Itll detonate its nova drive at the point where it crosses the event horizon, disrupting the processes run by the Makers. Done the right way, it could cause a temporary but very real shift in certain physical constants, destroying not only the Makers but every living thing for up to a couple of hundred thousand light years distance.

The whole galaxy, in other words. It was getting hard to take in.

But surely itd take hundreds of thousands of years for a change like that to spread outwards from the core of the galaxy, even at the speed of light?

No, Gabrielle, said Bash, its going to be instantaneous, because the effect is propagating through information space, not through space-time as we know it. Light speed, gravity, mass none of those mean anything here. Theyre all epiphenomena of information space and are therefore subject to it, rather than the other way around.

But why do that? Why destroy all life in the galaxy?

The Wanderer isnt programmed to care about anything but killing the Makers, Bash replied. Anything else is just collateral damage. The only time it ever thinks about other life forms is when they have something it can put to its own advantage.

But it still has to get hold of the Ingersolls nova drive, she pointed out. And Tarrant and the rest arent in any hurry to let that happen.

Its already too late for them, said Bash.

What are you talking about?

The pattern of light representing Bash shifted and flowed. The Ingersolls pilot is a man called Bill Szymurski, he explained. When Megan and I last visited the Wanderer, all those years ago, it learned a lot about how our machine-head implants work. Because of that, it was able to get inside Szymurskis head pretty much the instant the Ingersoll jumped into this system. Hes been compromised almost from the start.

After a pause to let that sink in, Bash continued. And that means the Wanderer has already got effective control of the Ingersoll. Tarrant and the rest of his cronies have absolutely no idea just how utterly fucked they really are.

So what do we do? she asked, horrified.

The only way now to stop the Wanderer, before its too late, is by destroying this whole damn system.

But Im still stuck here in this cabin.

I can get you out of there, said Bash. But after that the rest is up to you. You need to find some way to launch the Ingersolls nova mine into the sun. Then, even if we cant kill the Wanderer outright, we can at least stop it from stealing the nova drive and sterilizing the whole damn galaxy of every last trace of life.

Gabrielle came to with a start and realized that hours had passed. Bash still knelt by her bunk, but the intelligence had once more faded from his eyes. Instead he stared, calm and unseeing, at a bulkhead.