‘It’s a dead cache,’ Dakota continued. ‘I learned that it was discovered by a race called the Meridians, who’re long gone. They had a colony here, but they wiped themselves out while fighting over it. The physical structure is still there, but everything inside was destroyed. If we get the opportunity or the time, I think it would be a very good idea to take a look down inside the cache. Apart from the fact I want to see what it looks like, it’ll give us a much better idea of exactly what we’re going to be facing once we reach our final destination.’

‘And these weapons we’re looking for,’ said Corso. ‘They’re inside the cache?’

Dakota tilted the interface chair a few degrees upright so she could see his face more clearly. ‘No, but apparently they’re close to the mouth of the cache,’ she explained. ‘And, strictly speaking, they’re not weapons. They’re a form of field technology – same idea as our own field-generators but whole orders of magnitude more powerful – according to . . .’ according to Trader, she almost said, until she caught Corso’s eye.

‘The point is,’ said Corso, now picking up the thread, ‘there’s something there that can give us an even better fighting chance against the Emissaries.’

‘According to who?’ asked Martinez. ‘Some . . . Shoal-member?’

‘I think maybe we should go and have that talk,’ said Corso, looking as if he would rather do almost anything else. ‘And maybe a good stiff drink, if your meds will allow it.’

Chapter Twenty-three

‘Let me get this straight,’ said Ty. ‘I thought no time passed at all during a jump?’

They had come outside again as soon as the latest jump had been completed. Star-tangled nebulae hung in the void behind Olivarri. He had the whitest teeth Ty had ever seen in another human being; they positively shone when he grinned, and right now they were just about the only thing Ty could distinguish through the other man’s visor.

Their three-person repair team was completed by Nancy, who was mending a spine-clamp prior to lowering a new spine into place. Ty could see her over Olivarri’s shoulder, busily working away.

What lazy creatures we men are, he thought, standing here while the woman toils. The reality, of course, was that Nancy didn’t trust anyone but herself to fulfil certain jobs. He found himself recalling the way her hands had gripped his hair the night before, her small lithe form arching above him, her mouth round and wide as she noisily climaxed.

‘Virtual time passes. Jump-space has to find a way to deal with the sudden appearance of physical matter from our universe. So it wraps the Mjollnir in a bubble of virtual time.’

‘Because time doesn’t actually exist within superluminal space?’

‘Exactly.’ That toothy grin again. ‘It’s the virtual time that allows the physical matter to begin degrading.’