Blossom-pink, acidic-green, turquoise, orange, purple and tox-yellow swirled and clashed across its hull. Symbols etched by the claws of things that lived in nightmares swam across its length. Oily dust shook from it like pollen from a summer flower. Its crew were gone, flesh and bone melded into the fabric of the ship. Their voices lived on, though, singing and screaming into the night as the ship hunted. It shivered as the fire of its kill touched its hull. Its howls became shrieks of delight.

On the bridge of the Antius, screams and wails burst from every vox-speaker. The hull vibrated through high notes like a struck glass. In the holds and on the bridge, people fell to the ground, blood running from their ears as the taste of roses, honey and ash filled their mouths. On and on the sounds echoed. Mersadie felt it slice through her, felt it touch the edge of things she had tried to remember but wanted to forget.

‘What is this?’ she had asked.

‘Nothing,’ said a deep voice from behind her, and she had turned from Maloghurst to see another set of eyes looking down at her from above and a smile that held no kindness. ‘Nothing at all…’

Then the voice from her dream of Keeler, strong and undoubtable.

‘You must reach him. You must tell him before it is too late. Remember! Remember what you have seen!’

And the circles of symbols rose before Mersadie, no longer stone and metal but burning in the air.

And the howl of the multicoloured destroyer as it broke from the flames and turned towards the Antius was the roar of guns in her memory and the shriek of the oncoming storm in a dream that she could not wake from.

And then it was gone.

The many-coloured ship turned, swooped past the Antius, and dived back into the dark.

The howls died in the throats of the vox-horns and left those on the bridge of the Antius shaking and weeping, but alive.

‘What…’ breathed Gade. The man was on his hands and knees, trembling like a whipped dog. ‘What just happened?’

Mersadie looked back at Gade, at the console lights blinking in time to alarms that seemed soft in the shadow of the sounds that had just passed.

‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Just get us to a dock around Jupiter.’

Chi-32-Beta’s head rose suddenly.

‘We are being targeted…’ gasped the enginseer.

‘By what?’ she asked.

‘Defence platforms, ships, other vessels. I can’t identify them…’

Mersadie felt cold realisation sink through the space left by the brief flutter of hope that they would make it to a place of safety. They would not; they would die on the edge of survival.

‘We are being hailed…’ buzzed the tech-priest.

The vox-speakers gave a bark of distortion and then a voice came from them, speaking through the static.