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and Athene reached the passage to the airlock that he noticed an irregularity in the flock.
Iasius
obligingly focused on the starship in question.
    That’s a blackhawk! Sinon exclaimed.
    Amidst the classic lens shapes it seemed oddly asymmetric, drawing the eye. A flattened teardrop, slightly asymmetric, with
     the upper hull’s dorsal bulge fatter than that on the lower hull; from what he supposed was prow to stern it measured an easy
     hundred and thirty metres; the blue polyp hull was mottled with a tattered purple web pattern.
    The larger size and various unorthodox configurations which set the blackhawks apart, their divergence from the voidhawk norm
     (some called it evolution), came about because of their captains’ requirement for greater power. Actually, improved combat
     performance was what they were after, Sinon thought acrimoniously. The price for that agility usually came in the form of
     a shorter lifespan.
    That is the
Udat
,
Iasius
said equably. It is fast and powerful. A worthy aspirant.
    There’s your answer, then, Athene said, using affinity’s singular-engagement mode so the rest of the crew were excluded from the exchange. She had a
     gleam in her eye as they paused by the airlock’s inner hatch.
    Sinon pulled a sour face, then shrugged and walked off down the tube to the bus, giving her the final moment alone with her
     ship.
    There was a hum in the corridor she had never heard before, a resonance coming from
Iasius
’s excitement. When she put her fingers to the sleek composite wall there was nothing, no tremor or vibration. Perhaps it
     was only in her mind. She turned and looked back into the toroid, the familiar confined corridors and lounges. Their whole
     world. “Goodbye,” she whispered.
    I will love you always.
    The crew bus trundled back over the ledge towards the cliff of polyp, nuzzling up to a metal airlock set into the base.
Iasius
laughed uproariously across the communal affinity band; it could feel the ten eggs inside its body, glowing with vitality,
     their urgency to be born. Without warning it streaked away from the pedestal, straight towards the waiting flock of its cousins.
     They scattered in delighted alarm.
    This time there was no counter-acceleration force required for the crew toroid, no protection for fragile humans. No artificial
     safety limits.
Iasius
curved sharply, pulling an easy nine gees, then flattened its trajectory to fly between the endcap and the giant metal arm
     of the counter-rotating dock. Weak pearl-white sunlight fell on the hull as it moved out of the ledge’s shadow. Saturn lay
     ahead, the razor-sharp line of the rings bisecting it cleanly. The bitek starship headed in for the planet-swathing streamers
     of ice crystals and primitive molecules at twelve gees, stray dust-motes and particles brushed smoothly aside by the distortion
     field’s bow wave. Enthusiastic voidhawks raced after it, looking more and more like a stippled comet’s tail as they emerged
     into the light.
    In the crew quarters, metal was buckling under its new and enormous weight. Empty lounges and corridors were filled with drawn-out
     creaking sounds, composite furniture was splintering, collapsing onto the floor, each fresh fragment hitting with the force
     of a hammer blow, leaving a deep indentation. The cabins and galley were awash with water that squirted from broken pipes,
     strange ripples quivered across the surface as
Iasius
performed minute course adjustments.
    Iasius
entered the rings, optical-band perception degrading rapidly as the blizzard raging outside the hull thickened. It curved
     round again, bending its path in the direction which the ring particles orbited, but always at an angle, always heading inwards
     towards the massive presence of the gas giant. It was a glorious game, dodging the larger chunks, the dagger fragments of
     ice which glittered so coldly, the frosted boulders, sable-black chunks of near-pure carbon. The bitek starship soared around