“That has, though of course this would be of subsidiary importance.”

“How much earlier might our arrival be? Has this been computed?”

“It has. The re-formed squadron would arrive at the Gzilt system outskirts in nine days’ time, rather than, at our current rate of progress, nearly twenty.”

“This would cause our esteemed escort the Culture ship Beats Working no risk of damage?”

“It would not, Swarmprince. The field structure of the Culture ship Beats Working would be swelled to accommodate each Ronte ship in turn and the resulting squadron-of-two would make its way as an entity to the designated volume on the system approaches.”

There was consultation. “I must insist,” the Swarmprince said, “that you accept I am most serious and settled in my view that this is a most generous and thoughtful offer, but one that we could not possibly accept, out of our respect for the good Culture ship Beats Working. We could not possibly ask such an onerous and mighty task of it, and, therefore, with all gratitude, we must decline said kind and generous and thoughtful offer.”

The Culture ship Beats Working had done its homework on the Ronte and their customs and mores, and the results of that study had been presented to the drone Jonsker Ap-Candrechenat, which did not, as a result, just accept this apparently fairly final-sounding No. Instead it kept on arguing, knowing that – for a matter of such importance, involving the prickly issue of Ronte pride – anywhere between four and six cycles of offer, consultation and regretful rejection might have to be endured before the offer was finally accepted.

The offer was duly accepted on the sixth iteration, counting the initial one.

Later that day, the Beats Working started ferrying the Ronte squadron one by one to the outskirts of the Gzilt system – quite far out for the first one, the rest gradually closer and closer, so that by the time it had delivered the last one they would all be chugging along under their own power in pretty much their standard formation.

This was a much less boring task than strolling along at a few per cent of its own highest velocity while the Ronte squadron made full speed – for them – to Gzilt.

Scoaliera Tefwe woke slowly, as she had woken slowly a few dozen times, over the intervening centuries.

Only it wasn’t really waking slowly; she was being woken.

All dark at first. Stillness and silence too, and yet the sensation that things were happening nearby, and inside her head and body; organs and systems and faculties being woken, revived, checked, primed, readied.

It was at once reassuring and somehow disappointing. Here we go again, she thought. She opened her eyes.

The word SIMULATION, which was what she expected to see first, albeit briefly, wasn’t there. She blinked, looked around.