But he was Julian Sabreur, after all, and he was cast from a certain rigid mould, built with more sealed-off compartments than a sinking ship. After a while he just said, “Yes, well…” and the moment passed by, never to return, and propriety was restored.

II

Lucas couldn’t avoid noticing that the two lesbians were, frankly, getting it on in one of Cam’s side chambers. He wondered vaguely what the creature thought of that, if anything. From what he gathered, Cam hadn’t done any sex stuff for a hundred million years or something. It sounded like God’s own case of blue balls, frankly, but presumably giant cockroach monsters didn’t get that.

The boss was on his phone, of all things. He’d sent Lucas to make sure nobody was eavesdropping. And through some negotiation with their host, he’d arranged to have their chambers burrowed deeper into its structure so the danger of unwanted visitors was lessened. Lucas mulled over that word, host—considering it could mean they were guests, but also parasites. Human fluke worms, which seemed about right.

Working for Daniel Rove was dragging him in two directions. On one hand, it was clear the man had his own plans. These would inevitably involve Rove treading all over everyone else’s faces to achieve them. And he was busily putting them into action while everyone else—or at least everyone with the correct number of doctorates—was trying to fix things. On the other hand, if Rove was getting out of this on top, Lucas intended to be standing close enough to get out with him.

Drifting closer, Lucas wouldn’t have been surprised to hear the man saying, “Sell! Sell!” but Rove’s tone was weirdly intimate, leading Lucas to think, So everyone on board’s got someone, except me.

“That’s very good,” Rove said consolingly. “Now, you have their schema? Does the machine understand it?” He sounded eerily as though he was talking to a child, or someone socially unaware enough that you could lay it on thick and get them to do anything. “Excellent, well done, my dear. And can you ask it to prepare the calculations for inversion? Splendid, very good.” He looked at Lucas and nodded briefly. “Have that ready as soon as possible. And let me know when our friends at this end are nearing a solution. Good girl, well done.” He ended the call and turned his razor smile towards Lucas. “Do you think Dr. Khan and his friends can make their dreams into reality, as you’ve been amongst them?”

Fuck knows. “A bit high level for me, sir. They seem to think they can pull it off.”