‘You know we can’t ignore you,’ Dano said. ‘This great sphere is a Xeelee artefact. We have to learn what it’s for.’

‘That’s simple,’ Pala said. She had worked it out, she believed, during her long cocooning. ‘We were thinking too hard, Dano. The sphere is a weapon.’

‘Ah,’ Dano said grimly. ‘Of course. And I always believed your thinking wasn’t bleak enough for this job, Pala. I was wrong.’

Bicansa looked bewildered. ‘What are you talking about? Since the First landed, we have thought of this sphere as a place that gives life, not death.’

Dano said, ‘You wouldn’t think it was so wonderful if you inhabited a planet of this star as the sphere slowly coalesced - if your ocean froze out, your air began to snow . . . Pala is right. The sphere is a machine that kills a star - or rather, its planets, while preserving the star itself for future use. I doubt if there’s anything special about this system, this star.’ He glanced at the sky, metal Eyes gleaming. ‘It is probably just a trial run of a new technology, a weapon for a war of the future. One thing we know about the Xeelee is that they think long term.’

Bicansa said, ‘What a monstrous thought. My whole culture has developed on the hull of a weapon! But even so, it is my culture. And you’re going to destroy it, aren’t you? Or will you put us in a museum, as you promised Sool?’

‘Not necessarily,’ Pala whispered.

They both turned to look at her. Dano murmured threateningly, ‘What are you thinking, Missionary?’

She closed her eyes. Did she really want to take this step? It could be the end of her career if it went wrong, if Dano failed to back her. But she had sensed the gentleness of Sool’s equatorial culture, and had now experienced for herself the vast spatial scale of the sphere - and here, still more strange, was this remote polar colony. This was an immense place, she thought, immense both in space and time - and yet humans had learned to survive here. It was almost as if humans and Xeelee were learning to live together. It would surely be wrong to allow this unique world to be destroyed, for the sake of short-term gains.

And she thought she had a way to keep that from happening.

‘If this is a weapon, it may one day be used against us. And if so we have to find a way to neutralise it.’ The suit whirred as she turned to Bicansa, ‘Your people can stay here. You can live your lives the way you want. I’ll find ways to make the Commission accept that. But there’s a payback.’

Bicansa nodded grimly. ‘I understand. You want us to find the Xeelee flower.’

‘Yes,’ whispered Pala. ‘Find the off-switch.’