"Good." Broghuilio nodded.

Freskel-Gar joined Wylott. "Will we need to do something about recovering scuttling crews after the ships are sunk?" he asked.

"That won't be necessary," Broghuilio replied. The ships would simply be sent down into one of the deep trenches on automatic control, and opened to the ocean.

A muted roar from the crowd sounded at the screen Estordu and the others were watching. Broghilio told the operator to turn up the volume. The two leaders had declared a truce between them as had been widely anticipated. Then, while the noise was still abating, they went on to announce Harzin's invitation to Perasmon to visit Cerios, and their imminent journey together-precisely as Freskel-Gar had predicted. Broghuilio had already marked Freskel-Gar as shrewd, calculating, able to wait until his time was right, but at the same time possessing the nerve to move swiftly and surely when he saw his opportunity. An invaluable resource to have around for securing their position in the period immediately ahead, Broghuilio had decided. And in the longer term, dangerous.

At that moment the bridge-deck computer interrupted with an announcement. "Attention. We have an anomalous surveillance alert."

"Report to Station 5." A crew officer brought screens and indicators to life.

Broghuilio moved across, frowning. "What kind of alert? What's happening?"

The officer studied the displays. "Something strange, Excellency. Intermediate C-band has picked up an unidentified object. It seems to have just suddenly… appeared, about a million miles out."

"Object? What kind of object?"

The officer took in more data. "It's not one object. It's two. There's another one a few hundred miles away from it."

Freskel-Gar was watching the activity from the screen connected to Dorjon. "What's happening up there?" he demanded.

"We're not sure," Broghuilio told him.

They were still debating the anomaly, when the computer came again: "A larger disturbance is building up, registering seventeen-six in beta octave."

The officer reported, "About a thousand miles from the away from the first. This one is much larger. It's transmitting some kind of signal in h-mode."

For several seconds, Broghuilio just stared. It didn't make any sense. "That's impossible," he declared.

Nothing had existed in the age of Lunarian Minerva that could produce h-radiation.

"Homing beacon is locked on and checking positive. Backup beacon is functioning. You're set to go. Good luck, Shapieron. Sequencing out… Transferring."

They were back at Minerva, now six months before the sinking of the Cerian frigate Champion. The silence dragged while ZORAC scanned for the probe that had always been the indicator that the Jevlenese had arrived. Every previous reconnaissance had found it not far away from Minerva-which was to be expected if it had only recently arrived. But it used Ganymean h-space signaling, so there would be no noticeable turnaround delay in any case.

"Negative," ZORAC announced. Startled looks, some disbelieving, flashed around the Shapieron's Command Deck. Was this really it, finally?

"Repeat the scan and confirm, ZORAC," Garuth instructed.

A sort delay, then, "No response registering. There's no sign of it."

No probe; no Jevlenese. The mission had arrived.

Hunt ran his eye over the faces. They were tense. This was not another reconnaissance. It was the real thing, what the whole mission had been leading up to. Eesyan was looking at him questioningly. Showm was watching. Danchekker looked on impassively from one side. Hunt returned a faint nod.

"We go with it," Eesyan said to the team waiting at the other end of the link back to Thurien. Calazar and Caldwell were connected in again. It had become a sort of custom. On this occasion they just sent silent salutations.

"Wave function consolidated and stabilized," Garuth confirmed. "Ready to detach."

"Dissolving the Gate bubble."

"Local bubble deactivated." The Shapieron was on its own, a free creature in its natural element once again.

The next thing was to establish the exact date. They knew by now when the Harzin-Perasmon assassination had taken place, and could tune into Lunarian broadcasts. As had previously been decided, VISAR had aimed for as close to that date as its coarse scaling would allow. They expected having to make a few fine corrections to edge closer-ideally to within a couple of days of the incident, which would have Minerva in a hopeful mood, while at the same time allow the mission some margin to make contact and communicate its message to the right people. Hunt moved to where Chien was standing, behind one of the Ganymean crew operators, watching him sift through the Lunarian communications spectrum. A reference to Harzin indicated him to be still alive. Things were looking promising.

"So, are we merely following a path between our reality and this one that was always here?" Danchekker's voice asked from behind Hunt. It was a mild gibe at naturalist materialism. "No, I refuse to believe it. Frenua was right. We are creating a new reality. Whole worlds will come into being from this, Vic." Danchekker had been entertaining some radical departures from his customary habits of thought since getting involved with the Thurien philosophers. Four years ago, Hunt wouldn't have believed it. Once one of the most ardent and inflexible defenders of the theory of mind as simply an emergent property of matter, his latest assertion was that mind is no more an accidental product of nervous systems than the plays of Shakespeare were an accidental product of marks on paper.

"You'll be taking up politics next, Professor," Chien said impishly. "Enrolling in the diplomatic corps."

Danchekker rubbed his nose with the crook of a finger. "I'm inclined to suspect that we may have done that already. What else would you call this escapade?"

The Ganymean operator gave an over-the-shoulder glance that said, How about this? Hunt leaned forward to see. The screen showed a crowd in what appeared to be some kind of city square, cheering a group of figures up on a balcony. Moments later, a switch to close-up showed the two in the center to be Harzin and Perasmon. The operator gestured to the bar across the bottom of the screen in a way that said there was no need to comment.

Hunt read the details. "Oh God!"

Eesyan came over. "What?"

"VISAR was right on. We're too close, Porthik." Hunt pointed. "It's today!"

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Broghuilio stared incredulously at the image framed in the long-range surveillance shot. There could be no mistaking the form with its sleek curving lines, flaring at the stern into four swept tail surfaces. The last time he had seen the Shapieron, it was closing in on his ships fleeing from Jevlen. If it hadn't been for those Ganymeans from the past and their accursed starship, the whole conspiracy of circumstances that had resulted in him and his Jevlenese being flung into this predicament would never have happened. A vein began throbbing in his neck. He could feel the self-control and sense of staying on top of events despite all that had taken place starting to slip.

"How did that get here?" he whispered, turning his face belligerently to Estordu.

The scientist made a helpless gesture. "I can only conjecture that it came through the tunnel with us."

"I thought your experts assured us there was no trace of anything else. They said it was just us."

"I… must take it that they were mistaken."

"Experts!" Broghuilio spat that word and turned away malevolently, his hands clasped behind his back.

"What's happening?" Freskel-Gar demanded from the other screen, having overheard.