‘There is sadly a great deal of truth in that,’ she said. ‘Magos, you and Macks… You could use some support after this. He won’t mention it or offer it, because, well, you know… but trust me. You don’t feel it yet, but you’ve experienced trauma. Physical trauma. And existential trauma too. There is a confessor I can recommend in Tycho. Better still, off-world specialists on Gudrun, if you’re still planning to leave. They have some experience and are discreet. We’ve used them before. The Houses of the ordos could offer you some consolation, but I don’t recommend it. You’d open yourself to a different world of hurt.’

He nodded.

‘By rights,’ she said, ‘you both would be considered… contaminated by what you’ve seen. The ordos would want you restrained from public contact, at the very least. The very least. And even if you speak to the discreet confessors I have recommended, don’t say anything stupid.’

‘Like?’

‘Like mentioning the word daemon.’

‘All right,’ said Drusher.

‘But take a recommendation, please,’ she said. ‘And make Macks do it too. What you’ve seen this last day or so… No one should ever see that. It will scar you, I’m sorry to say. Change you. Maybe for the rest of your life.’

‘I’d be slightly horrified if it didn’t, Mam Betancore,’ he replied. He sipped the caffeine. ‘How is Voriet?’

‘Nayl and Macks have taken him to the infirmary in Unkara. They voxed just now. He’s stable. Young and strong.’

‘Good,’ said Drusher.

‘Eisenhorn wants to see you,’ she said. ‘He sent me to find you.’

‘All right,’ said Drusher. ‘Will he tell me what happened?’

‘Probably not,’ she said.

‘Will you, then?’

She shrugged.

‘As I understand these things,’ she said, ‘it was the Loom in the end. Damaged by the fire, but a volatile mechanism anyway.’

‘Aren’t we all?’ said Drusher.

‘It’s not possible to construct them in real space,’ she said, ‘because of the interference patterns they generate. It was stable only in the extimate fold of the shade hall.’

‘And the…’ Drusher found he really didn’t want to say the word ‘daemon’. ‘And the thing, it opened that up?’

‘Yes,’ said Medea. ‘Reality was no longer overlapping. It was simultaneous. It was just a matter of time before the fabric of… reality… shredded. Imploded. And took everything with it. Keshtre. A sizeable patch of ground and subsoil.’

‘And… the thing itself.’

‘Yes.’

‘Was he counting on that?’ asked Drusher. ‘Eisenhorn, I mean? Was he counting on that happening?’

‘I believe he was hoping. It was the only possible good outcome. Nothing else on Gershom would have stopped it.’

‘Is it still out there?’ Drusher asked. ‘I mean, is it trapped inside the shade hall?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘That extimate fold is gone. Obliterated. An empyrean gravity compression effect that… Well, I won’t bore you with the technical detail.’