‘You wouldn’t be alone,’ she replied quickly. ‘We came here intending to leave a permanent outpost behind. There’ll be other ships visiting after the California’s returned, as we want to use this place as a stepping-off point for deeper exploration into the Perseus Arm. We’ve already talked to Ted Lamoureaux, who’s willing to stay and help us set up the outpost, but I got the feeling he wanted to hear what you had to say first. We’ll still be here for at least another six months, and in that time we’ll build up what you’ve already established here, and then some of us are staying behind to get things up and running.’ She smiled. ‘I know it’s a lot to ask of you, but nothing you say meanwhile would be binding. And if you ever changed your mind before we headed back, there’d still be a berth waiting for you.’

Corso cleared his throat and looked her in the eye, almost super-naturally aware of the proximity of her hand to his. There were glinting depths in her pupils, in which he saw himself reflected.

‘What about you, Meredith?’ he asked. ‘Will you yourself be staying?’

She looked back at him with an amused expression. ‘As a matter of fact, I will be, yes.’

Do it, he could imagine Dakota urging him. What else do you have to go back for? Your life is here now.

‘I’ll stay,’ he decided.

Epilogue

Dakota drew in a sharp breath, filling her nostrils with the sickly-sweet scent of flowers in early spring, before opening her eyes and squinting into bright sunlight.

Fields of blossoms stretched out all around her, while the bright cerulean blue of the sky curved overhead like a ceiling. The sun was high, almost at its zenith. Tall, tree-like growths, at odds with the terrestrial flowers, formed a small copse nearby like great black squid frozen in the act of leaping out of the soil, their leaves wide and oval and glossy.

She stood up, uncertainly at first, and looked around. The breath caught in her throat as she sighted the cloud-breaching towers of a Magi memory-complex on the horizon, the soaring towers and great fluted domes of a deserted city surrounding its base like steel and concrete waves breaking on the shores of an island mountain.

She trailed her fingertips across the tops of the flowers around her, and tried to piece together her final memories. She had been in the vicinity of the red giant, with the swarm briefly at bay . . . the star had turned nova, and then . . .

And then she had found herself back here, in this place.