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consider the drawbacks of entrusting their Fate to devices of their creation.
     
    The flowing carpet was decelerating.
     
    ‘I guess we’re here.’
     
    Before a peaked archway, a holo bird formed of orange flames manifested itself.
     
    ‘This way,’ it sang.
     
    The soldiers bowed and remained on the spot as the bird floated slowly along the corridor and Tom and Elva followed, with their mesodrone moving alongside.
     
    What happens next? Tom wondered.
     

     
    Steam rose gently from three red-brown bowls of indigoberry daistral, which stood on the purple glass conference table. The aroma made Tom smile. While the Collegiate Magister was dismissing the servitor who had brought the drinks, Tom reached over for the nearest bowl, then sat back in his chair, holding the daistral but not yet drinking: that would be rude.
     
    ‘Don’t wait for me,’ said Magister Strostiv. ‘After that long journey, you must be dying for a decent daistral.’
     
    ‘Pretty much,’ said Tom, and took a sip. ‘Ah, thank you. That’s excellent.’
     
    Elva waited until Strostiv was sitting down before she picked up her own bowl and drank. ‘Mm. Not bad.’
     
    Strostiv ignored his drink, and sat with his elbows on the tabletop, fingers steepled together. His white hair, unkempt as always, stuck out at odd angles. He was an Altus Magister of the Collegium Perpetuum Delphinorum, and no-one would dream of telling him to smarten up his appearance.
     
    ‘Congratulations on your wedding, both of you.’
     
    ‘Thank you, Strostiv.’
     
    When Tom had last talked to him, Strostiv had been acting as a tactical adviser to Corduven’s military Academy, and had revealed as much as was understood about the Blight’s true nature to Tom and the other executive officers. He and Tom had not exactly been friends; Tom wondered if they were enemies now.
     
    ‘Your message said that you wanted to reclaim a damaged Jack-class cyborg, designated Axolon.’
     
    ‘Is that his name?’ said Tom. ‘I didn’t know.’
     
    Strostiv frowned at the word his, rather than its. Perhaps a man who helped create Oracles had difficulty in assigning personal qualities to those who were no longer truly human.
     
    ‘At any rate, the Collegium is happy to renounce all title to the Jack. As far as we’re concerned, it - he, if you like - is a written-off asset. We have checked with the Klivinax Toldrinov, and they have no particular wish for you to return Axolon to them. They consider it irreparably damaged.’
     
    Tom looked at Elva. If the Klivinax Toldrinov, the Guild which created cyborgs, had written off the Jack, then what hope was there?
     
    But we have to try.
     
    Elva nodded, as though she had read his thoughts.
     
    ‘We’re going ahead,’ she said. ‘No matter what it costs.’
     
    Tom tried not to wince at the thought of their dwindling wealth.
     
    ‘That,’ said Magister Strostiv, ‘is very noble of you.’
     
    Elva placed her daistral bowl down on the tabletop, very quietly. Strostiv might do well not to provoke her, Tom reckoned.
     
    ‘The thing is,’ Strostiv continued, oblivious to the threat, ‘we’re all very grateful to you. Corduven’s forces have received all the credit, but those of us in the know are aware that you, sir, provided the crystal and the strategy which brought us victory.’
     
    The replacement crystal suddenly seemed large and hard, tucked inside Tom’s waistband.
     
    ‘Avernon,’ Tom said, ‘was the one who implemented the strategy. A team of world-class logosophers might have produced the same results, given several tendays. No-one else could have pulled it together in a few hours, singlehandedly.’
     
    ‘You might be right. Do you know where Lord Avernon is now?’
     
    ‘No ...’ Tom thought that Strostiv’s tone had become falsely casual, and he wondered why Strostiv would need to contact Avernon. ‘The wedding celebrations were still in full flow when Elva and I left. Avernon was