The airlock hatch was still open when they got back, but the exoskeletons were missing.

«Shit,» Antonio datavised. «They're still here, the bloody xenocs are here.»

Marcus shoved his fingers into the dimple. His heartbeat calmed considerably when the hatch congealed behind them. The lock cycled obediently, and the outer rectangle opened.

«Wai,» he datavised. «We need a lift. Quickly, please.»

«On my way, Marcus.»

«Strange way for xenocs to communicate,» Schutz datavised. «What did they do that for? If they wanted to make sure we stayed, they could have disabled the airlock.»

The MSV swooped over the edge of the shell, jets of twinkling flame shooting from its thrusters.

«Beats me,» Marcus datavised. «But we'll find out.»

• • •

Marcus called his council of war five hours later, once everyone had a chance to wash, eat, and rest. Opinion was a straight split: the crew wanted to continue investigating the xenoc ship, Antonio and his colleagues wanted to leave. For once Jorge had joined them, which Marcus considered significant. He was beginning to think young Karl might have been closer to the truth than was strictly comfortable.

«The dish is just rock with a coating of aluminium sprayed on,» Katherine said. «There's very little aluminium left now, most of it has boiled away. The tower is a pretty ordinary silicon/boron composite wrapped round a titanium load structure. The samples Wai cut off were very brittle.»

«Did you carbon-date them?» Victoria asked.

«Yeah.» She gave her audience a laboured glance. «Give or take a decade, it's thirteen thousand years old.»

Breath whistled out of Marcus's mouth. «Jesus.»

«Then they must have been rescued, or died,» Roman said. «There's nobody left over there. Not after that time.»

«They're there,» Antonio growled. «They stole our exoskeletons.»

«I don't understand what happened to the exoskeletons. Not yet. But any entity who can build a ship like that isn't going to go creeping round stealing bits of space armour. There has to be a rational explanation.»

«Yes! They wanted to keep us over there.»

«What for? What possible reason would they have for that?»

«It's a warship, it's been in battle. The survivors don't know who we are, if we're their old enemies. If they kept us there, they could study us and find out.»

«After thirteen thousand years, I imagine the war will be over. And where did you get this battleship idea from anyway?»

«It's a logical assumption,» Jorge said quietly.

Roman turned to Marcus. «My guess is that some kind of mechanoid picked them up. If you look in one of the lockers you'll probably find them neatly stored away.»

«Some automated systems are definitely still working,» Schutz said. «We saw the blisters. There could be others.»

«That seems the most remarkable part of it,» Marcus said. «Especially now we know the age of the thing. The inside of that ship was brand new. There wasn't any dust, any scuff marks. The lighting worked perfectly, so did the gravity, the humidity hasn't corroded anything. It's extraordinary. As if the whole structure has been in zero-tau. And yet only the shell is protected by the molecular-bonding-force generators. They're not used inside, not in the decks we examined.»