“No," he laughed, letting his head rock back on his shoulders with the laugh. “I’ve no intention of doing that. You’re safe."

“Until we get to Schar’s World." she said calmly.

“After that, too," he said.

Balveda blinked slowly, looking down. “Hmm, good." She looked into his eyes.

He shrugged. “I’m sure you’d do the same for me."

“I think I… probably would," she said, and he couldn’t tell whether she was lying or not. “I just think it’s a pity we’re

on different sides."

“It’s a pity we’re

all

on different sides, Balveda."

“Well," she said, clasping her hands on her lap again, “there is a theory that the side we each think we’re on is the one

that will triumph

eventually anyway."

“What’s that." he grinned. “Truth and justice."

“Not either, really," she smiled, not looking at him. “Just…" She shrugged. “Just life. The evolution you talked about. You

said the Culture

was in a backwater, a dead end. If we are… maybe we’ll lose after all."

“Damn, I’ll get you on the good guys’ side yet, Perosteck," he said, with just a little too much heartiness. She smiled thinly.

She opened her mouth to say something, then thought the better of it and closed it again. She looked at her hands. Horza wondered

what to

say next.

One night, six days out from their destination—the system’s star was fairly bright in the sky ahead of the ship, even on normal

sight—Yalson

came to his cabin.

He hadn’t expected it, and the tap at the door brought him from a state between waking and sleep with a jarring coldness which

left him

disoriented for a few moments. He saw her on the door-screen and let her in. She came in quickly, closing the door

after her and hugging him,

holding him tight, soundless. He stood there, trying to wake up and work out how this had happened.

There seemed to be no reason for it, no

build-up of tension of any sort between them, no signs, no hints: nothing.

Yalson had spent that day in the hangar, wired up with small sensors and exercising. He had seen her there, working away,

sweating,

exhausting herself, peering at readouts and screens with her critical eyes, as though her body was a machine like

the ship and she was testing

it almost to destruction.

They slept together. But as though to confirm the exertions she had put herself through during the day, Yalson fell asleep

almost as soon as

they lay down; in his arms, while he was kissing and nuzzling her, breathing in the scent of her body again

after what seemed like months. He

lay awake and listened to her breathe, felt her move very slightly in his arms, and sensed

her blood beat slower and slower as she fell into a

deep sleep.

In the morning they made love, and afterward he asked her, while he held her and their sweat dried, “Why." as their hearts

slowed. “What

changed your mind." The ship hummed distantly around them.

She gripped him, hugging tighter still, and shook her head. “Nothing," she said, “nothing in particular, nothing important."

He felt her shrug,

and she turned her head away from his face, into his arm, toward the humming bulkhead. In a small voice

she said, “Everything; Schar’s World."

Three days out, in the hangar, he watched the members of the Free Company work out and practice firing their guns at the screen.

Neisin

couldn’t practice because he still refused to use lasers after what had happened in the Temple of Light. He had stocked

up on magazines of

micro projectiles during his few sober moments in Evanauth.

After firing practice, Horza had each of the mercenaries test their AG harnesses. Kraiklyn had purchased a cheap batch of

them and

insisted that the Free Company members who didn’t already have an anti-gravity unit in their suit buy a harness from

him, at what he claimed

was cost price. Horza had been dubious at first, but the AG units seemed serviceable enough, and certainly

might be useful for searching the

Command System’s deeper shafts.

Horza was satisfied that the mercenaries would follow him in if they had to, down into the Command System. The long delay

since the

excitement of Vavatch, and the boring routine of the life on the

Clear Air Turbulence,

had made them hanker after something more interesting.

As Horza had—honestly—described it, Schar’s World didn’t sound too

bad. At least it was unlikely they would find themselves in a firefight, and

nobody, including the Mind they might end up

helping Horza search for, was going to start blowing things up, not with a Dra’Azon to reckon with.

The sun of the Schar’s World system shone brightly ahead of them now, the brightest thing in the sky. The Glittercliff was

not a visible feature of

the sky ahead, because they were still inside the spiral limb and looking out, but it was noticeable

that all the stars ahead were either quite

close or very far away, with none in the gap between.

Horza had changed the

CAT

’s course several times, but kept it on a general heading which, unless they turned, wouldn’t take it closer than

two light-years

from the planet. He would turn the craft and head in the following day. So far the journey had been uneventful. They had flown

through the scattered stars without encountering anything out of the ordinary: no messages or signals, no distant flashes

from battles, no warp

wakes. The area around them seemed calm and undisturbed, as though all that was happening was what always

happened: just the stars being

born and dying, the galaxy revolving, the holes twisting, the gases swirling. The war, in that

hurried silence, in their false rhythm of day and night,

seemed like something they had all imagined, an inexplicable nightmare

they had somehow shared, even escaped.

Horza had the ship watching, though, ready to alarm at the first hint of trouble. They were unlikely to find out anything

before they got to the

Quiet Barrier, but if everything was as peaceful and serene as that name implied, he thought he might

not go arrowing straight in. Ideally he

would like to rendezvous with the Idiran fleet units which were supposed to be waiting

nearby. That would solve most of his problems. He would

hand Balveda over, make sure Yalson and the rest of the mercenaries

were safe—let them have the

CAT

—and pick up the specialized

equipment Xoralundra had promised him.

That scenario would also let him meet Kierachell alone, without the distraction of the others being there. He would be able

to be his old self

without making any concessions to the self the Free Company and Yalson knew.

Two days out, the ship’s alarm went off. Horza was dozing in his bed; he raced out of the cabin and forward to the bridge.

In the volume of space before them, all hell seemed to have been let loose. Annihilation light washed over them; it was the

radiation from

weapon explosions, registering pure and mixed on the vessel’s sensors, indicating where warheads had gone off

totally by themselves or in

contact with something else. The fabric of three-dimensional space bucked and juddered with the

blast from warp charges, forcing the

CAT

’s

automatics to disengage its engines every few seconds to prevent them being damaged on the shock waves. Horza strapped

in and brought

all the subsidiary systems up. Wubslin came through the door from the mess.

“What is it."

“Battle of some sort," Horza said, watching the screens. The volume of affected space was more or less directly on the inward

side of

Schar’s World; the direct route from Vavatch passed that way. The

CAT

was one and a half light-years away from the disturbance, too far away