"Lethe. That AI was insane. You Ghosts may have destroyed us all. Ambassador, I'm going to file a full report about this. I'm going to get this operation shut down, and have human monitors placed in every Ghost research establishment from now on."

"The AI is a powerful resource. Jack Raoul, we face cosmic obliteration. Even the Xeelee cannot shelter us. Surely the risk was justified. And as to the project, it is too advanced for--"

I was aware of agitation among the flock of watching Ghosts. They started withdrawing further from the moon.

An internal warning started to sound in my head. The Notebooks had come up with something they didn't like. More Virtual schematics, primary-color projections, started filling up my vision.

The vents dug into the moon had started to glow, dull red. I saw molten rock bubble at the edge of one pit, its lip slumping into the cylindrical tunnel below. It was as if a fire burned in the moon's core; light poured out into space, illuminating the construction debris which clustered around the moon, and glimmering off the hides of the watching Ghosts, turning them to beads of fire.

In the moon's surrounding veil of dark matter mist, I saw shadowy shapes hurtle, agitated, birdlike.

...And Eve was beside me now. She was Ghost-transformed as I was, her long-boned face easily recognizable under the chrome.

She watched the metamorphosing moon, its fiery glow reflecting from her silvered eyes.

The Sink Ambassador twisted in alarm, its hide glowing red, chattering on many frequencies to its fellows.

"It isn't stable. The photino star. Is it, Eve?"

"No," she said dreamily, not taking her eyes off the moon. "The density of photinos is too high."

"Yes." That fit with what Eve's Notebooks were telling me. "The high density at the core is stimulating photino decay. The free Klein-Gordon field the Ghosts want to create is collapsing. Imploding--"

Abruptly the Ghosts fled, including the Sink Ambassador, abandoning us; I saw their receding ships, shining threads against the intergalactic darkness.

The surface of the moon was almost entirely molten now. It was subsiding, collapsing inwards.

"The Ghosts thought they were creating a home for the photino birds," I said. "But they were wrong. You knew that. They have made--"

"A bomb," she said. "A dark matter bomb."

"It's you, isn't it? The Planck Zero AI. Behind the mask of my wife--"

She pressed her face against my metallic chest.

My anger was gone. Only pity remained.

I embraced Eve, enfolding her within my arms. Her skin felt warm -- impossibly so -- human.

"But this will destroy you," I said. "Whatever it is that sustains you, is in that moon."

She turned to me, silver eyes empty, and smiled. I saw that she wore my ring on her finger.

The thing at the heart of the moon turned white, dimming the sickly glow of the Galaxy's core.

The moon blew apart.