‘What are you hoping to find? The coreship is dead.’ He’d seen external shots of the starship taken by the Legislate ships that arrived a few weeks after the Shoal had abandoned it. Almost all its drive-spines had been burned away as it escaped Night’s End. Early hopes of finding a way to pilot it back to Consortium territory had been quickly dashed, but contact had now been made with races in the other environments, including one or two previously unknown to mankind.

Karen frowned. ‘You understand what I’m saying, don’t you?’

Nathan smiled and stroked her hair for what he guessed would likely be the last time. ‘That we won’t be seeing each other any more, is that it?’

‘I wasn’t sure how you’d react.’

‘I think we both always knew a day like this was coming.’ He looked inside himself and realized he wasn’t lying. Life had been grim, desperately so for too long now, and their time together had helped keep him sane. ‘No more chasing after General Peralta, then,’ he added. ‘You must be relieved.’

She scowled. ‘Peralta’s a dead man. He’s never leaving Ascension alive. He must know it too, but he just keeps fighting.’

Nathan found himself wondering what she might think if she were to find out he had been in Peralta’s employ until a few months before. The warlord, faced with a stark choice between arrest and execution on the one hand and a slow, lingering death on the other, had demanded safe transportation off the coreship for himself and his inner circle, almost as soon as the first relief operations had arrived. The Consortium had other ideas, however, and Peralta had then made good on his threat to carry out attacks on refugees until he got exactly what he wanted.

Ilsa had been amongst the first to slip away from Peralta’s compound under cover of night, and ever since he had made his own escape a few months later, he had been searching for her so they could find a way out of Ascension together. He had hoped his volunteer work on the ambulances would improve their chances of being lifted out of the coreship, once he’d found her.

‘Unless he can find a way to mix in with the rest of the refugees and slip past you,’ Nathan suggested. He was careful to keep his voice casual.

‘They scan everyone who goes through,’ she replied, and yawned, pulling herself in closer to him. ‘With DNA profiling, biometrics, the works. Don’t you worry, there’s no way in hell anyone gets on to a ship without us knowing exactly who they are.’

‘That’s good to know,’ he muttered, staring up at the ceiling, and wondering if Nirav had yet checked his DNA profile against the Legislate’s security databases.

‘Hey Wake up.’