“Hmm.”

“Everything dead in a million gilley radius, gone,” she said. “Existence. Gone.”

“Nullibiety,” said Aptat, describing the condition in a word. “That’s all very scary. Sounds a bit far-fetched, though, drawing dimensions together. Do you know what isn’t far-fetched? The Vortu, on their way to kill us. Literally right now.”

Naecia shook her head in disgust. “The crew of the Knell were hunting for Stringers with knowledge of the Chime too.”

“Unsurprising. Every stringhunter in the Dasma Arm has been looking for that Stringer since the Scythin put out the offer. I’m the one that found him.”

“And apparently the only one who didn’t fully understand what you were looking for. Captain Arrohauk knew what the Chime was. She had proof. Scoped images of the Timelance at Arusne.”

“Arusne is a supervoid that formed three billion years ago.”

“Well,” said Naecia, “three billion and one years ago, the Scythin were sitting right in the middle of it. If you had managed to salvage the scope logs from the Knell you could see it for yourself.”

“No need,” said Aptat, sweeping through menus on the console. “Arrohauk transmitted the images to our network. We’d all seen, and promptly ignored them.” The display came up showing a macrograph of pure black space labeled with specific coordinates. A second image taken at the same coordinates showed a robust starfield. The only difference was the timestamp. The second image had been captured several years earlier. Then there was a third image, taken at the same time as the second, at the same coordinates, only magnified by a few billion times. At its center was the Scythin ship, a wickedly spindle-shaped awl of black. Asog Arrohauk had referred to it as the Timelance, after what she believed to be its purpose: lancing spacetime.

Naecia shot back to her feet. “You have the images?” she exclaimed. “And you still handed over the Stringer?”

“You must be new to stringhunter subterfuge. Anytime we’re chasing down a new lead, we’re working just as hard to throw the competition off the scent. These macrographs are no different. Easily faked.”

“Well, they’re not faked!” her voice cracked. “Captain Arrohauk would have shown you on the scopes herself if you hadn’t killed her.”

“Sympathy for your captor?” said Aptat, approaching. “That’s one I’ll have to ponder.”

“At least she was hunting to kill.”

Aptat barked a laugh. “To kill who? The Stringer? His cord would only have requickened in some other unfortunate. Someone was going to find Ben – or whoever landed on the cord after him – and sell them to the Scythin. Better for me to profit now than allow the benefit to pass to another of my ilk down the line.”

Ugh, lightheaded again. Naecia wavered. “You can count all the guush you want. If the Scythin get that Chime, you’ll be just as dead as the rest of us.”

“Well, bright side: you’ll be able to stop worrying about the Chime when the Vortu turn us to dust,” said Aptat, finger-tapping to the words on Naecia’s shoulder. “Back to your chamber.”