight away they were dealing with two mounds of growth, and Florence had parked her ride between two boulders. Anticipation grew once again, even though this target looked to be a more difficult excavation from the outset. After two hours they had made little progress, it was late and they decided to call it quits for the day and head back home.

“It’s only mid-afternoon,” said Florence.

“I know, but I’ve been thinking about what you said about when we find your ship and I may have an answer. If I’m right, then we’re wasting effort and tomorrow will be better.”

“You’re a man of mystery.”

“I’ll share it with you when I know for sure we have a solution. But we need to go back first. Come on.”

The sun was still up when they arrived back at the kestrel. Slicker went straight into the cargo locker at the back of the crew cabin.

“See these boxes?” he said. He began working at the seal with a knife. “They’ve become invisible. They’re everywhere, on every ship in the fleet. They’re in the corridors, in cabins, in the mess. People sit on them, people sleep on them. They use them as shelves and as dining tables. Nobody sees them. They’re just boxes with Copperbird logos and consignment numbers sprayed on the side.”

“Now you mention it, yes, I’ve seen them everywhere. What are they? Weapons?”

“In a way. For what we intended to use them for they were lethal. They could also be the answer to our problem, but only if the damn batteries work.”

“Ah. You mean—?”

“Yes!” shouted Slicker in triumph, as he ripped the lid off the nearest box. The machine inside had an aura of malevolence about it, even with the cute little Copperbird logo stencilled on the side. Slicker picked up the chainsaw.

“Do you know how to use it?”

“Nope. But I’ve watched the old two-dees. You have to be mindful not to cut your legs off. Let’s take it outside where we can’t damage anything, and test it.”

Slicker stood in the clearing, looking around.

“What are you looking for?”

“I want something to cut.”

“Just see if you can start it first. Baby steps.”

Slicker nodded. He looked at the handle and thumbed the power button. A red light came on and there was a satisfying humming sound. Slicker squeezed the trigger. The night air was ripped asunder by screaming – from the machine and from Slicker in equal measure. The saw took on the life of a captive beast fighting for freedom. It kicked and leapt and howled. Slicker chased after it as it bucked and danced in his hands, fighting to tame the monster. The chainsaw turned, dragging Slicker in a weaving line straight for Florence, who yelped and dived out of the way just as he released the trigger. The machine sighed to a halt.

Slicker placed the machine on the ground and stepped back, far away from it. He was panting. Adrenaline coursed through his body like rocket fuel gone bad. He looked over at Florence, who stared back with big, wide eyes.

“Bloody hell,” said Slicker.

“Yeah.”

* * *

A new day. Their sixth on Blue Eyes. Fridaytwo.

“I thought yesterday was Friday,” said Slicker.

“And today is also Friday,” said Florence. “So I have chosen to call it Fridaytwo. I made a local calendar on my wrist tat.”

She watched Slicker and waited for the penny to drop, but his eyes were blank and coinless.

“The short length of the Blue Eyes day, twenty point five hours, means we have to insert an extra day every six days or so. Today is that day. We arrived on Monday. We’ve been here six days, so we could call it Saturday, except today is Friday UST. So I’m calling it Fridaytwo. Yes?”

Slicker shook his head.

“This is why people don’t use wind-up watches any more, Bob.”

“Shall we just get on with it?” said Slicker.

Florence smiled and looked down at Mitchell, the chainsaw, resting on the ground between them. They’d carried it down from camp to Hill Six

“Why did you call it Mitchell?” Florence had asked, the night before, over supper.

“When I was in prison, I—”

“You were in prison?” This was the first she’d heard of prison.

“Long story. For another day. When I was in prison there was this guard, Mitchell. He wasn’t very nice. The machine reminds me of him.”

Florence wanted to know. “We have time for a long story,” she said. “We’re not exactly going anywhere.”

Slicker… or Bob. She’d started thinking of him more as a Bob than a Slicker. Did it mean anything? She didn’t know. Anyway, Bob had found a bottle of Roddick’s, stashed amongst the crates. She didn’t much like Roddick’s Djinn, but after a few glasses she noted how it had the effect of oiling Bob’s vocal chords, so, glass in hand, he told his tale.

He told about the orphan gang on the Ring. Levison was their leader and he, Bob Slicker, had been caught and put in prison. He was only ten, and this shocked Florence. Slicker said how it wasn’t real prison, just a place for wayward kids, but it felt like real prison, and the place scared him. When they offered him the chance of food and freedom in return for the name of their ringleader, Slicker took it. They didn’t catch Levison but Levison knew who’d fingered him and it soured their relationship. Levison knew how not to wield an advantage but how to hold it over a person’s head forever.

“Mitchell must have been one bastard,” said Florence, thinking of the evil that exuded from the machine at their feet.

Bob nodded. He took a step and picked Mitchell up off the ground. He’d had a few more tries and Florence noticed that he had become more confident with the thing, but here, amongst the roots and twisted vines of Hill Six, he looked less so. He seemed vulnerable. She knew there were all manner of pitfalls waiting for him, and up to now he hadn’t actually tried cutting anything with the machine.

“Just use it on the big stems. We can move the others by hand,” she said. “You don’t want to waste the batteries. We don’t know how many more hills we’re going to have to search, and we’ll need all the battery power we can get once we find the Kaydence. If we find her.”

Bob nodded and swallowed. He was trying to look confident and assured, and he was failing.

“She’s in here,” he said. “Before, you said you sensed it. I trust your instincts. Put your hands over your ears.”

Florence did as he said, and cringed, because she knew what was coming. Bob thumbed on the power then squeezed the trigger and at the same time he squeezed, he closed his eyes. There, in amongst the trees, leaves overhead, the machine seemed twice as loud as it had out on the plain. As Bob experimented with a few practice swings, it crossed Florence’s mind that what they were doing was unnecessary. The noise would be heard all the way back in the Sphere, and they’d come to see what the hell was going on.

Bob cleared an opening, a crawl space, then silenced Mitchell.

“I’ll see how far I can get through here,” he said, putting the ugly machine down onto the ground and stepping away. He took off his shirt and crawled between the sawn stumps and began to wriggle inside. Florence noted that he was either losing weight, or he was getting better at these worm-like activities. The work over the last few days seemed to have toned his body a little better, for he was no longer the pasty-fleshed accountant she had treated for injuries a week or so earlier. She watched his legs disappear into the thicket.

“It’s a good job I’m not claustrophobic,” he called.

“Just make sure you can get back out,” shouted Florence. “I don’t want to have to come after you with Mitchell.”

For a while all she could hear were grunts of exertion, then, “It’s tight in here. There’s nowhere to turn round. I might have to come out backwards.”

But Florence could hear from his voice that he was already deep inside the densest vegetation. What would she do if he couldn’t wriggle backwards? She didn’t fancy going in after him with the chainsaw. She didn’t trust herself not to slice off his legs in error. He sounded like he was past the point of no return, anyway. He’d just have to keep going, wriggling, squirming, forcing himself through the narrowest of gaps.

“Uh-oh.”

“What?”

“I’m in trouble.”

“What trouble? What happened?

A grunt, then, “Bugger it! Oh God!”

“Talk to me, Bob.”

“I tried for a gap. It was too small.”

“And?”

“And… I can’t come back out.”

“Are you stuck?”

“No.”

“Are you injured?”

“No.”

“Then what the—”

“I lost my trousers.”

Florence tried to stifle a laugh, but couldn’t. She shouldn’t laugh, it could be serious. If it was so tight in there that he’d crawled out of his trousers, then he might have a genuine problem getting out again. And let’s face it, who else could help?

“Well, put them back on,” she said.

“I can’t, they’re behind me. I can’t turn round. If I… can just… reach… ow!”

“What is it?”

“Something solid. I just hit it with my hand. Skinned my knuckles.”

Florence’s hopes soared.

“It’s just the boulder. No ship in here. I’ve reached the centre.”

“I left Kaydence between two boulders,” shouted Florence. “Try to work around the one you’re near. At least you’ll be facing the right way to come back out.”

“You’re big on the advice,” shouted Slicker. “You should try this. It isn’t easy crawling around these spiky things in your buff, you know.”

But she could tell from the grunting and cursing that he was heeding her advice and tracking around the boulder.

Florence settled on the ground and waited. She found herself fiddling with her engagement ring, turning it round and round on her finger. She stopped and held out her hand, fingers splayed, looking at the ring. Did it mean anything now? With a smile she eased it off her ring finger and slipped it onto the third finger of her other hand. Safest place to keep it until… until she was able to return it.

Half an hour later she began to wonder if Bob had been round the boulder more than once.

“Shout to me, Bob. Where are you?”

“Where the… where do you think I am?

He sounded irritated, but Florence could tell, from the direction of his voice, that he was almost back at his starting point.

“There’s wreckage. Bits of rocket.”

“What does it look like?” she shouted, getting excited again.

“Looks like wreckage.”

“What colour is it?”

“What?”

“What colour is the wreckage?”

“Why the hell do you want to know the…? I don’t know what colour it is. It’s dark in here. And there’s not enough of it to have any colour. Wait, alright it’s… I don’t know. It’s sort of pink, I guess.”

Florence gave a whoop of joy. Pink. They’d found the Kaydence Wilson. She was pretty sure that Bob’s kestrel wouldn’t have had pink bits.

“That’s her. You’ve found her. Fantastic.”

“Er… I don’t think you should get too excited. This isn’t a ship, it’s just bits. I don’t think there’s much left. I think the shrubs have punished her somewhat.”

“Come on out then we can start cutting. She’ll be fine, I’m sure.”

“Wait.”

“What?”

“There’s something else.”

“What?” Florence couldn’t keep the irritation from her voice.

“I found my trousers.”

* * *

It took them two more days. Their food stocks dwindled. Rationing was all very well, but this was hard work. It’s no wonder I keep losing my trousers, thought Slicker, aware of his rumbling stomach.

The more of the Kaydence Wilson they uncovered, the more Slicker became disheartened.

“What is it?” said Slicker, time and again.

“She’s a mini-kestrel. A two-seater.”

“No. I’m sorry. I don’t see it. Shouldn’t it have, I don’t know, two seats? Wings? And maybe something else, like a skin maybe, to keep the air inside?”

“She’ll have a skin. Two of them. They’re called spacesuits,” she said.

Florence insisted it would all work out okay, but this pile of crap in amongst the weeds was not a spaceship, and Slicker kept on reminding Florence of the fact.

“We’re just killing time, here. You know that, don’t you? We’re not going anywhere. I suppose we might as well spend our days levelling half the forest. What’s the alternative? Sitting around and thinking about death, I suppose?”

“You don’t half moan, Robert Slicker.”

“Don’t call me Robert.”

“It’s your name, isn’t it?”

“My name is Bob. Bob’s fine. I don’t use Robert.”

“You are very touchy about it.”

“I am.”

“You are also a big moaner. My ship will be fine, you’ll see.”

“Your ship will not be fine. We’ve uncovered half of her, and she is just a pile of scrap.”

“Shush, you will hurt her feelings.”

“Her feelings! We’ve only been stuck here for a couple of weeks, Florence. It doesn’t take long for you to flip out.”

“I haven’t flipped out.”

“You named that pile of girders, and you talk to it.”

“You talk to your plants.”

“I do not.”

“I’ve heard you.”

Slicker was silent for a while. Okay, so he did talk to his plants now and again. But they were living, breathing entities. This was, what? A heap of shit. Why were they wasting their time? To stop from going nuts? Well, so far that plan hadn’t worked out so well, either.

“We are never going to extract your ‘ship’ from out of this jungle, you know that, don’t you? We’ve been at it for a week. The weeds grow faster than we can chop them. Food’s already running out. Patience has run out. It is not going to happen, Florence.”

“Tomorrow,” she said.

“Tomorrow what?”

“Tomorrow she flies. Look, I can get inside her now. I can fire up the engines. She’ll burn her way out.”

“You are delusional.”

“You are a negative arse.”

“Well that’s all right then. This negative arse is done for the day. No need for cutting and hacking. No need risking getting my nuts sliced off by Mitchell. Because you’re going to fly that pile of junk out of the weeds.”

They had enough food for one more meal, or two small ones, But they didn’t eat. To do so would have meant preparing the food and that would’ve meant speaking to one another. Instead they each sat on opposite sides of Slicker’s kestrel home and sulked. That night they both slept outside, because it avoided going into, and sharing, the kestrel’s single and cosy living space.

* * *

Slicker was woken next morning by someone kicking his feet.

“It’s Monday morning. It’s light. Are you going to come and help me fly out of the weeds?”

Florence was up and looked refreshed and alert. Slicker felt neither. He wanted to snooze for another hour.

“You’re serious?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Because… because you don’t have a ship! That tangle of twisted skeleton won’t fly, Florence.”

“It flew me here.”

“Because it was in somewhat better condition, then.”

“Was it? You saw it did you? It strikes me that when I landed you were dozing out on the prairie. You want to sleep through this part of the operation, too?”

“Fine. You are so stubborn. Let’s try it, then. Then we’ll see.”

Slicker dragged himself to his feet and stomped down the well-trodden path towards the jungle, struggling to keep up with Florence.

In the clearing they stood and admired their handiwork. Slicker adopted an art critic’s pose – arms folded across his chest, right hand massaging his chin while his brow furrowed in appreciation.

“Let’s see,” he said. “There are four carbon frame pieces, an engine, and… oh, that’s right, nothing else. It’s a bloody engine. That is all that’s left. At least when I crashed my ship I kept the cabin and some food.”

“Slicker, it isn’t ‘all that’s left’. It is all I had to begin with. Come on, I’ll show you how to fly.”

“You’re suggesting I climb up there with you?”

“It might be a good idea. The rockets will burn away the rest of the weeds tangled around her. What makes you think you are any less flammable?”

Slicker gave a sigh. He was going to have to humour her. Flame was not something he worried about because he had no doubt the engine wouldn’t fire. He squeezed through the remaining weeds, behind Florence. She was tying herself to one of the stanchions.

“Here,” she said, throwing him a length of webbing. “I suggest you do the same.”

Slicker caught the webbing and made a token effort of lashing himself to the strut on the opposite side of the… of the what? He couldn’t bring himself to call this, this art installation a spaceship.

Florence flicked a few switches. It didn’t take long, there weren’t a lot of switches. There was a red light, so at least this thing had power of sorts. Florence reached out a leg and kicked a round ball that Slicker recognised as a fuel tank. The light went green. She turned back to the controls and grabbed what looked like a broom handle. Wait a minute, thought Slicker, it is a broom handle.

“Ready?” said Florence.

Slicker shrugged and gave a crooked little what-the-hell type smile.

“Okay then.”

Florence thumbed another button and the frame began to vibrate and roar. There were flames. The Kaydence Wilson lifted then tilted over towards the side they hadn’t cleared. Florence wrestled with the broom stick. She looked like a demented, cackling witch, fighting a recalcitrant broom stick that refused to fly, a broomstick that was alive with malevolent magic and breathed fire. The ship straightened. All around them flames consumed the greenery. They were tethered about six feet above the jungle floor, and this was just as well because any lower and they would be in amongst the inferno. As it was, Slicker felt the heat on his legs, and felt very much aware that he was sitting on a jug of spectacularly combustible metallic hydrogen. Every so often the ship gave an upward jerk as more of the restraining vines and creepers were incinerated. Little jerks gave way to leaps. Slicker began a fumbling, awkward re-tying of his webbing strap, because at last he had become a believer. Any moment this preposterous piece of ironmongery might actually leap into the sky.

Florence shouted something over to him but her voice didn’t even reach her own ears, consumed in the roar of the apocalypse below them, so she made a gesture and mouthed something that could have been “hold on” then shook her head and reached for what Slicker assumed was the throttle control.

Ear-drum-rupturing noise. Flesh-melting heat. With no other warning Slicker felt the hand of a mighty giant press down on his head as they leapt into the air. Acceleration forces pile-drove him down onto the cross member beneath, legs straddling either side, balls crushed. Had both his legs gone on the same side of the cross member the forces would have torn Slicker from his stanchion, webbing notwithstanding, and he would have tumbled into the hell-fires below. Slicker’s balls were the focus of his attention for the moment, though. He hardly noticed the dizzying rate of their ascent. The fire below was soon a mere ember amongst the dark green that covered their island, from coast to coast. An island in a vast ocean whose horizon curved around them.

Then the ship started to fall. Slicker shifted his attention from punished testicles to turbulent gastric juices, as his last breakfast threatened to say farewell. The engine was silent. The roar in Slicker’s ears came from the wind as they plummeted. I’m going to die, he thought. What other outcome did he expect, anyway, since they launched in this… thing, this jungle-gym-with-a-motor that was never meant to fly? That it had left the ground at all was a miracle. Now it was doing what a bunch of scaffolding poles strapped to an old engine was supposed to do at ten thousand feet. It was falling.

“I guess you won part of your bet,” Slicker shouted.

“What do you mean?”

“At least you got it out of the jungle. It was exciting, anyway. I suppose it beats a slow death by starvation.”

“We’re not going to die, Bob.”

Slicker smiled. Of course not.

“I’m coasting, that’s all. Not much fuel left after all the pyrotechnics. Couple more seconds.” Florence pushed the throttle again and once more the giant returned, with another mighty kick up the backside. The ship steadied then moved into a hover. Florence tweaked the broom stick and they swooped down along the top of the green carpet, and in seconds they were at the beach. Florence, with tiny, dexterous wrist movements, spun the ship so she could see along the line of sand, and there was the fuel tank right where they had left it.

“Better not get too close,” said Florence. “Don’t want the heat of the engines exploding the thing, not after all our hard work.”

She set the Kaydence Wilson down a few hundred yards away

Slicker tore at the bindings that strapped him to the frame of the “ship”, then dropped to the sand. He tried to stand but his legs would not support him, so he fell to his knees, leaned forward and kissed the ground in gratitude.

30

Loading the fuel tank was not as easy as Florence hoped. It was heavy. She needed a crane and didn’t have one. So she improvised with vines from the jungle and the webbing straps that had secured them both to the Kaydence. Slicker wasn’t much help, because ever since the short flight to the beach he seemed to have lost the use of his legs.

“What is wrong with you?” said Florence. “Do I have to do all this alone?”

“I’ll be okay, just a bit… my God, you flew that thing all the way from Queen Isabella III? And no bits of her have gone missing since then? That is your spaceship?”

“She’s a good spaceship,” said Florence. Slicker seemed to be casting aspersions. She was proud of the Kaydence Wilson.

“And you propose to get us out of here strapped to that skeleton?” Slicker held his head in his hands and moaned, rocking from side to side.

“We’re not going anywhere unless you help,” said Florence. She badgered and threatened until she got some activity out of him, and used him as an automaton slave to share the heavy lifting. At last the Kaydence Wilson had a new, full fuel tank, good for many weeks of useful service. They also managed to lash the second, half-full tank they’d found to the frame, and thus both she and Slicker would have seats for the return flight.

“So, we have a ship,” said Slicker. “Where are we going?”

“Well, I guess that’s the part of the plan that is still sketchy,” said Florence. “What do you think?”

“Well, if we go back to the Queen we’ll be arrested for stealing two spaceships. There will be a court martial. Then we’ll be shot.”

“Okay,” said Florence.

“And if we go back to Little Pinky… try to steal some food.”

“Yes?”

“There will be no court martial. We will go straight to the getting shot stage.”

Florence thought about it. “You are not much of an optimist, are you, Bob Slicker?”

“What do you suggest?”

“Well, we could go back to the Queen, as you suggest, except then I will say I hunted you down after you stole and destroyed the only serviceable ship, and then perhaps only you will be shot,” said Florence, with a lopsided smile.

“Seriously?”

“I’m just trying to illustrate; there are always better options.”

“Better for you.”

“Better for both of us. I would have my liberty. I could resupply the Kaydence while Levison is doing court martial bureaucracy, then I could break you free, steal the Kaydence once again, and we could return to Blue Eyes with food and water.”

“Or,” said Slicker. “We could think of something better. Something that doesn’t involve my incarceration or my staring down the wrong end of an energy rifle. You really believe they’d hail you the hero? Welcome you back? Allow you to roam around the Queen at will and unsupervised? Sorry, Florence. We need a better plan.”

Florence fixed him with a stare. “Okay. But either way, we need to get back.”

“Hmm.”

“What?”

Florence noticed how the enthusiasm for their adventure seemed to have left him.

“Bob, what’s wrong?”

“It’s just… It’s going to be hard finding our way back. To Little Pinky or the Queen.”

“Rubbish. I came here okay. We just point the ship and go,” said Florence.

“Point at what? You were lucky, Florence. The two planets were close together. Little Pinky was a full bright disc. But she has a shorter year, and we’ve been here for nearly two weeks.”

“So?”

“So the transit distances will be further. Half a season has passed on Pinky. She’s moved a substantial chunk of her orbit away from us while we’ve hardly moved at all. And from here she won’t be a bright disc. A slender crescent if we’re lucky, so how do you choose if she’s only the thousandth brightest object in the sky?”

“Oh.” Florence felt her hopes evaporate. “But I thought you said you used your navigation computer to find your way here? Can’t we fit it to the Kaydence Wilson?”

“We could. In theory. Florence, I’m an accountant, not a computer engineer. You make it sound easy – ‘Let’s just fit it to the Kaydence Wilson.’ Well forgive me for looking on the dark side, but that sounds bloody hard to me. Do you know how to do it?”

“Well, actually, yes. I spent weeks helping on the rebuild. Learned a lot. It was me who took the old one out of the Kaydence Wilson. It’s one wire, with a big plug on the end. The empty socket’s still there. I kept it.”

“Would have been nice if you’d kept the computer, really.”

“No point,” said Florence. “I wouldn’t have known how to use it. I thought flying by sight would be easier. Anyway, the point is, all the kestrels are pretty much the same. They all have standardised Copperbird components.”

“Okay, so maybe we can swap the computer. I can’t believe it would be so simple, but it’s a moot point. The navigation computer would only be useful to us if I knew the password.”

“You don’t know the—”

“I wrote it down. Sixteen characters. No chance of ever remembering it.”

“Well then, what’s the problem? Where did you—?”

“In my notebook.”

“The one that you…? Oh. Lost. Out there.” She looked up the gorge towards the vast grassy plain and the distant mountains. “Okay, can’t you do that thing again, you know, where you set up a new user?”

“I tried,” said Slicker. “Couple of nights ago just to see if the nav computer still worked, with all the crashing and barrel-rolling and everything.”

“And did it?”

“Oh yeah, computer worked. Password didn’t though. There’s a limit to how many users. I exceeded it. It has to be password or nothing.”

“And you didn’t think to tell me about this?”

“Why would I? Just another thing that doesn’t work. There’s a flat tyre on the front landing gear strut that’s lying out there in the jungle. Didn’t tell you about that, either. Irrelevant. And there’s a limit to the amount of bad news I want to share. Makes me seem… negative?”

They sat in silence for a while.

“Okay,” said Florence, clapping her hands. “Let’s go then.”

“Go where?”

“To find your notebook.”

Slicker looked around. “You’re nuts. There’s a hundred square miles of country to search,” he said.

“The sooner we start then,” said Florence. “We’ll use the Kaydence. We know how long it took for me to stretcher you back to the kestrel. We can figure a rough arc of territory that is about the right distance, then we search. Maybe you’ll see some familiar landmark. Come on, Bob, do you have a better idea?”

“No. No, I don’t.” said Slicker.

Florence noticed how he was looking up at the Kaydence Wilson, sitting there on the sand. She guessed he was less than enthusiastic about strapping himself to her frame once again.

31

Slicker looked at the Kaydence Wilson and swallowed. They couldn’t search on foot. Impossible. Florence was right about that. But then, if they found the book… Well he’d have to get on that spaceship thing and to do it for real, in just a spacesuit. What fun. He made a decision. He had to do it. What could happen to him on a quick jaunt around the island, anyway? And Florence insisted it would be good for him to get used to flying in her ship. Before the long flight.

He clambered up onto the frame and felt it give and twist under his weight. It felt better when the vines were holding her together. This did not feel like a very substantial machine. It reminded him of pictures he’d seen of the first spaceship. The one they used to hop across from Old Earth to the Moon. At least they’d wrapped that one in tinfoil. It gave the illusion of substance if nothing else. Florence’s ship didn’t even have the tinfoil.

Slicker took the webbing straps and made a big deal out of lashing himself down. The first time he hadn’t bothered so much because he didn’t think the machine would fly. At least now he had his own fuel tank to use as a seat, although, somehow, that didn’t fill him with whole bucket-loads of confidence, either.

“Okay,” he said to Florence, his voice cracking a little. “Ready.”

Florence smiled and winked.

Oh God, thought Slicker. What’s that wink all about?

The engine fired, cleaving the air into subatomic ash. The ship lurched into the sky. The sky slid to one side and became the sea. Then it was the sky again. The sky turned red. Everything in Slicker’s vision turned red. Then that falling sensation. Slicker, like many in the Space Corps, spent a lot of time in micro-gee. He knew all about the falling sensation. He knew how to breathe and control the nausea. He didn’t know about this, though, the falling sensation with the ground and sea where the sky should be, rushing back up towards his face, then mighty giant’s hands pushing on head and shoulders: positive-gee, negative-gee, looping, spinning, and groaning, popping sounds from every protesting joint of the airframe. Another sound. Whooping. Florence was whooping and whee-ing and yee-haw-ing with every looney manoeuvre. She was loving it.

When the world became steady again, Florence shouted over.

“You okay? Did you enjoy that? This is a fabulous ship, you know, all hacked down like this. She’s fun in space, too, but down here you can really make her fly. This is brilliant.”

She started laughing. “You look a little green, Bob.”

Slicker had a hundred things he wanted to say, or shout, at Florence. Most of them involved expletives heard more often in the mercury mines of Fomalhaut. Instead, Slicker just said, “Yeah, great. Can we just get on with it?” He figured anything else would just encourage her.

Florence sighed and turned the ship in a more gentle movement.

“You’ll thank me, you know,” she said. “Whatever we do with the Kaydence Wilson from this time on, will just feel commonplace. Consider yourself acclimatised.”

Slicker just hung on to the upright and gave a nod and a sick smile. He looked down and saw they were over the kestrel and their makeshift camp. Then the grassy plains began unrolling.

“Do you recognise anything?” said Florence.

Slicker shook his head. “Nothing.”

“I reckon we’re close to the limit you could have walked.”

Slicker examined the terrain below with dismay. Miles of bland green and brown. Late in the day the sun cast long shadows that marked a scattering of the big grazing animals. He noticed how some of the creatures appeared to walk in line, as if on a path, but he couldn’t see any path. Interesting, but the knowledge was of scholarly interest, and of no value for their current quest. He knew the ground cover below was a foot deep or so. What chance was there of finding a pocket-sized notebook out there? He knew he would never see the book again, had known it for days, but somehow Florence’s enthusiasm for the impossible was infectious.

“Look at those animals, all in a line,” said Slicker. “Why do they do that? What drives them to follow one another like that?”

“Does it matter?”

Slicker pointed out the line. “It might. They’re too far apart to be following one another. Down there they wouldn’t be able to see the creature in front, not unless they had really good eyes. They must be on a trail of some kind.”

“Can’t see any.”

“No, me neither. They… wait. Can we follow their route?”

“Why?”

“Well, it’s just a hunch. If there’s nothing visible to guide them…”

“…it’s just grass,” Florence cut in.

“What if there’s something about the grass that’s forming a path, a line?”

“I don’t get you,” said Florence.

“You saw what happened in the gully after the crash. The growth rate there was phenomenal. Out here, though, not so much. It’s bland and level.”

“Your point is?”

“I walked out onto the plain. I took a straight line. I damaged the vegetation enough for you to follow my trail back to the kestrel.”

Florence finished for him. “And going back with you on the stretcher, I damaged it some more. And it grew again.”

“Exactly. You see? What if the new-grown stuff is different? What if it tastes better than old grass?”

“We wouldn’t be able to tell, but the animals might… I don’t know, could they smell it?” Florence beamed.

“Let’s follow them,” said Slicker. “And at the end of the sweet-tasting road…”

“Where the animals spread out again.”

“That could be where I stopped—”

“—and lost your book.”

Their words were coming fast. They were finishing each other’s sentences in the excitement of the moment.

Florence swung the Kaydence around, right above the trail, and followed.

“You got further than I thought you would,” she said.

“Hmm. If we’re right about the trail.”

“I think we are. It’s a good theory. Still… this seems a long way.”

“You walked it too, you know.”

“Well, yeah. I didn’t so much—”

“Walk it? The oxygen. If you were anything like me, you would have run.”

Florence nodded. “Then we haven’t been looking far enough out.”

The trail continued. They flew on, mile after mile.

“It’s too far,” said Slicker. “I didn’t make this path. It’s some natural thing. I only had an hour. I couldn’t have come this far, even running.”

“Wait! Look. There’s an animal there, and there. Going in different directions.”

“And another one that way,” said Slicker.

“I’ll take her down.”

“Careful. No more circus tricks, okay?”

“Okay.”

Florence behaved herself and took them in for a gentle landing, so smooth Slicker couldn’t even tell the moment when they touched down. He thought back to his own approach to landing a kestrel. He’d done it with computer assist, and seats and windows, and he’d managed to destroy half the island.

“You’re good at this,” said Slicker. “Where did you learn to fly?”

“Between here and the Queen.”

“No, really?”

“I used to fly back home. Trapeze. Meera told you. I suppose if you know where you are when you’re spinning triples through the air, flying an old spaceship is not so hard.”

Florence jumped down onto the grass and Slicker noticed how she seemed to float down to the ground and land already running. She was right about the flying. She had natural grace. When he jumped down, he landed with a heavy thud and a grunt. His knees hurt and his neck jarred and it took a moment to gather himself before he could run after her. She was already a long way ahead.

When he caught her up she was stooped, looking at the ground.

“This is it, the end of the road,” she said. “The creatures go off in all directions from here.”

“This is the place,” said Slicker. “Now we’re down I recognise it. I stayed here for a long time, drawing the plants.”

“If you were going to do a sketch now, where would you go?”

Slicker looked around and scratched his head. “Hard to say. A lot of animals have passed this way, it’s all munched and stomped. I wouldn’t want to sketch any of it.”

They wandered in an aimless pattern, back and forth, heads slumped, searching the ground. This still seemed a large area and the book was very small and black.

“Think back to when you found me,” said Slicker. “What happened?”

“Well, you were lying on the ground. I pulled you over and gave you a shot of anaesthetic spray. You were screaming and writhing in pain from your injuries.”

“My injuries? I was screaming because you anaesthetised my eyes. I went blind.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve apologised already.”

“So if I was writhing a bit…”

“A lot. You were a bit of a wuss.”

“Okay, okay. But wouldn’t the grass have been all the more damaged round there?”

“Yeah, I suppose.”

“Then maybe it grew even denser in that spot. Maybe… newer, more succulent grass for the discerning herbivores?”

“Then we’re looking for where the animals have trampled the most.”

It wasn’t hard to see. They hadn’t searched there before because it didn’t look the sort of place anyone would want to lie and daydream. Finding the book took only seconds. Slicker held it up over his head and gave a whoop. Florence ran over and wrapped her arms around his neck. She planted a big kiss on his lips. It was a quick kiss. Maybe more of a friendly kiss than anything else. Not a kiss that he should reciprocate or develop. On the other hand. Is this the right time to…?

“Can I see?” said Florence, holding out a hand. She’d stepped back and was jumping up and down.

Slicker realised he was standing, rooted to the spot, looking awkward and stiff.

“What? At the password?”

“Stuff the password. I want to see your sketches.”

“Well, if you want. It’s a bit grubby.” Slicker gave the book a wipe on his trousers then handed it over, recovering some of his composure. Florence took it, handling it with care and reverence as she would an historic and valuable artefact.

“These are very good,” she said, looking at the sketches he had made here, in this spot. “I don’t think there’s a lot left of your plant, though.” She looked down at the brown dust patch beneath their feet.

“Doesn’t matter. There are plenty of specimens around here. I can always take another and—”

“What? What’s wrong?”

“Who am I kidding, Florence? What’s the point of finding the book? The password. So I can navigate us back to Little Pinky or the Queen. So what? We steal some food. Buy some time. What then?”

“We’ll have my ship. That puts us in better shape than the others.”

“But where can we go in her? There’s one other planet, and it has an enraged army living on it. And there’s the Queen, with Levison.”

“You found your book, Bob. If you can find a tiny little notebook in all this vast open grassland, then there’s always hope for us finding a way home,” said Florence.

“We just have to find another trail, I suppose,” said Slicker. “Then follow it. You make it sound easy. That’s all there is to…”

“What?”

Slicker didn’t answer. He was staring out at the horizon.

“Bob? What is it? What have you seen?”

Slicker said nothing. He stared, then his head turned to look straight into Florence’s eyes.

“Is it that simple?” he said. His voice was distant and far away.

“Is… Are you okay Bob? You seem very—”

“We just follow a trail. Has anyone ever tried to do that? We wouldn’t know, would we? Only three lost Destiny ships and none came back. But, Florence, did they ever try?”

“To follow a trail?”

“Their own trail.”

“You mean like we just did. Find the route and go back the way we came.”

“Why not?” said Slicker. “Why the hell not? We must have come into this part of the universe through something. Even if there isn’t a gate, maybe there’s a… a something.”

“You mean in the fabric of space? Rips or tears, all over the universe?”

“Maybe. Could it be we’re just really stupid, Florence? We come through a gate then spend the rest of our lives weeping and wailing and bleating about it, but never think to actually turn around and go back the way we came. Is that what happened to the Destiny ships? I’ve seen extracts from the Destiny II log. That ship never came back, and I don’t recall seeing anything in the logs about them trying to come back. They just landed on their new world, called it Serenity, and stayed put. They didn’t even try, Florence. Nobody ever tried.”

“So, what are you suggesting?”

“I’m suggesting we climb into your ship over there, and try going home.”

32

It had been a long Monday and Slicker felt an urgent need for food. Back at their camp, though, he went straight into the cabin of the Jinxy spaceship. He knew the nav computer still worked, but he wanted to input his password and make sure it worked, and that there was enough data to get them back to Little Pinky. What he found was a bonus.

“Florence, look at this.”

He made room in front of the screen, and Florence sat beside him to look. It was full dark now, and Slicker noticed how her eyes twinkled in the light from the display. He tried to get his mind back onto what he wanted to show her.

“We might not need to go back to the Queen,” he said. He pointed to three files on the tracking menu.

“Look, these cover the time from when we left Fomalhaut to after we went into orbit around Pinky. It’s the route we took when we came into this part of the universe.”

“How? The kestrels weren’t flying, they were mothballed inside,” said Florence.

“Don’t know. Maybe someone left the computer running. Maybe they’re meant to run all the time. Doesn’t matter. What matters is, we don’t have to go back to the Queen to get this data, we already have it. We can try flying home. So long as you can reinstall this box in your ship.”

Florence nodded, then ducked underneath the panel.

“Yep, same plug. If I just—”

“Don’t pull it out!”

“Why?”

“Let me power the thing down first. We’ve come this far. Don’t want to screw it up now.”

Florence lifted her hands in the air, far away from the plug. “Okay, okay. Over cautious, but I’ll go with it,” she said.

Slicker powered the computer down then gave Florence permission to disconnect.

“Yes, sir! Right away, sir. Proceeding with disconnection process in five, four, three—”

“Just do it, Florence.”

Ten minutes later the nav computer was connected and gaffer-taped to the Kaydence Wilson. Slicker powered it up and entered his password again.

“Hmm,” said Slicker.

“What?”

“It’s working okay, but…” He pressed some more keys.

“What?”

“The three files with the route home. I can only find two of them.”

“How can that be? Do files just drop out? Are they lying somewhere on the grass?” said Florence.

“I wonder if they were stored in the main computer on Jinxy?” said Slicker.

Slicker jumped down from the Kaydence and ran across. “Yes,” he shouted. “It’s still on the file list over here. We need to copy it across.”

“How do we do that?” said Florence.

“Don’t know,” said Slicker.

“What do we do now, then?” said Florence.

“Let’s make a brew,” said Slicker. “And think about it.”

There’s nothing like the mental stimulus that comes from tea. Fifteen minutes later they had their answer. The main computer had a rack of memory slots, and by trial and error, by removing them one at a time and rebooting the computer each time, they found the one with the missing file.

“So all we have to do is find a spare slot in the nav computer that’s now on the Kaydence,” said Slicker. “Then we can transfer the card itself.”

“Just hold your water, memory boy. What if it’s a different type of memory card? What if it screws up my nav computer?”

Slicker noticed how it had become my nav computer, since they’d installed it on Florence’s ship.

“So, the girl who’s happy to go yanking out plugs while my computer’s running is suddenly all cautious when we’re messing with her ship.”

“You betcha. How about we take a card from my computer, slot it into your computer, and copy the file across there. At least if there’s a problem it won’t affect the Kaydence Wilson’s equipment. When we slot the card back in the Kaydence, we’ll know it’s the right type of card.”

Slicker thought she was being a bit OCD, and told her so, but then went along with it anyway, just for a peaceful life, and because she was probably right. There were no spare slots on Kaydence’s computer, so they narrowed down the one with the other two files from their journey from Fomalhaut and decided it was the most logical one to use. If it didn’t work then at least they’d be no worse off.

Slicker carried the card by its edges, with his fingertips, and took it over to the Jinxy.

“I’m carrying it like this so that the static from my fingers doesn’t fry the card,” said Slicker. He wasn’t; he was doing it to wind Florence up.

“All we have to do is copy the missing file onto this card and take it back to the Kaydence Wilson,” he said, talking while he worked, as if Florence hadn’t grasped the concept yet.

He switched on the nav computer.

The screen lit up, then went blue, then blanked, then all the lights went out. Then it set on fire.

Slicker screamed. Florence screamed. Neither action helped. The flames took hold. They jumped out of the hatch and stood back to watch their home for the past weeks being consumed.

“It’s a shame,” said Florence.

“A shame?”

“That we don’t have marshmallows.”

“Never liked marshmallows,” said Slicker. “Sausages would have been okay, though.”

“What now?” said Florence.

“Yo-ho-ho,” said Slicker. “We make like pirates. Back to the Queen Isabella III and steal the data from them.”

33

Midnight, and another clear sky on Blue Eyes.

“We should try to sleep,” said Slicker. “It won’t be easy once we’re strapped to your rocket engine. And in the morning, before we go, we should eat.”

“What, like a last meal?”

Slicker hadn’t thought of it that way. Now he couldn’t get the thought out of his head.

They found a stale, half-eaten box of crackers, and that was about it for the “last meal”. They set it aside for breakfast. They knew they’d be several days in their spacesuits with nothing more than hydrating energy drinks to take the edge off their hunger. Florence suggested they might fly back to the beach in the morning and try fishing.

“There must be something here we can use to make a rod,” she said.

“Have you ever fished? Do you know what to use for bait, what the local marine life eat? And what if the fish are poisonous, or just a different genetic base and therefore as nourishing as cardboard for our chemistry?”

“You’re negative, you know that?”

Days earlier, when they thought their destiny might lie on Blue Eyes for months or even years, they had discussed the option of hunting one of the big, docile, grazing creatures. They were big enough to keep them fed for weeks at a time, but Slicker and Florence both agreed, it was one thing to buy steak in a square packet at the supermarket, a different matter entirely to look one of those trusting creatures in the eye then try to slaughter it. Besides, the only weapon they had was Mitchell, and Slicker couldn’t help thinking that, docile or not, any attempt on the life of a four-ton dobbin with a chainsaw would not likely end well.

“We’d better try to get some sleep,” said Slicker. “In the morning, after breakfast” —he looked over at the sad tin of crackers— “we go. Back to the Queen to steal food as well as computer files.”

“It’ll take us a few days to get there, you know.”

“I’m trying not to think about it. Maybe I’ll starve to death before your spaceship gets around to killing me.”

Florence lay on her back and stared up at the night sky. “Look up there,” she said.

Slicker looked. There were still embers from the burnt-out kestrel, floating up into the sky, dancing and glowing orange against the backdrop of stars.

“There is a lot of empty space out there,” said Florence. “We could end up lost.”

“We have the nav computer to get back to Little Pinky. And the Queen Isabella III is still there, I’m sure.”

“After that, I mean,” said Florence.

“We have to try. You want to go home. I want to go home. Remember, too, you have a wedding.”

“Mm, the wedding. I don’t know, Bob. I’ve been places, seen things. I’m a different person.” She rolled onto her side and propped her head up with her elbow so she could look at Slicker. “What about you, Bob? Do you have anyone to go back to?”

Slicker felt a dampness at the back of his neck. Not the familiar old full-on biblical deluge, but dampness and heat nevertheless. What was Florence saying? Is she having second thoughts about the wedding? About this Doug? Was she giving him signs? He realised he hadn’t spoken for an uncomfortable length of time. What was her question again?

“Me? Er, no. A job, that’s all. And I think after this, I’ll be done with the management accounting life. I want to go to La Ronde and help them rebuild. I’ll take them my sketches, and a sample of Sansevieria Slickerii. Might be able to start a new career as a botanist.”

“But alone?”

“I’m used to alone, Florence.”

Florence put a hand on his forearm.

“Shouldn’t have to be,” she said. “We’ll see what we can do about that.”

Bloody hell, thought Slicker. He waited for the sweats to come in full flood, but they didn’t. Instead his heart pounded and his knees shook. When he spoke he tried hard to make his voice sound controlled. It came out an octave higher than usual. He hoped she didn’t notice.

“But we have to get home first,” he said, hiding the squeak by trying to sound earnest. “We have to try. If we can get the data from the Queen we’ll be okay. We just plot the vector on which we arrived and do it backwards.”

“You make it sound easy.”

“It is easy. It’s numbers, that’s all. Pretty straightforward numbers, too. But the data is in the nav computer on the Queen.”

“They’ll shoot us.”

“We sneak back. I saw how you handle the Kaydence. We come in on their blind side as best we can. You can do that. It’s not like they’ll be expecting us.”

“Okay then,” said Florence.

“We can do this. You are a natural pilot. I can navigate. We’re going home. It’s a done deal.”

34

It crossed Slicker’s mind that the Queen Isabella III might not be in orbit around Pinky. Desperation and a lack of landing vehicles might have encouraged them to move on. After four days sealed inside a spacesuit, he felt desperate to get out, amazed at the apparent disequilibrium between food consumed (nil) and food eliminated (much). But as they pulled into a high orbit around Little Pinky, three bright points of light appeared over the horizon. The battle fleet was pretty much where it should be. The way he felt, Slicker no longer cared if he arrived at the Queen and they straight out shot him, so long as he was allowed to take off the spacesuit first.

“We’re following them,” said Florence. “Right up their tail. Best chance we have of arriving unannounced.”

Florence closed the gap with skill, seemingly able to balance the unintuitive enigma of speed vs orbit with innate abilities she didn’t understand. Only when they were right inside the central exhaust thruster did she match their speeds and come to a halt.

“If they didn’t see us coming, they won’t be able to find us now,” she said.

“On the other hand, a couple of seconds on the thrusters, intentional or otherwise, and they turn us to cinders,” said Slicker.

“I suppose we shouldn’t stay here,” said Florence. “But I’m guessing that as the Kaydence is the only ship any of us have left, they wouldn’t want to torch her on purpose. Then again, I don’t have a lot of faith in committee decisions.”

“Forget committees,” said Slicker. “Levison is running the whole shebang. The fleet committees are for morale purposes only, so that the officers believe they have a say. The decisions are Levison’s and trust me, he won’t fry his only ship. We’ll park her here and EVA into the Queen.” He couldn’t believe he was using language like “EVA”. The only difference between flying in on the Kaydence or naked, was a few flimsy bits of carbon strut. Essentially, they had EVA’d all the way from the surface of Blue Eyes, four days ago.

They unstrapped, and, using their suit jets, moved out of the cavernous mouth of the thruster nozzle. Slicker felt safer once they were clear of it, but it was an irrational comfort. Even now, if someone gunned the engines they’d find themselves left far behind, floating in open space, and their faithful jackstraw ship would be random atoms, dissipating into the void.

“Do you know a way in, other than through the hangar?” said Florence.

Slicker tried to visualise the blueprints he’d studied so many times. He couldn’t. The plans he’d seen involved faux mahogany panelling and velvet drapery, swimming pools and champagne bars. Actual mechanicals were never part of the remodelling.

“We’ll just work our way along the central hub,” said Slicker. “There must be an access hatch along here. Too much chance of being flung off into space out on the rim.”

They moved slowly, allowing time for the ship to turn beneath them, unwrapping the whole circumference of the hub as they floated along.

“There,” said Slicker. A door came into view. Square and red.

“Do you think it’s alarmed?” said Florence.

“Oh yeah. And triple bolted. Against any opportunist burglars that might come floating by,” said Slicker, his voice loaded with sarcasm. “Come on, Florence, of course it’s not locked.”

The door was locked.

“What do we do now? Knock?” said Florence.

“We could move along some more, find another way in.”

“Why wouldn’t the other access doors be locked?”

Slicker shrugged but the action was wasted inside his spacesuit. “Why lock this one?” he said. “Okay, so maybe we could figure out the combination on the keypad.”

“Yeah, that’ll only take us a couple dozen centuries.”

“Or we could try your plan,” said Slicker.

“My plan? I don’t recall having a plan.”

“Yes, you do. A good one as I remember. We’ll knock.”

Slicker reached out his arm and with the hard carbon reinforcement on the back of his suit glove, he knocked.

“Knock, knock, knock.” He spoke the knocks aloud, for Florence’s benefit, because contrary to what the Hollywood Space crew would have everyone believe, there really was no sound in space.

“Satisfied? Can we go and find another door now?”

“Give them a mo’. Anyone in there’s got to exchange wary glances and say things like ‘Who the freaking hell is out there in the empty void of space, knocking on the door?’ first.”

An amber light came on above the door. It went green and the door began to slide open, silent and without drama.

“Okay,” said Florence. “My plan was a good one.”

“You’re welcome.”

“But I guess our surprise is blown, now.”

“You think? I’d say that whoever is opening that door is already bloody surprised.”

“I didn’t—”

“I know what you meant, but think, the Queen has over two thousand crew. Do you think every single person on board knows our business and who we are? Come on. And if they do, do you think they give a monkey’s?”

Slicker hit the close button when they were inside and as air returned, they began hearing the heartbeat of the Queen Isabella III, the grating of the closing door, not sounding quite so smooth now there was air sloshing around to transfer the sound of its pain and labours. Then there was the lump lump lump of the air pump; squeaks and scrapes; metal on metal; the routine sounds of technology failing.

The inner airlock door opened on hinges, and Slicker released his face plate. It felt good to have fresh, less-recycled air in his lungs, even though spaceship air carried that tang of rubber, ozone and boiled cabbage.

Two techies waited for them. Their orientation was opposite to that of Slicker and Florence so it seemed the techies were standing on their heads, always disconcerting for a first meeting. Both parties realigned halfway until everyone’s horizon was the same.

“Where’d you two come from?” said the nearer of the two.

“How long have you been on shift?” demanded Florence, ignoring their question.

“An hour,” said the other techie, surprised. “We came on at eight.”

“You’re off the hook, then. It isn’t you who’s going to get the ass kicking for locking us out. I guess it’s your lucky day. What breed of tosser would lock the door? Who do they imagine is going to be wanting to break in, out here?” Florence was already pushing past, pulling off her gloves with attitude. Slicker picked up on her lead.

“It’s bad enough having to work out there for six straight hours,” he said, “without getting locked outside.”

“But… who are you? What have you been…”

Slicker waved him off over his shoulder as he followed Florence. They had both shown enough irritation to dissuade further questioning. Slicker had to hand it to Florence, she was good, as though she’d done things like this before. He remembered back to when he first noticed her, the only one answering back to Levison, the day they came through the gate.

“I can open up a nav terminal,” she said. “But I don’t know how to get at any of the files. I have to leave that for you to do.”

“Not yet,” said Slicker.

“What? What’s wrong?”

“First things first. A shower and some food.”

“I’d love a shower, but do you really think it would be wise? We need to get the files and get out of here.”

“Have you sniffed your armpits, my dearest? I suspect that if we go breezing through the ship smelling like this, word will get out. Also, we haven’t eaten for four days. We’ll work better if we’re not fainting.”

“You’ve sold me,” said Florence. “Where—?”

“My room,” said Slicker. “The one in the back of the gun rack. Nobody knows about it apart from you and a few trusted friends. I have the essentials: a shower, a freezer and a microwave.”

* * *

Slicker’s den hadn’t changed since he left it weeks earlier. Yet it seemed different. He realised that it was not the den that had changed but Slicker himself. Since he had last hidden here, away from the demands and badgering of Martin Levison, Slicker had done things: he had colonised two planets; he had navigated in space, outwitted soldiers, hacked through alien jungles, rescued damsels in distress – actually, the damsel had rescued him… in fact, no, the damsel had gassed him, beaten him, then rescued him.

All in all, though, he had grown. And now he was about to do what no other person had ever done. He was about to open up space for gate-free access to anywhere in the universe.

Or not.

His theory could be wrong.

“Are you worried that this has all been a little too easy?” said Florence. She was making use of Slicker’s single, green, form-fitting chair, wrapped in a giant towelling dressing gown with the Tsanak Hilton logo on the front, while polishing off the double portion of cannelloni they’d just microwaved.

“You mean no alarms or anything?”

“Yeah. You’d think everyone’d be looking out for us.”

“Does anyone know we’re wanted?”

“I did steal the kestrel,” said Florence. “Okay, I helped build it first, but Levison requisitioned it and I stole it. Wouldn’t you think Levison would expect me to come back in it, one day?”

“Yes.”

“What do you mean, yes? You agree?”

Slicker gave a shrug. “We got lucky, that’s all. As I said, there’s a big crew on this ship. You can’t have everyone out looking for us, and we’ve only passed half a dozen people coming here. Yes, it’s quiet. It is the night shift, you know,” he said, pointing to his wristwatch.

“Right, well how do we play this?”

“Take me to the nav terminal. Not the one on the bridge; there are others I’m guessing?”

“We can use the one in Engineering. There will be people down there, but not many.”

Slicker nodded. “Okay, then. Get me access and I’ll work on extracting the files. You need to go back to the Kaydence Wilson and be ready to upload as soon as I transmit them. I’m guessing it will be easier to exit the Queen than it was getting inside.”

Slicker had already shown Florence how to upload the files. They now had a wireless connection they’d made with the nav computer in the Kaydence. The hardest part had been gaffer-taping everything in place and making it secure.

“We should go, then,” said Florence.

“Hmm.”

“What?”

“I’m thinking there’s someone I’d like to talk to, first,” said Slicker.

Florence said nothing. Her eyes narrowed and she watched him, waiting for more.

“How sure are we about this theory? Retracing our steps? Winker Watson in Payroll. He knows stuff. You know him?”

“Yeah, I know Winker,” said Florence. “He organised the rebuild on the Kaydence Wilson. He’s brilliant with spaceships.”

“Ha, I might have known Winker had a hand in that ship of yours. He’s good people. We can trust him. I want to put our idea about retracing our route past him, see what he thinks.”

“I’m good with that.”

“I could use one of his coffees, too,” said Slicker.

Florence shook her head. “It’s late, he won’t be in his office, surely.”

“He’s always in his office,” said Slicker. “The coffee machine’s in his office.”

Slicker was right. The office was in darkness, but Winker’s glassed-in corner was lit up like an aquarium.

“Mr Slicker and Miss McConnachie. Well then. How the hell are my favourite celebrity space pirates doing? On the run, still, I take it?”

“What makes you say that?” said Florence.

“Well, you’re not in chains, you are carrying your EVA suits, and you are both breathing. You’ve caused quite a stir, both of you. The radio chatter from Little Pinky suggests that you, Bob, not only stole their kestrel but drove it right through the middle of their camp, first.”

“Radio chatter?” Slicker looked surprised. “I took their kestrel, and it had the only radio. How—?”

“Interpersonal comms units. Low power, but someone here on the Isabella managed to eavesdrop the conversation. Strictly one-way but enough to ensure your fame, Bob.”

“I take it Levison still has me on the wanted list,” said Slicker.

“Both of you. The most wanted list,” said Winker. “You two are felons of celebrity status. Heroes to the minions, villains to the establishment.”

“And, with you, we’re…?”

“Bob, my dear boy, if I had balloons and ticker tape I’d lay on a parade. You appear to have come over from the dark side. Your escapades are legend. Always knew you had it in you. Now, you’ll be wanting coffee. And, perhaps some spacefaring advice?”

“We have a plan to get home, but we can’t take the Queen Isabella with us. Not yet. If we get back to the Sphere, we want to prepare the way for Levison’s return. Don’t want him coming home to his own parade. There are heroes aplenty on this ship, but he is not one of them.”

“Well said, sir. What’s your plan? Lay it on me.”

Winker Watson had been working at his chrome espresso bar the whole time. He returned with coffee made to the exact specifications of both Slicker’s and Florence’s preferences. “Gingerbread latte for Mr Slicker. Americano, black, for Miss McConnachie. Am I right?”

“Excellent,” said Slicker.

“How do you remember?” said Florence.

“I take my barista responsibilities seriously, my dear. People trust me and it gives them a crumb of comfort on this miserable little adventure.”

“How do you two know each other?” said Florence.

“Oh, we go way back,” said Winker. “We were… colleagues, on the Ring.”

“We were fellow orphans,” said Slicker.

“The only reason I’m on this ship is Bob Slicker,” said Winker. “Can I show her, Bob?”

Slicker nodded.

Winker reached into a jacket pocket and took out a small foil packet.

“Coffee beans,” said Winker. “Not for grinding, for planting.”

“I had access, in La Ronde,” said Slicker. “I knew Winker was unhappy about the state of the hybrid things we call coffee beans. He wanted to try the real thing.”

“But on all the planets in the Sphere, they just don’t want to take,” said Winker. “Coffee plants are not quite trees, but they’re close, and the best we ever get is sad-looking stunted things. So when Bob told me about a new world, one with full-sized trees and room to breathe, well there was no stopping me.”

“You know what the intentions were, for Serenity, don’t you?”

“Would never have happened, my dear. Bob was most careful about who he selected for this trip. Okay, there are soldiers, but there are also plenty of support staff, like me, all in key places. And we can be… persuasive? That right, Bob?”

“Armies have to eat,” said Slicker. “Our chef doesn’t just do pastries, he does a nice line in dysentery, too, when called upon.”

“We had a plan,” said Winker. “Serenity was safe. And speaking of plans, you have one too?”

Florence explained all about back-tracking the Queen Isabella’s original route.

“I reckon the paired gates force open a track from one position to another and it is a track that endures no matter how great the distance between the paired gates.”

“Quantum entanglement, so the argument goes. Yes,” said Winker.

“When we make an open-ended jump, we open a gate to a region of space that is already entangled. Like paired gates, the partnership endures. I believe we only have to go back the way we came and we will enter the same hole in space and pop out through the original gate, because both places are entangled, even though the gate itself isn’t powered. When we enter at this end, there is nowhere else to go. The only reason you have to power a paired gate is to make the opening wider for access. And we never have to power up the receiving gate, somehow it just works.”

“Yes, this isn’t new, I’ve heard something like it before. There is some solid mathematics behind the idea, I believe.”

“Then why hasn’t anybody tried it before?” said Slicker.

Winker smiled and nodded. “You can only do it from the end without a gate. This end. You would always have to take the open-ended jump first. Theory is one thing but there are few who would go to those lengths to try it.”

“What about robotic probes?” said Florence.

“Yeah, tried and failed,” said Winker. “Maybe the theory is wrong. Maybe the robot is wrong. I wouldn’t lose heart in the idea. When was the last time you trusted a robot?”

“So it might work?” said Florence.

“We have nothing to lose,” said Slicker. “We’re already here.”

Winker gave a grimace and rubbed his chin. “Actually, you have a fair bit to lose. As best as I remember, the theory goes that you must re-enter the hole in space with the same mass/velocity ratio that you had at the time you arrived. Powered gates circumvent the problem.”

“Oh,” said Slicker.

“Oh indeed. So you must either go back in the Isabella…”

“I don’t think pirating the Queen Isabella is an option,” said Slicker. “We don’t have that many friends on board.”

“…or you will have to be travelling at one hell of a lick in the Kaydence Wilson to match the mass/velocity ratio. I will crank the numbers out for you, but given the tiny mass of the KW I don’t think, top of my head, that she has that sort of performance in her. And if you did, and you are wrong about the gate, you certainly won’t have the fuel to stop and come back. It’s a one-way ticket I’m afraid.”

Slicker and Florence looked crestfallen. Their plan was trashed. The options were bleak.

“However,” said Winker, “don’t lose heart. This is only a theory. The mass thing might be bollocks. The whole breadcrumbs thing might be bollocks. Who knows? Try it at the slower speed and leave yourself some fuel. See what happens.”

Slicker looked over at Florence. “What do you think,” he said. “Give it a go? We’ll take some food. Then, if it fails, we can always hole up on Blue Eyes again. There might be sympathetic individuals, here, who’d want to join us, colonise, make a new home. We could ferry them over a few at a time. How about you, Winker? Do you fancy the life of a frontiersman? And Mrs W?”

“Me? And Connie? Dear me, no. If you ever civilise up to the point of running the old Futura, and the Mazzer grinder”—he patted the chrome coffee machine with a tender and loving hand— “then maybe you could entice me. But until then, I have a duty, a calling. I must stay here where my skills are required. And I know for certain I’d never entice Mrs W away from her plants – her hydroponic babies. She has names for each of them, you know.”

Florence nodded. “It was always a long shot. Stick to plan A, yes?”

“Yes,” said Slicker, and turning to Winker, “you’ve been helpful, thank you. We’ll attempt the slow run first, but if you could try running the maths on the hot run, we’d be grateful. You never know, it might be just do-able.”

They sipped their coffee, talked about old times, talked about new times. Winker filled them in on the latest gossip from the ship. His payroll brood had a special talent for digging out juicy morsels of news from amongst the crew.

As Slicker drained the last dribble of foam from his latte glass, he realised the time had come. They had to leave. It was comfortable here, in the armchairs, amongst the bookshelves that were illusions, flat plastic spines glued to a wall; with the fake smells of leather and paper injected into the air at regular intervals; Slicker understood why Winker could never leave.

They bid farewell and Florence led them back to the zero-gee world of Engineering, and the never-used nav console. She keyed her password to access the database.

“Password is still good, but that’s all I can do,” she said. “The file contents don’t mean a lot to me.”

“It’s okay,” said Slicker, “They’re all dated. I’ll just download everything from the past two months. I’m not fiddling around with the details, here. We spent too long with Winker. The more time we spend here, now, the more chance there is of us being discovered.”

“You need me back in the Kaydence, then?”

“Soon as you can. Call me when you’re in position and we’ll do the download via the comms link.”

“On my way.”

“Wait!”

Slicker reached out and took her hand in his. He gave it a squeeze. He realised he had leaned in. He froze at an awkward angle. He had almost given her a kiss. He felt an overwhelming protective urge. He didn’t want to let her go out there, alone.

“Be careful, yes?”

“I’m only going from here to the Kaydence.”

“I know.”

“Bob, I built the Kaydence. I flew her all the way to Blue Eyes, on my own, you know?”

“Yeah, yeah, I know all that. But I mean it. Be careful. Please.”

Florence smiled and patted the back of the hand that still held tight to her own.

“Okay,” she said. “You too.”

She pulled her hand free, turned and floated off to the airlock on the other wall of the hub. Slicker watched as she closed the door. He heard the pumps begin their laboured cycling. The green light above the door turned red. Slicker became aware of something in his chest. A feeling he hadn’t experienced before. Was it a heart attack? Was he ill? Or was this a thing he had only witnessed and wondered about in others? Was this what people called companionship, loyalty, or even… love? One thing was sure, he feared for this jumpy, raggedy mop-headed girl, and he could not understand the cause of his fear.

He waited by the nav console, aware of his heart beating in his ears, his comm unit ready. She was taking too long. Something must have happened. Slicker followed her route in his mind, his eye working along the inside of the hub, to where she should be on the outside, estimating her speed, what she’d be doing at each point. Three times his gaze came to rest on the space behind the thrusters where he believed her ship to be. Too long. He made a decision. He reached out a hand for his helmet when the comms unit on his ear crackled.

Flo’s voice.

“Ready. Sorry, I got into a tangle. I wanted to close the outer door behind me in case it tripped any warning lights on the ship. Shouldn’t leave outer doors open.”

Slicker felt a wave of relief and he let out a breath he hadn’t realised he was holding. “Okay, Florence, no problem. I’m about—”

And something sharp jabbed into his back.

“Ah, Bob. I see you have returned to us.” Levison’s sneering tones made the muscles in Slicker’s neck stretch tight, and all the warmth and good humour he’d felt dissipated in an instant.

“Engineer Rodriguez,” said Levison. “Perhaps a quick blast on the main thrusters would be a good idea right about now. Something to clean out the pipes, yes?”

“No!” Slicker lunged despite the barrel of the energy rifle wedged in his kidneys. There was no delay, no dramatic pause. The engineer smiled as he reached out a hand and snapped down on the three yellow and black levers marked Thrusters Manual Override. The effect was immediate. A brief kick, then up and down were restored along the axis of the ship. Slicker, Levison and the two armed guards began falling, picking up momentum, but never fast enough to cause injury. Only the engineer remained, his foot jammed into a restraint so that he could control the thrusters. Half a second of thrust would have been more than enough to vaporise the Kaydence and her lone crew member, but this Engineer Rodriguez was nothing if not thorough. Five seconds just to make sure. There was nothing Florence could have done. There would have been no warning for her, not an instant. Would she have had time to even know what happened?

Slicker gave a wail and fell to the deck. But his weight had become zero once more, and instead of hitting the deck he simply curled into a ball in the air, hugging himself and crying out in anguish.

35

Levison’s stateroom was on the rim of the Queen Isabella III. The satin, fur and silk fabrics were bathed in golden light reflected from the gold panelling and fittings. A large picture window looked out onto the slim, coral crescent of Little Pinky.

Slicker lay on one of three plush, velvet chaise longues, his knees pulled up to his chest. He stared out into the room without seeing. In his mind, on an infinite loop, the image of Florence, smiling, her eyes shining, her mop of unruly golden hair bobbing in the micro-gee. A flash, her head turning towards the light but not quick enough to see, then oblivion. Her petite body reduced to a billion atoms in an instant.

“My God, Slicker. Man up. I’d have thought a bit of adventure might have grown some hairs on your balls, but you are every bit the wimp you were when you left here. What is it with her? Did you have a thing? Was she the love of your life? Bloody hell, she was, wasn’t she? You’re smitten by her.”

Slicker turned to stare at Martin Levison. His eyes narrowed.

“I promise you, Levison. You are never leaving this part of the universe alive. I swear it. You have done some shitty things to me, to people, over the years. This time… you do not get away with it, Levison. You die out here, do you hear me?”

“Better,” said Levison. “Spoken with passion, at least. Bit of an empty threat though, because unless you know something I don’t, we are all pretty much screwed. We are all going to see out what remains of our lives out here.”

Levison walked over to the bar and poured himself something long, amber and expensive. Even here, where money had ceased to hold any value, Levison could not help but show off his perceived superiority.

“Do you know anything different, Bob? Have you figured out a way back? Interesting you spent over an hour in Watson’s office before mounting your escape. Now, Winker Watson, there’s an oddball for you. But he knows a thing or two about spacecraft and spacefaring, doesn’t he? What did you all chat about? For an hour. Catching up on old times? The price of coffee?”

Slicker glared and said nothing.

“I think you will talk to me,” said Levison. “I hold certain… cards.”

“You’ve played your cards,” said Slicker. “You don’t have any more. There’s nothing you can do to me. Why would I tell you anything about what Florence and I planned to do? You might as well finish this now, Levison, because I have no intention of wasting breath on you, and mark this, every minute that I’m in your company increases the chances of me taking you out. So go on, end it now.”

Levison looked across at the two armed guards at the door. Both had their energy rifles pointed at Slicker. Levison gave a humourless chuckle.

“I think not, Bob. Not on the chaise. Wouldn’t want to char the silk or damage the filigree edging.” He put the glass down on the bar, slipped his hands deep into the pockets of his jacket, and walked over to stand in front of Slicker. He pushed out his bottom lip and nodded, taking in the situation.

“Bob, Bob, what are we to do with you? You know how to do it, don’t you? You know how to get to the Sphere.”

Slicker said nothing.

“I keep calling it the Sphere. The Sphere of Influence. Wrong, of course. It is no longer a Sphere. Serenity will be in the hands of the Space Corps, by now. The official Space Corps. The unimaginative Space Corps. They have their gate, they have their new world full of trees. But it’s no longer a Sphere. No, more like a… a lollipop. The big, round Sphere of sherbet at one end of the stick, Serenity at the other. A gazillion light years in between. The Lollipop of Influence, Bob. Heady times. And we are not even shopping in the same sweet shop. But you know how to get there, Bob. You know the way back and you will tell me.”

“You’re off your head, Levison.”

“Oh, you will tell me how, Bob. There are few certainties in the world but this is one of them.”

Levison rubbed his chin, thinking.

“What do you want, more than anything?”

Slicker turned away.

“Family. Would that do it, Bob? You know that I know things. It’s what you always craved to learn, isn’t it? Mother, father, siblings. Your name. Where you come from.”

Slicker said nothing, but he couldn’t help the involuntary twitch at the back of his neck. Yes, it was what he had always longed for, but somehow, knowing his roots no longer seemed to matter. Because he had nobody with whom to share. What use was it, now, knowing who he was? Florence was gone. Erased. There was a hollow space inside him that Slicker never knew existed until it had been wrenched open.

“No, we’re not ready yet,” said Levison. “I can see that. So I suppose it is time for some other persuasion. A pity, I thought I might be able to put you through your pain for a little longer, but we need to get on.” He waved over to the guards, an effeminate little hand twirl that lacked only a scented lace handkerchief to own the full-on pampered-dilettante effect.

One of the guards lowered his weapon, turned and marched out of the room.

“You will find, Bob, that I am very good at this sort of thing. I am surprised you don’t already know this. But when I want something, I get it. Do you recall a time, ever, when this was not so? You know how to get home. I require that information. You will tell me.”

The door opened.

“Ah,” said Levison.

The guard came back in, with another person, a person who fought and squirmed in a way that seemed familiar. Slicker sat up. His eyes were raw and swimming, and he had to wait a moment for them to focus.

“Florence!”

Florence broke free of the guard and ran over to Slicker. The guard raised his energy rifle.

“No, leave it,” said Levison. “Let them have their moment, there’s no harm.”

Florence wrapped her arms around Slicker and buried her head in his neck. Slicker felt warm tears and smelled the perfume of her hair. He realised he was blubbering too.

“They told me you were dead,” she said. “They found you in Engineering and shot you.”

“The thrusters. There’s no way…” said Slicker.

Levison coughed. “Really, Bob, do you honestly think I’d be stupid enough to torch the only remaining kestrel? We had the tether hooked up while you were wasting time drinking coffee with Watson. Rodriguez knew not to hit the thrusters until the salvage crew confirmed they’d towed the craft free.”

“So what was the point?” said Slicker. “Why do it? Are you really such a bastard you enjoy doing this stuff?”

“Absolutely,” said Levison, “but there are always other reasons. Give me some credit. I wanted to know how things lay between the two of you. As I said, I have several cards left to play, but there’s no point playing a hand when you don’t know what you are holding.”

Slicker pushed Florence back, just a few inches, so he could glare at Levison.

“The two of you, I mean, who would have guessed? What about your poor fiancé, Ms McConnachie? I wonder how he would feel if he could see the two of you now. Tut tut.”

“We are friends, that is all,” said Florence. “Everything Bob told me about you is true.”

Levison laughed. “Friends? Kid yourself if you like, but friends? I think not.”

Slicker realised Levison was right. How could a person be like that? How could Levison have found a way to probe into the parts of Slicker’s head that even Slicker himself hadn’t known were there? Because Slicker now knew with certainty that he and Florence had moved to something far more than friendship, and somehow they’d done it without passing “go”. They had leapfrogged all the way from despise to adore.

“We are about ready,” said Levison. “Guard, if you would oblige. Put them into the airlock where they can spend their last moments before eternity.”

* * *

Airlocks are cold places. It is inevitable. They are protected from the hard cold of space by only one conductive metal skin. They are not connected to the heating system. What would be the point? It is rare for a person to spend much time in an airlock. It is even rarer for a person to do it without the thermal protection of a spacesuit, but both Slicker and Florence had been separated from their spacesuits straight after capture. Levison was arrogant about his position of power, but not stupid. He was taking no chances that anyone might break free of the guard and make a run for it. Copperbird cotton under-johns are designed for the avoidance of chafing, not for warmth. So, as accommodation goes, your average airlock is about as cosy as a meat locker.

Slicker held onto Florence. Florence held onto Slicker. Their teeth chattered. Levison’s voice came over the intercom, lying on the bench beside them.

“You have an intercom so that we can speak. Normally you would use the comms in your suit, but you will notice you don’t have suits. You will also find, beneath the bench on which you are sitting, a blanket. This is not because I am kind, it is because I don’t want you to die until we have had a chance to discuss the deal.

“What else? Ah yes, there is a small circular window in the inner door, you see it? I am placing a clock there, for you to watch. The clock is set to count down for twenty-four hours. You are already somewhat sleep deprived, I suspect, but I daresay you will want to remain awake for the next twenty-four hours because they will be your last hours together. Because when that clock reaches zero the outer door will slide open. This airlock is on the rim. You won’t need my guards to fling you out, far into space. The combination of centripetal forces and explosive decompression will do their job for them.”

Slicker felt Florence’s arms tighten around him. Her face pushed into his neck.

“Of course, there is a way to stop the clock. There is a way to avoid the rather unpleasant experience of being propelled into space. You know what that is, I’m sure, but just to be clear I will spell it out for you. Tell me how to get back to the Sphere. I have your ship. I have your lives in my control. Tell me how to use your ship to return home and the clock will stop. That is all. I can hear you, wherever I happen to be, so just shout out when you’re ready.”

“Levison, I mean it, I—”

“Don’t waste my time with threats, Bob, I don’t want to hear them. There is one way and one way only that you can end this. Think about it.”

There was a snap as the connection closed. Slicker released his grip on Florence and reached under the bench. True to Levison’s word, there was a blanket. He pulled it out and wrapped it around them.

“I’m sorry, Florence. I got you into this.”

“No, you didn’t, Bob. This is a joint venture. We both knew the risks of coming back.”

“What do you think, then? Do we tell him?”

Florence pulled him tighter. “Not a chance. You’ve told me how he is. Now I’ve had a chance to see for myself I think you paint a rosy picture of the guy. We can’t tell him, it is the only advantage we have. Once he knows how to get back to the Sphere, well then he has no more use for us. He’s bluffing, Bob.”

“You think this is a stalemate?” said Slicker.

“Just a bit.”

“Okay.”

“Florence?”

“I’m glad to have you back. I was…”

“I know.”

They lapsed into silence. Even with the blanket, a vacuum-layered, fleecy-lined top-of-the-range M&S blanket, the intense cold of deep space began to seep in. Slicker tried to think about their options, but thinking and shivering were mutually exclusive activities. From what ideas he could muster, though, their options seemed few. They could call Levison’s bluff or they could tell him what they knew. Either way the end result would be the same, they would end up sucking space. The situation was hopeless.

“If we tell him how to get back, he’ll have no reason to keep us alive. He will return a hero. He will find a way to stake his claim and turn Serenity into a lumber yard. All those trees. And people have made a home there. What happens to them? It bothers me, Florence. I know what they say about me – the finance staff who work for me, the ship’s crew – but I’m not unfeeling. I do care. Really. I was appalled when La Ronde was damaged by our actions. My orders. I promised myself I could never let anything like that happen again.”

“Then we don’t tell him,” said Florence.

“He might figure it out for himself. We’ve left enough clues.”

“Then he’ll have to make that calculation,” said Florence. “If this is our last twenty-four hours, then so be it. A pact, Bob. We don’t tell him a damn thing, okay?”

“Okay.”

They passed the time talking about their lives. Florence talked about flying trapeze, Slicker talked about botany.

“What about Doug?” said Slicker. The question came out of nowhere. But he had to ask. He had to find out how she felt.

“Oh, yes. Doug.”

“On Blue Eyes you said you didn’t know. What don’t you know? You’ve seemed reluctant to talk about him. Florence, he’s your fiancé.”

“I thought he was the one, Bob. He has a good career. Steady. He’s… kind. He’s nice. But when we became stranded out here, and it was… well, I lost him, forever. I’ll never see him again. And you know what I thought? I thought about the wedding. All the plans we’ve made and I won’t be there to see them through. It seems it was the wedding I mourned, not the marriage. Do you know what I mean? I didn’t see that at all until Levison told me you were dead. Then I just… I imploded. All the structure and sense and reality in the universe just came apart. I lost you and everything fragmented. That’s when I knew, Bob. Me and Doug are friends, but we are separate entities. You and I. We’re not like that. We are poles apart, we think in different ways, about everything, but…”

“But pull us apart and the universe loses cohesion. I know what you mean. I feel the same.” And Slicker smiled to himself. Despite the cold of space, despite the imminence of certain death, he felt warm and… well, happy.

36

“And there we have it,” said Levison to the two guards waiting by the door to his stateroom. “Never let it be said that I don’t have what it takes.”

He lounged back in the crimson velvet-upholstered chair and mimed applause at the intercom receiver on the coffee table in front of him.

“The two lovebirds have dealt me a hand of aces. I knew they would but it does no harm to be sure. Gentlemen, you are honoured to have witnessed, first hand, the moment of my triumph. Now, you may bring Slicker to me. The girl can remain in the airlock. Oh, leave the gun here, you won’t need it. That’s it, by the door is fine.”

Levison pulled open a drawer and pulled out a large cigar. He rolled it between his fingers and held it under his nose. He grimaced at the bitter aroma. This is as good as we can manage, vat-grown, he thought. I wonder how tobacco will taste if I plant it on a world as fertile as Serenity. I must try a crop or two.

He poured a glass of port from a decanter, took a sip and waited.

The guard entered with the slime bandit, Bob Slicker, in tow.

“Bob, come in. Would you like a drink? I’d offer you a cigar but you know we’re not supposed to smoke on spaceships, it sets the sprinklers off. One smoker is just about all the automated systems can take.

“So, what’s the plan, Bob? How does your little ship get you home?”

“Why do you keep asking, Levison? You know I’m not going to tell you. You might as well put me back into the airlock. In fact, forget the timer, you might as well put us both out into space now. We’re not going to tell you anything.”

“Bob, Bob. I would never do such a thing. Here’s the deal. You are free. There’s the door. I forgive you. You can go.”

Slicker stared. Levison couldn’t help the smile that twitched at the corners of his mouth.

With the back of his hand Levison gave a dismissive flick of the wrist. “Bob. Go. We’re done here.”

“You’ll let Florence go?”

“Ah, well there’s the rub. I would like to. Believe me when I say this, she’s a pretty little thing. But the timer is still running. That has not changed. Miss McConnachie has”—Levison made an exaggerated play of looking at his wrist tat watch— “about four hours.”

Slicker’s eyes were staring now, flitting about the room. They fastened on the energy rifle the guard had put down by the door. Levison couldn’t help but smile as Slicker made a dive for it.

“Go ahead, Bob. You’re upset. I don’t blame you wanting to pop me. But just... indulge me a moment. Something you should know before you waste me. The timer on the outer door cannot be disabled. The lock on the inner door can only be released by one of only two, six-digit, onetime codes. I used up the first in setting you free.”

Slicker stopped. Levison noted he was panting, weighing up what Levison had just told him.

“You’re tired. Sleep deprived. Your head is perhaps not running as fast as it ought. Let me fill you in. The six-digit code is in here.” Levison tapped his own head. “Nobody else knows it. Just me. I can key in the code and the girl goes free. Otherwise…” He waited for the light to go on in Slicker’s eyes. Yes, he is slow. There’s nothing. Wait. Something. Ah, there.

“Now, you understand. So, where did we get to? Oh yes, you were about to blast me. Try not to damage the wallpaper, it’s William Morris, limited edition, though not organic paper. Not even my budget will stretch so far.”

Slicker’s hands seemed to go limp. The rifle clattered to the floor. Levison fancied it was like watching a soul take wing and leave a dying man. The spirit was gone.

“You’ll let her go, if I tell you what you want to know?”

“Of course. And that is the only way she will be released. And the outer door will open in just under four hours. Nothing I can do can stop that. Sorry.”

“Okay.”

“What was that?”

“I said, okay. I will tell you how to get home. What other choice have I?”

“Excellent. But it will have to keep, for now. It is time for dinner, and I’m ravenous. Come back in a couple of hours.”

“I’m ready to tell you now.”

“And I’m not ready to listen. Go. Guards, take him.”

Levison watched the little performance until the door closed. He could still hear Slicker shouting and screaming out in the corridor, making a scene, his voice fading as they dragged him away. The valet opened the inner door and announced dinner.

Levison felt well satisfied with his day’s work. Even in defeat, Slicker had to be shown that he had no sway whatsoever. In a few hours he would permit Slicker to tell him everything. Levison would decide whether to free the girl or not. So far he had only bent Slicker to his will. It would be rather fun, now, to snap the little snot in two.

37

Slicker, a guard on each arm, felt like a rag doll, his feet dragging along the parquet flooring as they hauled him down the long corridor that served as Levison’s ante-room, then flung him through the door into the passageway outside.

He lay on his back, in the corridor, staring at the ceiling. Any half-plan he had was in ruins. Florence was in the airlock, he was free, but what was free? He could not allow this to happen. His resolve to not spill out the details of their theory for their return to the Sphere had evaporated the moment Levison explained his intentions. Calling his bluff was fine when it was both he and Florence who were in jeopardy, but now that Slicker was safe and Florence wasn’t, the game became a whole different bucket of djinn droppings. Slicker had no doubt at all that Levison meant what he said about the outer door opening. It’s what he did. He’d see it as a lesson to him. This is what I do when you defy me. Tell me whatever I need to know. If not, then I can do worse.

But could he do worse? No, Slicker had already tasted the pain of loss. There was no question that he could not go through that again. He would tell Levison the whole plan. Florence would give him an argument, but she was in the airlock and he was free to roam the Queen, so her argument became null and void.

But the problem was, Levison wanted to play him. He wanted to break his former protégé down. He wanted to hang him out over the lip of the precipice. He would be sure to time his game to the last second, spin Slicker along. He didn’t care if his timing ended up slightly off, if he cocked up and ejected Florence anyway, then so what, he still had Slicker and Slicker still had the knowledge.

He clambered to his feet, and, in a haze of whirling images of horror, stumbled up the corridor towards the hangar and the airlocks. There were five airlocks along the rim, as best as Slicker could remember, and such was his mental state, he wasn’t even sure which was the one where he and Florence had been locked.

It turned out to be lock B. Slicker could see the makeshift clock, gaffer-taped to the small, round, inner-door window. He ripped the clock aside and pressed his face to the quartz. There was Florence, wrapped in the blanket on the bench. He could see she was shivering but she didn’t look up, and though Slicker hammered on the door, his soft, fleshy fists just squelched and slapped against the hard carbon surface and made little sound. There was, of course, an intercom beside the door but Slicker could see the lights were out. It was disabled. The only voice connection would be to Levison’s stateroom, where Levison would be sitting down to a plate of lab-sentient veal or some other inhuman fair.

Slicker pressed his face to the quartz and tried to think. Every avenue was blocked. Levison had won, there was no doubting the fact. Slicker could visualise the smug, fat-lipped smile on his face while gravy ran down his chin. He always supposed he’d win. That was how it always was. Slicker had never been one to succumb to feelings of hate, despite the hard circumstances of his upbringing, but Levison made it easy for him.

Think. What should I do? Slicker decided he needed to talk to Winker. He didn’t like dragging his friend deeper into this, but he had to speak to someone. He ran down the corridor towards Payroll. Run was the wrong word. Slicker’s legs were incapable of the steady and rhythmic movements required of running. Slicker’s gait was the lurch of a thrice-dead zombie.

The payroll boys and girls were at their desks, dedicated, preparing cheques and tax comps and pension contribution statements that would never be honoured. But Winker’s aquarium-like office was empty and dark.

“He’s in the hangar,” said Angela, the team leader. “He was summoned.”

Slicker turned and ran, his gait becoming easier, his stride longer, as the cold worked out of his legs. He thought of Florence, still trapped in that airlock. He thought of how much less a single body could resist the gnawing cold than could two, with the advantage of shared warmth.

The hangar was buzzing. Winker was rebuilding the Kaydence.

“Bob. Come.” Winker beckoned with his finger, then glanced over his shoulder to direct Slicker’s attention to the guard, lounging in the corner with an energy rifle.

“Levison wants a pressure hull on the Kaydence,” he said, in a whisper. On another day such a task would have filled Winker with energy and ebullience. But today his voice sounded flat. His body language betrayed that he was under coercion. “I don’t know everything but I can put the pieces together. Levison plans to take the ship home, yes?”

Slicker nodded.

“He expects to do this soon, because he wants the work completed yesterday.” Watson tilted his head and lowered his voice. “And this ‘going home’ business: only you, Florence and me know how to do it.”

“I intend on telling him, just as soon as he’ll see me. If I don’t, Florence gets hurled out into space. She’s in the airlock with a timer running. He’s hanging me out though. Won’t see me. Playing with me.”

Watson rolled his eyes. “Our Mr Levison knows he’s won and is determined not to go home in a Copperbird suit, wallowing in his own poop. He wants a shirt-sleeve environment with bells and tassels.”

Winker drew his face in closer and lowered his voice. “I can finish the job quickly or I can finish it slowly, Bob. I can choose. What do you want? The extra mass doesn’t make much difference to the calcs. She’s heavier so she’ll accelerate slower, but she will need less velocity. Doesn’t change the equation, though, I reckon it’s a long shot at best. How long has Florence got?”

Slicker looked at his watch – his old clockwork timepiece. He’d reset it to sync with the timer.

“Less than an hour,” he said.

“I’ll have the kestrel ready in… forty minutes,” said Winker.

“Haven’t got a spacesuit,” said Slicker. “Levison had mine and Florence’s locked away. He’s happy to let me roam the Queen because he knows it makes me more anxious, being free but unable to do anything. So he locked away all the suits to prevent last-ditch rescue plans.”

“You won’t need a suit in the Kaydence. Not now she has a skin.”

“Are you saying I could…? Is that possible?”

“Stupid. Dangerous. Doomed to failure. But possible, yes. Just be aware, though, there are no seals on the hatch. Nor are there any anchor bolts. We don’t have spares.”

The kestrels were designed to dock with the airlocks on the Queen Isabella III, for rapid troop deployment. The process was flawed, though, because both had square doors, a stupid shape for a door in space. So there were rubber seals and four corner-bolts to hold the kestrel firm. Neither worked well so they always brought the kestrels inside and never tried docking them in this way.

“How about a makeshift seal of some kind?”

“No promises. If I can do it, I’ll do it within the forty minutes. But Bob, think about it. If you can free Florence by telling Levison the way home, do it. Really. I don’t fancy your chances of doing a jailbreak on Florence, from outside. Not without suits.”

Slicker nodded. “I’m going to give Levison an ultimatum. But he doesn’t take to threats so well and I might have to call his bluff.”

“Can’t you just say, okay, here’s your damn flight plan?”

“I could, but you know him almost as well as I do, Winker. What are the odds he’ll say thanks very much, and then toss Florence out into space anyway?”

“Be back in forty minutes,” said Winker. “I’ll have the Kaydence Wilson fuelled and ready to go. I’ll do what I can about the seals.”

38

“Levison!”

Slicker stood outside the airlock holding a heavy wrench in one hand. He was yelling up at a camera in the corner of the room.

“Last chance, Levison. I’ll tell you the way home but you have to let Florence out.”

There was a crackle on the speaker.

“Mr Levison is dining. He will speak to you when he is ready.” The voice was that of the obsequious valet.

“No, he will speak to me now or lose the opportunity. Open the door.”

The speaker gave a click and silence.

“I know you can hear me, Levison. I know you are watching. This is too important for you to ignore me. You need to open the door now. Last chance.”

Silence.

Slicker looked at his watch. Inside the airlock he could see Florence at the window, watching him. She looked at the time on her own wrist tat. Slicker nodded to her and mouthed, trust me.

Then he raised the wrench, swung it and brought it crashing down onto the timer. The timer exploded in a million fragments. The intercom crackled to life straight away.

“You stupid… What did you do that for? The door is not going to open now. You’ve killed her, you know that?”

“Ah-ha, you were watching. Got your attention, didn’t I? Now, are you going to open this bloody door?”

“The lock and the timer are one. That inner door is not going to open, now, Slicker.”

“Deal’s off then, Levison.” Slicker gave a little wave then broke into a run down the corridor.

Winker was waiting for him in the hangar. As Slicker ran in, the guard, who had been slumped in a corner, bored, snapped to action, raising the rifle.

“I wouldn’t,” shouted Winker. “You fire that thing in here and we all vaporise. Can’t you see we’re fuelling the kestrel?”

The guard looked uncertain. He half lowered the rifle, raised it again, then shouted. “Stop! Do not go in there.”

Slicker was already inside the Kaydence Wilson, closing the door. As the door slid closed, he heard Winker shouting to the guard.

“I suggest we flee,” he yelled. “The hangar door is going to open any second and I for one do not wish to be sucked outside.”

Slicker waited until he was sure Winker and the guard were clear and had sealed the access hatch, then he hit the huge red plastic button on the panel on which his friend had felt-tipped the words Hangar Doors, bloody-well wait until I’m gone. The doors opened. The Kaydence Wilson dropped out into space.

A touch of the thrusters brought her back under control. Slicker’s touch had improved. Gone was the gung-ho all-or-nothing school of space piloting. From watching Florence he’d learnt some finesse, though he still over-compensated and pushed the kestrel much closer than he wanted to be.

He looked at his watch. Eight minutes.

This had to work. He had rewritten the rule book. Florence now had only one way she could leave the airlock: through the outer door. And she had no spacesuit. He knew, though, that if he had done this without smashing the door lock first, then Levison would have simply used his code, opened the inner door and pointed a rifle to her head, and they would have been right back to where they started. This way he held all the cards, but first he had to deal them, and it was a pack of cards coated in nil-friction oil, wrapped in sealed cellophane without the tear-strip, and he was wearing heavy, industrial rubber gloves.

Six minutes. How could it be only six minutes? What was happening to the time? He wasn’t even in position yet.

Slicker pushed the throttle forward. Too much. The Kaydence was hurtling in toward the rim. If he hit at this speed he’d go right through and that would be game over all round. Dab, dab. The Kaydence stopped, at least relative to the position of the Queen, though the rotating rim floated away from him.

The airlock doors came around. Slicker blipped again and again to catch up. Five doors. Florence was in number two. Was that two from the left or two from the right? From the left, yes. But was he sure? Had he rolled? Had his left become his right? With no up and no down it was hard to guess.

Slicker thought about the route they’d taken from Engineering to the airlocks. Which way to the thrusters? They’d come forward, so two from the thruster end of the Queen. Damn, he had rolled. He was chasing the wrong airlock door. Another, longer dab on the controls and the Kaydence closed in until Slicker had her lined up with door two. From here it got harder. There were no retaining bolts. The Queen was moving up and away. Difficult to stay aligned, and just using the thrusters was not the best way to maintain a seal between the Queen and the kestrel. The Queen was above him and he had to juggle, making continuous tiny adjustments to force the Kaydence up against the hull to maintain both his relative position and the seal between ship and airlock. This was a balancing act that required dexterity and a surgeon’s touch. Slicker possessed neither, just the knowledge that if he cocked up, Florence would die.

He pushed the Kaydence forward again. Slowly, slowly. He could see the line of the hatch ahead. A graphic on the reinstalled screen showed he was tens of metres out of line, so he tweaked and got the Kaydence bucking and dancing and all out of shape. A panic tweak and the Kaydence was falling away again. Above him the Queen Isabella III turned. Steady, relentless, infuriating. Slicker sneaked a look at his watch. Three minutes. He tried to stop his hands from shaking. This time, or never.

He hit the controls too hard. The Kaydence lurched upward. Too fast. Stupid fast. He was making a total bollocks of this. Clang! The Kaydence hit the side of the Queen, bounced, hit her again and stuck. The graphic showed they were out of alignment but not by too much. Close enough. This was do-able. It would have to be do-able.

Slicker let the air escape from his mouth. He’d been holding his breath. He looked at his watch. Three minutes. Good. He had time to… wait. It was three minutes when he’d looked the last time. He looked again. Three minutes. His watch had stopped. He shook the watch. Nothing happened. Dead. How long since it stopped? He screamed at it. Cursed. It didn’t help nor make him feel any better.

He always knew that timing this to perfection was a prerequisite to success. If the airlock door opened while the Kaydence Wilson’s door was closed the air pressure release would blow the Kaydence Wilson spinning and tumbling away and he would be powerless to do anything other than perhaps try to retrieve Florence’s body.

If he opened his door too early, there would be some pressure release, and he expected that, but too much loss of pressure and he, Slicker, would be dead long before Florence could join him.

Split second precision and he didn’t even have a watch! The timings were trashed. One elephant, two elephant… Oh bugger it! How long had it been, anyway? Possibly too long. He lowered the pressure in the kestrel as far as he dared then opened his outer door a crack and braced for the explosive push away from the underbelly of the Queen. A bump, but the kestrel remained firm. He opened the door wide. Despite the lower pressure in the kestrel he could hear the squeal of all the remaining air escaping around the dodgy seal. What had Winker used as a makeshift bodge? Slicker peered through his open hatch to where the edge of his ship met the outer skin of the Queen. All around the edge he could see folded paper napkins with pictures of an old spaceship and the letters WWP. Winker’s bespoke coffee napkins. A massive sacrifice.

The squawk of fleeing air diminished. Was the seal holding? No, the air pressure was almost zero. No more air to escape. There is a point of no return, a point where the length of time it took to re-pressurise the cabin was greater than the occupant’s survival time. Slicker knew this point had passed. Still the airlock door remained closed. Slicker noticed that his vision had begun to grey at the edges. His ears whistled, but this was the only sound. The whistling was internal. The skin on his arms prickled and crawled. The inside of the kestrel began to twist and roll. He really should close the kestrel door again, but that would be the end of it. Florence would be dead. No way was he going to bail on her now. He willed the outer door to open but there was no motion, no sound, and soon nothing to see because the greyed edges of his vision converged and Slicker was gone.

39

Bob Slicker’s face appeared at the airlock window. Florence could see him peering in. They’d dragged him out of the airlock hours ago, and Florence had worked through every possible scenario, none of them good. She saw his lips move as he tried to mouth something but she couldn’t tell what he was saying. Then he lifted a wrench and brought it down on the timer. It exploded into fragments.

The first thing Florence did was tap the timer on her watch tat. Instinct. Something told her it would be important to know the precise moment when the timer hit zero. The outer door would then open. The air, and she, would be flung outside.

Then the mystery of what had just happened struck her.

Outside, the corridor was empty. She half hoped Bob would be there to open the door, marking the end to her nightmare. But part of her knew that wasn’t the case. Too easy. Real life was always more complex. Bob’s reasons for smashing the timer baffled her. At least before, everyone knew when the door would open and could work to a schedule. But now? She also suspected the various avenues for opening the door had become cul-de-sacs with barricades thrown across. The inner door would not be opening. Ever.

So, options:

1)The outer door would open on time and she would die.

2)The outer door would say closed and she would live, for a few days, then die, hungry, cold and thirsty.

3)There was no option three.

She thought about Bob Slicker. He was a bit of an oddball, but a likeable oddball. When she thought about him, she realised there was more than that. Much more. She had no doubt his move with the wrench was in her best interests, though she still couldn’t think in what possible way. She had no doubt that with – she looked at her watch tat, nine minutes to go – with nine minutes to go Bob Slicker would be doing everything he could to stop this happening. He’d probably told Levison how to fly home. He’d have had no qualms about blowing that one, because he would have wanted her safe, she was sure. Levison might be on his way to the Sphere at this very moment, there being no point in worrying himself about the recalcitrant nav clerk locked in the airlock.

A sound echoed through the walls. A deep rumbling that Florence thought sounded familiar. Yes, of course. The hangar was next door. The sound she heard was that of the huge bay doors opening. Levison was taking the Kaydence Wilson right now. He was going home. She hoped their theory was wrong. She hoped Levison would go for the full-speed option straight out, and get himself catapulted out into space because the theory was wrong. But in her heart she knew the theory was correct. She sighed and checked her wrist tat.

Four minutes.

The tat had been a gift from Doug. She didn’t need a stupid wrist tat to keep time, she’d had her Kim, but Doug said the tat would be useful for a deep space navigation expert. She thought again about how she used to think she loved Doug, but her feelings for him had been nothing like the way she felt about the funny, sweaty little accountant.

Florence wrapped her blanket around her shoulders and prepared.

The crash against the outer wall made her jump. Something was out there. Was it Bob? What was he thinking? She had no suit. When the door opened, that would be that. There would be no time for a costume change. Explosive decompression was reliable and pretty much instantaneous and she hoped that by the time her lungs got sucked out through her mouth and ears she’d be oblivious.

Another bump, then scraping sounds, and thrusters. All the sounds of spaceflight transmitted carbon to carbon. Bob Slicker, or someone, was out there, in a ship. Couldn’t be the Kaydence Wilson. Could it? The Kaydence would be a wonderful means of rescue if she was wearing a spacesuit. Not so good wrapped in a blanket.

So. Not the Kaydence. Then came the unmistakable sound of an outer hatch opening. There must be another ship. The one that went to Little Pinky? No, that was Jinxy, Slicker’s ship, and he’d trashed it on their island. Think! Where could a new ship have come from?

Florence recognised another sound, that of whistling air. Seals that did not work, and suddenly the whole thing came into focus. The Kaydence Wilson, re-bodied because Levison wanted to go home with his bar and his butler. Bob Slicker stealing the ship before the remodelling was finished. Before they’d had chance to glue the air seals in place. And in another revelation it came to her why Slicker had smashed the door timer: To stop Levison getting in, with guns. To protect her.

But, she realised, he’d opened the door on the Kaydence too early. There was over a minute to go. She could hear the air still leaking out, but the sounds were less. The air was less.

“Bob. Close the hatch! You’re too early. Another minute.”

No response. Couldn’t he hear her? He should. Unless the air in the Kaydence Wilson had become too thin to transmit sound. For twenty-four hours the timer had counted down too fast. Now it counted too slow. Bob Slicker was holding the door open, for her. He knew his air would go. When explosive decompression happened, and Florence left the Queen, she would be flung into a dead ship. She marvelled at how he had piloted the Kaydence. Good flying. Good plan. Just a pity he had such a fondness for that crappy old clockwork watch.

Florence tried to think. What could she do? An idea formed. There was a chance. She looked at her tat. Nine seconds. Okay. Think. How did the Kaydence look before she removed all the controls? Door control? Life-support?

She discarded the blanket and braced her feet against the inner bulkhead, ready to jump, to assist what was inevitable. She would go out with the air.

Hang in there, Bob, I’m coming for you.

The door slid open. Explosive sound. Ears bursting. Violence. Florence kicked and flew arrow straight into the cabin of her old ship.

40

“I forgot about the air,” said Florence.

Slicker blinked a couple of times. Swallowed. Became conscious. He tried to remember where he was. What did Florence mean, she forgot about the air?

“Hi,” he said.

“All the air in the airlock. It came with me. We shared it. I got the doors closed and it was breathable enough without waiting for the Kaydence to re-pressurise.”

“You’re alive,” said Slicker.

“Thanks to you,” said Florence. “You planned for the air in the lock, didn’t you? Brilliant.”

“I’d love to say yes, but… no. Thought we were both dead. Sorry.” Slicker sat up and winced. His head pounded. “I could do with a drink, though.”

“Yeah, likewise. No alcohol though. A warm drink,” said Florence.

“Winker did a nice job on your ship, but I don’t think he would have added a—”

“Winker did the rebuild?”

Slicker nodded.

“Well then, do you really think he’d build a spaceship without a coffee machine?”

They looked around the cramped cabin. The small, one-cup espresso machine was in a locker.

“He wouldn’t have done this for Levison,” said Slicker. “He added some late mods for me, in zero time. He must have installed it then. My God, Winker Watson goes right to the top of my Christmas list. Or, at least, into second place.”

“Who’s top then?” said Florence.

“Don’t you know?” Slicker drifted over and kissed her. Florence wrapped her arms around him.

“Missed you,” she said.

“Yeah,” said Slicker. He worked his way out of her tentacle grip and busied himself with the espresso machine. A fiddly job in micro-gee, and within minutes they were breathing beans and grounds.

“Where are we, anyway?” said Slicker, chasing down beans with a hand-held vacuum. “Did you put plenty distance between us and the Queen?”

“Some. Like a whole planet between us.”

The whistling in Slicker’s ears had begun to subside and the pain behind his eyes was getting less. His arms and legs, though, still ached like he’d spent a week with a shovel in his hands. The coffee helped.

“So, when I came round, you were banging on about air, and some master plan I had,” said Slicker. “What did you do? I was sucking vacuum. I should be dead. You should be dead.”

“There was air in the airlock. When you open an outside hatch in a spaceship the air rushes out, yeah? Well, it rushed out into the Kaydence Wilson. We shared, half and half. Half pressure was ample. Much better than what you were left with. I just had to close the door, quick.”

“Okay, good. Wish I’d thought of it.”

“You had no idea did you? You let all the air go, all your air, way beyond the point where you could pressure up again.”

“Stupid, huh?”

“No, not stupid.” She wrapped her arms around him again. “Brave, and… well, yeah, maybe a bit stupid.”

“Okay, okay. So where are we?” said Slicker. “We have a ship. We have the downloaded route of the fleet. I suppose we could try the gate?”

“You don’t sound so sure.”

“Just what Winker said. We can do this, but he is almost certain we can’t get enough velocity to match the mass times velocity of the Queen Isabella. Okay, we have a little more mass, now, with the pressure hull, but—”

“There were two other ships,” said Florence.

“Sorry?”

“It’s not just the mass of the Queen. We came through as a formation. The Eddie and the Drift had mass too. Don’t forget that.”

“Then we can’t do it. Not a chance.”

“It’s just a theory, though,” said Florence. “It could be wrong. Who says mass has anything to do with it.”

“Half a dozen PhD professors, by Winker’s reckoning.”

“I don’t know about any professors. Just seemed logical. We could still try it. How about we just creep through and see what happens? Nothing to lose.”

“Only that we might go somewhere else and not get back,” said Slicker.

“Here he goes with the negative vibes again. We record our route. If we pop out somewhere else, well, then we’ve proved the breadcrumbs theory, so we just turn around and come back, at the same speed. Or if it’s nice, there, we stay.”

“That’s a big, big assumption. We’d be hanging our chances of getting back on the mass/velocity thing,” said Slicker. “What if it’s random? What if every time we go through a hole we come out somewhere new, never the same place? What if mass is a different concept in the other universes we visit?”

“All valid points. But as I’ve said before, we don’t have a lot to lose. Levison hasn’t shown himself to be very welcoming on the Queen, has he?”

Slicker thought about it. “There’s a lot to lose, actually, but I suppose we can try. It might work.” He rubbed his chin. Nodded. “I don’t want to put you at risk, Florence, but… What the hell? I’m game.”

The comms speaker crackled to life.

“Well done, Bob. You too, Miss McConnachie.” It was Levison. “That was an interesting move with the airlock. Risky, but hey, you pulled it off. Congratulations. Now if you’ll just pop back here we can talk about what we do next.”

“Hello, Martin,” said Slicker, leaning into the mic. “What’s that you say? Come back? Why, in all the old gods’ names, do you think we’d want to come back?”

“So that I can tell you who your mother is,” said Levison.

* * *

Levison’s words seemed to open a hole in space. Slicker was aware of the static hiss from the speaker and the pinging and creaking of the new pressure hull as it warmed and cooled. He noticed Florence’s eyes flicking back and forth, first watching him, then the speaker, up over the shiny new instrument panel. No thoughts entered his head. Just visuals. Levison had said something. What? It felt as though his mind had been scraped clean with a big, steel cinder-shovel. Empty. Not empty. Something was there. Words. Eight words.

I can tell you who your mother is.

A full minute, or even two, passed before Bob Slicker said anything. At last, though, he spoke.

“What?” he said.

“You’re still there, good. Thought you’d gone walkabout for a minute, Bob. Yes, I thought you’d be interested.”

“He’s playing with your head,” whispered Florence. “Don’t listen to him.”

“I can hear you, Miss McConnachie. Stay out of this.” Levison’s voice had a light and playful quality. Sing-song. He sounded as though he was enjoying himself.

Slicker felt his thoughts coming back together, everything tumbling to fill the void, but not in order, random, a little like the way he furnished his apartment, back on Tsanak.

“You don’t know,” he said at last. “You don’t know anything.”

Levison gave a low chuckle. Laughter from Martin Levison was rare and unsettling, and seldom a sign of good things to come.

“You know that I know,” he said. “You told me often enough. That time I broke into the orphanage?”

“You started a fire. You torched the place, that’s all.”

“Why would I do that, Bob? You know me. Would I do something so random? Wanton vandalism? For no reason?”

Slicker said nothing. He stared at the speaker and chewed his lip. He tried to coax his brain faster, to process all the wild thoughts that were dancing around inside.

Levison continued. “I saw the records, Bob. I know who I am. I know who you are. Knowledge is power, Bob. Exclusive knowledge is exclusive power. I made that information exclusive. That’s why I burned the orphanage. None of my actions are ever mindless. I wanted to keep that information to myself. You see how it works? I know something that nobody else knows. It is power. Power over you, Bob, because you want to know that secret.”

“You’re wrong. For once you are wrong, Martin. Okay, sure, I’d like to know the name of my mother, but not that much. Not so much that I’d give up the advantage I now have over you. I’ve managed for nearly forty years not knowing. I think I can cope, don’t you? Anyway, I’m sure it’s no big deal.”

“Oh, Bob, but it is a very big deal. To both of us, it is the biggest deal. If your mother was just some nobody, some… I don’t know, a random tart or floozie, then why would I take such an extraordinary risk in setting fire to an institution on the Ring. The act of a maniac, wouldn’t you say?”

“I always have said,” said Slicker.

“So you have, and like many of your opinions, Bob, it is erroneous. I do nothing that I have not calculated and that has purpose. Name one thing I have done which has not been a part of some rational strategy.”

Slicker said nothing. He hated when Levison was right. He hated how he always had the last word.

“Come on, Bob, the family thing. It must be quite big, don’t you think?”

“You’re boring me, Martin. You have nothing. When you broke into that records office why would you bother looking me up? I was nothing to you then. I am nothing to you now.”

“Correct. You were nothing to me then. Until I found your name on the same record as my own. Now, your fate is my fate… brother.”

“What? What are you talking—?”

“We are brothers, Bob. You and I. Siblings. Kin. Not even half brothers, we are the real McCoy. Orville and Wilbur. Frank and Jesse. But not Martin and Bob. Our real names are much grander. And our parents? Oh Bob, you do need to know this. Come back and I will tell you.”

“You were going to throw me out into space. Your own brother? There’s a name for that, Martin. Fratricide. Or maybe just liar.”

“Actually, I took you out of the airlock. Your floozie? Yes, I suppose I would have ejected her, but not you, Bob. Not my dear bro’. Think about it. How many times have you cocked up? You even ratted on me, once; nearly had me put in jail. Have I ever accepted behaviour like that from anyone else? But I stood by you, Bob. You were blood. A pain in the arse, sometimes, even most times, but family. I don’t screw over family. Look at our past, Bob. Think it through. We’re brothers. I have always treated you as a brother.”

Slicker could feel the old free-flowing dampness pooling under his arms. He tried to control his anger. It wouldn’t help. At least now he had an idea what, or who, caused his chronic sweating: Levison.

“Promise you’ll do nothing to Florence.”

“Bob, don’t listen to—” Slicker cut her off with a chopping motion of his hand.

Slicker turned back to the microphone. “I need to think this through, Martin. I’m not rushing anything.”

“Take as long as you like, bro. I’m not going anywhere. The Queen Isabella III is a big enough target for you to find us again. Call me when you’re ready to come back.”

The speaker went dead.

“Bob, you can’t believe what he says.”

Slicker shook his head. “I don’t. Give me a minute. Please don’t say anything for a moment.”

“But—”

“Shh!”

Bob Slicker went into a corner and put his hands over his face and pulled his knees up to his chest. He stayed that way for an hour. They were in micro-gee so he didn’t stay in his corner, he floated around the cabin of the Kaydence Wilson, sometimes bumping into walls and bouncing off. Sometimes Florence had to move out of his way, but she let him drift and never spoke. She watched.

At last, Slicker lifted his head and looked at Florence.

“We’re going back,” he said.

“What? Bob, we can’t!”

“We can and we are. But…” Slicker held up a finger to stop her. “Not straight away. First we go through the gate.”

“I don’t understand.”

“We go through the gate and then, wherever we come out, we turn around and come straight back. To prove your theory.”

“Even if we get back to the Sphere?”

“Especially if we get back to the Sphere.” Slicker pointed a finger over to where the Queen would be, but almost certainly wasn’t, because there was no way Bob Slicker could know. It was a symbolically pointed finger. “He knows something that I need to know, because for some reason, other than the one he fed me, he destroyed those records. I have to know why. I have to know what he knows and he must not find out what we think we know, even by accident. We have to go through the gate and we have to come back. Soon. Now. I would explain more but we don’t have time. I don’t want Levison to know we’ve been through the gate, so we have to move.”

“Okay,” said Florence. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I guess I trust you. How do we do it?”

“We, you and I, downloaded the route we need before Levison caught you, remember? It’s in the computer. I can navigate and show you the way. You have to thread the needle. Fly us through, then back.”

* * *

“Some of these stars have moved,” said Slicker. He’d been working for an hour, trying to teach the nav computer how to navigate.

“They all move, don’t they?” said Florence.

“Not this much. They’re… hang on. Okay, so two of the stars are planets, Little Pinky and Blue Eyes. The navigation computer would have failed to balance the sums. We’re somewhere new, somewhere nobody’s ever been.”

“Is it a problem?” said Florence.

“No, we know the two planets, we get the nav computer to do the sums without the two planets. There, look at that. Nailed it.”

Slicker pointed to a line on the screen, a gentle curve then straight, with bearings to two dozen or more point sources.

“There’s our route, Miss McConnachie. Follow the Yellow Brick Road.”

“Okay, but I don’t think we’re in Kansas any more, Toto.”

“People say that when they’re lost.”

“Yes.”

“We’re not lost, Florence. We’re going home. Not today, but soon. Stay with me. I know what I’m doing.”

“It’ll take a few hours to reach the gate. Tell me what you’re planning.”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because when Martin asks you what I’m up to, you won’t know. He’s devious. He has ways. He always has ways, you’ve seen that already. But what you don’t know you can’t tell.”

“But I wouldn’t—”

“For your own safety.”

“Fair enough,” said Florence.

Slicker watched her controlling the ship. Smooth. Deft little flicks of the controls. A straight line. If it had been him doing the flying he’d have been tacking along the route, zig-zagging, a parsec each side if he was even heading in the right general direction. Florence was good. She was a flyer.

He thought about the plan and about the way the two planets had moved. Something bothered him. He couldn’t put a finger on it. Then a nagging doubt began to intrude.

“Wait,” he said.

“What, you want me to stop?”

“No. But what if you did stop? What is stopped?”

“Er, stopped is not going anywhere.”

“Right. The two planets aren’t stopped.”

“No.”

“Neither are the stars. The stars are moving.”

“Yes. This we know. What are you getting at?”

“Isn’t the hole-in-space thing that we’re heading for… isn’t it stopped?”

“Well, I hope so.” Florence’s voice showed she was getting irritated.

“No, don’t hope so. Hope not. If the stars are moving, and we’re taking reference points from them, then the line we are following is not the same as the one we came in on. It is only the same relative to the positions of the stars. You see?”

“Yeah, but they don’t move that much, do they? Should be okay.”

“But how fast do they move? And relative to what? The whole universe is moving, but space isn’t. Do you see? Am I right?”

Florence thought about it. “I know what you’re saying, but space is nothing. There’s only the stuff that moves through it. Our bit is still while the rest moves away from us. I think.”

Slicker was banging his head against the bulkhead, and moaning. He wasn’t banging hard because that would hurt. It was more of a theatrical head-banging.

“Okay, think like a current in the ocean. Everything moves, floating things as well as the water. Everything stays relative. I think the hole will move with the local galaxy. I think we’re fine.”

Slicker looked forlorn and rubbed at the sore bit on his head.

“Look at it this way,” said Florence. “If the hole has moved, then we won’t go through it. If it has not, we will. Anyway, we’ll know in… thirty-three minutes, one way or another. If there’s no hole we’ll never find it. Then is the time to bang your head on the wall. I might join you.”

Slicker nodded. “Okay. Okay, you’re right,” he said. “Yes, half an hour and we know. But… I don’t feel so confident right now. We could be screwed.”

“Could be? Ha! We’ve been screwed ever since we got here. This is like a desperate grab for a grease-slicked trapeze bar that’s already swung out of reach, but it’s the best we’ve had for a long while.”

“And we could still go to Plan B. We still have options. An option. Colonise Blue Eyes.”

“That’s right. Be positive, Bob.”

Thirty minutes later and Florence looked less relaxed on the controls.

“Not so easy,” she said. “Tiny adjustments matter at this speed. If I blink at the wrong moment we miss by kilometres. How long?”

“A minute or so.”

“Not ‘or so’. I’m fighting this thing, Bob. How long do I have?”

“Well, now you have neither a minute nor the ‘or so’ element. Fifty-seven seconds. Fifty-six.”

“Damn. Not long. She’s off the line.”

Slicker watched her. The end of her tongue just visible in the corner of her mouth. Sweat had broken out in beads and rivulets on her forehead. Florence, always unruffled, looked as ruffled as a two-week fever bed. Her body was still and unmoving, just the tiniest flicker of adjustment from the fingers of her right hand, which rested on the tiny control stick, a precision-engineered part that looked far more at home on their spaceship than its predecessor, the broomstick.

“What are you smiling at?” said Florence, catching his eye as he watched her.

“You’re sweating.”

“Yeah, well, somewhat anxious, here.”

“I’m not.”

“Not worried? How so?”

“No, I’m worried as hell. Not sweating is what I mean. We should be awash in here. Should be paddling in it. But I’m dry. Arid.”

“You’re what, doing commercials for antiperspirant?”

“I’m cured. The problem was Levison. Always was. Never realised. Soon there’ll be light years between me and him and I shall perspire no longer.”

“Congratulations.”

“Thank you. I’ll shut up and let you concentrate. You’re very good at, you know—” with his hand he mimicked her deft finger movements on the control stick, “—at flying. Piloting.”

“Wish I still had the broom handle,” she muttered. “Was easier to—” She went quiet.

Had there been a ticking clock in the cabin, it could not have added to the tension. No ticking clock, no sounds at all, no sense of speed. One look at Florence’s wrinkled brow was all the tension the scene needed.

“Call it.”

“What?”

“The time, Bob, I need to hear it.”

“Fifteen seconds. Fourteen. Are we—?”

“Shh!”

“Eleven.”

The only sensation of movement came with the tiniest kick in the pants or the chest or shoulders as the ship responded to her delicate adjustments.

“Five. Four. Three—”

The cold plunge of a gate plane passed through them.

“Er, two?” said Slicker.

Florence lifted her hands from the controls. “Still got that crap watch, Bob?”

* * *

Florence ran her hands through her hair. It felt damp. Her hands were shaking. Had they started shaking a minute earlier they would have missed the gate hole by a dozen kilometres or more.

“Anything from the nav computer?”

Slicker tapped at the screen. “Nothing yet.”

“It’s been over a minute. Shouldn’t the navigation program have something yet?”

“Florence, I’m an accountant. You’re the navigation officer.”

“But I don’t bloody know!”

“Well, there we have it. I can tell you how much fuel we burned, and work out a cost to it. Not a lot of use to us but—”

“Okay, okay. So the computer should have given us something by now. If it knows where we are.” Florence gripped the edge of the desk and counted to ten. She had lost her cool and it felt wrong. Even when she was on high trapeze attempting a triple, she didn’t lose her cool. This space life must be getting to her.

“It’s still mapping, it says here. Eighty percent,” said Slicker.

Florence nodded. “That means it has mapped eighty percent of the brighter stars here.”

“That’s good isn’t it?”

“In training it could plot our position from five percent.”

“You had training?”

“A couple of days. Didn’t think it was important. Didn’t plan to stay in the job for much longer.”

“Sounds like you learned enough. We’re in unknown space, aren’t we?”

“Oh, yes.” Florence edged to the only window, a small porthole a few inches across. She missed her cut-down version of the Kaydence Wilson, with visibility all around. That ship felt like flying. This one made her feel like a passenger riding a coffin. No sense of anything, just following a line. Arcade games. She’d never been any good at arcade games.

“Can’t see anything out here,” she said. “Stars aren’t even all that bright.”

“No planets. Nothing measurable close,” said Slicker, looking at the nav screen. “This is one desolate place.”

“I hope I can get us back,” said Florence.

“Not your problem,” said Slicker. “Auto pilot will do it. We just get the auto pilot to back-fill the route.”

“Why couldn’t we do that to get us here?” said Florence.

“Not our route,” said Slicker. “The Kaydence Wilson wasn’t even built when we arrived in Pinky Space in the fleet, remember. A different solution altogether. This time though we just hit a few buttons on the navigation computer”—he hit a few buttons—“and voila, the route is computed. We can go back the way we came.”

“You seem very knowledgeable about spaceflight, all of a sudden. For an accountant.”

“Well, when I have lessons I listen. I take notes. I write everything down.” He waved his folded roll-screen in the air.

“So who gave you—?”

Slicker smiled and did a coffee-drinking mime.

“Ah, Winker.”

“He was quick, I’ll grant you. Five minutes, tops. Taught me everything I know, but it’s enough. You feel that?”

The gee-forces were building. Pushing them into their chairs.

“We’re going round in a big circle, then back the way we came. Easy.”

“If the theory is correct.” Florence felt a knot in her stomach. It was all very well talking theory, but here, they were in the darkest, deepest, loneliest corner of the universe – if it was even their universe – that she’d ever known. She didn’t like it. She did not want to stay here. Pinky Space was lonely, far from everything she knew, so far nobody even knew how far. Pinky Space was a place where every other inhabitant seemed to want them both dead, but it was the best she had, and she missed it.

“You call me a pessimist?” said Slicker, seeming to pick up on her thoughts.

Florence said nothing. She lay back and tried to enjoy the novelty of weight, but before she could even exhale a comfortable sigh it vanished. Her arms began to float. The circling was over. They were heading back. Again, no sense of movement, of acceleration; the computer was sending them straight back down the pipe. If the theory was correct, they would emerge into Pinky Space and be heading back to the Queen Isabella III. If the theory was wrong, they would come out in a random other place. The real moment of truth. Every time they made the transition the chances of ever seeing any one or any thing they knew would diminish. Destiny II had been insanely fortunate in popping out near a planet. Queen Isabella III had been luckier still by a factor of millions. The odds of ever finding another habitable world were, not astronomical but multi-astronomical. It occurred to Florence that, right now, she was travelling along on her last journey. The inside of the Kaydence Wilson would be the last thing she ever saw.

There was no count down. No expectation. She felt the cold sweep of gate passage and looked over at Slicker. She said nothing, just raised her eyebrows in an expression that said, “Well?”

“Computer’s thinking about it,” said Slicker.

“Taking her time.”

“Yeah.”

“We’re going to die here, aren’t we?”

“Lighten up, will you.”

Florence gave a sigh.

The computer gave a ping.

Slicker leaned closer and studied it.

“Kansas,” he said. “Pinky Space.” And he did a fist bump.

41

“You’re back, I see,” said Levison. He reached for his drink and watched the screen, searching for any clues he could read on Slicker’s face. Something was wrong here. He couldn’t put a finger on it.

“Open the hangar doors, Levison. We’ll come in.”

“Yes. In good time.” Levison hit the kill button and the screen went blank. He stood and looked out of the window. There was nothing to see. At the moment the window was facing away from Little Pinky, so there were just stars. Slicker was out there, and that wretched McConnachie girl, but the two were on the other side of the ship.

Why were they back?

Levison tried to weigh up the options. What had he missed? Slicker had the ship and he had the knowledge. Why hadn’t he just gone home? Did he really care about knowing his parents so much? If he knew the truth he would, that was for sure, but if Levison told him the truth, then it would be game over.

So, something had changed. Had they tried to go home and failed? Was Slicker’s solution wrong?

Levison screwed up his face in irritation. He thought Slicker had the answer. How that little dip-shit could have come up with a theory the Sphere’s greatest cosmologists had failed to crack was beyond comprehension. But Levison knew Slicker. He knew when he was bluffing and in this, he knew, Slicker was not. Slicker’s whole body language had changed. He oozed confidence. Slicker knew the way home. It hurt to think that the way home might be barred to them once again. And this time Slicker was trying some double bluff. He had something to hide and it was written all over his face. But what?

Levison switched on the screen.

“Still there, Bob?”

“That was very rude, Martin.”

“You know me, Bob. Now, why are you back?”

“You told me to come back.”

“That’s bollocks. What do you need?”

“An exchange. Fuel and information,” said Slicker.

“Fuel? You have fuel.”

“We need to go faster.”

Levison caught the motion of the McConnachie girl, grabbing his arm, shushing him. That was no act. She did not approve of her boyfriend giving away state secrets. This had a ring of authenticity about it. Well, well, well.

“How much faster?”

“A lot.”

“How much?”

Slicker smiled up at the screen. “Classified,” he said.

Levison nodded. “You mentioned an exchange.”

“You give me information and fuel, I will bring you all home. I know how to do it, Martin. We’ve been through the gate and come back. We have proved a theory of Florence’s devising.”

“Then why didn’t you stay? You came all the way back for information about our family?”

“Don’t flatter yourself, Martin. The gate went to the wrong place. But we returned. We know how. We know exactly how to get home… And come back.”

He could see the look in McConnachie’s eye. There was burning in there. That was real anger, not an act. There was terror, also. She was watching her loved one flushing their secrets down the toilet. She obviously knew the boy well. He could never keep things locked inside. Always the one to blurt out a secret. My God, thought Levison. It hit him like a shaft of light. An epiphany. He knows. He really knows how to do it.

Levison nodded at the screen, keeping all emotion from his features. “You mentioned an exchange.”

“You have two things. I need fuel and I would like information.”

“And what do I need? What can you give me?”

“A ticket home.”

“Yes, obvious, but how does it work?”

“You fuel the kestrel for us and we go back to the Sphere. We explain how to do an open-ended jump with safe return. Then we have the Space Corps come back for you in a fast ship.”

“Okay. Plausible. It seems you’d make a lot of money that way. A lot of fame and fortune.”

“Probably.”

“And you know that when I come back, I would take it all from you.”

“You could try.”

“Oh no, Bob. Not try. I would come back and take it from you. You know I would. I know that you know I would. So I also know that you would not come back.”

“Bit of a stalemate then, isn’t it… brother?”

“Not really, Bob. There are always ways in these matters. What if you and I go back to the Sphere? The girl stays here?”

Slicker nodded. “A good idea, Martin. But there is a small flaw. I can’t pilot the kestrel. Florence is a natural at it.”

Levison examined his expression. He was telling the truth. Or was he? There was something there, a smugness. Martin quite believed the bit about not being able to pilot the ship, the boy was a buffoon. He couldn’t even pilot a kettle, and he assumed Florence could because she’d done okay so far, but that wasn’t the whole truth. He thought about it. Slicker had said they’d already been through the gate, but not fast enough. Think. There is a route and they’ve done it there and back. Of course, the auto pilot! Ha. I’ve got him.

“What if I say no?” said Levison.

“Well then, Florence and I will take the kestrel back to Blue Eyes. She’s provisioned. We can carve out a reasonable life there. We have plenty of fuel for that. You have no ship so you can’t stop us, and you get to stay on the Queen. Forever. Not the most satisfactory outcome all round but it’s okay with me and Florence.”

Levison drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair. He had to turn this to his advantage. If Slicker and the girl returned to the Sphere, it would be the last he’d see of them, he was sure.

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll have the hangar bay doors opened. Come on in.”

“No,” said Slicker.

Levison raised his eyebrows.

“Run out a fuelling pipe. We do it that way.”

Levison watched Slicker’s eyes. For a full minute nobody spoke. Then, “I’ll talk to one of the techs, see what can be done.”

“Another thing,” said Slicker. “My parents. I’m not too bothered, but I suppose I’d like to know who they were. Tell me or not, it’s up to you, but if not then I might decide not to come back for you, after all.”

Levison broke the connection.

Idiot. Certainly he’d tell Bob Slicker all about his parentage. Every detail. His name. His glorious legacy. But only when he, Levison, was en route to the Sphere, safe in the knowledge that Bob Slicker would be tortured by that understanding for the rest of his life, stuck here in this of all ships.

42

“You’ve as good as told him everything,” shouted Florence. Slicker could see the fire in her eyes. The flushed cheeks. He felt the splatter of spittle on his face from the word delivery. Yup, there was passion there. She was annoyed at him.

“I gather you are a bit annoyed.”

“A bit!” Florence clenched her fists and Slicker braced himself, convinced she was about to go all pugilistic on him. “I’m bloody furious with you. You told him everything. What about your promise to yourself? It’s your bottle garden place, La Ronde, all over again. You know what he’s like. Do you think he’ll just fuel us up and send us on our way? A pat on our heads. You think he’ll run fuel pipes out to us, here? You’re a nutter!”

“He won’t fuel us out here, he can’t.”

Florence just opened and closed her mouth, too astounded to string words together.

“I checked with Winker, before I came out. We don’t have the capability for fuelling on the fly. He’ll put a tech on the comms soon enough and have him tell us as much. Actually, he’d have done that anyway, whether we have the capability or not. He’ll be threatening one of them now. Good thing is, the tech won’t have to lie. It will be the truth.”

Florence managed to open her mouth even wider. She tried to gasp but what came out was an incoherent strangling noise.

“I couldn’t just accede, flat out. Had to have some kind of bargaining chip. But this way I know what he’ll be planning. We’ll land and he’ll welcome us with open arms. He’ll draw some more details from us, using subtlety and guile, then he’ll have us arrested while he steals the ship.”

“Yes. Exactly. Good plan. So what’s our plan?”

“Well, forewarned is forearmed.”

“That’s it? We’re going to fight him with hackneyed old sayings? Well here’s some more: Rats in a trap. Fires and frying pans. Or just your own personal motto, the one about no fools like old fools. Only we should change it round a bit; swap out fool for bloody stupid cretinous idiot!”

Slicker patted his hands in the air. “I think we should be calm.”

Florence opened her mouth to scream but the comms crackled to life.

“Bob. I have Didier Mazier here. He’s a tech. He knows stuff. I haven’t primed him. I put your suggestion to him. I want you to hear him out.”

“Mr Slicker, sir. You know me? Didier? I worked with Mr Watson on your ship? I’m sorry. I’m not just saying this. Nobody put me up to it, I promise. We can’t fuel you outside. The longest hose is half a metre. It’s a safety thing. There’s one hose for each kestrel bay. Twenty hoses, that’s ten metres if we could join them, and we can’t. We had some longer ones but some joker strung them up in the hangar roof and they’re wrecked. Kinked, stretched and knotted. Mr Slicker, the fuel rig is fifteen metres from the hangar bay doors. We can’t even fuel you just inside the hangar. Your mini-kestrel would have to come all the way inside and sit in one of the bays.”

“There you go, Bob.” It was Levison again. “Too much detail but I asked him to give us a presentation with substance. It is the truth. If you want fuel, you will have to come in and get it. I will not do a thing. You are going to have to trust me. I trust that you will come back for us. You have friends on this ship. You will have to trust that I won’t do anything to stop you leaving.”

“I have no reason to trust you, Levison.”

“Bob, look at me. Think. What am I going to do? Take the kestrel myself? Do you think I could fly her? I don’t even drive a car, Bob. You know this. I have drivers.”

He stopped talking. Slicker stared at him on the screen. Levison stared back.

“Bob, a while back you said this was a stalemate. You were right. Neither of us can win this. We have to each take a share. There has to be trust. We can both win or we can both lose. The decision on that one has to be yours.”

Slicker pointed a finger straight at the screen. “Do not cross me, Levison. I warn you, you cannot win this without me.”

Levison put a hand on his heart. “I promise. You are my brother and I promise.”

Slicker nodded. “Open the hangar door.”

Florence gave a stifled scream and started shaking her head from side to side. The comms link closed with a snap and she gasped.

“We don’t need the fuel. We could have just used a gravity assist. We could have gained enough velocity, even with the fuel we had. Now… now we have nothing.”

“You know how to do a gravity assist?”

“No, but—”

“And neither do I. Something to do with planetary mass. Do you know the mass of Pinky or Blue Eyes? You know how to work it out? If you could, would you know how to calculate a gravity assist and get exactly the right velocity path at the end of it?”

“No.”

“Then this is all we have. A full tank and flat out at two-gee acceleration for twelve hours or so. Even then it will be a close call. We have nothing better, Florence.”

“He’ll stiff you. He doesn’t care that you’re his brother.”

“I have to trust him.”

“Idiot.”

The docking pins connected and Florence released the controls. She’d brought the Kaydence in without even thinking. She’d performed the most delicate of manoeuvres while arguing and spitting venom at Slicker, and he had to admit to himself, she impressed him. Her piloting skills were phenomenal.

“Florence. Will you forgive me?”

“I’m not sure I will. You’re going to have to have some pretty spiffing master plan that I know nothing of.”

“I’m not talking about that. Florence, I’m sorry.”

“Okay.”

“No. I’m sorry.”

“What do—?”

Slicker lifted the heavy wrench from under the control panel. There was serious weight in it now they were docked in the spinning hangar. His arm felt strained as he raised it above his head. He brought it crashing down onto Florence’s right hand, that still rested on the control stick.

There was the sound of clanging metal, the sound of breaking bones, the raw sound of Florence’s screaming. Slicker tried to block his ears and hide from the sounds but he could not.

43

The pain did not come straight away. First came the shock; the shock of seeing Bob Bastard Slicker bringing the wrench down on her hand; the shock of hearing the bones crunch and snap; the shock of seeing her fingers splay and curl and twist into crone’s fingers.

Then came the pain.

The next part was hard for Florence to follow. She was preoccupied. The Kadence door opened and Martin Levison stood outside flanked by heavy guards bearing energy rifles. He began to give a theatrical little bow, then stopped, because there was an unexpected sound. It was the sound of Florence’s screaming.

She saw how Levison’s mouth formed the beginning of a “Wha—?” but the word never came. His face clouded and reddened and then he, too was screaming, at everyone and anyone. And the guards were screaming. And Florence was still screaming. And everyone ran about and began shouting, and from nowhere a stretcher appeared and Florence felt hands hauling her onto it. She saw overhead lights flicker past as she was propelled along a corridor with medics on either side, but none of it made sense because of the fire in her hand.

Bob Bastard Spanner-Wielding Slicker was there too, at her side, fussing, directing, having the audacity to appear concerned.

Bright lights. Green masks. The smell of antiseptic. A needle in her arm. Her tongue going thick, and whup whup whup noises in her head, and her feet over her head, disoriented, and that was wrong because Florence was never disoriented, she was the girl who could fly. So she flew, looping and turning, and clattering trays and whup whup whup…

44

“How are you feeling?”

A familiar voice. Bob’s. What a terrible dream. Bob Slicker had—

“You smashed my hand with a wrench.”

“I had to. Sorry.”

“You had to?” She wanted to get angry, but each time she pumped up the pressure it leaked, turning her hot, diamond-edged anger to a flaccid, limp and dangly thing that left her feeling lethargic and dull, despite the sight of the huge white lump of plastic that encased her hand.

“Okay,” she said. Even to her own ears her voice sounded small.

“You’re drugged,” said Slicker. “If I explain now it will be a waste. You’ll still get angry all over once the meds wear off.”

“Maybe now would be a good time,” said Florence. “While I’m all calm. Because when the meds wear off, then maybe I’ll… oh, I don’t know… cut your heart out?”

“That would be fair,” said Bob.

Florence nodded and felt warm tears running down her face.

“You broke my hand,” she said. “I had lovely hands.”

“You still do. Your hand will mend. I wouldn’t let them use the Autobones on you. That thing would cut your head off and then apologise for a 9002 server error. There’s an actual surgeon on the ship. She’s very good. She’s says your hand will be good as new in a few months.”

“That’s good. It’s my right hand. I’ll be needing my right hand. For the baseball bat I’ll be using on your head, you know?”

“I’ll look forward to it.”

“I’m tired now.”

“Okay.”

Florence went to sleep.

When she woke her hand throbbed. Slicker was still at her bedside.

“Still here?” she said.

“Wouldn’t be anywhere else,” said Slicker.

“You should be somewhere else. Far away. But don’t worry, I’ll hunt you down wherever you go.”

“The drugs are wearing off?”

“Oh yes. You broke my hand, you bastard.”

“Had to. The Kaydence Wilson only holds a crew of two. Levison is not a pilot. I’m not a pilot. You are the best we have. I had to stop Levison taking you as his chauffeuse.”

“I could have just said no. I have a mind you know.”

“And then I’d be back in one of the airlocks and we’d be at square one. ‘Take me through the gate or your boyfriend gets it,’ or some such.”

“You’re right. This way I get to kick you out of one of the airlocks.”

“I couldn’t let him force you to take him through the gate.”

“I don’t see why not. I’d have come back.”

“No, I don’t think so. He wouldn’t have let you.”

Florence waved the heavy cast at him. “So you smashed my hand with a wrench. Heroic stuff.”

“You’ll thank me one day.”

“You think?”

“Yes.”

Florence turned her head and looked at the flowers in a vase by her bed.

“They’re plastic,” said Slicker.

“Who’d have guessed,” said Florence. But the flowers were lovely. A nice touch. Florence guessed Slicker might have had good reason to do what he did, but she didn’t feel she’d tortured him enough. Not yet. She held up her hand.

“I’ll probably never be able to fly trapeze ever again. Even the smallest break will end a trapeze career.”

Slicker smiled. “She is a very good surgeon, you know.”

“Not good enough, I’m sure.”

“She said there were signs of lots of breaks in the past. You’ve broken fingers, your thumb. You’ve broken your collarbone twice.”

“What was she doing looking at my collarbone?”

“Medical records.”

“Oh.”

“It seems trapeze is a dangerous sport. You’ve mended well, though.”

“Humph.” Florence turned her head away, to hide the smile.

“So, where’s Levison?” she said after a while.

“Let’s go and see, shall we? Can you walk?”

“I don’t walk on my hands. Not like some I know, who drag their knuckles along the ground.” She climbed out of the bed and followed Slicker, who led her to Levison’s stateroom.

“You can just walk right in? I thought we’d be under arrest?” said Florence.

“Levison’s not here,” said Slicker. “But we can use his comms link.”

Florence didn’t understand. She tilted her head to show it.

“He’s in the Kaydence Wilson, he took her. He’s heading out around the main star, building up velocity. He’s going to swing around then come back, to the gate, flat out.”

“He took the Kaydence? He took her? I warned you, Bob. I knew he’d do it. We’re knackered. We can’t stop him. Can he go fast enough?”

“He’s been out for nearly eight hours. He’ll run back for twelve, flat out at two-gee. He’ll hit the gate at a fair lick. Point oh one five light speed at best guess.”

“Is it enough?”

“Winker thinks so.”

“Oh, Bob. Well that’s that then, isn’t it? It’s over. If he hits the gate, he’s gone. And we’re here forever. Who’s flying?”

“His valet. Used to be something of a hot-shot fighter pilot by all accounts.”

“I can’t believe you’re taking this with such calm, Bob. You know what this means?”

“Oh, I’m not so worried, there’s a fat lady hasn’t even warmed up her vocal cords yet. In fact, I’m thinking she might have a spot of laryngitis.”

“You’re a strange person, Bob.”

“Yeah. I will reveal it all, soon enough, but I need to pump Levison for some info first.”

Slicker turned to the comms system, which was a fancy, spindly-legged, gold-embossed model in a Louis Quatorze style. He pressed a button and Levison’s face appeared on the screen.

“Levison. You took the Kaydence Wilson.”

“Ah, Bob. Yes I did. You seem surprised. And how long did it take you to realise? I’ve been gone the best part of a day.”

“About thirty seconds, actually. Didn’t feel like talking to you. There’s only so much gloating a person can stomach in one lifetime.”

“Oh, don’t sulk, Bob. Man up. I have to say, I always knew you were a trusting, stupid bugger, but really, you cocked this one up good-style. You even left the treasure map in the computer.”

“The route? Wasn’t a risk. Backtracking back to the gate is the easy part. Velocity is the key. You don’t have that, you couldn’t possibly.”

“Well, sorry to disappoint. Again.” Levison broke off into long guffaws.

“How—?”

“Ask your friend, Watson. I’ll tell you what, Bob. As an act of contrition I will give you the code that will release his team from out of the airlock. You have about twenty minutes before the door opens. You remember that wheeze, don’t you? The code’s in a notebook – top right-hand drawer of my desk. I can see you’re in my stateroom. Don’t blame you. It’s the only shot at being ruler of your little world that you’re ever going to get now.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Let your friends out first then come back to me. I have something to tell you and I am going to enjoy it.”

The screen blanked.

It took ten minutes to find the right airlock. Winker Watson came out first.

“Took your time getting down here,” said Winker.

“Sorry,” said Slicker. “Don’t worry, the outer door would never have opened. Levison’s a bastard but he doesn’t have the tech savvy to wire up an airlock door himself, and there’s nobody on this ship who’d be complicit in throwing your payroll team out into space. They’d wire the thing up, but not so it would work.”

While they were talking the counter reached zero and a buzzer sounded, but nothing else happened.

“Just an alarm clock, see?”

Florence chipped in on the conversation. “Er, the timer worked for us.”

“I’m his second in command, supposed to be. I guess the crew are happy enough to throw me out into space. I daresay he didn’t tell them he was putting you in the airlock with me.”

Then to Watson again, “Did you give him the right velocity, the one you calculated for us?”

“He had to drag it out of me, but yes. It’s just about doable in the Kaydence Wilson with a full fuel load and a bit of patience.”

“Okay. He has something to tell me before he hits the gate. It might be important. You’re welcome to come and listen if you like.”

Watson and Florence followed Slicker back to the stateroom.

“I see you have Mr Winker Watson with you, Bob,” was the first thing Levison said when they reconnected. “Pulled you out in the nick of time, hey, Winker? It’s good to have friends. You’ll be needing them. A tight little society you’ll have on the old Queen Isabella III for the rest of your mortals.

“Now, Bob. We don’t have long and I want to get this conversation out of the way. You wanted to know about your parentage.”

Slicker narrowed his eyes. “You’ve kept this to yourself for twenty-odd years. How come we’re at the point where you’re keen to talk about it?”

“I’ve wanted to talk about it for… well, twenty-odd years. A brotherly chat. Now, at last, you can’t take advantage of it. Bob, we’re brothers.”

“I know. You’ve already told me.”

“And… our mother. Bob, our mother was Queen Isabella the third.”

Slicker blinked. Stared. Said nothing for a moment. He waited for it to sink in, but absorbing this news felt like swallowing a bowling ball. Nah. Didn’t hang together.

“I’d have thought you’d have come up with something better than that, Martin,” he said, at last. “Queen Isabella had no children.”

“’Course she did. But she already had the label, ‘The Last Queen’. Being ‘The Last Queen’ is a far grander thing than being just a queen. It comes in uppercase for a start. Who remembers Queen Isabella the second, or King Wilbur?”

“Your point?”

“My point is, she had children. Twins. You and I. You are Rupert and I am Leopold. She didn’t want them. She didn’t want anybody to know about them, so had us fostered out to some rich dudes. Close friends. She would get to be the cool aunt and visit now and again and not have to be saddled with the stigma of being just a lower-case queen. Because the royal line would end with her. You still with me?”

“Go on,” said Slicker, doubt still heavy as syrup in his voice.

“So, yeah, if you know your history, Mother-dear died a few weeks later on the Royal Yacht America disaster, and guess who were her guests? That’s how we ended up in an orphanage.”

“How do you know all this?”

“There was a letter in our records file. Sealed. To be opened only when we became eighteen years of age. Not from Isabella but from our foster mother, because she wanted us to know the truth.”

“Wait a minute, we’re not twins. You’re a year older. We’re nothing like one another. This is rubbish, Martin.”

“Who says I’m a year older? Truth is, you are a year older than you think you are. And I said nothing about identical twins. We’re just plain twins.”

“So why are you telling me now?”

“Ah, this is the good part… Rupert. I’m going home to the Sphere and you’re not. I will have my DNA tested and will produce the letter. You will not, although you can read a copy if you like, there’s one in my safe. You’ll figure out how to get in there, you’ll have long enough.”

“Why couldn’t you have done all that before, when we were orphans?”

“Because you are the older sibling. By a few minutes, but minutes count in these matters. Rupert, you are a Glücksburg-Windsor. King of the Galaxy, Monarch of the Sphere of Influence, Lord of the Ring – sounds better than Lord of the Lollipop, doesn’t it? And I, Leopold Glücksburg-Windsor, am a mere prince. Lower case. Except you’re not coming home and I am therefore the only heir, so I will be King Leopold and you will be nothing. You can stay as Bob if you like. And you’ll have the rest of your life to think about it. Marvellous, isn’t it?”

Slicker said nothing. He watched the screen. Martin… or Leopold, had taken champagne onto the Kadence Wilson and was waving a toast at the camera.

“Do you think this bothers me, Martin? Do you think I even believe it?”

“Come on, Bob, of course you believe it. Think. The evidence is there. It’s everywhere. Why would I name my flagship after the biggest Disexpansionist objector in human history? You know me, Bob. Queen Isabella’s politics and mine could not be further apart. But not her lust for posterity – to be the Last Queen, that permanent place in history. Now, I will be the Last King. I know exactly what that meant to her.

“Look at yourself, Bob. She had a thing for plants and botany. She founded La Ronde, your precious bottle garden. Do you not have a love of plants? Don’t you paint them, Bob?”

“How did you—?”

“I know everything, Bob. I know your dreams as a plant hunter. I share some of them. Look at Serenity and her trees. Did I not desire those trees, Bob? My dreams, your dreams. They were Mother’s dreams too. And if you want more, take off your old clockwork watch. Look at the back of it. The inscription.”

Slicker took off the watch. Turned it over. He didn’t need to. He knew what was there. It had always been there. RGW.

Martin continued. “You are not a management accountant, Bob. Look at yourself. You are Rupert Glücksburg-Windsor, the eldest son of Queen Isabella the third, the Last Queen.”

Slicker felt his legs shaking. Levison was an inveterate liar, but Slicker could sense the truth in what he said. It explained so much.

“You would have had me killed years ago, wouldn’t you, Martin?”

Levison tilted his head and raised his glass again. “Ah-ha.”

“But in this day and age a younger brother does not get away with killing the heir to the throne just so he can get his hands on the crown. You could not have kept it covered up. Even you are not that good.”

“Agreed.”

“So you kept me with you, appeared to be my ally, waiting for the moment.”

“It has been a long wait, bro, but the moment has come, and even I could not have foreseen how well it has turned out.”

“What now, then, Martin? There is no monarchy. It is long gone. How do you get anything from it?”

“Been doing my homework, brother. I can reinstate the monarchy by laying a legitimate claim to the throne. You are correct, it would have been harder with a murdered elder brother in my closet. I will tell them that you burned the orphanage and that you were the older sibling and that it was your plan to come back etc. etc. I’m good at this, Bob. I’ve had a lot of practice. I won’t take full regal title, but I’m already second in line for Chair of the Space Corps. I’ll take that role first. It comes with a certain amount of prestige in its own right.”

“I think I’ve heard enough,” said Slicker.

“You’ve done well. No screaming. No tantrums. But that will all come later, Bob, I’m sure. You’ve spoilt my moment a little though. I had hoped to witness some histrionics before I left.”

“Oh, I might be able to oblige, yet, Martin.”

Slicker looked over at Winker, who checked the time then smiled and nodded.

“Okay, Martin, I don’t have long so I’ll talk fast and be brief. You don’t have time to make corrections. You have the wrong velocity. You’re not going to the Sphere.”

Levison’s mouth opened and the screen went blank.

Slicker nodded to himself, smiling, then high-fived Winker. Florence was staring.

“I said I’d explain,” said Slicker. “So. The Kaydence Wilson has nowhere near enough capacity to reach the right speed, by a factor of… ten?” He looked over at Winker.

“Twenty,” said Winker. “With a tail wind.”

“You said you’d calculated it,” said Florence.

“Not for getting home,” said Slicker, “we just wanted to be sure he couldn’t get back here. Not enough fuel, after turning, to build up the same velocity that he went into the gate with. A nice plan, don’t you think?”

“No! No, I don’t think. It’s a rubbish plan. We’ve lost the Kaydence Wilson. We could have gone home and now we’re stuck here. It’s a petty victory, and nothing more. Levison dies in space. We die in space. What part of that is a nice plan?”

Slicker nodded. Winker was smiling, he couldn’t help it.

“Florence, you are forgetting something. Something that Levison forgot, also.”

He let the sentence hang there.

Florence waved her hands in frustration and the action of moving the heavy plaster cast made her wince in pain.

“We came in three ships,” said Slicker. “Mass times velocity, yeah? We came in three ships so we go home in three ships. We know the way back, all we have to do is go back the way we came, at the same speed we came. We don’t need fancy velocity multiples. We don’t need to go all that fast. We’ve proved the mass/velocity link. We just turn round and go home. We all go home. Easy as that.”

Florence had been standing up. Now she sat down with a bump. The look in her eyes said it all. She understood.

“It can’t be that easy,” she said. “After all these months?”

“Well, there’s only one way to find out,” said Slicker. “Let’s head up to the bridge, and get a flight crew together.”

45

They had proved the theory but that didn’t make it any easier. The speed had to be right, and yes, there were adjustments required, adjustments for mass in terms of consumables used, twenty kestrels lost, and the troops who made up the Little Pinky away team, who were still down there on the pink planet. They’d have to come back for them later, with more kestrels.

Slicker explained, amid groans from all around the bridge, that they would have to come back for Levison, too. They knew his velocity and mass going into the gate so they could follow him. He was a bastard but he was also Slicker’s brother. He’d do jail time of course, but it would be wrong to let him die of starvation or carbon dioxide poisoning in deepest space.

But all this depended on them hitting the right spot at the right speed. They’d get second and third chances, they had enough fuel, but even so it was a worry. No doubt when Florence and Winker explained the theory to the navigation and cosmology experts they’d develop failsafe computer programs for this that would only lose them a few ships a year, but for now they were flying seat of the pants.

Slicker banned the use of a countdown, because it made everyone too anxious, so they all set their watches in secret, and got all anxious anyway. With ten seconds to go the whole crew were counting aloud.

At five seconds they became quieter, and although their lips moved, the countdown became a mass mime.

They hit the gate with two seconds remaining according to Slicker’s watch. He really must buy a wrist tat.

Unlike before, when Florence and Slicker traversed the gate together, in the Kaydence Wilson, it wasn’t like threading a needle. This time they had a big window. They came out into space beside a green-blue planet. Everyone looked at Florence on the nav console and held their breath. It seemed like a déjà vu moment. The nav computer remained mute. A minute passed. Another minute. Then a message flashed onto the big screen for everyone to see. Two words.

Unknown Space.

A moan went around the ship. Heads dropped. Hope died.

“We hit the gate dead centre,” said Florence. “Less than point-oh-one-percent error. Better than when we came back from our trip to nowhere, yesterday. It should have worked. I don’t understand.”

Slicker was staring at the screen. “I know that planet,” he said. “We’re not in the Sphere, we’re in the Lollipop. That’s Serenity. Of course the computer doesn’t know where we are. This was uncharted space when we set out here. We were only here for a microsecond, so how would the computer have had time to map it and know where we are?”

One by one the realisation struck home. The cheer was half-hearted at first, until someone noticed the golden hoop behind them. A SLOG. A gate that could be programmed to send them anywhere they wished. Then the cheer rose to a crescendo. Florence threw her arms around Bob Slicker’s neck and kissed him full on the lips. This was home. This was the Lollipop of Influence.

Thank you for reading The Lollipop of Influence, the second in the Sphere of Influence series.

If you enjoyed the book please consider leaving a review, or if you found something wrong please feel free to let me know so I can make it better. You can contact me via my website: www.mjkewood.com

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On a final note, if you enjoyed the humour in the Sphere of Influence books, and can’t wait for the next in the series, you could always give my sofa travel book, Travelling in a Box a try.

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Mjke