We had fallen into God’s own orrery. And right in our path, multiple formations of sleek white spaceships hung in carefully ordered rows, each the size of the Scimitar outside, and each and every one facing in our direction, as if awaiting our arrival.

The effect was as if we were falling backwards into a cloud of knives.

“What…” I finally managed. I coughed and cleared my throat. “What are these?”

The Trouble Dog’s beatific smile grew wider but no less enigmatic.

“These,” she said, “are my new friends.”

Sixty-Eight: Trouble Dog

SIXTY-EIGHT

TROUBLE DOG

The ships of the Marble Armada radiated enthusiasm and delight.

Like faithful pets entombed within a pharaoh’s pyramid, they had been waiting in this extra-spatial mausoleum for five thousand years, since the disappearance of their masters. They were ancient, but we already shared a symbolic kinship: the sixteen-pointed yellow star that adorned my flank was the same as those that emblazoned theirs. The organisation and ideals they had been built to serve had in their turn inspired mine. We were colleagues; we were siblings. They knew everything I had done, every crime I had committed and every life I had attempted to save in atonement. They had seen into my soul and they had accepted me. They had forgiven me and judged me worthy to be among them and to give them purpose. And, in the midst of their welcome, my heart sang with a wild and ecstatic joy. Cast out and betrayed by my brothers and sisters, I had unexpectedly found myself with a new pack, and they were waiting for me to complete my deceleration.

Meanwhile, looking back the way I had come, I saw light flashing in the sky beyond the shaft. The Nymtoq vessels must have arrived and been fired upon by the Fury, and now explosions filled the upper atmosphere of the Brain.

I wondered if Adalwolf thought me dead. When he last saw me, I had been accelerating into a crevasse with no hope of being able to stop or pull up before reaching the rocky floor. And then, just as I hit bottom, his view had been obscured by the detonation of the Fury’s missiles—a three-way fission explosion that would have obfuscated everything for several minutes. If he had time to check, once the fireballs had dispersed, he might have spotted the rabbit hole into which I’d fallen. But if war had broken loose in orbit, he might not have had the opportunity or inclination to investigate my demise. Although smaller and less powerful than a Scimitar, the Nymtoq heavy assets were still larger and more formidable than anything else in the sky—Carnivores included—and there were two of them. If Adalwolf and Fury had been stupid enough to engage, they’d have a hard fight on their hands—a fight that was, if my sensor readings were to be believed, well underway.