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‘You are fortunate, Thales Berniere, that one of our caucus has seen fit to support an investigation into your story,’ said Sophos Lauda.

Thales eyes flicked to Rene. Had it been his wife?

Her expression remained as serene and detached as that of the politic guard.

‘You will show the Robes and myself to the offices of this man you call Gutnee Paraburd. If he can be located and questioned, we will review our decision.’

Thales nodded. ‘I th-thank you, for this much at least. However, it is possible that Paraburd has moved premises. I would imagine that a man of such criminal inclinations does not stay in one place for long. You may have to extend your search.’

‘You learned much about criminals on your travels?’ asked Kantos.

Thales heard the superior, mocking tone. ‘It is logical that he would do that, Sophos Kantos. That is all,’ Thales answered firmly.

‘Let’s hope not, Msr Berniere. For your sake.’

But Thales had not finished. ‘While you pursue your investigation of my claims, I would beg you to take steps to disable the shift sphere. The Post-Species are an imminent threat to our world.’

‘You believe we should cut ourselves off from Orion,’ said Rene.

He turned to his wife, imploring her. ‘If we don’t, we’ll lose everything.’

‘But if we disable our shift sphere, we lose our influence. OLOSS cannot function without our counsel,’ said Kantos.

Fury blazed through Thales’s body, overcoming his intention of remaining calm. ‘You speak of my insanity, Sophos Kantos. OLOSS forces will act with or without our counsel, to protect sentient life. We can offer them nothing else now. What we should have done is seen the possibility of this happening, and guarded against it. We should have been able to predict, or at least theorise that the Post-Species would return with a greater force after the Stain Wars. Instead, we have been isolationist and self-concerned. You – all of you – would do your job too late.’ His gaze roamed the line of preeminent thinkers. ‘All that is left for us now is to survive.’

Sole

Scurry scurry

Little’n’s go

Follow, follow

Drink’m up

Eat’m up

See’m truth

TEKTON

Tekton sat in a once luxurious, now filthy, lounge on board the hybrid biozoon. From his brief inspection, the craft appeared to have been beautifully and comfortably outfitted, but without regular cleaning or maintenance it now resembled a place for squatters – or at least what he imagined a place like that might be like.

He tried not to show his revulsion for the discarded food containers and empty flasks of alcohol. The stench was harder to ignore, though, a mixture of something sickly sweet and well percolated, probably musky Balol body odours.

He closed his hood and set his suit to filter the scents. He wasn’t filled with confidence by his rescuers’ attitudes, but his situation had called for decisive thinking and compromise. If they took the money for his passage and delivered him to Mintaka, then he could put up with certain deprivations. A filthy ship was nothing, after all, compared to free-falling from an airborne taxi into the grips of detrivore, which had happened to him on Edo. He was, he told himself, able to take this eventuation in his stride.

Only a matter of months ago he would not have dealt with this change in fortune nearly as well.

Finally! said logic-mind. Rationalism.

Lowering your standards, you mean, sniffed free-mind.

Both minds were correct, he thought, and it didn’t bother him that they were. For a while he stared at the brown biozoon secretions on the ceiling, contemplating this until the ’esque Jancz slipped into the room with the surreptitious manner of a crook.

‘We’re out of Intel space,’ he said quietly.

Tekton smoothed back his hood and nodded appreciatively. ‘Msr Jancz, has my credit for the trip to Mintaka been transferred into your accounts?’

Jancz’s eyes narrowed a little, and a small smile played about his lips. His face was so long and thin that it seemed almost deformed. ‘With the excitement