‘That,’ he said, ‘will take time to explain. But I can tell you this much: the ship that took you to the swarm gathered and preserved your thoughts and memories, and transmitted them outwards in the last few seconds before the shockwave from the nova reached you. Another Magi ship much closer to home used these thoughts and memories to recreate you. But your mind was preserved in other Magi ships also, and they kept you in stasis for a long, long time. We didn’t manage to retrieve a proper copy of you until close to the end of the Thousand Year War.’

She stared at him slack-jawed, then dropped her head towards her knees with a groan. ‘I’m sorry, but it’s so hard to take all this in.’

He smiled sympathetically. ‘There’s a lot more to explain, and we’re going to give it to you gradually. But here’s what you mainly need to know: the Mos Hadroch was discovered, and used to stop the war between the Shoal and the Emissaries. That was followed by the Great Diaspora, as the human race scattered across the galaxy.’

‘So you brought me back,’ she said, raising her head slowly up again. ‘Why?’

‘Because we need you. The Accord of Worlds is a successor of sorts to the Consortium, but it’s facing its greatest threat since the Emissaries. A Shoal fleet is currently heading for the Greater Magellanic Cloud, intent on building an empire.’

‘The Accord of what?’ Dakota asked weakly.

‘I played a small part in its creation, towards the end of my sixth iteration.’ He pointed up: ‘If you will.’

Dakota glanced up to see an image of the Greater Magellanic Cloud materialize overhead, filling the space directly beneath the onion dome.

‘A few decades ago,’ Lamoureaux continued, ‘a small fleet, led by Shoal-members intent on recreating the Hegemony, left our galaxy on a secret mission for the Cloud. There’s now reason to believe there’s more than one Mos Hadroch. If they do find more, they’ll have the means to cripple the Accord. So we have to stop them.’

‘And what does this have to do with me?’

Lamoureaux smiled. ‘If there was ever a time we needed you, Dakota, it’s now.’

She felt like weeping. ‘I can’t tell you how out of my depth I feel, just being told all this. I mean, Jesus and Buddha . . .’ She laughed. ‘I don’t know what else to say.’

‘The Accord is something special. It’s much more than the Hegemony ever hoped to be. And its name is no accident – would you like me to show you why?’

Dakota nodded warily.