Naecia looked in after him. “First thing you do if you find the Earth man is administer the Amnesplid. Do it before anything else,” she said, handing over a small ampoule of liquid.

“I know,” he answered, taking it.

“You can’t kill him until his mind is erased.”

“I know, Naecia.”

“Travel safely,” said Aptat, knocking heels to attention and giving a salute.

“Suck a farglack’s scrotal teats in ascending order of size,” said Oush, returning the salute as the fairings closed. The scull descended below and exited the ship.

“Hmm, scrotal teats. Did not know that about farglacks,” said Aptat.

Naecia immediately went to the Switch Drive and opened the conduits to the ship’s power. “You think they’ll fire on us now or wait until Oush gets there?” she asked of the room.

“I think they’ll wait,” said Izairis. “We don’t pose an obvious danger to them right now.”

“I suppose they’ll want to make sure we sent over the actual merch first,” said Aptat. “Or maybe they’ll see us not running and figure we’re up to some funny stuff, which we are. Either way, they’re going to shoot at us.”

“Agreed,” said Naecia. “As soon as they have Oush, they’ll fire.”

Aptat stood beside Izairis while the voidscull, invisible against the black, made its way toward the Timelance. Aptat hit it with a beam of infrared in order to trace its course.

Naecia brought the Switch to full power. The ship’s data began to populate as before. She was perspiring, and the smell of her own sweat mixed with the Vortu funk produced a sickly mélange. Gagging slightly, she put on the axon diadem.

They watched on the display as the voidscull flew below the outer ring of the Timelance and toward the inner spindle.

“He’s almost in,” said Izairis.

“Oop,” Aptat exclaimed, pointing at the display. “There it is.” Long, horizontal gaps opened along the Timelance’s outer circumference, and a powerful, magnesium white light beamed from within. “Pretty sure that’s a weapon.”

Izairis began counting down. “Voidscull makes contact in ten, nine, eight...”

Remembering that they had to conduct two switches in order to reverse the resulting chirality of the first leap, Naecia concluded that she’d take them to a spot of vacant space above the Timelance. She’d put them there first, and then into the larger ship with the second switch.

Six, five...

“Count faster,” said Aptat.

They couldn’t engage the drive until they knew exactly where Oush would make contact. Naecia’s fingers hovered over the pad, waiting for the moment to dump the ship’s particle data through the doorway of her mind.

The Timelance grew bright with malevolent energy.

Four, three...

A ring of pure light.

The voidscull was nearly in, heading for a spot just off-center of the inner hub. It was close enough, they couldn’t wait any longer.

Two.