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holo-disguised at the time as sheer and shiningly inviting clear sky). Only then had the wreck been investigated, plundered for what little of its systems still worked (but which were not, under the new regime, proscribed. Which basically did not leave much.) and finally - the lifting of its hull and major substructures being prohibitively expensive to contemplate, its cutting-up and carting away difficult, also not cheap and possibly dangerous, and its complete destruction only possible with the sort of serious gigatonnage weaponry people tended to object strongly to when used in peacetime in the atmospheres of a small planet-moon, even in a wilderness area - it had been cordoned off and a series of airborne loiter-drones posted on indefinite guard above, just in case.
    ‘No, this could be good, this could be positive,’ Saluus Kehar told them, and swung the little flier low across the high desert towards the broken lands where the tattered-looking ribs of the great downed ship lay like folded shadow against the slowly darkening purple sky. Beyond the ruins, a vast, shimmering blue-green curtain of light flickered into existence, silently waving and rippling across the sky, then faded away again.
    ‘Yeah, you would fucking say that,’ Taince said, fiddling with the controls of the comms unit. Static chopped and surfed from the speakers.
    ‘Should we be this close to the ground?’ Ilen asked, forehead against the canopy, looking down. She glanced at the young man sharing the back seat of the little aircraft with her. ‘Seriously, Fass, should we?’
    But Fassin was already saying, ‘The idea that his relentless positivism could ever produce feelings of negativity in others is a concept Sal’s still struggling with. Sorry, Len. What?’
    ‘I was just saying--’
    ‘Yeah,’ Taince muttered, ‘get that goddam dirt-pinger on.’
    ‘All I mean,’ Saluus said, waving one hand around and taking the craft still lower, even closer to the sable blur of ground. Taince made a tutting sound and reached over to tap a screen button; there was a pinging noise and the craft rose a few metres and began tracking the ground more smoothly. Sal glared at her but didn’t turn the ground-avoidance device off as he continued, ‘Is that we’re still okay, we haven’t been blasted yet, and now we have an opportunity to explore something we wouldn’t be allowed to get anywhere near normally. Right place, right time, perfect opportunity. What’s not to be positive about there?’
    ‘You mean,’ Fassin drawled, glancing skyward, ‘aside from the unfortunate fact that some over-enthusiastic and doubtless deeply misunderstood Beyonders appear to be trying to turn us all into radioactive dust?’
    Nobody seemed to be listening. Fassin made a show of stifling a yawn - nobody noticed that, either - and leaned back against the leather seat, stretching his left arm across the top of the couch in the general direction of Ilen Deste (still with her head against the canopy, staring as though hypnotised at the near-featureless sands speeding by beneath). He tried to look at least unconcerned and preferably bored. In fact, of course, he felt completely terrified, and more than a little helpless.
    Sal and Taince were the dynamic couple in this group: Saluus the pilot, the dashing, handsome, headstrong but undeniably gifted (and, Fassin thought, just plain lucky) heir to a vast commercial empire, the unabashed son of a fabulously rich, buccaneering father. Greedboy, Fassin had christened Sal in their first year at college, a term that their mutual friends had only used behind the youth’s back until he got wind of it and adopted it enthusiastically as his personally approved tag. And Taince, co-pilot, navigator and comms supremo, as ever the knowing, abrasive commentator of the group (Fassin saw himself as the knowing, sarcastic commentator). Officer-in-Training Taince Yarabokin as she was supposed to be known now. Taince, the Milgirl - another