They walked at a steady, unhurried pace for the benefit of the state propaganda and news agencies recording todays events. Joining the recorded choir now could be heard the massed voices of the pilgrims gathered beyond the palace walls, filling the air with their chattering and shouting and occasional singing.

Theyre here because of me, she realized in a daze. She wondered what it would be like to walk, unknown and unrecognized, through those same streets beyond the palace, to be able to engage fully with the Tabernacle, or experience life far from Redstone. She wondered how the pilgrims would react if they knew the truth of Gabrielles purpose in life a truth she had learned from Karl in her bedchamber after he had chased Mater Cassanas away with threats to her sons life.

She thought of those long evenings of lovemaking, when she had given herself all too willingly to him. She would lie in his arms as he described how her physical appearance, and that of every Speaker-Elect who had ever lived, had been carefully tweaked at a young age to hide the fact they were all clones of the same woman the first human being ever to communicate with and then pilot a Magi ship.

At that moment she saw a figure wearing the armour of the Demarchys security services step out from under the broad wing of the transport. His feet were clad in heavy black boots, a decoratively filigreed breather mask strapped over his nose and mouth. This was Karl Petrova: bodyguard to the Speaker-Elect, confidant, lover and, before very long, partner in crime.

Gabrielle struggled to hide her joy at the sight of him. His eyes, however, met hers only briefly before moving on to regard Thijs and the other members of the Demarchys ruling junta with apparent equanimity. And yet she knew that Karls rapid rise through the security services, despite his not being a citizen of the Demarchy despite not even having a faith chip had earned him the security chiefs unending enmity.

Along with the rest of her entourage, she was swept through the palace gates and on board the transport. Steps had emerged from within its hull as they approached, the doors sliding apart like steel jaws. Almost as soon as she had taken a seat within the transports opulent interior, it lifted off the ground on a cushion of shaped fields.

The journey to the docks and the Grand Barge took barely more than a minute or two, the transport seeming to drop towards its destination almost as soon as it had risen. She had a brief glimpse of the massed pilgrims filling the streets beyond the palace, before they dropped to make a landing on the dockside. The Grand Barge was riding low in the Kas lapping waters, while an Accord dropship stood a short distance away, with defensive fields flickering around its outer skin.