They pulled themselves hand over hand up the gantry: long pulls, sailing up for a few meters, then reaching out for another boost. Progress wasn’t as easy as grabbing onto the endless pulley system in the central spire of Meditreme Station, but it wasn’t too taxing. Before long they saw the gleam of Shall’s lights, and they launched themselves through a few dozen meters of empty space toward him. Callie arrived first, grabbing on to one of Shall’s extended manipulators. She locked her magnetic boots to the platform – fortunately the material was ferrous – and rapped on the goldfish bowl pod with her knuckles. “You are not inspiring me with confidence, Lantern. Was all that spinning around you put us through malice or incompetence?”

“Call it inexperience,” the Liar said. “I’m sorry. Sincerely. I desire an outcome in which we all survive this.”

“We have common ground there, at least. So where’s the door?”

“At the top of this segment, there should be an access point to a tunnel, which will provide entry to the rest of the station.”

The Liar lifted something from the panel: a sphere the size of a tennis ball, seemingly made of a glowing tracery of blue light. “This is an infosphere – a remote access node. It contains a map, and acts as a key to open most areas of the station.”

“Most?”

“Some areas are likely to be restricted, especially if advanced security protocols are in place.”

“The security protocols aren’t too secure. Nobody’s tried to stop us yet.”

The space suddenly flooded with blinding white light.

“Captain, you shouldn’t say stuff like that,” Ashok wailed.

Chapter Twenty-Two

“What’s happening?” Callie didn’t sound panicked, which Elena found comforting: mostly, she just sounded annoyed. Elena felt pinned and exposed and not at all safe under the lights. She wondered if this was the platform where the Anjou had been torn apart and remade; where Uzoma and Sebastien had been remade, too.

“Something noticed us,” Lantern said. “Probably because I manipulated the gravity. I can’t access any security controls from here – they’re operated from a central control room.”

“So what’s coming for us?” Callie said.

“Those.” Ashok pointed, and Elena whipped her head around and whimpered involuntarily.

Two of the scuttling mechanical spiders had emerged from small holes in the far wall, and were now scurrying toward them along a cable.

“Shall?” Callie said. “I want one of those things intact.”