She gazed over towards those distant spires for a long time, remembering the conversation she’d once had in just such a building, with a Magi entity calling itself the Head Librarian. That had been during the heat of the battle for Ocean’s Deep. One moment she’d been on board a ship with missiles closing in on it, the next she’d been here, in this otherworldly realm generated from the virtual memories of the Magi ships, and weeks of subjective time had passed.

She sat on the ground, her mind numb, and watched as the sky slowly darkened until the Milky Way came into view, the great cloud of the Sagittarius cluster spreading before her in all its glory.

And then, finally, she began to walk.

When she finally reached the city, more than a week later, she found that the building under the onion dome hadn’t changed since her last visit. A chair and a chaise-longue stood next to an orrery composed of oiled brass and copper. This time, however, an old man she had never seen before was sitting in the chair, watching her with amused eyes that looked out from amidst a mass of crinkles.

‘Dakota,’ he said, rising to greet her as she crossed the carpeted floor. She stared at his long white hair, neatly held out of the way with a small silver clasp. His face was a patchwork of lines, but the set of his mouth and the way he looked at her suggested he knew her from somewhere.

His voice was warm and firm. ‘It’s been . . .’ He paused to shake his head and sigh in a good-humoured way. ‘It’s been a long time since I last saw you.’

‘I . . . I don’t recognize you. I’m sorry.’

‘My name is Lamoureaux. You don’t remember me, but I remember you.’

She couldn’t think of anything to say, so she perched carefully on the edge of the chaise-longue. ‘I don’t understand how I could be here,’ she said. ‘I only remember I was at the red giant with the swarm, and then—’

‘And then the star turned nova,’ he finished for her.

Dakota nodded faintly. ‘How do I know you?’

‘We met after your first resurrection a very, very long time ago.’

‘Resurr . . . how long ago?’

‘Over three thousand years, Dakota.’

She stared back at him, too stunned to think of anything to say, or how to react at first. Lamoureaux, however, waited with apparently endless patience.

‘I still don’t. . . How can I even be sitting here?’