But he observed that when it came time to attract a mate the most vigorous deck-swabbers and cousin-deniers stood out from the crowd. It made sense: after all, a propensity to please the undeniable reality of the Elder was a survival characteristic, and therefore worth displaying if you had it, and worth preserving in your children’s heredity. He filed away such observations and insights.

By now, nothing that happened inside the Ship’s hull interested him as much as what happened outside.

He was thoroughly wired into the Ship, its electromagnetic and other equipment taking the place of his own failed biological senses. He cruised with it through the intergalactic gulf, feeling the tingle of dark-matter particles as they were swept into the Ship’s gut, sensing the subtle caress of magnetic fields. It fascinated him to follow the million-year turning of the Galaxy, whose brilliant face continued to open up behind the fleeing Ship. Even the space between the galaxies was much more interesting than he had ever imagined. It wasn’t a void at all. There was structure here, he saw, a complex webbing of the dark stuff that spanned the universe, a webbing in which galaxies were trapped like glowing flies. He learned to follow the currents and reefs of the dark matter which the Ship’s gravitational maw greedily devoured.

He was alone with the galaxies, then, and with his own austere mind.

Once, just once, as he drifted in the dark, he heard a strange signal. It was cold and clear, like the peal of a trumpet, far off in the echoing intergalactic night. It wasn’t human at all.

He listened for a thousand years. He never heard it again.

IX

Andres came to him. He could see her face clearly, that worn-smooth expressionless skin. The rest of her body was a blur, a suggestion.

‘Leave me alone, you nagging old witch,’ he grumbled.

‘Believe me, that would be my choice,’ said Andres fervently. ‘But there’s a problem, Rusel. And you need to come out of your damn shell and sort it out.’

He longed for her to leave him, but he knew that wasn’t an option. In a corner of his frayed mind he knew that this Virtual projection of his last companion, a synthesis of his own reflection and the Ship’s systems, was an alarm, activated only when absolutely necessary.

‘What kind of problem?’

‘With the transients. What else? You need to take a look.’

‘I don’t want to. It hurts.’

‘I know it hurts. But it’s your duty.’

Duty? Had she said that, or had he? Was he awake, or dreaming? With time, everything blurred, every category, every boundary.