Eldene headed for one of the high-speed lifts Fethan had earlier demonstrated to her, and was soon walking out through the pillartown's lobby. Here was where food and domestic goods were distributed, and she could see stalls stretching endlessly in every direction. All around her there were people — uncowed people who were not waiting for the discovery of some minor infraction of Theocracy rules and the consequent punishment. Outside the building, Eldene covered the short distance down to the river, and then followed a path along the bank to the entrance to tunnel seventeen. She broke into a run once she saw that Fethan, Carl and Lellan were already waiting there, so arrived amongst them panting.
"Let's go," said Lellan, as soon as Eldene arrived, and led the way through an armoured door, then along similar tunnels to those they had arrived through. As they ascended, and breath became short, Eldene shuddered as for a second she felt she was returning to her old life. Realization that this was not so came as a flush of joy.
Tunnel seventeen opened out onto a narrow path cutting across a scree slope, then down a trail etched between platforms of stone that almost seemed to have been placed on purpose — though for what purpose was unknowable — into a valley that might have been the continuation of the one where she had fled the hooder yesterday. However, this path made her feel very much safer as it was cut into stone rising twenty metres above the rustling flute grasses.
Soon the valley turned a corner, and the river glimpsed through greenery terminated in a lake — whether flowing into or out of it was not clear, the river being glassily still.
Lellan, who had been speaking quietly into her mike, glanced back towards Fethan as they approached the lake. "Well — she's down on that further shore." She wore an amused expression as she pointed vaguely.
"Chameleonware," said Fethan. "Risky."
Lellan's amusement evaporated. "Sometimes you are just no fun at all." She continued leading the way.
Eventually their path descended in long steps to the point where the lake connected to the river. They had to walk a short way through flute grass that was chest-high and now throwing out dark red side-shoots, creating a tangle that required some effort to push through, then came to a shoreline of flaky shale scattered with pieces of white bone, like driftwood. There was a tide-line of empty jewel-like mollusc shells, and the shore hissed underfoot when they stepped on it.
"What is that noise?" Eldene whispered to Fethan, subsequently wondering why she was keeping her voice low.
"Small water lice. They feed on animalcules washed down the river to here." This also answered her question about which direction the river flowed.
As they reached the boulder-strewn further shore of the lake, Eldene turned her attention, only momentarily, to a nasty-looking creature squatting on a half-submerged rock. As she turned back to look where she was going she let out a yelp of surprise and abruptly stepped back into Fethan. Suddenly, where there had been only empty shore, there now stood two men and a woman, standing before what seemed to her a huge trispherical spaceship. She felt nothing but confusion, and would have run if Fethan had not held on to her.
"The ship was hidden," he said close to her ear. "It projects a field that, amongst other things, bends light around it and makes it invisible. We just walked inside that field."
Eldene calmed herself and studied the three individuals who stood waiting. They did not wear face-masks, so either they were like Fethan, or some other fabulous Polity technology was at work here. Lellan walked up to one of the men — a thickset ginger-haired individual who appeared to be quite capable of tearing someone's head off — and with her arms akimbo, glared at him.
"We'd almost given up on you. What the hell have you been playing at, John?"
The man rubbed his face, causing the field that contained air over his nose and mouth to shimmer.
"Dorth was on Cheyne III, so I paid my last visit to friend Brom, who was hosting him," explained Stanton.
"Did you get him?" asked Lellan, her tone suddenly avid.
"No, he's back here. But Brom's out of the picture now."
Lellan bowed her head in disappointment.
Meanwhile, Fethan had sidled up to the other man. "ECS?" asked the old man, and Thorn nodded in reply. Fethan went on, "Thought so — it's the company you keep."
Eldene could not help but feel an outsider in all this. She resolved to not remain so for very long.
It was howling in his head, trying to penetrate the now frantic shouting of the Septarchy Friars — a looming hot ophidian presence. He did not need Aberil to announce, "Behemoth is here."
Through the wide chainglass window extending across the front bridge of the lead Ragnorak tug, they could only see Calypse and a distant feeble glow on the moonlet called Flint where, only minutes ago, there had been a shipyard and a population of thousands. In front of the pilot and navigator — in the tank displaying the relative positions of just about every object in the Masadan system — a new object, outlined in red, was moving away from the devastated shipyard. Seated in the couch especially provided for him, on a recently installed grav-plate floor, Loman leaned forwards to peer more closely at this tank.
"What is it doing?" he asked through gritted teeth.
"It's coming insystem on a realspace drive of some kind," Aberil replied, gazing at the instrumentation before the seated navigator, where he floated at the man's shoulder — outside the influence of those few plates provided for Loman. "The fleet is embarking from Hope, and preparing to U-jump on your order to attack."
"How long before they can jump?" Loman asked.
Aberil closed his eyes for a moment and, when he opened them, said, "Thirty-eight minutes."
"Tell them to only prepare."
Aberil glanced at him. "We cannot allow Behemoth to get close to our cylinder worlds. It must be destroyed." Loman stared at him until he added, "Hierarch."
Loman continued to stare, feeling panic rise up inside himself. It had always been accepted that Behemoth would run, after Miranda had been destroyed. Had it not come out here to hide from the Polity in the first place?
"The General Patten was the biggest and most advanced ship we had, yet Behemoth tore it apart without using the weapon it's just used to destroy the Flint complex. What do you think the fleet could do against it?" he asked.
"They could slow it, Hierarch," suggested Aberil.
Loman stood up, walked to the edge of his grav-plates, and stared up at the chainglass screen. He placed his fingers against his aug and tried to find something amid the racket blocking or obliterating the channels. It did not take him long.
"Amoloran! Amoloran!" something bellowed over the ether.
"Listen to me," Loman sent back. "I am the Reverend Epthirieth Loman Dorth, Hierarch of Masada. Amoloran is dead. What do you want here, Behemoth?"
Suddenly the static faded and Loman felt himself to be standing in a vast chamber. The screen he gazed up at now seemed to have translucent scales all across its surface; a sharp astringent smell filled his nostrils, and he felt uncomfortably warm.
"You closed me out with prayer, and I could have destroyed you then. You destroy an Outlink station, and for this the Polity blames me. Now you have hurt me, and for this you will pay," Dragon told him.