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the ground, and touched down on a hundred flexing stanchions a hundred metres away. The heat of its engines swept across the veldt in a wave, causing Kranda and Farini to turn away and shield their faces.
    When she next looked, a ramp was unfolding from the ship’s flank and a Mahkan officer was striding out, flanked by two officials. In her trim crimson uniform, and towering over her underlings, the woman looked imposingly impressive.
    She crossed to Kranda, who wondered what the hell an Engineering Corps high-up was doing here. The storm was a minor inconvenience in the scheme of things, hardly something that should have merited such attention.
    The woman stopped before Kranda and Farini. “Sen-Kranda’vahkan, I am Major Lan’malan. If we could have a few words, alone?” She indicated the cliff-top spur where earlier Kranda had stared out over the ocean.
    The major told her aides to remain where they were and led Kranda across to the cliff-top.
    She went over her last few decisions, wondering if she might have done something wrong, made some catastrophic error of judgement...
    “Don’t worry, Sen-Kranda,” said Major Lan’malan, sensing her unease, “I am not here to reprimand you. Quite the opposite, in fact. The quality of your work has been brought to our notice – even before you underwent hayanor . Now that you have undergone the transition... I am here to offer you promotion.”
    “Promotion?” Kranda stared at the major. “You came all the way here in an interworld vessel to offer me promotion?”
    The major smiled. “Don’t allow yourself such delusions of grandeur, Sen-Kranda. My ship was on its way to the neighbouring world.” She indicated the ocean. “Yankari-Darani retired last term, and left an absence in the ranks, and as there is work to do on Helix 4721... we could think of no one better to whom we might offer the post.” The major hesitated. “You will accept, of course?”
    Kranda was taken aback. “Of course. Yes. By all means.” She laughed. “This is all a little sudden... When do I start?”
    The major laughed. “Your human friends have a saying, do they not? Something along the lines of, there is no time like now? Well, if you would care to pilot your flier aboard the Fighting Coyti ...”
    Kranda gestured. “But the project here...?”
    “You have an able sergeant, I take it? Allow her to take command. You will be appointed Yankari...” Yankari, Kranda thought, a rank above Sen!
    “I will brief you as we fly,” Major Lan’malan said.

 
     
     
     
    2
     
    “Y OU WILL BE a member of my team working on a project which will last a year,” the major said, “and you will report directly to me.”
    They were speeding over the ocean which, until mere minutes ago, had been Kranda’s principal concern. It was an odd feeling to know that the problem of the surging ocean far below need not now bother her in the slightest. She was being taken away from such mundane matters as sub-basal depressurisations...
    But what might she be working on, as part of the major’s team?
    They stood in the major’s palatial suite aboard the Fighting Coyti , drinks in hand, looking down through a viewport at the raging sea. “And what might that project be, Major?” she asked.
    Lan’malan smiled. She indicated the landmass ahead, a world four beyond their homeworld. Like the world they were leaving, this one was uninhabited.
    As they crossed the coastline, Kranda stared out over a very different terrain to the one at their backs. Rolling, forested hills extended to the far horizon, the arboreal vegetation deep green with occasional, very odd outgrowths, spear-like plants which grew to a height of three hundred metres and terminated in a crown of lethal-looking spikes.
    “Welcome to Helix 4721,” the major said.
    Kranda smiled to herself. Odd to think that Mahkana, too, had been designated with a number before the Builders brought her people to the Helix, over eight thousand years