‘What’s going on in there?’ said Jarvellis.

Stanton could hear the edge of panic in her voice.

‘Just listen and you will learn,’ said Pelter, before returning his attention to Stanton. ‘The Lyric, John.’

Stanton turned his head so he was looking at the screen behind. The magnification had been upped so he had a clear view of the ship.

‘Now,’ said Pelter, ‘you remember I got all that lovely planar explosive from friend Grendel.’

Stanton stared at the ship. No, this can’t be happening.

‘Answer me, John.’

‘Yes, I know,’ said John.

Pelter went on. ‘Well damn me if I’ve gone and forgotten to bring it with us.’

Mennecken gave a little chuckle at this, and everything clicked into place. Stanton hit his belt release and turned his head. Corlackis’s gun cracked, and Stanton felt a horrible deadness invade his right shoulder. As the Tenkian tore through his trousers and slapped against his hand, he couldn’t even close his fingers. Next thing, he was down on his knees on the floor.

‘Jarv, get out,’ he managed at barely a whisper.

Pelter reached up and touched his fingers to his aug. It was a habit he retained. ‘Bye-bye, Captain Jarvellis.’

Stanton went over on his side. He wished he had fallen the other way. His view of the screen was now utterly and uncompromisingly clear. The Lyric blew. A disc of white fire flashed out from the B hold, cutting into the other two spheres of the ship. Multiple explosions followed, and turned the ship into a sphere of fragments that expanded and swallowed the now fading disc. The view clicked back to show the sphere at a distance. As it faded, there were flashes as bits of wreckage re-entered atmosphere behind the dropbird.

‘Jarv . . .’

As his consciousness faded, Stanton heard Pelter speaking to the rest of them.

‘That has the added benefit that now we can go in a lot faster. Any heat signatures the AI detects, it will assume to come from the debris.’

Blackness swamped Stanton, to the sound of Mennecken chuckling.

19

19

Antigravity: In the first three centuries of this millennium, people still viewed gravity with the same lack of comprehension their primitive forebears had for the properties of lodestones. (Could those forebears have had any idea of what would happen when a current was put through copper wire wrapped around a lump of iron?) Antigravity was considered the province of science-fiction writers, and real scientists chuckled about such writers’ inability to grasp plain facts. That they took this attitude, while their fellows were hacking the foundations from underneath Einstein’s special and general theories of relativity, showed a lack of foresight comparable to that of an eminent Victorian, who, upon hearing of what forms of travel might become possible because of this new-fangled steam engine, categorically stated that humans travelling faster than twenty miles an hour would be crushed to death.

From Quince Guide, compiled by humans