Empire of Light

Unlike human-designed ships, there was nothing there that could be called furniture, nor were there any convenient handholds to grip on to. Similarly there was nothing that might be designated a ceiling or a floor; indeed, there were very few right angles, and most of the bulkheads simply curved into each other.

Dakota ordered the spiders to go into sleep mode, whereupon they powered down, folding themselves into multifaceted polygons that took up far less room.

Dakota moved closer to Trader. 'Did you get my briefing?'

'Received with delight,' the alien replied, manoeuvring within his ball of water until he directly faced Nancy.

His manipulators, suspended beneath the wide curvature of his lower body, twisted with what Dakota chose to interpret as distaste. 'I see we have company.'

Nancy glanced questioningly at Dakota. 'Briefing? What briefing?'

'I gave Trader a summary of what he's been missing while he's been stuck away here in the hold,' Dakota explained. 'Murder, sabotage, intrigue. The usual.'

'Life aboard the frigate is filled with much excitement, yes?' said Trader.

'Call me crazy,' Dakota replied, staring fixedly at the alien, 'but I had an idea you just might be able to throw some light on it all.'

'Most distasteful dis-corporation upon us all grants few hopes for the future.' Trader's artificially generated voice took on a harsher quality inside the metal-walled chamber. 'One assumes you are already hard upon the scent-path of those responsible?'

'What?' Nancy stared back and forth between them, her expression incredulous. 'What the hell did he say?'

'He said he hopes we catch whoever did it really soon,' Dakota replied, without taking her eyes off the alien.

Trader moved closer to them both. Though Nancy didn't move from where she still floated close to a wall, Dakota looked over in time to see a muscle in one of her cheeks begin to twitch spasmodically.

'We swim towards the world below,' explained Trader, 'where we will find the defensive systems we need. I have probes already performing reco

Dakota glanced towards the live video feed and realized with a start that they were already moving. The hold's open doors were receding into the distance, the yacht's inertialess systems dampening the effects of its acceleration.

Another projection now appeared in the air in front of Trader, taking the form of a flat black rectangle. A yawning, glass-walled abyss appeared inside this rectangle, falling away into darkness. It looked like images Dakota had seen of the Tierra cache. As the viewpoint rushed headlong into the mouth of the cache and into sudden darkness, she felt a strong urge to look away.

Some kind of filter kicked in, so that the cache's walls became visible. There were oval openings ranged on all sides, blurring together initially as the viewpoint descended at speed. But then the viewpoint suddenly slowed and veered aside into one of the doorways, moving rapidly along a smooth-walled tu

The projection then faded to black. Dakota glanced to one side and saw the Mjollnir receding into the distance with increasing speed.

'And it's the same throughout the cache?' asked Dakota.

'As far as can be determined,' Trader replied. 'Contact with some of my probes was lost after a certain depth, but that may be down to the sometimes unusual gravitational conditions to be found inside caches. The Meridian defence systems, however, are located near the mouth of the cache.'

'I still want to see inside the cache at the first opportunity,' insisted Dakota.

'But of course,' Trader replied, his manipulators wriggling like hungry worms. The idea that Trader might actually provide better company than another human being would never before have occurred to Dakota, and so she found herself tremendously irritated when Trader left her alone with Nancy in the egg-shaped chamber. All she could do was crouch in the inertialess zero gee, and try to ignore Nancy's embittered gaze. But before very long the sheer tension, enhanced by boredom, drove her to at least make an attempt at conversation.

When that failed, Dakota finally lost her temper.

'Just what is your fucking problem?' she seethed. 'I used to own a cargo ship that was easier to talk to.'

Nancy's eyes darted away from hers. 'There's things you don't know about me. That make it hard for me to talk to you.'

'What? What things?'

Nancy swivelled her gaze back around, her shoulders rising and falling as she took a deep breath. 'I lost family in Port Gabriel,' she replied.

Dakota felt her face go red. 'I'm sorry, I-'

Nancy burst out laughing. 'No, no… I mean that's just the kind of bullshit you want to hear, right? I didn't lose anyone. I just…' the other woman shrugged and shook her head. 'I just really fucking hate machine-heads. You and the Uchidans, you're all the fucking same to me, you know that? Even that hole in the ground we're headed for isn't deep enough for you all.'

Dakota stared at her, speechless.

'Look,' Nancy went on, 'if Commander Martinez wants you on board with us, that's up to him, not me, but I don't have to pretend I like you, or that I trust you, or that I'm not sure you had something to do with Olivarri's murder. Are we clear on that?' 'As daylight,' Dakota replied through gritted teeth. After that, Dakota kept her mouth shut and her eyes fixed on the projections all around. Nancy crouched in a similar pose, her helmet resting nearby. They had a spectacular view of their approach to the cache-world: the curving limb of the planet rose towards them at a terrific speed and, as they drew nearer, Dakota studied with interest the great rifts and valleys and ancient impact craters that spoke of a violent past. The mouth of the cache became visible as a perfectly round circle of black punched through the tiny world's outer crust.

Dakota felt the tug of something familiar from the surface below.

'There's more drones here,' she muttered out loud.

Nancy shot a glance at her. 'What?'

'More Meridian drones. Trader! Where the hell are you, Trader! There's-'

‹I am here.› Trader replied to her directly through her implants. ‹Are you certain?›

Very certain. I'm picking them up right now.

‹An unexpected surprise, then. Do you have a location?›

Close to the mouth of the cache, about where the field-defences are. They've buried themselves deep in the ground.

'Who are you talking to?' Schiller demanded.

'I'm talking,' Dakota replied testily, 'to Trader.'

'Did you know your mouth moves when you talk in your head like that?'

'It does?'

Schiller nodded slowly. 'Makes you look like an idiot.'