Hideaway

Merlin squeezed past the squat machine.

'You're late,' Quail said, already seated. 'I take it your trip was a fruitful one?' Merlin started to compose an answer, but Quail was already speaking again. 'Good. Then sit down. You may take it as a very bad omen that I am not especially minded to reprimand you.'

Wordlessly Merlin moved to his own chair and lowered himself into it.

What could be that serious?

In addition to the gaunt, grey-skinned captain, there were fifteen ship seniors gathered in the chamber. Apart from Merlin they were all in full ceremonial dress, medals and sigils of rank to the fore. This was the Counciclass="underline" the highest decision-making body in the ship save for Quail himself. One senior for every dozen subseniors, and one subsenior for every hundred or so crewmembers. These fifteen people represented somewhat less than fifteen thousand others working, relaxing or sleeping elsewhere in the swallowship's vast confines. And much of the work that they did was concerned with tending the two hundred thousand people in frostwatch: frozen refugees from dozens of systems. The burdens of responsibility were acute; especially so given that the swallowship had encountered no other human vessel in centuries. No one became a senior by default, and all those present - Merlin included - had earned the right to sit with Quail. Even, Merlin thought, his enemies on the Council. Like Pauraque, for instance. She was a coldly attractive woman who wore a stiff-necked black tunic, cuffs and collar edged with complicated black filigrees. She tapped her fingers against the table's ancient wood, black rings clicking together.

'Merlin,' she said.

'Pauraque. How are you?'

She eyed him poisonously. 'Reports are that you took one of the final two syrinxes without the express authorisation of the Council Subdivision for Waynet Studies.' Merlin opened his mouth, but Pauraque shook her head crisply. 'No; don't even think of weaselling out of it. I'll see that this never happens again. At least you brought the thing back unharmed this time . . . didn't you?'

He smiled. 'I didn't bring it back at all. It's still out there, approaching the Way.' He showed Pauraque the display summary on the back of his glove. 'I placed it aboard an automated drone.'

'If you destroy it . . .' Pauraque looked for encouragement in the doleful faces around her. 'We'll have you court-martialled, Merlin . . . or worse. It's common knowledge that your only reason for studying the syrinxes is so that you can embark on some ludicrous quest--'

Quail coughed. 'We can discuss Merlin's activities later, Pauraque. They may seem somewhat less pressing when you've heard what I have to say.' Now that he had their attention, the old man softened his tone of voice until it was barely a murmur. 'I'm afraid I have remarkably bad news.'

It would have to be, Merlin thought.

'For as long as some of us remember,' Quail said, 'one central fact has shaped our lives. Every time we look to stern, along the way we've come, we know that they are out there, somewhere behind us. About thirty light-years by the last estimate, but coming steadily closer by about a light-year for every five years of shiptime. In a century and a half we will come within range of their weapons.' Quail nodded towards the fresco, one particularly violent tableau that showed ships exchanging fire above a planet garlanded in flames. 'It won't be pretty. At best, we might take out one or two elements of the swarm before they finish us. Yet we live with this situation, some days hardly giving it more than a moment's thought, for the simple reason that it lies so far in our future. The youngest of us may live to see it, but I'll certainly not be amongst them. And, of course, we cling to the hope that tomorrow will offer us an escape route we can't foresee today. Better weapons, perhaps - or some new physics that enables us to squeeze a little more performance from our engines, so that we can outrun the enemy.'

True enough. This was the state of things that they had known for years. It was the reality that had underpinned every waking thought for just as long. No one knew much about the Huskers except that they were ruthless alien cyborgs from somewhere near the galaxy's centre. Their only motive seemed to be the utter extermination of humanity from all the niches it had occupied since the Flourishing. This they prosecuted with glacial patience, in a war that had already lasted many kiloyears.

Quail took a sip of water before continuing. 'Now I must disclose an alarming new discovery.'

Stars winked into existence above the table: hundreds and then thousands of them, strewn in lacy patterns like strands of seaweed. They were looking at a map of the local stellar neighbourhood - a few hundred light-years in either direction - with the line of the Way cutting through it like a blue laser. The swallowship's position next to the Way was marked, as was the swarm of enemy ships trailing it.

And then a smudge of radiance appeared far ahead, again near the Way.

'That's the troubling discovery,' Quail said.

'Neutrino sources?' Merlin said, doing his best to convince the room that his attention was not being torn between two foci.

'A whole clump of them in our path, about one hundred light-years ahead of us. Spectroscopy says they're more or less stationary with respect to the local stellar neighbourhood. That means it isn't a swarm coming to intercept us from the front - but I'm afraid that's as good as the news gets.'

'Husker?' said Gallinule.

'Undoubtedly. Best guess is we're headed straight towards a major operational concentration - hundreds of ships - the equivalent of one of our motherbases or halo manufactories. Almost certainly armed to the teeth and in no mood to let us slip past unchallenged. In short, we're running from one swarm towards another, which happens to be even larger.'

Silence while the seniors - including Merlin - digested this news.

'Well, that's it, then,' said another senior, white-bearded, bald Crombec, who ran the warcreches. 'We've got no choice but to turn away from our current path.'

'Tactically risky,' Gallinule said.

Crombec rubbed his eyes, red with fatigue. Evidently he had been awake for some time - perhaps privy to this knowledge longer than the others, grappling with the options. 'Yes. But what else can we do?'

'There is something,' Merlin said. As he spoke he saw the status readout on his glove change: the sensors racked around the syrinx finally recording some activity. Considering what he was about to advocate, it was ironic indeed. 'A crash-programme to achieve Way-capability. Even if there's an ambush ahead, the Huskers won't be able to touch a ship moving in the Way.'

Pauraque scoffed. 'And the fact that the Cohort's best minds have struggled with this problem for kiloyears in no way dents your optimism?'

'I'm only saying we'd have a better than zero chance.'

'And I suppose we could try and find this superweapon of yours while we're at it?'

'Actually,' said Quail, raising his voice again, 'there happens to be a third possibility, one that I haven't drawn your attention to yet. Look at the map, will you?'

Now Quail added a new star - one that had not been displayed before. It lay directly ahead of them, only a few tens of light-years from their current position. As they moved their heads to establish parallax, they all saw that the star was almost exactly aligned with the Way.

'We have a chance,' he said. 'A small one, but very much better than nothing. This system has a little family of worlds: a few rocky planets and a gas giant with moons. There's no sign of any human presence. In nearly every respect there's nothing remarkable about this place. Yet the Way passes directly through the system. It might have been accidental . . . or the Waymakers may have wanted this system in their network.'