The citadel of their previous battle would seem a small obstacle in comparison to a fully populated and defended artificial moon. As much as Ah-hotep wanted to see Simut humbled by failure, his utter humiliation had to occur in such a way that she was not implicated nor besmirched in its occurrence. Even more importantly, she considered it an unacceptable risk to require resurrection via the benevolence of Simut; it was likely he would stall the process to remove her from command, if not using the opportunity to erase her consciousness completely.

With her eternal presence uncertain, Ah-hotep’s physical wellbeing was paramount.

All of which meant that when her ship detected a significant drop in radiating energy from the surface of the populated moon she knew it was a concentrated signal for help. The only way was to edge her vessel closer, using it to draw forward some of Simut’s escort ships so that the overnull effect extended further into the system. The small adjustment, about half an orbit, was well within the parameters allowed by the protocols overlaid onto her command matrix.

Sometime after beginning the manoeuvre, she felt the presence of Phetos wishing to make itself known. She allowed the royal warden access to the hierolith.

‘Greetings, Archimedion,’ she said as the image of Phetos resolved above the projector plate, sparkling gold. ‘I expect the overlord has despatched you to tell me to return to my appointed position?’

‘The Great Hawk of the Void has not yet commented on your dis­position, plasmancer,’ the royal warden replied. ‘I noticed the discrepancy and demand explanation in his name.’

‘Demand? You take on too much authority, Phetos. I do not answer to you, even if you speak from under the shadow of Overlord Simut.’

‘The fleet is splitting, Ah-hotep,’ the warden continued with conciliatory pulses from his cortical field. ‘There are human ships within a quarter orbit that may see this and choose to engage while we are divided.’

‘Those ships are our least concern. Join your field to mine and see what I see, Phetos.’ Ah-hotep extended a cortical invite to the royal warden, opening up a tiny window in her ship’s sensor systems. She felt a moment of friction as Phetos accepted the connection. ‘It is the will of the Silent King that we proceed without alerting our enemies to the nature of our work. The overnull experiment is in a subtle and vulnerable phase. Any aggressive counteraction by the humans or others could set back the whole project.’

‘I see ships fleeing, nothing more,’ said Phetos.

‘Fleeing to the edge of their astromantic capability. They will break into the neversea if we allow it.’

‘And you think you can catch them?’

‘No, of course not. But we can use the overnull fringe to disrupt their attempts to break from the physical universe. If you could persuade the overlord to bring in the resonator now it would extend my efforts considerably.’