The dread weight of responsibility, which had oppressed Futurity since he had been ‘volunteered’ for this assignment by the Hierocrat and projected into orbit, now pressed down on him hard. But, he found, his greatest fear was not for his own safety, nor even for the fate of this poor woman, but simply that he was making a fool of himself in front of this dour captain. Shame on you, Futurity’s Dream!

He forced himself to focus. ‘How do I speak to her?’

The Captain waved a hand. A Virtual of Mara’s head coalesced in the air, and Futurity saw a miniature of himself pop into existence in the little diorama of her cabin. So he had been put in contact with this bomber.

He tried to read her face. She looked younger than her thirty-six years. Her face was a neat oval, her features rather bland - her nose long, her mouth small. She would never be called beautiful, though something about the shape of her skull, exposed by the close shaving of her hair in the Ideocratic style, was delicately attractive. As she studied him, evidently without curiosity, her expression was clear, her brow smooth. She looked loving, he thought, loving and contented in herself, her life. But tension showed around her eyes, in hollow stress shadows. This was a gentle woman projected into an horrific situation. She must be desperate.

A smile touched her lips, faint, quickly evaporating. She said to him, ‘Aren’t you going to say anything?’

The Captain rolled his eyes. ‘Our terrorist is laughing at you! Good start, acolyte.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Futurity blurted. ‘I didn’t mean to stare. It’s just that I’m trying to get used to all this.’

‘It’s not a situation I wanted,’ Mara said.

‘I’m sure we can find a way to resolve it.’

‘There is a way,’ she said without hesitation. ‘Just take me home. It’s all I’ve asked for from the beginning.’

But that’s impossible. Futurity had never negotiated with an armed fugitive before, but he had heard many confessions, and he knew the value of patience, of indirection. ‘We’ll come to that,’ he said. ‘My name is Futurity’s Dream. I live on the planet below, which is Base 478. Our government is called the Ecclesia.’

‘You’re a priest.’

He said reflexively, ‘Just an acolyte, my child.’

She laughed at him openly now. ‘Don’t call me a child! I’m a mother myself.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he mumbled. But in his peripheral vision he checked over the manifest details again. She was travelling alone; there was definitely no mention of a child either on the ship or back at Chandra. Don’t contradict, he told himself. Don’t cross-examine. Just talk. ‘You’ll have to help me through this, Mara. Are you of the faith yourself?’

‘Yes,’ she sniffed. ‘Not of your sort, though.’