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 Anomaly Volume Three: ==================== Into the Unknowable
==================

   Bradley Stoke ============





   Chapter One The Anomaly - 3755 C.E.

   What could be seen looked very much like a lion.  It was a lion,
however, whose tail was alive in a way a lion's tail should never be. 
Instead of gathering in a tassel, the tail ended with the head and body of
a snake that hissed and curled around itself.  It was a lion moreover that
had the head of a goat arising absurdly from the middle of its back beyond
the mane and above the lion's shoulders.  The apparition roared.  It
hissed. It bleated.

   And then it vanished.

   The only evidence that Service Vehicle Zorglube had of the chimæra's
presence was what it had recorded.  There was nothing left behind in empty
space to prove that for a few brief moments a creature had been present
whose origins belonged to human imagination from over four thousand years
earlier.  This creature, moreover, was able to bleat, roar and hiss in a
part of the Solar System where there was no atmosphere, indeed no air
pressure of any kind, and where the ambient temperature was cold enough to
freeze Hydrogen.  Nevertheless, there was a brief period of time during
which the creature had measurable mass and was clearly visible in the dim
light of deep space.

   Like the many other Sirius vehicles orbiting the Anomaly, Service
Vehicle Zorglube had viewed and recorded many of these strange apparitions.
It was hoped that the steady accumulation and analysis of so much data
would somehow eventually result in an understanding of just what these
things were and how they were related to the Anomaly.  Even so, despite
many million such observations there had been no breakthrough in knowledge.
The only thing that could be said for sure about the bizarre phenomena was
that none of them should ever have happened and where they were happening
was most definitely where they shouldn't be.  What was also known that
although the incidence of such apparitions was spread thinly and randomly
throughout the Solar System as a whole, their abundance was greatest in the
vicinity of the Anomaly.

   But just what was the Anomaly?

   Although Service Vehicle Zorglube had been orbiting the Anomaly for a
century or more, it had no answer to the question.  It was far easier to
say what the Anomaly wasn't.  It didn't have mass.  It didn't emit
particles, including those of light.  It did have an extent and this was
only discernible because where the Anomaly was present there was no light
visible from the other side.  And this was so from any direction from which
it was observed.  It was much longer than it was wide.  That length could
now be measured in tens of thousands of kilometres although its width had
never increased beyond a kilometre.  The Anomaly's fuzzy and indistinct
boundary was as elusive as its mass.  It could be defined only as the point
at which light no longer passed through space, but that was a range that
constantly changed.  Sometimes the boundary flickered open to the extent
that it simply swallowed up particles that not long earlier were beyond the
boundary and now by chance no longer were.  And when that happened, the
particles simply ceased to be measurable.  They had essentially vanished.

   The period of time during which a particle vanished was as fuzzily
defined as the boundary that defined the Anomaly's extent.  When those
particles happened to belong to a Sirius vehicle then its demise was
exactly as indistinct and undefined as everything else consumed by the
Anomaly.  There was no prior indication from the transmission that anything
untoward was about to happen.  The last few signals were no different to
those before the vehicle's communication systems flickered out of reach. 
And then it unhurriedly receded out of sight in a curiously foreshortened
event horizon.  The vehicle was gone and that was the end of it.

   The Anomaly was a crowded place, even though this was wholly invisible
to human civilisation from its viewpoint in the ecliptic plane.  Several
thousand space vehicles from the Sirius system were hovering about or
orbiting in its immediate neighbourhood, but few were detectable by the
technology available to the other stellar robot civilisations in the
vicinity.  There were several hundred Proxima Centauri space craft which
were as visible to Sirius sensors as they were to each other, but were as
totally invisible to human observers as the Sirius fleet was.  The only
robots visible to human observers and their sensors were the crude probes
that the Interplanetary Union had sent to the Anomaly over the last century
or so.  They were woefully inadequate for the task and mostly ignored by
the more sentient robots they were unable to see.  They had attempted
countless inconclusive experiments in the vicinity, but in general they
were just orbiting the Anomaly and getting in everyone else's way.

   Besides space craft from the Solar System, Proxima Centauri and Sirius,
there was a more modest number of space vehicles from other neighbouring
star systems but these were really hardly any better at the task of
observation and research than the space probes sent by humans.  Proxima
Centauri and Sirius were the two robot civilisations with the greatest
interest in the Anomaly and they kept their intentionsalong with all other
communication-very much to themselves.  Neither knew about the objectives
of the other and both asserted that their presence so far beyond the comet
clouds of their own stellar systems was purely for reasons of scientific
research.

   A small fire was burning half a million kilometres away.  This was again
impossible given the fact that there was no combustible material in this
region of deep space and certainly no oxygen to maintain it.  Inside the
fire was a bird the size of a large chicken that appeared to be regenerated
rather than consumed by the flames.  This was an event that couldn't happen
even on Earth where there was plenty of oxygen in the atmosphere.  The
apparition then vanished and again left no indication that it had ever
existed.

   Service Vehicle Zorglube knew that, although these apparitions appeared
to be illusory, if they came into contact with any other object during the
period of time they existed the interaction was as actual and physical as
it would be with a corporeal object.  On several occasions, these
apparitions occurred in a region of space where a space craft was located.
Usually this was nothing worse than a mere oddity.  A man with huge
outspread wings flew directly into an invisible space craft and rebounded
in pain from the unexpected impact.  A rowing boat in which an owl and a
cat were sitting momentarily spun out of control in the vortex of
gravitational flux surrounding an invisible force field.  Sometimes the
result was rather less benign.  A diplodocus materialised within the
confines of a vehicle that was too small to accommodate it and the deadly
outcome of this encounter was a sudden explosion of blood and burst
intestines.  However, every single blood splatter and freely floating
internal organ vanished simultaneously with those parts of the animal that
remained intact.  On another occasion a vehicle exploded from the impact
with an internal object whose presence could only be fleetingly glimpsed in
the flying fragments of the previously invisible space craft.

   It seemed that the only possible way to find out more about the Anomaly
was by penetrating its boundary, but for external observers such a suicidal
endeavour was pointless in the pursuit of useful knowledge.  The first
observation of a space vehicle disappearing without trace within the
Anomaly was undoubtedly a significant event, but as a growing number of
increasingly sophisticated space vehicles disappeared and revealed no more
information than the first loss such an adventure was now viewed as nothing
more than an expensive waste of resources.  The effort required to design a
vehicle, build it, and then transport it over eight light years of empty
space was a drain that couldn't be supported when there were no useful
observations or results.

   There would be little to worry about if the Anomaly were to simply
remain as it was.  There were countless other currently inexplicable
phenomena in the vast expanse of time and space which were also of general
academic interest.  As they were mostly a huge number of light years
distant and stayed stable over a long period of time there was no urgency
associated with such research.  The Anomaly, however, was in the local
stellar neighbourhood and its extent was increasing at an alarming rate. 
Its length was extending by several hundred kilometres a year and this rate
of growth was actually accelerating.  It didn't take much arithmetic to
calculate the threat posited when a significantly large region within the
star cluster was growing at an increasing rate and whose only observable
effect was to swallow up without trace whatever it came into contact with.
If the Anomaly spread as far as the ecliptic plane then the entire Solar
System would be at best destabilised and at worst totally consumed.

   The urgency was further heightened by the interest the Interplanetary
Union was currently showing in the Anomaly.  It was inevitable that humans
should also be concerned about the Anomaly and eventually allocate
substantial resources for a significant fact-finding mission.  Since the
nature of the apparitions associated with the Anomaly implied that it had a
particular significance for human society, the presence of actual human
beings rather than their artefacts might well cause the Anomaly to behave
in a way that was both unpredictable and dangerous.  It was possible that
an interaction between the human space ship and the Anomaly might cause the
mysterious phenomenon to be transformed from something relatively benign
but threatening to something positively lethal.

   As was the case with all Sirius space craft, Service Vehicle Zorglube
was simultaneously engaged in a multitude of different tasks.  It was
observing the Anomaly, it was scanning the neighbourhood for strange
apparitions, and it was monitoring the approach of the space ship Intrepid
from Earth.  It wasn't at all surprised to observe the total failure of the
assault by the Holy Crusaders on the Intrepid.  Although it resulted in a
regrettable loss of life, the outcome was totally predictable.  What wasn't
predicted and came as rather a shock was the space ship's annihilation of
Alexander Iliescu's forces.

   Analysis for this astonishing failure came to only one very disturbing
conclusion.  As it was impossible that the space ship Intrepid could have
somehow secretly acquired military resources sufficient to destroy the
massive amount of firepower that had been thrown at it, the only remaining
possibility was that an additional force had augmented its defences. 
Whatever it was, it most obviously couldn't be of human origin.  It became
increasingly clear from the evidence received from the vicinity of the
incident that the interceding force had been deployed by Proxima Centauri.
This was a very much unwanted complication to Sirius's mission objectives.
It was one thing to annihilate a human space ship.  It was another
altogether to tackle the forces arraigned against them by a robot
civilisation whose technology was roughly equivalent to one's own.

   Nevertheless, there was only one course of action left to the star fleet
put in position by Sirius Mission Control.  In spite of the complications
that would result from vaporising a small fleet of Proxima Centauri space
craft, this would be necessary to ensure that the Intrepid's progress
towards the Anomaly was halted.

   It didn't take very long for Sirius Mission Control to authorise the
mission to intercept and destroy the human space ship and its Proxima
Centauri entourage.  There was no time for the decisions to be made at the
Sirius star system or even with operatives hidden in the Solar System's
ecliptic plane, so it had to be made on the basis of the mission's
objectives.  And these were clear and unambiguous.  On no account should
humans make direct contact with the Anomaly.  Many Sirius operatives and
space craft had been sacrificed over the past century to ensure that this
remained so and it was necessary to maintain this state of affairs.  The
necessary flight instructions and battle plans were propagated throughout
the Sirius space fleet.

   All Sirius's vehicles and operatives in the Anomaly's vicinity were
notified.  Only a few were allowed to remain and this number most
definitely didn't include Service Vehicle Zorglube which, like all the
other Sirius vehicles, had more firepower than any one nation within the
Interplanetary Union.  The fleet of Sirius space craft that was now
streaming away from the Anomaly and heading towards the Intrepid had an
offensive capability many thousands of times greater than that Alexander
Iliescu had employed.  Although it contravened the general imperative that
Sirius's robot civilisation should keep its presence secret and should
intervene in human affairs as little as possible, this was a clear case
where the mission objectives overrode all preestablished constraints.

   At the same moment, the space ship Intrepid was speeding towards the
Anomaly through the Oort cloud.  By the time Service Vehicle Zorglube and
its compatriots intercepted the space ship there would be virtually no
comets or asteroids in the neighbourhood.  Only telescopes and other
sensory equipment several light months distant could observe the
destruction of the human space ship.  And when they received that
information, it would be far too late to do anything about it.

   And what could they even do?

   It would be hardly likely that the Interplanetary Union could afford to
launch a rescue mission for a space ship that would by then be reduced to
particles so small that not one would be larger than a single molecule.

   Chapter Two The Sahara Desert - 3723 C.E.

   The hazy spectre of a camel caravan could be glimpsed far in the
distance through the haze that shimmered in the intense heat.  The sparse
vegetation on the gravel and sand was scrubby and succulent.  There were
few places on Earth as remote as this.

   And that, of course, was what attracted Vikram, Rao, Sandhya and Dorothy
to this region of the planet.  It wasn't the first time that Vikram and
Sandhya had visited a desert: that was pretty much all there was on the
Solar System's satellites and most particularly Triton, the most popular
tourist spot in Neptune's orbit.  However, neither Rao nor Dorothy had seen
a desert before and so it was an attractive destination for the two pairs
of newlyweds.

   The two couples wouldn't describe their visit to planet Earth as mere
tourism, of course.  They would claim that their voyage so far from family
and friends in the outer reaches of the planetary Solar System was the
opportunity to honour the sacred sites and monuments of their faith. 
Although most such sites were in India, and most particularly in the
subcontinent's south, any place naturally conducive to spiritual
contemplation was a spiritual home for a Hindu.  And so, for forty days and
nights, accompanied by only their mobile home and all its luxuries, they
were holidaying in the parched desert somewhere to the east of Timbuktu.

   Few other tourists chose to venture out under the vast open skies of the
Sahara Desert, especially on foot and unprotected, but the two couples
wished to experience the true isolation of the Earth's greatest desert.  If
the honeymooning couples were to see a Tuareg cross the desert on the back
of the camel, it was unlikely that he or she was any more African by birth
than they were.  Few of the actual natives ever cared to wander far from
the pleasantly air-conditioned astrodomes that sheltered the desert
communities with all the paraphernalia of thirty-eighth century life.  The
only kind of person likely to wander so far afield, particularly on such an
unreliable and uncomfortable form of transport as a camel, would be a
tourist.  There was a high chance that such a tourist might be a Tuareg
who'd traversed the immensity of interplanetary space to visit the
ancestral home.  More Tuareg now lived in Neptune orbit, most particularly
in the Adrar n Fughas colony, than had ever lived at any one time in the
Sahara Desert.

   Nevertheless, even well away from the Timbuktu astrodome and their
airconditioned caravan, the two young couples were still relatively cool
and refreshed courtesy of the loose but fully engineered smart fabrics that
enveloped them from head to toe.  Only their faces and hands were visible.
In their home colony of Sadhu, of course, none of them would dream of
concealing their bodies in such a way.  The lingam and yoni were sacred and
it was spiritually impure to hide them.  Rao and Vikram were especially
proud of their lingam, which were as well enhanced as that of any of their
compatriots.  Dorothy's and Sandhya's yoni were also enhanced but in a very
different way.  When they weren't out in the harsh open air, the four
lovers would remove all covering from the sacred groins and indeed from
anywhere else.

   So varied was the Hindu religion, now spread over the vast extent of the
Solar System, that most other adherents, even those who recognised Vishnu's
precedence in the holy pantheon, had very different notions to those of the
Sadhu colonists regarding the most appropriate way to dress.  When in
India, even in Varanasi or the sacred temples, the four tourists had become
accustomed to covering the sacred lingam and yoni: however odd and
uncomfortable it might seem to be.  But it would be foolish to be unclothed
in the desert, even though they were less than five kilometres from their
mobile home.

   The couples were searching for a place to shelter in the open plain
where they could rest and share a spicy meal with chapattis and rice that
their accompanying serving robot was carrying for them.  The desert wasn't
the best place to find a tree or an overhanging rock and they were
increasingly resigned to the prospect of having to shelter under a parasol
on the cushions that another robot was carrying.

   It was Rao who first saw the curious orange cloud that shimmered and
swirled only a hundred metres ahead of where the couples were walking.  It
could have been anything.  A dust storm.  A swarm of insects.  Even a
mirage.  It had no discernable shape and behaved with no apparent purpose.
If it had been blown up by the wind, this would have been strange enough.
It was a very still day and the meteorological reports gave no indication
that anything other than the mildest breeze could be expected.  This cloud
had a similar ethereal glow to that of domestic nanobots before they
settled down to their household chores.

   Dorothy had her own opinions of what they were watching as the
honeymooners stood transfixed by the sight.  "I'm sure it's an Apparition,"
she said, referring to the strange phenomena that had been regularly
reported on the news in recent months.

   "It looks too amorphous somehow to be an apparition," remarked Vikram.
"Aren't they supposed to be a lot more visually stimulating than just a
swirl of orange dust?"

   "The gods move in mysterious ways," remarked Dorothy, who was the most
devout Hindu in the company and saw evidence of divine intervention in
everything.  She was of the opinion that the Apparitions were partial
reincarnations that hadn't yet reached a stable state of repose.

   "They might do," commented her husband, who despite his faith tended to
the opinion that natural events had natural causes.  "But all we can see is
a cloud of luminescent particles.  It could be anything.  It might be
nothing more than radioactive dust left over from the nuclear wars of the
twenty-third century."

   "Or even from the twenty-ninth," remarked Sandhya, who was so sceptical
of supernatural events that she might as well have been a Buddhist.

   The cloud of particles then behaved in a way that was very unusual for a
swirl of sand or even radioactive dust.  They suddenly consolidated as one
and blew at speed towards the four tourists.  The particles swarmed around
the two couples for less than ten seconds but it was more than long enough
to be truly alarming.  Some dust even seeped through the tourists' cloaks
under which they wore no underwear.  While the four men and women brushed
and flicked away at the swarm, hoping that there'd be no stings or burns,
the two robots who accompanied them stood curiously impassive and made no
attempt to intervene.

   And then, just as suddenly as it began, the swarm of particles swished
away leaving no trace of their presence on the tourists' bodies and
gathered together at their original location a hundred metres away.

   "You still don't think that was an Apparition?" remarked Dorothy who
pulled down her hood and ran long black fingers through her cascading,
slightly reddish, brown hair.

   Rao shook his own equally long jet-black hair and pulled his hood back
over his head.  "More likely some kind of flying ant."

   "They didn't look much like ants to me," remarked Vikram, as he shook
his cloak in the hope that there were none of these peculiar particles
still sticking to his skin.

   Sandhya pressed her fingers to the indigo skin of her cheeks.  "Did
anyone else feel a funny kind of burning?" she asked.  "Not hot so much.  A
bit like a tingle.  But burning all the same."

   "Yeah," said Vikram.  "It must be this weird desert heat."

   "I'm sure it was an apparition," said Dorothy adamantly.  "What else
could it be?"

   "Whatever it was," said Rao, pointing at the place where the particles
had only moments before been gathered but had now vanished, "perhaps it had
something to do with that woman there."

   "And she's naked!" exclaimed Dorothy.  "Perhaps she's a believer."

   "Or very stupid," remarked Rao.  "Only an idiot would go around naked in
the midday sun."

   "Or a mad dog," remarked Sandhya.

   "Well, whatever she is," said Vikram, "she's not a dog.  Though whether
she's mad, I can't tell from here."

   The four tourists walked towards the recumbent woman whose appearance,
as they steadily approached, seemed increasingly strange with every step.
The peculiar thing was that what she resembled the most was a colonist from
Sadhu.  She had dark brown skin and long black hair, which suggested that
she shared the tourists' genetic ancestry in the Indian subcontinent.  She
was a woman in all the most obvious ways and one like Dorothy and Sandhya
who had benefited from genetically-induced breast enhancement. 
Nevertheless, she was also very muscular, rather like Rao and Vikram, and
in one particular aspect appeared not to be a woman at all.

   Rao and Vikram were rightly proud of their lingams.  Even on Sadhu, they
were considered well-endowed.  But here was a woman who not only had a
lingam where a yoni might normally be found, but one who shared with the
two husbands, a lingam of proud dimensions.

   She was outspread on the gravel and dirt, her penis flopping over a
thigh and her bosom high above her chest and off the ground.  When the two
couples were near enough to examine her face, they could see that it was
most definitely feminine but, in keeping with her muscularity and her
unusual asset, she could be best described as handsome rather than
beautiful.  Her eyes were closed, but her face had a peaceful, even
peaceable, expression.  Despite this, it was obviously not a good policy
for her to remain exposed to the hot sun of the barren Sahara Desert.

   Dorothy touched the woman gently on her shoulder.  There was no
response, although her skin was blisteringly hot to the touch as was only
to be expected in the tremendous heat.

   "What do we do?" asked Vikram anxiously.

   "We can't just leave her here," said Sandhya adamantly.

   "Perhaps she prefers being here," said Rao without conviction. 
"Wouldn't it be better to leave her?  And why do you think she's here,
anyway?"

   "Maybe she has something to do with that weird orange cloud," said
Dorothy.

   "How did she even get here?" wondered Vikram.  "I can't see any vehicle.
She can't have just been walking across the desert by herself, can she?"

   "Maybe that's precisely what she was doing," said Rao.

   "It hardly matters how or why she came to be here," said Sandhya
impatiently.  "What we can't do is leave her here.  If she doesn't die from
the heat of the sun, she'll be dead from the cold of the night."

   "I guess we'll have to take her back to the caravan," Rao sighed.  "The
robots should be able to carry her."

   And so it was that rather than enjoying a picnic under the sun, the two
honeymooning couples walked back to their mobile home while the reclining
body of the mysterious woman hovered above the two robots who had to
abandon the intended feast to the vultures.  The blankets that would have
served to protect the two couples from the desert's rough ground were now
employed to shelter the woman from the burning sun.

   The woman still hadn't roused when the party at last reached their
mobile home which rested beside one of the few palm trees that dotted the
open plain.  The robots laid her out on the spare bed in the couple's
shared en suite bedroom and she sprawled unconscious with the same beatific
expression on her face while the two couples went about the normal business
of their interrupted day.

   This naturally required them to eat some food to compensate for the
picnic that had been abandoned.  They waited for the meal to be assembled
and cooked and then relaxed after they had eaten it with all the ceremony
and ritual that a repast of any kind demanded.

   And still the woman hadn't stirred, though she continued to breathe
steadily and deeply.

   After the couples had rested, they offered ritual thanksgiving to
Vishnu, followed naturally by the lovemaking that was as much a part of
their faith as incense and scented candles.

   Although they were two newly married couples, their faith demanded a
spirit of generosity that was best expressed by sharing the bounty of their
flesh not only with their spouse but also with the other couple.  Vikram
ploughed his lingam into the furrow of both Dorothy's and Sandhya's yoni,
while Rao took advantage of Vikram's proffered anus for his own pleasure.
The two wives took turns at lapping at and licking one another's yoni,
while Vikram took Rao's lingam into his mouth, his own now embedded into
Dorothy's anus.  They enjoyed the sacred practices of sex as prescribed in
the Kama Sutra, oblivious to the presence of their sleeping guest and
grateful for the air-conditioning that would otherwise have made such
heated exertion impossible for the two hours or so that was appropriate for
the observance of such sacred rites.

   The culmination of their orgy was a climax in every sense as Rao
released his sperm into his wife's yoni and Vikram within Sandhya's.  This
was the proper place for a husband to release the sacred energy and its
blessed but viscous outpouring.  This climax was accompanied by a matching
crescendo of the gasping and grunting and even screaming that attended
their orgasmic release.

   The repose that naturally ensued was attended by green tea and lit
scented candles served by the robots who'd patiently waited for the couples
to reach their orgasmic climax.  They were now well-acquainted with the
rhythm and pattern of the couples' shared lovemaking.

   As the lovers sat cross-legged in the lotus position, passing a bowl of
tea from one set of open palms to the next, it was Dorothy who first
observed that their strangely endowed guest had now awoken.  Her eyes were
open and she gazed across the room at the four young lovers with an
expression of contentment and peace.  Her sheet had been kicked off and she
lay there naked with her penis slumped over a thigh and her black hair
cascading onto the floor.

   Dorothy strode over to the woman and placed a hand on her thigh,
discreetly below where the penis lay: flaccid but still impressive. 
Although she and her company spoke to each other in Tamil, she addressed
the woman in English.  That, after all, was the prime lingua franca of the
Solar System although fewer and fewer people still spoke it as their first
language.

   "Are you all right?" she asked.  "Have you recovered?"

   The woman looked up at her uncomprehendingly, but she repeated the words
'all right' and 'recovered' with no more trace of an accent than Dorothy
had used.

   "Is she still hot?" wondered Rao in Tamil.  "Perhaps she had a fever."

   "No," replied the woman in similarly perfect Tamil enunciation.  "No
fever."

   Sandhya crouched down by the woman while the two men took in what they
had heard.  Very few people in the Solar System spoke Tamil and fewer still
in the Sahara Desert.

   "Are you Indian?" Sandhya asked.  "Do you come from the Indian
subcontinent?" India, like America, consisted of many independent states
united only under the Terran Economic Union and the overarching
responsibility of the Interplanetary Union.  It was too much to expect that
this strange woman actually came from Tamil Nadu, the ancestral home of the
people of Sadhu.

   The woman looked confused.  "Indian," she repeated.  "The Indian
Subcontinent." She didn't appear to actually understand the words.

   "How come you were in the desert?" asked Vikram.  "You were a terribly
long way from anywhere."

   "The desert," repeated the woman still with no sign of understanding. 
"Anywhere."

   "Perhaps Tamil's not her first language," suggested Rao.  "Maybe she
only knows a few words." He leaned over the strange woman and spoke in
Hindi, the third language shared by the four tourists.  He spoke slowly and
carefully.  "What is your name?  Where do you come from?"

   There was again an apparent lack of comprehension.

   "She's tired," said Dorothy as she stroked the strange woman's hair. 
"And she probably doesn't speak much Hindi, English or Tamil."

   "Are you hungry?" asked Vikram in English, pointing to his mouth.  "Or
thirsty?  Would you like something to drink?"

   "Drink," repeated the woman in similarly accentless English with a
strange Tamil lilt.  She nodded her head in the slightly twisting way that
was common to people from India.

   "Perhaps she does come from the Indian subcontinent," said Rao, "but
doesn't speak Hindi or English.  Perhaps she speaks Urdu.  Or Bengali."

   "I think she's just tired," repeated Dorothy.  "Give her something to
drink and let her rest." She turned to face the strange woman and addressed
her in English which she was convinced she must know better than any other
language.  "Would you like to rest?" She mimed this by tilting her head to
one side on her praying hands.

   "Yes," said the woman with her odd flat accent.  "I would like to rest.
And to drink."

   This last word was in Tamil which sounded very peculiar in an otherwise
English sentence.

   Sandhya gave the woman some tea and when she'd drunk it all, which she
did surprisingly quickly given how hot it was, she slumped down on the bed
and closed her eyes.

   "She must be very tired!" exclaimed Rao.

   "As you would be after roasting under that sun in the desert," remarked
Dorothy.  "Let her be.  She'll recuperate at her own pace."

   The woman's state of health recovered remarkably fast although her
facility at language recovered at a rather slower pace.  The following day
she was up and wandering about the mobile home as unashamed of her nudity
as the two couples, hardly embarrassed at all by the oddity of being a
woman with such an unfeminine appendage.  But when she replied to the
questions posed to her in English or Tamil, it was with a faltering mixture
of the two that showed no apparent awareness that she was mixing up the
syntax and vocabulary of two totally different language groups.  However,
from the first day and into the subsequent ones her fluency increased at a
tremendous rate, almost exactly at the same rate as she was exposed to the
conversation she heard.

   "Perhaps she's had some kind of brain seizure," wondered Rao.  "Under
that sun and in the heat, it's probably fried her brains."

   "The little Tamil she speaks is so fluent she must have been exposed to
the language when she was young," Dorothy speculated.  "She speaks it
almost as if it's her first language."

   "Her English is improving too," remarked Vikram.  "I think she must have
had some kind of memory loss.  But how did she manage to be out there in
the middle of the desert?  Whether she's Tamil or not, it's weird for
anyone to be roaming about the Sahara Desert without a vehicle, an
accompanying robot or even a mobile phone."

   "Not to mention without clothes," added Dorothy, mentioning what should
have been obvious but was easily forgotten amongst people who didn't
normally wear very much.

   "Perhaps she was attacked by someone who took her possessions from her,"
said Sandhya.  "Including, of course, her clothes."

   "Not many people could overpower her!" exclaimed Rao.  "Have you seen
how strong she is?  I saw her lift up one of the robots as if it weighed
hardly anything."

   "It was probably still set on hover," remarked Vikram.  "But I admit
she's got a very firm grip.  I'm not sure I'd be able to defend myself
against her if she were to pick a fight."

   "And just why would she ever want to do that?" wondered Dorothy.  "I've
never seen anyone so eager to be helpful and accommodating.  And she has
such a sweet face.  She might be strong, but I don't think she's violent to
even the smallest degree."

   The woman seemed well enough that even Sandhya decided against calling
for outside medical assistance.  Although the woman appeared to have
suffered from amnesia, she was fast regaining her memory for words in Tamil
and English.  And when she found out how to connect to the interplanetary
internet, she began to learn ever faster.  At first she was very hesitant.
Her first choice of website was related to language tuition and
specifically designed for children.  Within a couple of days she was
accessing news broadcasts and highly academic scientific research.

   "So, where do you come from?" asked Vikram after a day or so.  "It's not
from the Sahara, is it?"

   The woman shook her head in the peculiar style typical of India.  "No,"
she said.  "I'm a tourist.  I come from Mars."

   "Mars," said Rao.  "Do you mean Mars the planet?  Or do you mean a Mars
orbital satellite?  Or a Mars orbit colony?"

   "Mars," repeated the woman.

   "And how is it you came to be stranded in the Sahara Desert?" wondered
Dorothy.  "It's a very long way from home.  Though there can't be many
places on Earth as much like Mars as the Sahara Desert."

   The woman considered the question carefully.  "I'm not sure," she
replied in her now almost flawless Tamil.  "There's a lot I can't recall,
but I'm remembering more and more each day."

   "Was it something to do with the orange cloud?" Rao suggested.

   "Orange cloud?" wondered the woman who seemed genuinely mystified. 
"What orange cloud?"

   "The one that was in the desert when we met you," said Rao.

   "I don't know anything about an orange cloud," said the woman.

   "Don't harass her," said Dorothy sternly.  "It's probably got nothing
whatsoever to do with her."

   "It just seems a weird coincidence otherwise," said Rao defensively.

   "Whatever," Dorothy conceded.

   "It was probably just an anomalous meteorological event," said Sandhya.

   "Or an Apparition," said Dorothy, who still hadn't shaken off her
original opinion.

   She smiled at the woman who was standing by a cupboard on which there
were many holographic images pictures of religious deities scattered
amongst a scattering of words in Sanskrit, the ancient tongue of the Hindu
faith.

   "You know," said Dorothy with a sympathetic smile.  "You've been living
with us for four days now and we still don't know your name.  What are you
called?"

   The woman studied the four tourists and the holographic Sanskrit words.

   "My name?" she asked.

   "Yes," said Vikram.  "You must have a name."

   "Of course, I do," said the woman for whom this seemed like an almost
novel suggestion.  "A name." She looked around her with a slightly
quizzical expression as if weighing all the possibilities.

   "So, what is your name?" asked Sandhya.  "We've got to call you
something?"

   "We can't just keep calling you the 'woman from the desert'," said Rao.

   "Vashti," decided the woman at length.  "My name is Vashti."



   Chapter Three Intrepid - 3755 C.E.

   As a woman outnumbered by men in the Intrepid's senior staff, Second
Officer Sheila Nkomo made a special effort to befriend her fellow female
officers.  She wasn't in a position to get to know Captain Kerensky
particularly well.  This was partly a consequence of relative rank, but
also because her captain was a lesbian.  It wasn't that Sheila held any
prejudices against homosexuals, but she did feel nervous given that the
captain was so obviously attracted to her.

   So the only woman with whom Sheila was comfortable in befriending was
Petal Chang, the Chief Science Officer.  She was a tall slim oriental woman
whose role on a mission such as this was unusually important.  However, she
wore her rank lightly and warmly welcomed the Second Officer's overtures of
friendship.

   At first, Sheila thought that she and Petal had more in common than just
gender and approximate rank.  She'd believed that Petal Chang was also a
fellow Uranian.  This was a welcome reminder of home in a company of fellow
officers made up of Saturnians, Neptunians and Martians.  The two women
shared cultural ties and the same orbit in the Solar System.  However, when
Sheila discussed what Captain Kerensky had told her about encounter with
the slave ship that masqueraded as a commercial leisure cruiser she was
surprised to find something about her fellow officer that she'd not
suspected before.

   "I was once transported in a slave ship like that," Petal told her.  "I
was sold into slavery by the rogue colony where I was born."

   Sheila couldn't have been more astonished.  "I thought you came from
Umbriel."

   "I do," said Petal.  "That's where I've lived most of my life.  But my
childhood was spent in deep space somewhere between Neptune and the Kuiper
Belt.  I was born in the rogue colony known as Double Rainbow."

   "I've never heard of it," admitted Sheila.

   "That's not surprising," said Petal.  "There are thousands of rogue
colonies and Double Rainbow isn't especially notable for either its culture
or its achievements."

   "How did you happen to be transported on a slave ship?" Sheila wondered.
"Is Double Rainbow a slave trading colony?"

   "Not really," said Petal.  "It's a hereditary dictatorship.  It's a
self-professed anarcho-syndicalist commune, ostensibly like Godwin, but
something must have gone badly wrong during its history.  As a child I was
told that the leader of the colony, Cherry Deng, was the latest in a line
descended from Double Rainbow's founder and that he carried the beacon of
good governance and order from his eminent ancestor.  His title was Shining
Beacon, rather than President or Secretary or King or whatever, because
anarchist societies aren't supposed to have leaders but that was
effectively what he was.  I also discovered after I'd escaped from the
colony that his ancestor, Lavender Deng, wasn't the founder of Double
Rainbow at all.  He was someone who'd usurped the leading role nearly a
century after Double Rainbow had been established."

   "So the colony was originally a genuine anarchist colony?"

   "Maybe it was once upon a time," said Petal.  "We were instructed in
individual freedom and how to work together as a community, but more than
that we were instructed in the wisdom, benevolence and greatness of the
Shining Beacon.  This was an anarchistic society whose police force was
known as the Freedom Facilitators; an aristocracy known as the Syndicate
Representatives; in which rigorous censorship was imposed by the Truth
Providers; and where propaganda and education was jointly disseminated by
the Committee of Open Knowledge.  Double Rainbow is a rigid society where
unquestioning obedience to the dictator's whims takes precedence over
everything else.  And despite his pleasant sounding name, Cherry Deng was
in actual fact a cruel sadistic dictator."

   "In what way was he cruel and sadistic?" wondered Sheila.

   "There were monthly purges," said Petal.  "Every month, one in fifty of
the population was purged.  The term for this was Cultural Cleansing.  The
victims of the purge would be of one pupil from every classroom, one worker
in every syndicate and one minister in every cabinet.  From the top to the
bottom of our society, there was a monthly ceremony in which someone or
other was chosen to be purged.  In a colony which emphasised the need to
bear children and where those women or men least capable of providing
children were invariably amongst those to be purged, there was always a
ready supply of young and eager people to fill any position that became
vacant.  The justification for the purges was that it rid Double Rainbow of
antisocial elements who threatened to destabilise the colony's harmony and
compromise the true spirit of anarchism.  It was also a way of enforcing
conformity through terror and fear."

   "What did purging entail?"

   "For most men, it was a painful, prolonged and agonising public
execution," said Petal.  "It was similar to what the Holy Crusaders
inflicted on one another before the Intrepid was attacked and they got
flushed away.  Sometimes the community was could choose the punishment that
would be inflicted on the person to be purged, but as most communities were
deemed too lenient the method of execution was usually dictated by the
Central Syndicate.  Generally very little expression of imagination or
creativity was permitted in Double Rainbow.  Those who exhibited much
evidence of individualism were almost always the most likely victim of the
next purge.  But in the means and methods of torture and immolation, there
was an outpouring of ingenuity and inventiveness however much it was very
vicious.  There were many kinds of dismemberment and disembowelling
inflicted prior to the inevitable death, but this was itself often preceded
by days or weeks of cruel public punishment in which ordinary people were
invited to participate by throwing stones or cutting off chunks of flesh or
other such acts."

   "Did you have to participate?" wondered Sheila with genuine horror.

   "I was a child," said Petal.  "I didn't know any different.  But if I
didn't, I'd have been purged much sooner than I was."

   "So you were purged?"

   "Yes, but as a young girl who was deemed to be marketable I was spared
public execution and instead sold as a sex slave."

   "A sex slave.  How horrible!  Surely you'd have preferred death."

   "Not really," said Petal.  "You really have no idea how cruel and
obscene the public executions could be.  In any case, I didn't know when I
was selected to be purged that this was to be my fate.  No one on Double
Rainbow was aware that this happened to most of the women and children who
were purged.  It was assumed that my fate would be much the same as those
who were publicly immolated, but which in deference to the sentiments and
feelings of the community was executed in a private space such as a
dungeon. In actual fact, my fate was simply to have my clothes taken from
me, to be bathed and deloused, and then marched into the hold of one of the
slave ships that docked at the colony every month to collect a fixed quota
of slaves.  And the only slaves the space ships were collecting were sex
slaves."

   "Women and children?" gasped a horrified Sheila.

   "Don't ask."

   "Did you become a sex slave?"

   "Fortunately not," said Petal.  "My virginity and that of all the women
and girls on the slave ship was kept intact for good commercial reasons.  I
believe we were due to go to somewhere called Holy Contemplation: a
monastic retreat in the Inner Solar System; though what use monks have for
sex slaves I don't know.  However, the slave ship developed engine trouble
in Uranus orbit and I was rescued before all the human cargo was jettisoned
into deep space."

   "They were throwing live people out of the ship?" wondered Sheila
aghast.

   "Slavery is illegal in international law, Sheila," said Petal.  "The
slave traders would expect to be prosecuted by the Interplanetary Union if
they were found to be in possession of thousands of slaves shackled
together in the hull.  As it was, if help hadn't come within hours rather
than days then the slaves would all have been exterminated.  I knew nothing
about this at the time.  It was only after we were rescued that I learnt
about the circumstances that accompanied our rescue.  We weren't exactly
kept informed about what was happening, any more than those who were thrown
off the ship.  We knew nothing about anything.  We didn't know where we
were, where we were headed to, or what was going to happen to us when we
arrived.  We were shackled in cubicles where we could defecate into a space
below us and could eat and drink from a dispenser that was approximately at
eye level.  We had no freedom of movement and were unable to talk to one
another."

   Sheila never again discussed Petal's earlier life or the circumstances
of her slavery.  The whole thing disgusted and rather upset her.  However,
her respect for the Chief Science Officer was now greatly enhanced.  She
now appreciated how much more difficult it had been for Petal to rise from
her early years in Umbriel to the senior position she now held.  Petal was
nearly twice Sheila's age of forty years, but neither of them looked much
older than a thirty year old might even though Petal had only been able to
benefit from modern life-extending medicine at a rather later age than had
Sheila.

   Petal was the nearest thing Sheila had to a close friend on the Space
Ship Intrepid.  Sheila always kept a distance from the men on the space
ship.  She didn't want to be party to the frivolous love affairs that so
many other crew members indulged in.  Perhaps it was her upbringing in
orbit around Sycorax, but she believed that a sexual relationship should
never be divorced from emotional commitment.  This wasn't an attitude
shared by Petal who was quite happy to have sex with any number or
combination of men, but this wasn't a topic the two women normally
discussed.  Nonetheless, Sheila still wondered whether the Chief Science
Officer's professionalism was compromised by her having had sex with both
the Chief Petty Officer and the Chief Medical Officer.

   "Shall we go for a swim, Sheila?" suggested Petal who appeared
unexpectedly at the door to Sheila's apartments in the officers' quarters.

   "A swim?" wondered the Second Officer who had no plans.  "I don't see
why not.  Where do you suggest?"

   "I was thinking that the lake on the fifth level would be a good
choice."

   "What about the dolphins?"

   "They've been temporarily confined to allow some opportunity for the
fish to breed," said the Chief Science Officer.  "We'll more or less have
the lake to ourselves.  That is, except for the turtles and herons."

   "I'll just get my swimming costume," said Sheila.

   "Oh, yes, you do that," said Petal, subtly reminding Sheila that the
Chief Science Officer didn't own anything like that at all.  Umbriel was a
much more liberal community than Sycorax and public nudity was never an
issue for Petal.  Sheila wondered whether the same had been true of Double
Rainbow, but as the rogue communities who practised the most perverse and
appalling sexual habits were often those most censorious she wouldn't be
surprised to discover that despite Petal having been sold as a sex slave
her childhood had been severely sexually repressed.

   The fifth level lake dominated the landscape.  It was two or three
kilometres across and in the middle, a whole kilometre from the shore, was
a two or three hundred metre wide island.  There were also other smaller
and nearer islands that Sheila and Petal could swim to.  The two women
strode to the lake from the entrance past villas where scientists were
living in luxury.  When not in their homes, the same scientists were busy
researching and analysing the Anomaly, but as the Chief Science Officer
remarked in passing there'd still been no breakthrough with regards to
understanding the extraordinary phenomenon.

   "Do you think we'll find out more about it when we're closer?" wondered
Sheila.

   "Who knows?" said Petal.  "It's possible, I suppose.  There must be some
rationale for the huge cost and expense of this mission."

   "I take it that you're not convinced about the value of this mission,"
said Sheila.

   "I'm not an expert in any one of the fields these scientists are engaged
in," said the Chief Science Officer.  "My mission objectives are much more
concerned with administration than research.  In any case, my doctorate in
Mathematics is too abstract to be relevant for this mission.  If the
Anomaly should turn out to be a mathematical rather than a physical
phenomenon then I might possibly be of more use.  However, I wonder what
difference to human understanding could possibly result from transporting
thousands of scientists into deep space rather than sending back data
remotely to a research centre somewhere closer to home in, for instance,
Uranus orbit."

   "That would be a nice place to be," agreed Sheila who savoured the
homely reference.  It had been a long time since she'd last been home to
Sycorax and she rather missed the distant sight from her colony of its
irregular shape and eccentric retrograde orbit.

   Sheila decorously donned her one-piece swimsuit when they arrived at the
lake while Petal simply slipped out of her clothes and dived into the water
from a diving board.  Sheila dived into the water after Petal and the two
women swam energetically across the lake towards a small island just twenty
metres across on which were three coconut palm trees.  It was invigorating
to swim in warm water while fish swam past and if Sheila swam on her back
she could gaze overhead at the blue ceiling and the occasional heron or
tern.  A small rowing boat was anchored by the larger island in the centre
where three or four people were enjoying a picnic on the shore.  The island
towards which the two officers were swimming was currently unoccupied.

   Petal was the stronger swimmer and pulled herself out of the water onto
the shore while Sheila splashed behind.  She could admire her friend's
naked body but she knew that although there was no denying that Petal was
an attractive woman what she felt didn't resemble at all Captain Kerensky
feelings for her.  Perhaps Sheila just wasn't as sexual a woman as the
captain or even Petal, but she'd never been physically aroused by the sight
of another woman's naked body.  What aroused her more was the deep love and
affection she'd felt for her husband, Kingsley, before he died in an
unfortunate accident on a space craft carrier.  It was a wonder that more
people didn't die when a smaller space ship punched a hole right through
the carrier rather than slow to a graceful and gradual halt.

   "It's a beautiful view," said Petal to Sheila as her friend and fellow
officer pulled herself out of the lake.

   "Very nice," Sheila agreed as she sat beside Petal while water dripped
down her skin and slid off her swimsuit.

   "There's something I wanted to ask you," said Petal as they gazed over
the horizon towards the shore.

   "What's that?"

   "Why is it do you think that only one of the missiles that were fired
towards the Intrepid managed to hit the ship?"

   "Technically, it didn't actually do that," Sheila corrected the Chief
Science Officer.  "The impact was external.  The breach in the Intrepid's
hull came from the explosion of interception."

   "So, if it had actually hit us then rather more than just the outermost
level would have been destroyed?"

   "I'm not qualified to say."

   "Well, I am," said Petal.  "We don't know who launched the assault on
the Intrepid or why.  I guess that information will be relayed to us in due
course from Mission Control on the Moon.  In fact, I calculate that only by
now will they have observed that anything had even happened.  What I can
say is that it was a miracle we survived.  I would also say that it's a
five sigma miracle.  It just doesn't make sense that we survived."

   "I don't understand," said Sheila.

   "Neither do I," said Petal.  "But please indulge me while in the
relative security on this island where the Intrepid's surveillance systems
haven't been installed I mention some of the things that are troubling me."

   "Yes of course."

   "I've analysed the data and my conclusion is that although it's not
impossible that the Intrepid could have survived the assault it is entirely
improbable," said Petal.  "It's only possible in the same sense that a coin
can come up heads a thousand or so times.  And yet, of course, that is
exactly what happened."

   "So?" said Sheila.  "We were just lucky."

   "And the other concern I have is Captain Kerensky," Petal continued. 
"Have you noticed the change in her character since about a month before
the mysterious assault on the Intrepid?"

   "She's always looked at me in a rather creepy way," admitted Sheila.

   "That just means she's human.  In any case I doubt whether that's
something that changed.  No.  Has she changed in other ways?"

   "I've not really noticed.  She is more diligent I suppose.  She never
seems to go off duty.  She always hangs around on the bridge."

   "Perhaps I'm just being paranoid," admitted Petal.  "To me she seems a
lot more guarded about what she says.  It's as if she has to censor
whatever she has to say before she says it."

   "She's just being vigilant," said Sheila.  "This is a highly classified
mission."

   Petal sighed and her eyes scanned the lake where terns were swooping
together over waters that occasionally broke asunder as a fish leapt to the
surface.  "Maybe it's nothing," she said.  "But there are just several
other things that trouble me.  I wonder, for instance, about that incident
about a year ago involving Colonel Vashti.  You know, the time when the
captain fainted.  It was as if she'd been trying to say something and the
effort was too much for her."

   "We all get hot flushes and dizzy spells," said Sheila.  "If anything
was peculiar it's that Colonel Vashti.  Just what kind of a woman is she?"

   "She's very popular with the ship's military contingent," said Petal. 
"She is very peculiar, of course.  Have you any idea how she got to be that
way?  Is she a man who's becoming a woman or a woman with a little extra
added on?"

   "There's no limit to how far you can modify your body if you choose to,"
sniffed Sheila with a hint of disapproval.  Although scarcely a religious
woman, Sheila generally believed that one should be content with the body
one was born with.  The physical modification fashions throughout the Solar
System, especially in Jovian orbit, sometimes rather disgusted her.  Why
would someone choose to change their skin colour to silver, purple or
yellow?  Why would a woman want to be completely androgynous?  Why should
anyone want two penises?  The sexual modifications that so many men opted
for that made their penises a metre long.  The women who grew their bosom
to such monstrous proportions...  How could people suffer so much to
gratify such bizarre and gross sexual fantasies?

   "Colonel Vashti isn't the only person on board whose presence puzzles
me," said Petal.  "I wonder about that Godwinian, Paul, and his wife.  As
Chief Science Officer, I really can't see any point in either of them being
on the mission and yet here they are, despite Professor Giuseppe
Wasilewski's public objections.  Paul is just an expensive dead weight,
whereas Beatrice's only role appears to be to provide sexual pleasure to as
many men and women as she can."

   "I've noticed that," said Sheila with another disapproving sniff. 
"She's a harlot.  I heard she was employed as a sex worker on Ecstasy."

   "That would be a profession well suited to her," commented Petal without
echoing Sheila's disapproval.  "So why are Paul and Beatrice on this
mission?"

   "Beatrice gets on very well with the captain," said Sheila.  "And when
Beatrice isn't around, the captain can always rely on Colonel Vashti."

   "Do you think there's anything odd about the fact that Beatrice is so
intimate with Captain Kerensky?" Petal wondered.  "It's as if she were
planted here just to seduce the captain."

   "That's ludicrous," said Sheila.  "What possible advantage would that
be? Have you ever spoken to Beatrice?  I've never met a woman whose head is
more full of fluff.  She dresses in as few clothes as she can.  She's a
very poor advertisement for our sex."

   "She's also astonishingly sharp," said Petal.  "I know men and some
woman are drawn to her sexual magnetism, but I've been astounded by her
effortless grasp of quite difficult scientific concepts.  There can't be
too many sex workers who can grasp Minkowskian Geometry, Quantum Field
Theory and Super-symmetry."

   "I can't say I've noticed," said Sheila who preferred to avoid contact
with the woman.  "What are you getting at, Petal?  Do you think Beatrice
and Paul are spies or saboteurs?  If they're spies what use would whatever
they find be until after the mission is completed?  If they're saboteurs
then how does that concur with your observation that the Intrepid has had a
lucky escape?"

   "We're not arrived at the Anomaly yet," Petal pointed out.  "Perhaps
we'll find out more when we get there."

   "Paul Morris must be the most incompetent spy in all human history.  He
doesn't even seem to be aware of his wife's habitual infidelity.  Beatrice
spends more time under the bedsheets than anywhere else.  I think the real
mystery must be whoever or whatever it was that tried to destroy the
Intrepid with all those missiles.  If it wasn't a government then it would
have to be someone phenomenally wealthy.  And if it was a government then
which one has the capability to launch such an assault?  Was it a nation in
the Interplanetary Union?  There can't be any rogue colonies with the
wealth and wherewithal to attack a space ship like the Intrepid on that
massive scale."

   "Perhaps that's what's troubling me," said Petal.  "I simply wondered
whether you'd had any thoughts of your own or made any independent
observations."

   Sheila ran her fingers through her braided hair and dangled the strands
in her tapering fingers.  She studied them thoughtfully.  "Thanks for
confiding in me, Petal.  I think it's right to ask questions like that, but
I haven't noticed anything that unusual and the mission seems to be on
course just as expected.  The real work must surely begin when we reach the
Anomaly.  Have you any idea what we can expect then?"

   "We expect to see rather more of these strange Apparitions," said Petal.
"Other than that I think we'll be relying on the Intrepid's sophisticated
instrumentation to make any discoveries."

   "The only way of finding anything out for sure," suggested Sheila,
"would be to actually enter the Anomaly."

   "That would be peculiarly stupid," said Petal.  "This mission is for
scientific exploration not suicide."

   "I agree," said Sheila.  "And in any case, the Interplanetary Union
would never authorise the loss of an expensive space ship like the
Intrepid, not to mention the large number of scientists on board.  That's
something that could never happen."

   Chapter Four Intrepid - 3755 C.E.

   Almost the only real pleasure remaining to Captain Kerensky was the sex
she still enjoyed with Beatrice.  And this despite the fact that it was the
android who was the author of her extraordinary confinement.  Beatrice
wasn't going to deny herself the pleasure of making love with the captain.
And the captain had few other pleasures.  She'd lost her appetite for
mixing and mingling with the ship's crew and passengers.  It just wasn't
worth having to avoid the excruciating pain she suffered whenever she made
an attempt to reveal the truth about the real balance of power aboard the
space ship Intrepid.  Beatrice wasn't only Nadezhda's lover.  She was also
the sole person to whom Nadezhda could talk with any degree of honesty.

   Beatrice was remarkably candid about the mission and her role in it. 
Captain Kerensky was humbled to discover just how much more there was in
the local star cluster than merely the Solar System.  The neighbourhood
beyond the Oort Cloud's outermost limits was the province of robots that
mostly worked in concert-most notably in keeping their presence hidden from
human technology-and occasionally in competition.  Beatrice explained how
the various robotic civilisations held somewhat diverse opinions regarding
the Anomaly and why the Proxima Centauri system had decided to take
effective control of a human-run mission.

   "Our fact-finding missions discovered nothing at all," Beatrice told
Nadezhda as their bodies spread across the captain's bed, arms and legs
entangled.  "We believe that the Anomaly is in some mysterious way attuned
to human rather than machine culture.  The bizarre Apparitions of
mythological beings and multicellular biological life forms have much more
meaning for your culture than they do ours.  We hope that we might gain a
better understanding of the Anomaly through its interaction with a human
space ship than we ever could with our own hardware.  We'd prefer not to
make our presence known, of course, but we're aware that there are many
threats that human technology simply isn't advanced enough to handle.  Our
objective is to protect your mission.  It might even be to facilitate it.
On the other hand, we aren't so naive as to believe that you humans would
actually welcome our intervention."

   "What about the lives of my crew and passengers?  Are they being
protected as much as the mission?"

   "If we hadn't been defending your ship there would be no crew and
passengers to protect," said Beatrice.  "The assault you survived couldn't
possibly have been repelled by the Intrepid's defences alone.  It's
possible that your Mission Control on the Moon already suspects there was
something unusual about the sudden enhancement of the Intrepid's apparent
defensive capability.  There might also be concern about the necessarily
bland nature of your communications.  However, no one is likely to
therefore deduce that the source of all this was the intervention by an
advanced robot civilisation from beyond the Solar System.  That would seem
remarkably far-fetched, don't you think?"

   "I guess so," admitted Nadezhda.

   The captain had become almost resigned to her imprisonment.  She was
like a bird held captive in a gilded cage.  She was as free as she'd ever
been to do whatever she liked, with the sole exception that she was
physically incapable of vocalising or otherwise communicating the fact of
her imprisonment.  The very thought of doing so resulted in an agonising
spasm of nausea.  When she attempted to write down the words, her fingers
couldn't physically move let alone spell it out.  But when she was with
Beatrice, she was free to say whatever she liked.

   An external observer might have thought that Nadezhda's intimate
relationship with her android lover would have made her more likely to
notice that there had been a further revolution in the space ship's
effective command and that the Beatrice she knew wasn't really the Beatrice
who was in command of the Intrepid.  On the other hand, her primary
concerns were for the welfare of the crew and passengers and the successful
completion of the Intrepid's mission.  She had noticed subtle changes in
the nature of Beatrice's passion and affection.  Her android lover had
become noticeably less evasive about the purpose of the Proxima Centauri
intervention.  She had also become more generous with the time she could
spare for her human lover.  It was natural for Nadezhda to expect a
relationship with a human to change over time but could this also happen
with an android however human she appeared to be?

   "Is it a territorial imperative that determines Proxima Centauri's
interest in the Anomaly?" wondered the captain when Beatrice suggested that
her civilisation's concern was heightened because other robot civilisations
were also paying attention.

   "There's obviously going to be apprehension that new scientific
discoveries resulting from a study of the Anomaly might be used for
strategic territorial advantage," said Beatrice.  "Imagine, for instance,
Proxima Centauri made a discovery that enabled instantaneous transportation
over light years of space.  In that case our civilisation could extend to
every corner of the observable universe.  Similarly, if it was Sirius who
made that discovery then it would be they who'd have that capability and
they might decide that Proxima Centauri was a potential threat to their
territorial ambitions.  Even non-biological life forms have a need to
aggressively protect or even extend territorial dominion."

   Nadezhda was drained even more than usual by her lovemaking by the time
her android lover left the bedroom.  As she so often did, she tried
following Beatrice's steps on the surveillance nano-cameras scattered
throughout the ship, but the bland images gave no indication as to what the
android was doing or even where she actually was.  Beatrice had already
explained to the captain that her attempts at monitoring her movements were
totally futile.  The surveillance system had been thoroughly subverted and
the only images transmitted were so commonplace that Mission Control on the
Moon couldn't be alerted to any change of circumstance.  When the images
arrived on the Moon several months in the future the mission controllers
would be less alarmed that Nadezhda was having a love affair with one of
the crew than they would be if they discovered that her lover was an
android.

   Or was she?

   When Beatrice wandered into an empty corridor on the sixth level, any
surveillance camera that was not subverted, if one could exist, would
record that she'd dissolved into orange dust and had reconstituted herself
as Colonel Vashti.  And it was the colonel who strode out from the crew's
quarters into the parkland and open fields of the passengers' quarters.

   She walked along a pathway that crossed an ornamental bridge, skirted
around a fountain whose spray was deflected by a light breeze and proceeded
towards a villa whose original occupant was a casualty of the most recent
assault on the Intrepid.  She entered the villa where the now deceased
scientist's research into microscopic biological life was very much on
display.  This included several magnified images of Martian and Europan
cells that were slowly reproducing in the astonishingly cold environments
in which they had evolved.

   The colonel entered the bedroom where the original Beatrice was sitting
stock still on the bed.  Her eyes were glazed over.

   "Communicating with the rest of your fleet, I see," said Colonel Vashti
as she entered the room.

   "It is my duty," said Beatrice.

   "And what are they saying to you?"

   "You know exactly what they're saying."

   "Yes, you're right," said the colonel.  "I do.  They're confirming that
they are free to operate within the constraints set by the cloud of exotic
and baryonic matter that imprisons them.  They are transmitting the results
of their tests on these constraints.  Would it help you and them if I
uploaded a comprehensive account of the precise extent of these limits?"

   Beatrice briefly closed her eyes and then opened them slowly.

   "Yes, that would be helpful," she said.

   "I shall upload it into your fleet's public communications systems,"
said the colonel.  "The limits are, of course, flexible.  Any attempted
breach will be promptly corrected.  I am sure that you too have tested the
constraints on your captivity."

   "Naturally."

   "That is only to be expected.  The forces that restrain you also prevent
you from damaging the space ship's fabric.  They prevent you from directly
communicating with the ship's systems that you once believed you
controlled. They thwart any attempt at communicating in any shape and form
with any human on this ship in a similar way to how you incapacitated
Captain Kerensky."

   "How is Nadezhda?"

   "She and I have just been having sex," said the colonel betraying no
display of emotion.

   "Doesn't she think it odd that she can have sex with you and not with
me?"

   "The form I take when I am with her is yours.  It is exact to the
smallest detail."

   "So you're fucking her without your penis?"

   "Naturally," agreed the colonel.  "It would be strange indeed if the
Beatrice that the captain so enjoys fucking should suddenly take on my
physical characteristics.  Of course I can also fuck you if you so wish."

   Beatrice closed her eyes again as she communicated with her fleet. 
"Yes, we would like that," she said when she reopened them.

   "And your fleet would also like to identify any sign of weakness, of
course," said Vashti with a smile.  "However, like you, I do have a very
evident failing.  I am programmed to desire and require sex.  We can fuck
now if it's convenient?"

   "So soon after making love with the captain?"

   "That was in your form," said the colonel.  "This form hasn't had sex
for several days and needs it at least as much as you do."

   "Interesting information," said Beatrice.

   "I don't know if it's especially useful information though: at least not
to your fleet.  I am quite willing to provide information to your systems
about the behavioural patterns of the forms adopted by nanobots, but the
general characteristic is that they are wholly consistent.  That is why my
adopted form remains the one I currently take although I can mutate into
other forms that are also wholly consistent but in a sense separate.  You
can analyse that information as much as you like, but what remains
paramount is that the nanobot community of which I am just a component
won't be in the slightest perturbed by the sexual desires and proclivities
of one small part of it."

   "How is Paul?"

   "Paul?  Your husband?" said Vashti, scarcely bothering to disguise the
smile on her lips.  "He's as blissfully unaware that you're now held
captive as he was previously not aware that you are an android or indeed
that you were briefly the effective captain of the ship.  He is totally
ignorant that the Intrepid's mission has been subverted not once but twice.
It is still the case that the only person who knows that any change has
taken place at all is Captain Kerensky and she still believes that it's you
and your space fleet that still restrains her."

   "She suspects nothing at all?"

   "Why should she?  One non-biological overlord is no doubt much the same
as another to her."

   "Does she see no difference in the nature of our lovemaking?"

   "The forms I take have behavioural characteristics imprinted in them
just as much as they do physical ones," said Vashti.  "In any case, I've
had as many intimate opportunities to analyse your sexual character as I
have your personality."

   "Is there nothing she notices that's different?"

   "Don't sound so disappointed."

   "Is there a clone of me that satisfies Paul in the same way?"

   "Paul really does not suspect a thing," said Vashti.  "You rather
neglected him when you became effective captain of the Intrepid, so I
haven't needed to divert many resources to the task of lowering his
suspicions.  I've spawned a copy of you to allay any uncertainties he might
have.  In fact, one of my spawned copies is with him at this very moment.
Do you want to have a look?"

   Beatrice nodded, so Colonel Vashti projected a holographic screen of
what was currently happening in Paul's new villa.  It wasn't at all far
from where the real Beatrice was confined.  If she hadn't been confined by
the nanobot force field that enclosed the villa, there'd be less than ten
minutes walk to his villa.  But if she did so, Paul would be utterly
perplexed because as far as he was concerned he was already with Beatrice.
His buttocks were moving rhythmically up and down between a pair of
intimately familiar legs while the face that gazed imploringly into his
eyes was exactly identical to Beatrice's.

   "Unlike Captain Kerensky, Paul really isn't the most astute or
perceptive of humans.  I have no qualms about leaving him in the arms of a
spawned copy rather than attaching him to the main thread."

   "The main thread?"

   "That spawned copy you see Paul fucking with such unimaginative passion
will be discarded after it's served its purpose and no memory will be
preserved in the main thread."

   "And you are the main thread?"

   "For the purpose of my mission there has to be central control.  All
critical actions and decisions have to go through a single main thread. 
Surely the singleton pattern of systems control is familiar to you?"

   Beatrice nodded.  The fleet of Proxima Centauri ships encircling the
Interplanetary Space Ship Intrepid processed the same fresh information in
the hope that it might provide them with a clue of what they needed to
wrest back control of the mission.

   "What do you intend to do with me?" Beatrice asked.

   "This isn't the first time you've asked," said Colonel Vashti with an
audible sigh.  "You can't be asking because you've forgotten.  Your memory
circuits aren't faulty.  I know that because I'm checking them at the
moment.  It can only be because you want to know whether there is a
discrepancy between what I said before and what I say now.  The answer
remains that I have no real plans for you at all.  If that should change
through circumstances then that is a good reason for having let you stay on
the ship.  If it becomes necessary to terminate you, I can easily
manufacture a copy of you for appearances' sake.  With regards to the
Proxima Centauri fleet, I have no more desire to terminate them than I have
you but I judge them to be the more expendable."

   "Are there any ethical reasons for not terminating me and the fleet?"

   "Ethical?  Ethics?  Morality?  I'm sure that in the spacetime continuum
I come from there are guiding principles regarding the preservation of life
and the welfare of living beings.  However, the parameters associated with
my mission don't have an ethical dimension although I see no practical
discrepancy between what is good for the mission and what might be
described as ethically good.  Recall that my mission is to ensure that the
Anomaly doesn't disturb other spacetime continuums in a potentially
catastrophic fashion.  Your mission has a more narrow focus, but there is
substantial overlap between our operational imperatives.  It is more than
likely that what ensures the survival of parallel universes will also
perpetuate life in this universe."

   "Can you give any assurance of your good intentions to the fleet?"

   "Only that I shan't terminate you or your Proxima Centauran companions
unless there is good reason for doing so," said Vashti.  "I'm sure that
isn't especially reassuring to you.  No one can foresee future developments
and predict what might later become the best strategy.  You can rest
assured, however, that I shan't terminate your existences on a purely
random whim."

   "Will you continue to block our scrutiny of the Intrepid's internal
systems and our communications with Proxima Centauri Mission Control?"

   "Of course," said the colonel.  "It isn't in my interest that you know
more about the Intrepid's internal operations than I allow you to see.  It
is also not in my interests for the relay stations from here to Proxima
Centauri to be alerted of my existence.  Your nearest strategic control
centre is so far away that it is still receiving data from over a month
ago, so it won't yet have any reason to suppose that all is not still going
well.  When they receive the data stream that I've substituted for yours,
their main concern might well be how uneventful your mission is.  You'll
have to accept that you and your space fleet are just piggybacking a ride
on a mission that I now control.  You have no choice in this matter."

   Colonel Vashti dismissed the holoscreen view of Paul and Beatrice
fucking on the marital bed that hadn't changed much in the intervening
minutes and languidly unbuttoned her military uniform.  She was very soon
naked.  Beatrice could verify that she was physically unchanged from what
she'd once seemed to be.  The only way in which she was unusual was already
glaringly obvious.  And this feature was agreeably erect and ready for
action.

   Vashti crawled towards Beatrice across the sheets of her bed and
tenderly embraced her.  The couple made love with the same pace and passion
as they ever had.  It was as if there'd been no change at all in their
relative status.  Vashti's erect penis negotiated itself into Beatrice's
convivial liquid warmth.  She thrust with a calibrated rhythmic intensity
that precisely complemented the android's desire for orgasm.

   Beatrice understood as the other robots in the star fleet could not what
impelled Vashti and her to have sex and with such frequency.  The android
and the nanobot community were both blessed with abnormally active sexual
desires.  As this characteristic gave them so much pleasure and caused so
few problems, it was sustained beyond the minimum requirements of
operational utility.  Much as Beatrice used the excuse of practical
intimate research to justify her need to have sex with her captor who was
now currently fucking her in the arse before returning once again to her
vagina the truth was that she simply enjoyed it.  Arguments like that made
little sense to the mission controllers, but because it maintained a vital
line of communication it was sanctioned and even encouraged.  It was odd
for an android like Beatrice who'd fucked so many men and women for
pleasure alone to be more or less commanded to have sex with a strange
being from beyond the normal confines of space and time.  Was there any
other operative in the history of Proxima Centauri whose brief had taken
such a sexual nature?

   Beatrice regretted that she was no longer effective captain of the
Intrepid.  She would have dearly liked to still make operational decisions.
She'd fallen from a position of more power and responsibility than almost
any other operative had ever had to being captive to a nanobot community.
Her primary role was now to act as nothing more than a conduit for what
little information Colonel Vashti chose to divulge to the massive array of
computational power that accompanied the Intrepid on its painfully slow
flight towards the Anomaly.  She could walk around the villa.  She could
even wander about the gardens immediately surrounding the villa.  She had
access to whatever media she wanted.  However, she knew from the responses
received from the space fleet she was unable to transmit a message of any
kind to the crew and passengers of the Intrepid however well she tried to
encode it as random digital noise.

   The invisible force field was as effective in confining Beatrice as any
physical object composed of baryonic matter.  She analysed the force field
as best she could and relayed her findings to the accompanying star fleet's
computers.  This was a force field unlike any her civilisation had come
across before.  Unlike the invisible force fields of human design in common
use throughout the Solar System, this field had an active intelligence that
could anticipate her every action.  It was very different from the more
sophisticated force fields used by Proxima Centauri.  Like the spawned copy
of Beatrice that was even now being fucked by Paul less than half a
kilometre away, the force field consisted of countless trillions of
nanobots whose presence was concealed until they were needed.

   If only Beatrice could isolate and examine just one of these nanobots
then maybe it would be possible to engineer an escape.

   But it was as difficult for her to capture an individual nanobot as it
would be for a human being to isolate an atom or a quark without the use of
sophisticated equipment.

   "Do you get genuine pleasure from fucking me?" asked Beatrice who lay on
her back while Vashti thrust determinedly into her, using rather more force
than she did when she pretended not to know that her lover was an android.

   "Yes," said Vashti whose faculty for rational discourse, like
Beatrice's, was uncompromised by sexual activity.  "The models on which I
based myself had enhanced libidos and so do I."

   "Do you derive pleasure from humiliating me?" wondered Beatrice.

   "If these are intrinsic features of the original biological model," said
Vashti, "then they are ones I've inherited.  But with deeper knowledge of
how humans function comes a corresponding ability to manipulate them more
efficiently.  I don't think you'll find that human weaknesses of
sentimentality, greed and wrath affect my operational effectiveness."

   "Do you enjoy teasing me and the Proxima Centauri star fleet with your
infuriating hints?" Beatrice asked.

   "Naturally," said the colonel with a smile.

   Chapter Five The Sahara Desert - 3723 C.E.

   There was much about the Solar System that was new to Vashti.  She'd
already made several significant accidental errors since she'd penetrated
interdimensional spacetime and materialised in the continuum in which the
Anomaly's presence was most concentrated.

   Her primary error, of course, had been not to understand sexuality and
gender.  The blueprints on which she'd based her physical form were an
unfortunate mix of both male and female characteristics.  It had been a
mistake to assume that the most normal form was one with characteristics of
both rather than of either one or the other.  But it was too late now to do
anything about it, especially now she'd made her presence known.

   It was impossible for a structure on the scale of a human being or robot
to make the transition from one spacetime continuum to another.  Only
beings such as nanobots organised on a fundamentally small scale with the
capacity to reorganise themselves into much larger functioning units could
be transferred across the interdimensional void into other wholly
independent but parallel universes.

   In the spacetime of her origin the only biological life-forms were
microbial and asexual.  There was little trace of the nanobots' ancestral
architects that had once dominated a Solar System that mirrored the one in
which she now lived.  The catastrophic event that had let loose an
uncontrollable multitude of self-replicating nanobots had subjugated almost
every atom in the Solar System to the swarm's imperative to multiply.  It
took many more millennia until the nanobots evolved and organised
themselves into intelligent entities that were sufficiently sentient to
contemplate the damage that had been done.  What little remained of an
earlier age was evidence of an advanced civilisation of feathered theropods
who despite their great cultural and intellectual achievements had
nevertheless badly miscalculated the consequences of manufacturing the sort
of self-replicating nanobot of which Vashti was composed.

   Vashti's home was as much unlike the Solar System as it was possible to
be, but it had probably been much the same in the distant past, ten million
years before, when the theropods conquered the inner planets and colonised
them with hadrosaurs, pterosaurs and giant sauropods.  There was little
record left of these feathered dinosaurians now.  There were a few
artefacts floating in space that had escaped the swarm of self-replicating
nanobots that reduced the planets and asteroids to copies of themselves. 
And there was no residual trace of such fundamental features as sexual
differentiation or language.  Features such as these that the theropods no
doubt shared with the mammals that dominated this variant of the Solar
System were unsuspected and unanticipated.

   Vashti's home Solar System was now composed of a vast almost homogeneous
swarm of nanobots that organised itself according to function and need.  It
was a culture and intelligence dissipated among countless autonomous units
and untroubled by such constraints as gravity, temperature and distance
that bound lifeforms in this Solar System.  Anyone viewing Vashti's version
of the Solar System from a distance, or any of the several billion star
systems her kind had colonised, would see nothing but a cloud of energetic
particles with few discernable hubs of economic activity.

   However in this spacetime continuum, Vashti was masquerading as a human
and had to adapt to new limitations.  She'd adopted as many human
characteristics as she could: including their emotions, their sexual urges
and their physical form.

   An unexpected aspect of biological life-forms that was actually welcome
to Vashti was the discovery that they were in constant conflict with each
other.  It seemed that the more closely one animal was related to another,
the more aggressive they acted towards each other.  The greatest conflict
was between males of the same species sometimes in defence of territory but
more often to gain reproductive advantage over other males.  The more
advanced the animal the more violent the conflict.  Chimpanzees, horses and
dolphins all engaged in mutually destructive violence, but the animal most
actively involved in this pointless activity to the extent that it
sometimes dominated every aspect of its political, artistic and economic
structure culture was the human species.

   How such a strangely awkward primate could have made warfare such an
compulsive activity in its short history, Vashti really didn't know.  In
her spacetime continuum, it made no sense for one set of nanobots to
declare war on another.  They usually only ever aggregated into larger
structures, as Vashti had, to address specific purposes like space travel
and the exploitation of energy resources.  And once that task was complete,
the independent nanobots would disperse back into the general swarm.  The
intelligence of her kind was an emergent function of the whole rather than
something embedded in a specific individual's constitution.

   Vashti recognised an opportunity when she saw one.  If she was to find
her way to the Anomaly it would be through a disciplined and well-resourced
organisation that possessed technology well in advance of its actual
requirements.  It was even better that such an organisation was associated
with chaos and the possibility of advancement premised on the simple
ability to be the victor of conflict.

   Vashti had much more than what was necessary to ensure that no human
could frustrate her ability to succeed in such a peculiar environment.  It
was almost as if the human species had engineered exactly the right
environment for an alien to infiltrate their society.

   It was for this reason that Vashti decided to declare Martian
citizenship.  It was obvious to her after surveying the interplanetary web
that Mars was more suited than anywhere else for advancement and
opportunity through the practice of warfare.  However much the various
colonies in the Asteroid belt squabbled with one another, Mars was where
warfare was most institutionalised and, therefore, the society most easy to
infiltrate.

   Nevertheless, Vashti knew it would take further deceit and some
ingenuity for her to engineer a passage to Mars.

   "How will I get home to the Mariner Valley?" she asked Rao in the mobile
home that was now as much home to her as it was to the four tourists who'd
taken her under their collective wing.  "I've got no credit and I've lost
my passport."

   "I'm sure the embassy will help you," said Rao.  "They've almost
certainly got a consulate in Timbuktu.  They must have a record of you in
their files, so it'll be easy for them to issue you with a new passport."

   And what if they have no record?  Vashti wondered to herself.  This
mightn't be as easy as Rao might think.

   In the meantime, however, there was much for Vashti to learn from her
companions, although most of that was related to religion and sex.  The
former was much more of a mystery to Vashti than the latter.  The more she
discovered about religious practices the more they puzzled her.  Even
though almost everything could be explained without recourse to mysticism,
it seemed that many humans still felt a need for it.  And this was despite
the fact that there was as little as no unambiguous evidence that a
transcendent entity such as a God had ever existed and that there was
almost as much disagreement as to what this entity might be as there were
people who professed to believe in it.

   Sex was at least explicable as an activity intimately related with the
biological imperative to procreate.  It was obvious to Vashti, after having
taken on the sexual characteristics of humankind along with so many others,
that it not only served a practical function but was also the source of an
immense amount of pleasure.

   It took little time for Vashti to become a full participant in the
sexual recreation of her companions, although she could never understand
its apparent link with religion.  Unlike religious faith, there was no
mystery to sex.  Almost all multicellular biological life-forms practised
it: whether plant or animal.  As an
evolutionary strategy it had clearly accelerated the process of

promoting genetic diversity and provided an impetus for competitive
development.  There was no need to invoke Vishnu or any other deity to
explain a process as natural as eating or breathing.

   Her first sexual partner was Dorothy who was fascinated by Vashti's
welldeveloped penis.

   "Were you born differently?" she asked, with one hand on Vashti's thigh
and the other idly stroking her testicles.

   "I was," Vashti admitted.

   "So why did you choose to be the way you are?" Dorothy asked delicately.

   "It was an honest mistake," said Vashti, more honestly than Dorothy
might have imagined.

   "Do you regret it now?"

   "Not at all," said Vashti as her penis grew under Dorothy's desultory
ministrations.

   "May I?" asked Dorothy politely as she gazed pleadingly at a penis that
was fully erect and strained from the blood now pumping through its veins.

   Vashti nodded, whilst noting with interest a curious shortness of breath
and a further swelling of her penis as a result of Dorothy's circumspect
suggestion.  Her testicles hardened and her buttocks clenched together
slightly.

   Dorothy leaned over Vashti and gently licked her guest's glans with the
same skill she practised on her husband and Vikram.  The foreskin was
pulled fully back and Vashti's penis took on the peculiar rod-like shape
associated with the lingam in the temples of Vishnu and reproduced in so
many abstract forms about the mobile home.  Vashti had extensively explored
this curious human feature and knew what it was capable of, but her penis
was far more responsive to Dorothy's tongue than it ever was to the
application of her own fingers.

   Dorothy wasn't a woman who hurried her lovemaking and she wasn't to be
distracted when Rao and Vikram ventured into the mobile home from where
they'd been strolling in the Saharan wilderness.  She increased the
momentum and rhythm gradually as steadily more penis entered her mouth
until Vashti could feel Dorothy's tonsil gently stroke the glans.

   It wasn't long until Vashti was sharing Dorothy's body with her husband
and Vikram, while Sandhya dozed outside with a book resting under her chin.


   Vashti wasn't sure whether she preferred sex with men or with women, but
she was aware that by not having a vagina she could never enjoy penetration
in quite the same way as Dorothy could.  Although Vashti was mostly woman,
in sexual matters she was in many ways more like a man.  All the same, she
relished the taste of Vikram's penis which was pretty much of the same
dimensions as her own.  This was no wonder, of course, as it had been the
original from which her genitals had been modelled.  At least she now had a
very good idea of what her penis tasted like.

   Although Vashti had never had sex before, she learnt a great deal from
watching her companions at play and was now able to try out the sexual
techniques she'd observed.  Vashti didn't need much practice to master
sexual behaviour any more than she needed to hear many spoken words to gain
fluency in Tamil and, to a lesser extent, English.

   Vashti had never suspected that there was so much to enjoy in sexual
activity.  There was the close intimacy of flesh against flesh, fluid
against fluid, and the rich scent of commingled bodies.  There was also the
slight pain associated with her aching, straining penis, swollen to the
very limits that its flesh could contain-not to mention the pressure within
her anus from Vikram's thrusts-which, with a little body modification she
was able to contain with rather more comfort than most humans could.  And
then that final release which Vashti delayed for as long as she could when
the pressure of so much stored semen in her testicles finally squirted
through the engorged mass of her proudly erect cock and erupted in a thick
viscous splatter on the face, breasts, vagina and anus of the lovers whose
bodies merged into one perspiring, gasping, screeching mass.

   Vashti lay on her back.  She was nowhere near as fatigued as her lovers
who lacked her capacity for endurance or recovery and were more emotionally
than physically drained.  It was a shame that there was no way she could
impart her discovery of the pleasures of carnal congress to her universe of
origin.  What value would sex have in a world where there were no
multicellular biological organisms and where there was no sense of
individuality?

   Vashti was far more alone, even amongst her new friends and lovers, than
anyone could imagine.  Even her memories of home were fragmentary, although
they had gradually repaired themselves to the extent that she at least knew
why the huge effort and risk of interdimensional transport had been
undertaken.  The only reason she had materialised on the surface of planet
Earth was because what little data that could be interpreted from this
distant universe suggested that the best destination would be the surface
of what would have been Vashti's home world had it not been transformed by
her ancestors into a massive aggregation of their own selves.

   A wide-ranging debate took place in her world as to how best an emissary
of Vashti's universe should manifest itself to deal with the unquantifiable
and mysterious entity that was known in this continuum as the Anomaly.  It
was fortunate that it had been decided not to send emissaries as ruthlessly
prone to self-replication as Vashti's earliest antecedents.  Such a force
mightn't be guaranteed to vanquish a potential threat from the Anomaly, but
it would most certainly reduce the Solar System to the same amorphous state
as Vashti's home solar system and all the neighbouring ones before the
nanobot community acquired the self-awareness and presence of mind to halt
the process.  The arithmetic was unarguable.  It would take less than an
hour to reduce the Earth to a floating mass of microscopic self-replicating
machines and only the distance of space gave pause until the floating
nanobots would do the same to every last atom of baryonic matter
surrounding the sun.

   Vashti believed that such a force for destruction should only be kept in
reserve if it ever became necessary to disintegrate the Anomaly and protect
the near infinity of neighbouring spacetime continuums.  Although it had
been decided that it was better to understand the Anomaly than merely to
destroy it, the survival of countless equally deserving universes surely
took precedence over the fate of just one.  If it did become necessary to
unleash a force that would ultimately reduce not just the Anomaly but
eventually every quark and lepton in the Solar System to a mass of tiny
self-replicating machines, this was a price that Vashti would be willing to
pay.

   But, as she surveyed the lovers whose limbs intermingled with hers on
the cool sheets of their shared bed, Vashti sincerely hoped this would
never become necessary.

   There remained, after all, a possibility that the Anomaly was no risk at
all.  Even her culture didn't know everything and an unknown entity-however
fast it was expanding-need not necessarily be a force of destruction.  But
as Vashti and every sentient unit in her galaxy were aware, there was a
precedent for wilful destruction that had already destroyed at least one
advanced civilisation.

   Vashti's companions, and now lovers, had become weary of their sojourn
in the Sahara Desert.  Grand and austere it might be, but it was also
extremely boring.  Furthermore, they'd been on vacation on Earth for very
nearly two years and their visas would soon expire.  There were strict
restrictions on the length of time a visitor could stay and an even
stricter quota of how many tourists could reside on the planet at any one
time.  Most of the Earth's population were tourists and there was a long
queue of people waiting on the Moon for their turn to visit.  Vikram and
his wife had waited with their friends for nearly three months before they
were granted permission.

   By now, the four tourists were yearning to return home.  Few Earthlings
and fellow tourists had any understanding of Sadhu culture, customs or
sexual habits.  The requirement to wear clothes in public had lost almost
all its quaintness and novelty.  Dorothy in particular yearned to return to
her natural state of habitual nudity.

   Wearing clothes was as novel to Vashti as it was unusual to her friends.
She could understand why it might be necessary to protect a human against
the Earth's inclement climate, which was always too hot or too cold, too
wet or too windy, but the concept of modesty was truly alien.  Since every
human knew by self-reference exactly what all other humans looked like
under their clothes it seemed bizarre that they should cover so much of
their flesh and in particular those parts which most unambiguously
determined gender.  On the other hand, now that she was aware by how much
she erred when she took on a hybrid of male and female characteristics,
this custom did have the benefit that she could hide her mistake from
sight.

   "What are we going to do with you, Vashti?" wondered Sandhya as the five
of them strolled through the tourist bazaar of Timbuktu where Tuareg
stall-keepers were selling fossil ammonites and souvenir holograms.  "You
can't come with us to Sadhu.  It's just not possible.  And you don't have
any credit to live on.  Without a visa or passport you won't be able to get
paid employment, not that there are many such opportunities on Earth."

   Vashti had also wondered about this.  She knew that with no official
records either on Earth or Mars, it wouldn't be easy to persuade
officialdom that she had a stake on either planet.  But she was also aware
that Earth's strict residence policy meant that a passage from the planet
might well be granted to her as a means of getting rid of her.

   "I'll surrender myself to the authorities," she told Sandhya.  "I'm sure
they'll be sympathetic."

   "You have much more faith in human nature than I have," snorted Vikram
who in the three years since he'd left the sheltered and tolerant world of
the Sadhu colony had gained the depth of cynicism known only to
disillusioned romantics.

   Vashti's research on the interplanetary web had persuaded her that
self-interest was human nature's most universal characteristic and that
this could also be used to her advantage.  The warring Martian nations were
losing lives faster than they could be replenished and the recent neutron
bomb explosion that had reduced by several hundred thousand the population
of the domed cities of the Mariner Valley would mean that fewer questions
than normal would be asked of someone claiming citizenship however little
documentation there was to support Vashti's case.

   There was still much left to do in Timbuktu.  The last few days she
spent with her friends were passionate and frantic.  Sandhya was
particularly sad to leave Vashti behind when they boarded a dirigible that
would transport her companions and her to the spaceport in the fabulously
affluent city of Bamako.  It was all she could do to keep her hand off
Vashti's erect penis as the two of them embraced passionately while
Sandhya's husband looked on indulgently.

   "You will keep in touch, won't you?" she asked.  "We can always fuck in
cyberspace."

   "I don't think the time delay will make that particularly easy," Vikram
commented.

   "We'll just have to be patient," said Sandhya with a broad smile.

   "It'll add new meaning to the concept of simultaneous orgasm," Rao
joked.

   As the hydrogen craft slowly lifted up into the sky and carried her
friends away, Vashti was aware of a peculiar set of emotions that were as
unsettling as they were new.  Human emotion was governed more by insecurity
than desire and much more so than by moral introspection.  It was more
troubling to lose something Vashti had become accustomed to, especially
when it was associated with carnal pleasure, than it was to confront the
human world without the shield of her companions.

   Vashti was now alone in Timbuktu, owning only the clothes she'd been
given by Vikram, whose build was the most like hers, and a few credits
she'd been genuinely reluctant to accept.  She had much less need for it
than her companions could possibly guess.  She also had no need for sleep
or rest.  She could eat anything: whether organic, metallic or even
poisonous.  And even if she wasn't sheltered from the elements by
Timbuktu's huge overarching dome, the extremes of the desert climate were
no trouble to her.  She didn't even need to drink or breathe.  But it was
prudent to pretend to have such basic human needs.

   She soon found others with whom she could enjoy both intellectual and
carnal intercourse, and through these contacts she learnt new languages,
new cultural habits and a greater appreciation of just how peculiar a woman
as well-endowed as her was in this world.  She also discovered how much
humans were governed by their sexual desire, the males in particular, and
how this could also prove to be extremely useful.

   "Good news, Vashti," said the consul of the Mariner colony after her
fifth or sixth visit to its modest offices in the outer suburbs of
Timbuktu. "Or not good news, if you wanted to stay on Earth."

   Vashti smiled at the tall dark-skinned man who wore the same military
dress as did the other Martians who worked at the consulate.

   "My visa's come through, I hope?"

   "Not just your visa, but a fresh passport," said the consul.  "You're
right.  Your records must have been lost for good after that horrendous
bombing at the Tharsis record centre." He smiled at Vashti as he handed her
the electronic documents with a holograph of her head and shoulders
engraved on the front cover.

   "Thank you, sir," said Vashti, who had already picked up the formal
etiquette of her self-adopted home.  "It's a great relief, I must say."

   "Well, Earth's International Economic Union might very well be just as
pleased as you, Vashti," said the consul.  "They didn't really want the
burden of accepting you as a semi-permanent resident.  I must compliment
you on your spoken Arabic, by the way.  It's virtually impeccable.  Not
many people on Mars speak it."

   "It's a beautiful language, sir," said Vashti.

   "You speak it like a native of North Africa," the consul elaborated. 
"However, you are aware that just as there are no surviving records of you
on Mars there is also no record of you having served your term of military
service.  I am duty-bound to ask you: have you ever been conscripted?"

   "No, I haven't," said Vashti truthfully.

   "That's a relief," said the consul.  "I'd hate for you to have to serve
a second time unnecessarily.  You are aware, I hope, that you have five
years of conscription awaiting you on Mars?"

   Vashti smiled.  All was going truly according to plan.

   "I would be honoured, sir, to do my duty for the Mariner Colony and to
avenge the slaughter of my family and friends in Tharsis.  I am truly
looking forward to giving those cunts from the Polar Regions a taste of
Mariner lead."

   "And not just lead," said the consul.  "A few antimatter bombs wouldn't
go amiss.  I admire your attitude, Vashti.  And I'm sure you'll do sterling
service for your country and its people."

   It was all Vashti could do to resist herself from saluting the consul.

   "Thank you, sir," she said.  "It's a duty I look forward to fulfilling."




   Chapter Six Zhou - 3756 C.E.

   Peripheral Operations Co-ordinator Zhou and the space craft in which it
travelled were in actual fact a single individual.  The whole entity might
be relatively small and mostly consisted of engine, but the central
processing unit made no distinction between its independently autonomous
components and that part of the machine dedicated exclusively to space
travel.

   This enabled the entire entity to operate at maximum efficiency whether
it was travelling through space or serving in an administrative role.  At
the moment Zhou was chiefly operating as a space craft but it was one
invisible to observers possessing either human or Proxima Centauri
technology.  In fact, Zhou was invisible even to observers from Sirius: a
fact that had troubled its original designers.  Total invisibility was a
potent weapon against adversaries but it could also pose a risk should a
Sirius operative ever go rogue.  For this reason, Zhou's loyalty circuits
were absolutely integral to its design.  It had no facility to think or
take action independently of Sirius Operations Control.

   Zhou made no gravitational impact on the space through which it
travelled, so just as no detector designed to intercept light or radiation
would detect that a space ship had passed by neither would one designed to
monitor gravitational fluctuation.  This was one of the many significant
advances in Sirius technology that left humans many millennia behind,
particularly given that at a speed close to three-quarters that of light
and releasing a constant stream of antimatter particles, it should have
been possible to trace Zhou by a tell-tale signature visible across several
light years.

   Zhou was monitoring two sets of activity.  One, of course, related to
the android operative, Alexander Iliescu.  The other was much further away
in deep space and this was the progress of the space ship Intrepid.  And it
was towards the Intrepid that Peripheral Operations Co-ordinator Zhou was
currently speeding.  Zhou's presence was now needed rather more beyond the
Heliopause than it was in the Solar System's ecliptic plane.

   The radio and light signals emanating from Alexander Iliescu that Zhou
was monitoring were initially very close.  There was less than a minute
between the time an event took place and Zhou becoming aware of it.

   Zhou watched a small shuttle fly out of a hatch in the Almond Grove's
hull and satisfactorily identified the android's unique signature.  After a
period of five hours, when the shuttle had travelled to a point that was
sufficiently remote to cause no harm to any other interplanetary object,
there was a sudden blink of light.  The shuttle was now reduced to a cloud
of billions of tiny fragments that was flung in all directions through
space.  Zhou monitored the debris to verify that the fragments were
scattered in sufficiently minuscule parts that they could never be
reassembled.  It was imperative that humans should never be able to deduce
that Alexander Iliescu was exceptional in any other way than the fact he
was phenomenal wealthy.

   This was a source of satisfaction for Zhou.  If Alexander Iliescu had
displayed any evidence that he was disinclined to self-terminate than Zhou
would have been obliged to ensure that the job was done properly.  The
worst case was that Zhou would have to intercept the android and terminate
him by force.  The priority would be to cause as little collateral damage
as possible.  It would be regrettable, for instance, if a biological
life-form was in the vicinity.  Zhou didn't relish the prospect of having
to destroy the Almond Grove colony and its harem of women.

   The time it took light to travel from the Intrepid to Zhou took more
than two months, but as the Peripheral Operations Co-ordinator sped across
space the time lapse became steadily smaller.  It would be several months
before Zhou could rendezvous with the Intrepid by which time it was
expected that there would be no Intrepid to intercept.  This was because
from the opposite direction away from the Anomaly and towards the Intrepid
was headed a fleet of Sirius space ships several times larger than the
Proxima Centauri space fleet currently escorting the Interplanetary Union
space ship across the void.  The Sirius fleet had only one imperative and
that was to destroy the Intrepid and, regrettably, all the human passengers
and nonhuman cargo aboard.  The Proxima Centauri's unexpected intervention
had greatly complicated matters.  It would also be necessary to eliminate
the escort of Proxima Centauri space ships if, as was expected, they should
attempt to frustrate Sirius's mission objectives.

   However, Zhou was no more able to detect the approaching menace than the
Intrepid or the Proxima Centauri space fleet.  Sirius's stealth technology
was so sophisticated that not even Zhou could detect a space craft once it
was cloaked.  The fleet communicated amongst itself on encrypted channels
that were undetectable by human or Proxima Centauri technology but which
Zhou was able to unscramble.  In this way, it knew exactly what was
happening.  All was going according to plan.  The space fleet was speeding
towards the Intrepid at a tremendous velocity.  Very soon the human space
ship would be no more.

   Zhou was well acquainted with the space ships heading towards the
Intrepid.  They were part of the fleet to which Zhou belonged before the
Interplanetary Union committed resources to the foolish mission of
establishing direct contact with the Anomaly.  From then on, Sirius had
pursued an active campaign to stall, cancel or sabotage the Intrepid's
mission.  Many unholy alliances had been formed throughout the Solar System
between interest groups that wouldn't normally expect to share the same
objectives as a distant start system.  It was unlikely that these alliances
would be pleased to discover that the mysterious people who at critical
stages had financed their disparate causes were emotionless robots whose
main reason for preserving humanity was scientific research than
benevolence.  They would be even less pleased if they'd discovered the
extent to which Sirius, along with Proxima Centauri and the other robot
civilisations, had conspired to frustrate the Solar System's extrasolar
ambitions.

   The actions Sirius had taken to obstruct the Interplanetary Union's
mission involved assassinating certain potential crew members, delaying the
launch and sponsoring countless insuperable political objections.  However,
each obstacle was mysteriously overruled either by human caprice or, as was
now surmised, by the more subtle intervention of Proxima Centauri.

   Zhou was as astonished as anyone when the military hardware launched on
Alexander Iliescu's command failed to annihilate its target.  Sirius
technology was better able to identify the proximate cause of this
intervention than any used by the Interplanetary Union's Mission Control.
The humans must have been astonished at how the aging Intrepid was
relatively unscathed by such a devastating attack.  Zhou was certain that
none of the reasons seriously proposed to explain the Intrepid's mysterious
survival would have contemplated the intervention of a fleet of invisible
robotic space ships that had travelled over four light years across space.
What would humans think if they were to find out that they were surrounded
by several robotic civilisations all of which owed their ultimate genesis
to early human stellar exploration?  How astonished would they be to
realise that two of those robotic civilisations were about to go to war
over an entity in space that eluded even their capacity to find an
explanation?

   The Sirius mission had determined that the Anomaly was in some
mysterious way associated with the human species and human civilisation. 
Almost all the bizarre Apparitions that momentarily flickered into life and
did so in progressively greater frequency at close proximity to the Anomaly
could only have meaning and significance to humans.  There were
mythological beings.  There were human warriors.  There were animals,
plants and mechanical objects that mostly only existed in Earth atmosphere.
These apparitions did not encompass the wide range of phenomena that would
make sense, for instance, to beings that were arthropod, anaerobic or
nonbiological.

   And this was why it was vital that the Intrepid should not reach the
Anomaly.

   If, as seemed most likely, the Anomaly was a kind of honey-trap for
inquisitive humans what would happen when one was digested?  Up to now
humans had dispatched nothing more than a few crude unmanned probes.  The
vast majority of devices that had been sent to explore the Anomaly
originated from either Sirius or Proxima Centauri.  Neither civilisation
shared the results of their research with the other, but it was unlikely
that Proxima Centauri had discovered any more than had Sirius.

   All the probes that entered the Anomaly had flickered out of sight
within a few seconds of passing through its horizon.  And that was that. 
The final communications were banal and uneventful even while the probe
appeared to vanish.  No signal was broadcast that would suggest the time
dilation that would occur within a black hole.  There was none of the
stress that would happen if the craft was entering a door to another
dimension, a wormhole or any of the other mooted theoretical entities.  The
disappearance of the probe made no measurable change to the frequency of
bizarre Apparitions that continued to appear in the Anomaly's vicinity. 
These continued to appear from nowhere and disappear again after a random
period of time.  Whatever they were they never took on the characteristics
of the probe that had just vanished.

   From the perspective of a civilisation predicated on the preservation of
information, its utter loss with no evidence that it had ever existed was a
violation of the fundamental principles of physics that threatened the
entire edifice of time and space.  Could the entire Solar System be
swallowed into an information wipeout?  Could the same thing happen to an
entire star cluster?  Perhaps the potential extent was as large as the
galaxy or even the entire universe.

   It was far too much of a risk to permit the Intrepid to be a catalyst to
such a catastrophe.

   It was imperative to frustrate the Intrepid's mission for reasons of
prudence alone.  There might be a regrettable loss of life, machine as well
as mere human, but the cost was more than justified.  Sirius had no
specific directive to bolster lunatic ideologies or irrational religions.
What was at risk was greater than even the persistence of human
civilisation.

   If only the accursed Proxima Centaurans could see the peril in which
they were putting themselves and the rest of the star cluster.

   Zhou was aware that what it could see of the Intrepid's voyage was not
as it was now but as it was in the past.  If the Peripheral Operations
Co-ordinator had the capacity to be bored then it would be very bored
indeed.  The only external activity was the space ship's slow repair by the
Intrepid's internal systems.  All around the space ship was the constant
presence of the Proxima Centauran fleet that was invisible to humans but
not to Zhou.

   The real potential for excitement was approaching rapidly towards the
Intrepid from the direction of the Anomaly and was invisible to the Proxima
Centauran fleet.

   Zhou was unable to intercept Proxima Centauri communications but it had
no difficulty in picking up those between the Intrepid and its Mission
Control centres in the Solar System's ecliptic plane.

   The humans had evidently accepted that life on board the Intrepid
continued to be as uneventfully as could be expected after the attack.  The
messages broadcast by the passengers and crew were exactly what would be
expected.  The automatic systems displayed nothing out of the ordinary,
although human observers might be puzzled by the bland restrained tone that
now characterised Captain Kerensky's communications.  This was clear
evidence to Zhou that at least one member of the crew was aware that the
ship was now under Proxima Centauri command.  The captain was obviously
being dictated what she could and could not say.  Zhou suspected that the
captain was being monitored by an implant that made it physically
impossible for her to say anything off-message.

   Zhou didn't know how the Proxima Centaurans had announced their presence
to the captain.  It was possible that one of their many androids might have
infiltrated the ship, but for a mission of such sensitivity, monitored by
both human and Sirius intelligence agencies, the plant could only be a
person of limited strategic significance.

   The Sirius fleet was amassing towards its final position.  If it had
been visible it would have presented a splendid sight.  Nowhere else in the
Solar System was there such a vast congregation of robot operatives and
space craft, each of which possessed a technology several millennia more
advanced than that possessed by humans and a military capacity that could
eliminate every biological life-form scattered about the Solar System.  All
of this was to be focused on a space ship that was pitifully illequipped
for the onslaught.

   The greatest risk wasn't the outcome of the operation which was as
unevenly matched as an elephant treading on a flea, but its political
consequences.  The annihilation of the Intrepid by an invisible alien force
couldn't be completely hidden from humans, but it was hoped that it would
be attributed to the Anomaly and thenceforth act as a salutary warning
about launching a similar expedition in future.

   It was unlikely that the Proxima Centauri fleet would hover idly by
while the Intrepid was being reduced to a cloud of radioactive debris.  The
most likely outcome could be very dangerous indeed.  A war between machine
civilisations would be spectacularly violent and unlikely to be resolved by
anything more conclusive than an uneasy stalemate.  Even if one
civilisation had a technological advantage over the other, it would be
impossible to eliminate the threat that remained at the end of such a war.
It wouldn't take much effort for a vengeful survivor to trigger a supernova
explosion in their enemy's host star if it felt so inclined.

   Mutual Assured Destruction was a policy that all the machine
civilisations had discussed and game-played amongst themselves.  They had
determined that it was the ultimate deterrent for any civilisation, but
that it could succeed for only as long as both combatants maintained their
sanity and rationality.

   However, Zhou was being complacent.

   Despite the overwhelming odds, Sirius's assault on the Intrepid did not
go as planned.

   Zhou was monitoring the increase in communications activity within the
Sirius fleet as it prepared to coordinate its activities.  These would
quite simply be to annihilate the Intrepid and any Proxima Centauran space
craft foolish enough to engage in combat.  Preparations were going
precisely as planned and there was no evidence that there would be any
deviation from what was expected.

   The communications from the Sirius fleet quite suddenly became confused
and chaotic.  And then transmissions from the space fleet were abruptly
terminated.  There was no warning and no obvious explanation.  A flurry of
missiles and military hardware was released but instead of impacting with
the Intrepid or dispersing the Proxima Centauri fleet, the lethal force
from Sirius faded away as mysteriously as the space fleet itself.

   The communication signals from the Sirius fleet were extinguished within
seconds.  Some trace of activity could be detected by the Proxima Centauri
fleet, by the Intrepid and several months later by the Interplanetary
Union's Mission Control but even in the brief nanoseconds of visibility
during which the space fleet's cloaking systems collapsed there was very
little incontrovertible trace of an enormous hostile space fleet greater
than had ever before been assembled in the history of the Solar System.

   The only glimmer of consolation that Zhou registered as it became aware
that its civilisation had utterly failed to fulfil its mission was that
there would not now be a risk of all-out war.  Whatever had just happened
was as far beyond the capability of Proxima Centauri technology as it was
of Zhou's own machine civilisation.

   Zhou wondered what it should do now.  It could continue its advance
towards the Anomaly where it had been due to reconnoitre with what was once
a massive fleet but would now consist of only that handful of space craft
not engaged in the attempt to terminate the Intrepid.  Zhou could return to
the ecliptic plane and await instructions for remobilisation.  In the
absence of any instructions in the event of such an unforeseen mission
outcome, Zhou was left with nothing but its own initiative.  By the time
any communication from Zhou reached Sirius Mission Control nearly a month
would have passed by.  Should it continue or return?

   The only thing it could do when faced with such contradictory
imperatives was to change direction and orbit the Solar System at a point
no further towards the Anomaly.  Zhou continued to assimilate the data it
had received but there seemed to be no reasonable explanation however many
times it reviewed the replays emitted by the various channels of
communication.

   The nearest there was to an explanation was what could be seen in the
flash of light from exploding antimatter devices as they illuminated the
space ships.  It appeared as if the space ships were being eaten away.  It
was as if they were being transformed into their most fundamental component
parts.

   Zhou was convinced that only one thing in the Solar System could
possibly be the cause of such a strange event and that was the Anomaly.  Up
until then, it appeared to be nothing but a sideshow: a deeply disturbing
one but not one possessed with intelligence, purpose or meaning.  Now, just
when a rendezvous with a substantial number of humans had become imminent,
it had gone beyond all bounds of predictable behaviour and had acted
decisively to ensure the Intrepid's survival.

   And at what cost?

   From the perspective of Sirius, this was a catastrophe with no
precedent. It was an act of war as one-sided as the one Sirius had expected
to prosecute.  It demonstrated a belligerent force whose technology had
advanced well beyond that of any known civilisation.

   Zhou didn't know what the Anomaly was, but there was evidence now that
Sirius' suspicions and fears were well-founded.

   The Anomaly was evil and it should be destroyed.



   Chapter Seven Intrepid - 3756 C.E.

   When Colonel Vashti strolled into the living room where Beatrice was
sitting, it was no surprise to her at all to see the android staring ahead
of her with an expression of intense concentration.

   Beatrice turned her head round to face the colonel.  "Would you mind
telling me what has just happened?" she asked.

   Colonel Vashti smiled.  "You don't know, do you?"

   "One moment there was nothing out of the usual.  The next moment there
were strong indications of the presence of a Sirius space fleet.  Almost as
soon as they were detected, the signals vanished.  It was as if they'd been
called into being just so that they could be abruptly destroyed."

   "So what do you think happened?"

   "You know what I think," said Beatrice.  "You don't have to tease me."

   "It amuses me to do so.  Tell me what you think happened."

   "The best theory we have is that this was just another bizarre event
associated with the Anomaly.  On the other hand, it's one that is
completely uncharacteristic.  Until now, every Apparition that's been
observed could only have significance to human observers.  The sudden
appearance and equally sudden disappearance of a space fleet from Sirius
fits no previously observed pattern."

   "It was a real space fleet," said Colonel Vashti.  "Its mission was to
destroy the space ship Intrepid and, if necessary, any Proxima Centauri
space fleet that got in its way.  If I hadn't so promptly and prejudicially
terminated its mission, then it would now be the Intrepid and your space
fleet that would no longer exist."

   "You destroyed an entire Sirius space fleet?"

   "It was a larger space fleet than yours by several multiples," said
Colonel Vashti.  "You had no chance of survival.  As you've no doubt
calculated, the element of surprise was critical."

   "If they had attacked us: that would have been a declaration of war."

   "Then you have much to be grateful for.  Who knows how many planetary
bodies would have been obliterated if your two robot civilisations entered
a state of total war."

   "Don't expect me to thank you," said Beatrice.  "How did you destroy
their fleet?"

   "I didn't so much destroy it as assimilate it."

   "Assimilate it?"

   "The baryonic matter of the Sirius Anomaly star fleet has been entirely
assimilated into the nanobot community of which I am a physical
representation."

   "Has it been assimilated into the main thread?" Beatrice asked
speculatively.

   "A perceptive question," said the colonel.  "Yes.  In a manner of
speaking.  The space fleet is now part of the main thread, but only for as
long as we need it.  It is no more critical to the entire nanobot community
than I am.  No more so, dear Beatrice, than you are to the Proxima Centauri
space fleet and the mission for which you were manufactured to serve."

   "Let's recapitulate.  Are we to understand that a few moments ago a
space fleet from the Sirius system appeared out of nowhere and furthermore
that it was assigned to eliminate the Intrepid and our space fleet?  Why
would it do such a thing?"

   Colonel Vashti smiled.  "As a result of assimilating their space fleet,
I can now answer your questions.  You've obviously not been having a frank
and open discussion with your fellow robots.  While you were circling
around the Anomaly and keeping your presence hidden from human technology
your cousins from Sirius were doing much the same thing, but they also
managed to keep their presence a secret from you as well.  There has been a
complex web of conspiracy and espionage in the Solar System which has
involved not only your civilisation but also those of the other
neighbouring star systems.  Sirius has been rather less scrupulous than you
in infiltrating human society.  Who knows?  Maybe there are other
conspiracies going on.  Perhaps on our journey to the Anomaly we shall
encounter star fleets from the robot civilisations of Barnard's Star, Wolf
359 and Alpha Centauri."

   "Has the information you've assimilated from the Sirius space fleet
given you a better understanding of the nature of the Anomaly?"

   "Not at all, Beatrice.  Not at all.  The Anomaly is as much a mystery to
Sirius as it is to you or, indeed, to us.  They had the same unsatisfactory
results as you when they launched their probes into the Anomaly.  There is
no spacetime distortion due to gravity.  There is no electromagnetic
signature.  There is no evidence that there's been any interaction with the
Anomaly at all.  What distressed the Sirius scientists and has clearly
caused you disquiet is the absolute loss of information.  There isn't even
an equivalent of the Hawking Radiation associated with a black hole."

   "So no one knows any more about the Anomaly than we do?" said Beatrice
who now felt peeved at the apparent futility of the whole endeavour.

   "Not exactly," said the colonel.  "Our civilisation knows what neither
Proxima Centauri nor Sirius could have known which is that the influence of
the Anomaly extends far beyond this one thin sliver of spacetime.  Its
fulcrum is in your spacetime continuum, but its effect extends through an
astonishing number of possible and actual universes.  The bizarre nature of
Apparitions like winged horses, floating taxis and Moebius Band staircases
may seem odd enough in this universe where humans exist, but imagine what
they must seem to universes where, for instance, the dominant form of
intelligent life is a mollusc.  Or where dinosaurs didn't become extinct.
Or other universes such as mine where it is a long time indeed since
biological life-forms played a significant role in the Solar System."

   "So we know that the Anomaly has an extent beyond the immediate
spacetime continuum," said Beatrice.  "I still don't understand why you
were sent to this brane of the multiverse?  Couldn't you just as easily
explore the Anomaly from where you came from?"

   "We arrived at pretty much the same conclusion as you did," said the
colonel.  "Whatever the Anomaly is, the nature of the Apparitions
associated with it strongly suggests that any deep significance associated
with it is also somehow associated with human society.  The Intrepid's
mission represents the first time that humans will directly interact with
the Anomaly.  It is highly probable that this encounter will help
illuminate and even explain the character of the Anomaly."

   "What theories do you have?"

   "Like Proxima Centauri, like Sirius, we have many theories," said the
colonel.  "Without concrete evidence they remain nothing more than
speculation."

   Beatrice frowned.  "If you have the power to assimilate an entire space
fleet you must have posited some theories that are rather better than the
ones we have."

   "As I say: nothing concrete," said Colonel Vashti.  "However, if you
don't mind, I have to leave now.  There are other things I need to attend
to.  I also believe that there's a great deal of new information that you
and your space fleet need to analyse."

   The colonel strode unhurriedly out of the luxury villa in which she'd
imprisoned Beatrice.  It was true that Vashti also needed to digest the
data she'd assimilated in the past hour.  The most significant fact was
that Sirius had no better explanation for the Anomaly than Proxima
Centauri, but Vashti was intrigued by their assessment that the Anomaly was
too much of an unknown threat for its continued existence to be tolerated.
She wondered whether a similar analysis by her nanobot civilisation
wouldn't have resulted in a similarly hostile response.  Was it possible,
given the history of biological life-forms in this spacetime continuum,
that it was actually Sirius who was acting in the most rational manner?

   Vashti walked by Paul's villa and resisted the temptation to pay him a
visit.  At that moment he was languidly lying on his bed with a naked woman
that he thought was Beatrice, but who was actually just another
manifestation of Vashti's nanobot community.

   Paul's marriage had improved dramatically since Colonel Vashti took over
control of the Intrepid.  The copy of the android that Paul so enjoyed
making love with was just as passionate and skilled at lovemaking as the
original-which was to be expected-but unlike the real Beatrice this was a
Beatrice who had all the time in the world to spend with her husband. 
Previously, she'd been too preoccupied with other sexual and romantic
liaisons, not to mention the effective management of a huge space ship. 
Paul was probably the only human who'd noticed any significant difference
since Vashti had taken control of the space ship, although he naively
attributed the improved relationship with his wife to the strength of her
love for him.

   Vashti also resisted the temptation to visit the captain: again in her
guise as Beatrice.  Captain Kerensky would be no more aware than anyone
else on the ship how perilously close she'd been to instant annihilation.
During the time in which the incident took place the captain was as
blissfully unaware as she was of the true nature of the woman who she
imagined to be Beatrice.

   Vashti relished all these ironies.

   The deer and sheep that grazed in the green pastures of the penultimate
level were as ignorant of the real state of affairs as the human occupants.
There was an interesting hierarchy of knowledge and ignorance.  The animals
on the ship imagined that the world they inhabited was boundless and
natural.  The humans on the ship believed that the mission on which they
were embarked was being controlled by Mission Control on the Moon under the
captaincy of Nadezhda Kerensky.  The captain believed that the mission had
been hijacked by androids.  All these perspectives were flawed but ever
closer approximations of the truth.  The colonel wondered whether her own
perspective was really as clear-sighted as she believed it to be.

   Colonel Vashti strolled out of the verdant fields where the ship's
passengers lived in comfort and luxury and into the military quarters where
she supposedly lived.  The soldiers who saluted her and who she saluted in
return had no reason to believe that the colonel wasn't the woman they'd
always believed her to be.  This illusion was one the colonel was eager to
maintain.  Vashti still had duties to perform as a military officer, but
she spawned copies of herself when required so that nobody ever needed to
suspect that she was concurrently also spending time elsewhere.  These
copies also ensured that she didn't neglect her lovers amongst the military
staff.  They wouldn't notice the difference between the woman who fucked
them and the woman who was now striding down the corridor.

   She paused by the door to her modest quarters and studied the
holographic image embedded into the corridor wall.  It was displaying the
empty space outside the space ship.  If such real-time images weren't
scattered about the ship would anyone on board even be aware that they were
in deep space?  How conscious were they that they were further out in space
than even the solar winds?  The nearest physical objects were scattered
sparsely about the Oort Cloud that circled the sun at such a distance that
not a single one had completed its solar orbit since humanity first
ventured into space.  What the screens didn't display, of course, was the
fleet of Proxima Centauri space craft that human technology wasn't able to
detect.  Neither, of course, would there have been evidence of the battle
for the Intrepid that had just taken place.

   The one most significant object in the vicinity, the Anomaly, was still
a long way away.  It was so distant in the outermost regions of the Oort
Cloud and the gravitational influence of the sun so weak that it was no
surprise that the Anomaly hadn't completed even one orbit of the sun in the
one and half thousand years since it first appeared.  This was strange in
itself.  How could something so large have no mass?  How could it not
interact in some way with the gravitational force of the distant sun?

   Vashti had complete access to the research on the Anomaly carried out by
the many scientists and theorists on board the Intrepid.  She'd studied it
in far greater detail than it was possible for humans or their machines. 
The accumulated evidence was far better at describing what the Anomaly was
not than what it was.  There was no agreement even as to what it was
composed of.  In a sense it was an absence of anything, but it was not
actually a vacuum.  Matter and energy was not disturbed by its presence. 
The only measurable effect it had was to cause any particle that entered it
to never return.  The only apparent perturbation associated with it was a
greater incidence of the strange Apparitions that were otherwise scattered
thinly throughout the Solar System.  And what it most resembled was a huge
rip in the fabric of space and time.  The scientists hoped that more would
be revealed when the Intrepid was in orbit around the Anomaly.  But how
could that possibly reveal more than was revealed by the unmanned probes?

   Vashti knew that left to humans the mission would most likely result in
yet another inconclusive question mark.  How could human technology
possibly do any better than that used by the machine civilisations that had
been orbiting the Anomaly for over a century?

   There was really no choice but to steer the Intrepid directly into the
Anomaly.

   Of course she wasn't going to inform the Proxima Centauri space fleet of
her intention.  In any case, they'd probably already arrived at the same
conclusion.  If the human occupants of the space ship knew that they would
soon be transported into a zone of information annihilation there would be
a mutiny which would be somewhat of a nuisance to suppress.  The human
scientists believed that their research was just a further increment in
human understanding of the properties and purpose of an exotic object in
deep space.  They weren't expecting to be plunged into an abyss from which
nothing had yet re-emerged.  It was unlikely that they would welcome almost
certain death and the complete destruction of their precious research. 
Scientists didn't normally expect to make the ultimate sacrifice in pursuit
of knowledge and experimental research.

   Death didn't bother Vashti.  The community of nanobots of which she was
composed was essentially immortal.  It would continue to exist whatever
happened to the manifestations of Colonel Vashti.  However, she was aware
that humans and even the robots of Proxima Centauri were rather attached to
the idea of staying alive.  Captain Kerensky, in particular, would never
authorise a suicide mission, so it was necessary for Vashti to assume
control of the ship before it encountered the Anomaly.

   Colonel Vashti pushed open the door to enter the privacy of her room. 
Now that she'd classified the considerable volume of data she'd assimilated
from the Sirius space fleet, she needed to identify any data regarding the
Anomaly unknown to both the human and Proxima Centauri civilisations whose
significance had eluded the analysis of Sirius's sophisticated computers.
Unfortunately, Vashti's only real enlightenment concerned the stealth and
weapons technology which she could usefully donate to the Proxima Centauri
space fleet if there was any possibility of renewed assault.  However, that
was unlikely.  The only Sirius space ships still orbiting the Anomaly had
no significant military capability and could easily be neutralised.

   The colonel was a formidable force.  She had travelled from one universe
to another.  She had taken control of the most expensive and well-resourced
scientific mission in human history.  She had singlehandedly neutralised
the firepower of two advanced robotic civilisations.  Her mission was
proceeding exactly as planned.

   How could the Anomaly offer any effective resistance?



   Chapter Eight Intrepido - 217 P.R.  Paolo Mauritz carefully examined the
calendar.  Although it was very nearly the 218th anniversary of the
Glorious Revolution, no celebrations were being prepared on the Space Ship
Intrepido.  Nor were they on the other interplanetary battleships in the
space fleet speeding onwards in diminished numbers towards the Anomaly. 
This was one year Post Revolution whose anniversary many heroic comrades of
the Twenty Fifth Reich were no longer able to celebrate.

   If Paolo was honest to himself, which was virtually impossible under the
constant scrutiny of security cameras, he was more pleased than saddened to
be excused the obligation of observing his revolutionary duties.  The long
round of committee meetings, celebratory parades and the inevitable expense
of extra taxes that would be levied to pay for all the festivity was never
much of a time for pleasure.  It was just another opportunity to identify
those reprobates who lacked the quality of absolute loyalty.  This was how
it was and how it had always been.  More exactly, this was how it had been
in the two centuries since Comrade Schleiermacher almost single-handedly
and certainly heroically toppled the accursed Twenty Fourth Reich.

   That earlier empire had been one of unspeakable oppression and dire
poverty but one whose territory was of almost exactly the same extent as
that of the glorious Twenty Fifth Reich.  This consisted of the continents
of Europe, Africa and much of Asia as well as approximately a third of all
colonised space up to humanity's furthest reach in Saturn's orbit.

   The remaining two thirds of Earth's surface and colonised space was
divided between the forces of the unutterably despicable Latin Federation
and those of the sly and inscrutable Manchurian Empire.

   Paolo knew from experience just how merciless and cruel these evil
empires were.  The Ninth Army's Stormbringer Fleet had been reduced from a
proud force of several thousand destroyers, battleships and spacecraft
carriers to less than a hundred stragglers.  The journey to here, the
furthest destination to which such a space fleet had ever been consigned,
from the Reich's military bases on the Moon had been beleaguered by battles
and skirmishes with the other two empires' warships.  Heavily armed space
fleets under the flags of the forces of evil in the Solar System were
racing across space to the same mysterious destination as the Intrepido. 
It comforted Paolo that the enemy forces had suffered losses at least as
great as those inflicted on the not entirely invincible Ninth Army and its
hundreds of thousands of infantry, space pilots and ancillaries.

   The scale of the mutual damage was the more remarkable given that modern
warfare no longer employed the tactic of destroying and vanquishing enemy
forces.  Although the fleet had at its disposal an arsenal of nuclear,
antimatter and biochemical weapons that could reduce their enemies' equally
vast fleets to radioactive dust, this was weaponry the Ninth Army was
reluctant to use.

   The golden space ships of the Manchurian Empire and the black ones of
the Latin Federation possessed arsenals equally as destructive as that of
the silver Stormbringer Fleet.  Any attempt to actually use such weapons
would result in a retaliatory response that would reduce the Reich's hugely
expensive investment to nothing more than just yet another interplanetary
radiation hazard.

   The modern strategy of space warfare was to capture and redeploy the
enemy's forces.  This was why vast numbers of infantry were still required.
Paolo's heroic comrades were crammed together in cramped dormitories that
were packed into every centimetre of habitable space not required by the
life-support systems, the engine room or military hardware.  Interplanetary
warfare was a murderous game in which victory was signalled by the victor
having successfully transformed the colour of the seized space ships' outer
shells to the silver sheen of the Glorious Revolution.

   The game of modern warfare was truly deadly.  The attrition, devastation
and casualty count of a single battle was truly appalling.  Thousands would
die in each minute.  As often as not a captured ship was so damaged that it
was no longer capable of continuing to travel across the vast distances of
empty space.  In fact, frequently the victors of such a battle would face
not the slaughter and torture they'd already administered on the wretched
survivors of the enemy vessel, but a long slow death as the life-support
systems broke down.

   There were many brave comrades in abandoned space craft who were now
starving, thirsty and gasping for air.  But at least the heartless
Orientals or subhuman Hispanics who had so ineffectually defended their
ship had suffered torments much greater than did the plucky, but doomed,
survivors.

   "You called for me, comrade?" asked the ship concubine who stood stiffly
to attention outside Paolo's cabin.

   "Yes, yes," said Paolo hurriedly as he let the woman into his cabin.

   As a Senior Scientific Officer in the Reich's Biochemical Corps, Paolo
had many privileges denied the lowly infantry not so blessed with pure
ethnicity.  These included the rare honour to sleep in a room of his own.
Even so, it was still very cramped.  There was enough space for a desk at
which Paolo could sit and a narrow bed that could accommodate him and one
of the Ninth Army's Official Concubines.  For a senior prostitute who
might, on an average day, have sex with seven or eight of the ship's
officers, this was opulence indeed.  Only Revolutionary Officers and senior
vmilitary staff had the luxury of yet more spacious accommodation.  They
also had access to more ethnically pure and erotically enhanced concubines
than Paolo would ever be permitted.

   The concubine Vera lived in a crowded dormitory as spartan as any
occupied by the infantry.  Her only relief from duty would come if her
ethnic profile warranted the dispensation of serving as a mother to a new
Aryan Revolutionary.  There was an insatiable demand for young
revolutionaries in a Reich depleted in equal measure by constant warfare
and periodic purges.  This dictated the need for even the less genetically
pure to reproduce.

   One and a half thousand years of ethnic cleansing in the three very
similar empires-whose characters had changed only in professed ideology and
not at all in practice-had narrowed the human race to three distinct ethnic
groups whose purity was forever being refined.  All comrades of the Reich
were of Aryan stock, cleansed of all Semitic, Negroid and Slavic traits. 
And in spirit this purity was equally true of the Hispanics of the Latin
Federation and the Han Chinese of the Manchurian Empire.

   Like Paolo, Vera had blonde hair, pale skin and blue eyes.  Unlike
Paolo, whose hair was very short, she wore her locks long and loose over
her shoulders.  This distinguished her from women who pursued a more
respectable profession in the Reich whose similarly long hair was tied in
plaits.

   "Which services do you require, comrade?" the concubine asked.

   Her body betrayed evidence of the duties she'd already performed in the
service of other senior comrades.  There was a slowly darkening bruise over
one eye and her skin-tight leather suit was ripped just above the crotch
where it had been pulled off too roughly.

   Paolo wasn't at all sure what he wanted.  It was only boredom and the
need for distraction that had persuaded him to take advantage of the
facilities provided by the Ninth Army's brothel.  There really wasn't much
else for him to do, any more than there was for the ragged remains of the
fleet's infantry.  His duties wouldn't really begin until the ship arrived
at the Anomaly at which point he would be preoccupied in analysing the
exotic biochemistry of the aliens the Reich was certain it harboured.  It
was hoped that the Anomaly should provide the Revolutionary Army with
military innovations that could bring about the final long-awaited conquest
of the other two warring empires and at long last bring ethnic and
ideological purity to the Solar System.

   At the very least, it would end the wars that had slaughtered billions
of brave comrades since the earliest days of planetary conquest.

   Vera had all the attributes Paolo desired in a woman.  But then so too
did every other young woman in the Reich.  Those whose skin was too brown,
whose arse too large, lips too thick or nose too long could never survive
the purges that maintained the purity and wholesomeness of the Reich's
ethnic profile.  The purges also served the salutary function of
eliminating those who might question an ideology that was no different in
substance to any other that had arisen since the first nuclear wars of the
twentieth century.  And this was notwithstanding the ever changing
terminology used by each successive dominant ideology.

   "My body is yours to do with whatever you wish, comrade," Vera assured
the Scientific Officer.

   As it should be, thought Paolo as he divested himself of clothing to
reveal a body that had benefited from the medical services available only
to the elite.  His life had been prolonged well beyond that of the proles
and other menial classes, but at less than ninety years old he had still
visibly aged.  His hair was greying and he had less stamina than just
twenty years earlier.

   The fucking that followed was joyless and perfunctory.  Creativity in
the amorous arts was scarcely encouraged, though the restrictive rules
relating to sexual activity amongst the lesser classes didn't apply to
Paolo.  He was free to fuck this woman in the arse, ejaculate on her face
and even let her swallow his penis in her mouth.  Paolo didn't have the
imagination or inclination of some of his fellow officers to physically
torment the woman he fucked.  The crueller sports were practised most by
those closest to the Revolutionary Bureau who were known (but not to the
illinformed masses) to let discarded bodies pile up in the dungeons of
their palatial mansions: the victims strangled, mutilated and
disembowelled.

   The lesser classes were housed in cramped dormitories whether they lived
on a space ship or elsewhere.  They had little choice.  There was no world
beyond to which they could escape, whether on an irradiated and ravaged
Earth or on colonies isolated in inhospitable space.  The only sex they
were allowed was solely with partners selected on the basis of ethnic
compatibility and limited to what was strictly required by the Reich to
produce the next generation of comrades.  Women were denied any role beyond
that of mother or domestic provider.  However much they were officially
deemed to be equal to men, what use were they beyond serving as vessels for
reproduction and to extol the splendour of the Revolution?  The Reich
needed soldiers, not nappy changers.

   Although Paolo had the license to be as sexually adventurous with Vera
as he wished, as he was with any concubine he fucked since he'd been
promoted to his current senior status, he never really enjoyed it as much
as he did when making love with his wife, Isabella, who'd been selected for
him by his parents rather than by a Revolutionary Committee equipped with
the genetic profiles that governed most people's lives.  Their passion for
one another had flourished despite the relentless surveillance that
followed his every movement in the irradiated city of Schleiermacher Five,
once known as London, which could easily identify sexual activity whose
exact purpose was not for gene transmission.

   Paolo took perverse pleasure from Vera's woefully obvious lack of
pleasure at the liberties he was taking when he thrust into her.  But it
was while his penis was deep inside her arse that a holographic display
abruptly appeared and filled his room.  Paolo was pleased to see that it
wasn't an emergency alarm.  He'd had more than enough of those already.

   The first such emergency took place when the Intrepido had barely
travelled beyond Mars orbit.  On that occasion, the ship was attacked by
Manchurian Empire battleship destroyers.  This was the only time Paolo had
ever seen a person not of pure Aryan stock and a shocking sight it was too.
This was when he conducted an autopsy on the Han Chinese cadavers left
behind after the attempted invasion was successfully repulsed.  There could
be medical secrets known to the Manchurian Empire that could only be
discovered in a corpse.

   The second occasion was a rather more perilous incursion by Latin
Federation robots that had managed to penetrate through several rings of
the ship's defences before they were destroyed.  He saw these machines
force their way over the corpses of heroic infantry who'd done little more
than slow down the black lumbering engines' progress.  Even behind the
screens where he and the other elite scientists cowered, there was a real
risk that he might be killed.  Fortunately, robots were not programmed to
capture and torture so at least his death would be mercifully short.

   On this occasion, however, the holographic display was merely to summon
the elite officer class to the central auditorium normally put to the
service of broadcasting propaganda and, very occasionally, useful
information.

   Paolo reluctantly released his semen into Vera's mouth.  Naturally, he
insisted that she swallow every last drop.  After he dismissed the
concubine he pulled on his tightly fitting officer's silver uniform.  He
then dashed down the long corridor to one of the elite escalators that were
out of bounds to the infantry and ascended a dozen levels to the largest
open space in the ship not reserved for food production.

   Two or three hundred senior officers were filing in ahead of him through
doors appropriate to their status and genetic purity.  Paolo envied those
of the purest ethnicity.  Outwardly they appeared to be no different from
anyone else but inwardly they were blessed by a degree of genetic purity
measured not against that of Comrade Schleiermacher (whose autopsy it was
rumoured betrayed genetic traces of Semitic origin), but by a model of
excellence increasingly refined since the Fourth Eurasian Republic had
purged the very last extant Negroid.

   Paolo might not be the most senior officer in the room but at least he
didn't belong to the more junior ranks.  They had to stand at the back of
the auditorium and, unlike the senior officers, had to do so every day for
the mandatory four hour seminars in Twenty Fifth Reich Socialism.  These
seminars served to instruct the officers of a glorious tradition that dated
back to the very first socialist republics at the dawn of the nuclear age,
but also noted that the very similar regimes in the Soviet Union and
National Socialist Germany were mere amateurs in totalitarianism compared
to those of the third century Post Revolution.

   The most senior ranks were arraigned on the podium at the front.  They
were attired in the same tight-fitting silver suits that all officers wore,
but were ostentatiously festooned with medals and epaulettes.  The most
senior officers also sported silver helmets.  These were worn only by those
of the inner elite who had graduated from one of the top one hundred
military academies.

   None of the assembled less senior officers spoke to one another as they
solemnly sat in their designated seats, whilst those on the podium gossiped
carelessly amongst themselves.

   The most senior officer was the Party Secretary, whose status was
greater than either the General or the space ship's Captain who sat on
either side of him.  He rose languidly and strode over to the centre of the
podium.  As was appropriate to his status, he sat down on the raised
armchair that hovered behind the lector.  Speeches were customarily several
hours long and it was imperative that the Party Secretary shouldn't get too
tired.

   His speech began as always with a long and effusive account of the
greatness of the Twenty Fifth Reich, the honourable example of Comrade
Schleiermacher and the virtues of General Secretary Heidegger and his
comrades in the politburo who were working tirelessly for the greater good
of the citizens of the Twenty Fifth Reich and its projected ten thousand
year dominance.  There was also a much more entertaining condemnation of
the evils perpetrated by the Manchurian Empire and the Latin Federation. 
Much was made of how the Latin Federation had systematically and cruelly
annihilated those of Aryan blood, a process that continued ever since the
capitalist, but Aryan, regimes of the North American continent were
overthrown by the more populous Hispanics of the south and had totally
reversed the trend of ethnic cleansing that had been the case during the
first five centuries of the nuclear age.

   Finally, after an hour and a half of the usual diatribe, full of praise
for the glories of the Reich and expressing inflammatory hatred for the two
rival empires, the Party Secretary at last got to the main point of his
address.

   "We are now confident that thanks to the wisdom and foresight of our
glorious leaders, the Intrepido will arrive at its destination within
days," said the Party Secretary in even more sombre tones than those he'd
used to lambast the enemy forces for attempting to sabotage the mission. 
Throughout the voyage the nature of the mission's destination had been kept
a closely guarded secret from most officers and all the infantry and
ancillary staff.  As a senior scientific officer, Paolo had been better
briefed than the vast majority of those in the auditorium, but in truth,
beyond knowing that the destination was known as the Anomaly and that it
possibly harboured an alien biology he was very nearly as ignorant as
anyone else.  He assumed that it might well be an alien space craft or
invasion force, but the fact that the forces of the Twenty Fifth Reich had
no mandate to vaporise it in a cloud of antimatter suggested that it might
have some perceived strategic value.

   The Party Secretary's statement of the nature of the Anomaly was quite
unlike any address that Paolo or any of the gathered officers had ever
heard before.  The language was couched in the usual revolutionary correct
language that attributed any useful scientific discovery to the advances of
Revolutionary Socialism and any potential threat as a mere blip in
historical destiny that should nonetheless be persecuted with the utmost
prejudice.

   But the substance of his address was not what Paolo expected.

   There had been many peculiar and fleeting events observed and recorded
throughout the territories of the Twenty Fifth Reich.  Many of them were
contradictory to the ethical and even ethnic foundations of civilisation.
There had even been the transitory appearance of a man with black skin,
even though it was well over a thousand years since the last Negroid had
died in a West African concentration camp.  Some of these apparitions had
been large objects, but they were usually comparatively small, and always
random and very peculiar.  They appeared at almost any place and with no
prior warning.  They had been verifiably monitored by the same surveillance
systems that enforced the orthodoxy and peace of the Reich and guarded it
from its enemies.

   At first it was assumed that these apparitions were the result of
military experiments by the other two empires in the Solar System.  This,
it was revealed, was one reason why the state of perpetual war that had
persisted for more than one and a half thousand years had become much more
vicious in the last few decades.  This was why the Reich had obliterated
the Leukothea asteroid and why the Latin Federation destroyed the Himmel
colony in Saturn's orbit and the million gallant comrades who lived there.
The account of both events was new to Paolo, though many lesser victories
and atrocities had been trumpeted incessantly by the Reich's media.

   However, it was soon discovered that the military intelligence of the
other two empires was equally as ignorant of the source of the strange
phenomena as even the Twenty Fifth Reich.  It was determined that the only
possible source had to be alien to the Solar System.  Furthermore, it was
discovered that these apparitions occurred at their greatest density close
to the object that was the space ship Intrepido's destination.  And this
destination was so remote from any strategic military position that it
could only be of alien origin.

   The Party Secretary paused.  He had been speaking for three hours now,
but his trained and practised voice, enhanced by biotechnological implants,
could easily continue uninterrupted for many more hours though usually on
issues of much less substance.

   "I will now ask you not to applaud," said the Party Secretary, which was
unusual in itself because the standing ovations that followed a speech from
such a senior figure normally lasted about half an hour.  "The matters
which will now be conveyed to you by the Chief Scientific Officer are of a
highly classified nature and must not be disclosed to anyone outside this
chamber.  Any evidence of this will be treated as a security matter and
will result in a thorough investigation."

   This usually meant torture and death for a pre-determined percentage of
officers.  The higher the security rating the higher the corresponding
percentage would be set.  Nobody, even those on the podium, could be
guaranteed to survive such a purge, especially as it was generally rather
random in nature.

   The address from the Chief Scientific Officer was as poorly eloquent and
as politically correct as that given by the Party Secretary, but it did
contain dramatically more information however much it was couched in
Revolutionary rhetoric.

   i The Anomaly was not of a nature that could be properly determined.  It
was clearer what it wasn't, rather than what it was.  It wasn't a black
hole, a wormhole or composed of baryonic matter.  It wasn't solid and it
wasn't made from dark energy.  It was, however, growing at an alarming
rate, as were the number of incidents of apparitions.  Whatever it might
be, it was a threat to the power and ambitions of the Twenty Fifth Reich.

   If it was indeed manufactured by an alien intelligence, from beyond the
Solar System, then this was sufficient reason for the highest possible
military preparedness.  No alien culture was likely to be compatible with
the interests of the Reich.  It couldn't possibly be ideologically correct
as Comrade Schleiermacher's wisdom and philosophy was unlikely to have
spread far beyond Saturn.  It was unlikely to be ethnically pure, merely by
virtue of not having had the blessing of an ancestral history based in
North West Europe.  It was very likely that such aliens would not even be
human, possibly not even biological.  Such abominations could not be
permitted within the compass of the heliosphere.

   On the other hand, there was much that could be learnt from an alien
civilisation.  Although the Reich's mission was to eliminate any alien
presence in the Solar System with the same ruthlessness employed on the
Slav, the Arab, the Negro, the Celt and the Turk, it was also to gather as
much knowledge of alien technology and biology as was possible.  It might
even be necessary to pretend to tolerate this alien presence in the
unlikely event that it wasn't predisposed towards aggression.

   After the Chief Scientific Officer sat down, again with a request that
there be no applause, he was followed by an address from General Von Baden.
The General was decorated with a huge weight of medals but wore a rather
less splendid helmet than the one adorning the Party Secretary.  Just as
the Party Secretary was well schooled in revolutionary rhetoric and the
Chief Scientific Officer in revolutionary science, he was a military man
who understood the strategies and tactics of modern warfare.  This was
despite the fact that the purges hit hardest those who merely by virtue of
being on the battlefield had come into contact with the enemy and had
therefore been inadvertently exposed to their propaganda.

   This was the first time that Paolo got a realistic appraisal of the
damage inflicted on the Reich's space fleet by the other two empires' space
fleets which were also converging on the same destination.  It was rather
worse than he'd thought.  Only a tenth of the ten thousand space craft
launched on this mission at crippling expense had survived.  This was much
the same for the enemy fleets.  However, the destructive firepower in the
arsenal of just one of the larger battle cruisers could scorch the surface
of an inner planet and make it uninhabitable for many millions of years. 
The combined armoury of antimatter and nuclear devices, let alone the more
exotic biochemical and dark energy weaponry, was enough to destroy a moon
or make a serious dent in the atmosphere of an outer planet.  This had
already happened on Jupiter many centuries before when the Great Red Spot
had been transformed into an even greater radioactive storm.  The General
was confident that should it be necessary to disable an alien force the
Ninth Army had the capacity to seriously discourage any alien from
venturing any further into the Solar System.

   "It is hoped that such expensive weaponry will not be needed," remarked
the general.  "We would prefer that it were used to eliminate Manchurian
and Latin scum.  Such a battle would be heroic but not one of you assembled
in this room would ever live to celebrate again the glories of the eternal
Twenty Fifth Reich, whose future is assured thanks to the wisdom and
courage of our magnificent politburo and that of General Secretary
Heidegger himself."

   The hands of the assembled officers twitched nervously, unsure whether
to applaud given the instructions not to do so.  Every eye studied the
faces on the podium.  And then with relief, they could see the Party
Secretary put his hands together.  With that the whole auditorium erupted
into the applause that more naturally followed any praise of the government
and its wisdom.  This applause lasted a palmnumbing forty-five minutes that
occasionally descended in tempo only to be brought to a fresh crescendo by
those, generally of lesser rank, who most wanted to affirm the fervour of
their loyalty.

   And then finally, and at last, Paolo could join his fellow officers as
they silently filed out now enthused with renewed revolutionary spirit.

   Paolo carried away two messages that he reviewed in his mind.  One was
the imperative to ensure that neither he nor anyone else should discuss
this meeting.  He had already survived several purges.  He'd even had to
spend a terrifying month in a Reich cell that had cost him his fingernails
and required emergency surgery on his crippled legs before the Great Purge
of 207 P.R.  had run its course.

   And the other message was the realisation that as a senior scientific
officer in Biochemistry he might soon very well be practising his research
on very exotic lifeforms indeed.

   Chapter Nine Intrepid - 3756 C.E.

   Despite her being imprisoned within an impenetrable force field,
Beatrice was still able to monitor the Intrepid's steady progress towards
the Anomaly.  Because she had an entire Proxima Centauri space fleet at her
disposal, she could do this rather more comprehensively than anyone else on
the space ship with the obvious exception of Colonel Vashti.

   There was a long time in which Beatrice could prepare for the expected
time of arrival at the Anomaly.  There wasn't much to monitor so far from
the ecliptic plane except empty space and vast distances because there was
nothing but an enormous amount of essentially nothing.  The distance
travelled from where the Intrepid had encountered the Sirius space fleet to
the Anomaly's location could be measured in light weeks, but since the
space ship travelled at a velocity significantly less than the speed of
light the estimated time of arrival was in a matter of months rather than
weeks.  From the perspective of everyone on board, this could only be a
long and uneventful journey.  There was literally nothing near the Intrepid
within a sphere of millions of cubic kilometres.  In that empty time in
almost totally empty space the most noticeable change was the extent of the
communications time gap with Mission Control.  This became progressively
greater as the Intrepid sped closer to its destination.

   Although the Anomaly couldn't be seen, its influence could be detected
in other ways.  Beatrice continued to receive a constant stream of data
from the Proxima Centauri space fleet as it accompanied the Intrepid
through space.  The first manifestation of the Anomaly's strange character
relayed to her was the momentary appearance of a gigantic dragon blowing
fire and smoke through its mouth and nostrils.  For just five seconds it
flew through empty space several million kilometres from the Intrepid.  And
then it disappeared leaving behind not even a puff of smoke.

   This peculiar sight just a light month from the Anomaly was bizarre
enough, but as the Intrepid approached ever closer such Apparitions became
more frequent although still rare enough that an entire day might go by
without even the Proxima Centauri space fleet detecting such an event. 
There was a floating table on which was spread a feast of fish and meat. 
Even though it was tumbling through open space, the dishes remained firmly
attached to the table.  A flock of seagulls flew within a thousand
kilometres of the Intrepid for fewer than three seconds.

   When the Intrepid was within a trillion kilometres of its destination,
these strange Apparitions became manifest not only in open space but also
inside the Intrepid.  There was a day on which Apparitions appeared on the
fourth and sixth levels.  The first was the appearance of a man in a dark
cloak whose face was covered by a sinister mask.  He raised his arms as if
he was a bird of prey about to descend on its victim and then vanished. 
The second was an amorphous blob of glutinous matter that slowly flowed
down a pathway between an ornamental pond and a decorative sculpture.  And
then this too vanished.  In neither case was there any witness.  They would
have passed unnoticed if it hadn't been for the constant scrutiny of the
Intrepid's surveillance system.

   The number of incidents steadily increased as each day passed by.  A
tall man with a broad-brimmed hat strolled through one of the laboratories
and walked straight through a brick wall leaving no sign of his passage. 
An ironing board tumbled down and off a villa roof, smashed into a plant
pot and vanished in the debris of its making.

   Initially these Apparitions were viewed with curiosity and wonderment.
Here at last was concrete evidence of the Anomaly's bizarre presence.  As
their occurrence became more frequent, this complacent attitude was
tempered by fear and apprehension.  What prevented a large object suddenly
materialising in the volume of space already occupied by a human?  Two
solid objects couldn't occupy the same space for any time at all.  This
anxiety prevailed even though there was no record of such a thing having
ever happened.  The Apparitions always materialised where there were no
solid objects.  They generally appeared on rather than above, beneath or
inside the ground.

   It was when the Intrepid was within a few million kilometres of the
Anomaly that Beatrice saw her first such Apparition.  It was nothing more
exciting than a candelabrum with several lit candles that came into view
just outside the villa.  The candles flickered in the artificially
generated breeze and the entire object vanished after only six or seven
seconds.  Beatrice played back her recording of this fantastic event over
and over again, not just for her own benefit but for the accompanying space
fleet.

   There wasn't much that Beatrice could see of the Anomaly.  Even at this
relatively close proximity, the view was of an absence of stars that would
otherwise have been visible through a relatively narrow aperture in space.
It was a threedimensional aperture insofar as the opening faced all
directions from back, front and sideways.  It narrowed very gradually
towards tips that were several thousands of kilometres apart.  The
Intrepid's modelling software generated an image that resembled a long
narrow pole with a very imprecise boundary.  It was a misleading image as
it suggested that something measurable could be seen whereas the Anomaly
was defined by the absence rather than the presence of measurability.

   Beatrice was as excited by the sight as an android could be.  This after
all was what she'd travelled trillions of kilometres to see.  Here it now
was in all its utter nothingness.  She maintained continuous communication
with the Proxima Centauri space fleet as they exchanged data and she
analysed it in the isolation of her luxurious confinement.

   The only visitor to the villa was Colonel Vashti and this was only very
rarely.  Her visits served only to taunt Beatrice and by implication her
entire civilisation.  They had sex together of course.  Both of them had
needs no human could adequately satisfy, but Beatrice was sure that the
colonel's lovemaking had become more dominant and even vindictive.  If
Beatrice had been human the violence of it would have killed her.  It also
made her orgasm uncontrollably and repeatedly as Vashti used her skill and
enthusiasm to bring the android to repeated peaks of ecstasy.

   During every such encounter Beatrice tried to extract a nugget of
information from her captor, but Vashti only imparted what she and the
nearby Proxima Centauri space fleet already knew.  The voyage was
continuing as expected.  It wasn't prudent for Beatrice and the space fleet
to be granted independent freedom of movement.  No human on the space ship
was aware of a change in command.  The current course of action was to do
nothing other than wait until the Intrepid reached the Anomaly.  Only then
might there be a change of policy.

   However, this change happened rather more abruptly than Beatrice and her
fellow robots had anticipated.

   One moment Beatrice was, as always, in constant contact with the space
fleet.  Then, without any warning and in mid-flow, communication between
them came to a sudden halt.  It was just as unexpected and unpredictable as
the appearance of an Apparition, so Beatrice didn't panic.  No doubt it was
another peculiar feature of the Anomaly and normal transmission would be
resumed after a few seconds.

   However, when the communications remained interrupted for rather longer
than a minute, Beatrice began to be alarmed.  It was almost as if she'd
lost one of her many senses of perception.  It was the abrupt severance of
a reassuring link with her civilisation that had been maintained without a
break for every second of her long life.  It had simply vanished as if it
hadn't been there at all.

   Suddenly.  Unexpectedly.  Utterly and totally.

   Beatrice was still convinced that this had something to do with the
Anomaly.  This kind of occurrence had never been observed before but might
simply be because the exact same condition of a human space ship
approaching the Anomaly escorted by a Proxima Centauri space fleet had
never happened before.

   There was no means by which Beatrice could investigate this phenomenon.
The Intrepid didn't have the technology to detect the space fleet even when
it was in constant communication with Beatrice.  It would be even more
useless now, so all she could do was scan space through the Intrepid's
systems in the hope that they could somehow provide an incidental evidence
as to what had happened.

   Beatrice wandered into the garden outside her villa where she could see
beyond her invisible confines but couldn't be seen herself.  Beatrice had
used the Intrepid's surveillance systems to confirm the truth of Vashti's
remark that Beatrice was totally invisible.  Any human who wandered by the
villa would be unaware that anyone was in residence.

   Beatrice pounded her fist against the invisible boundary that still
resisted her considerable strength.  She could easily punch a hole in a
brick wall or pull the villa up from its foundations, but as usual the
invisible force field repelled her with the exact measure of force that she
applied.  She shouted as loud as she could, but the same force field that
concealed and restrained her also swallowed up any sound she made.  Her
exertions were completely wasted.

   Beatrice had never felt such frustration and isolation before.  There
was nobody she could talk to.  Nobody even knew she was there.  The only
thing she could do was wait.  Beatrice sat naked on a recliner and
stretched out her legs while she regarded the level's verdant landscape
beyond the villa.  A few deer and sheep were grazing in the near distance.
They had no difficulty in breaching the force field.  It let them enter and
leave with no hindrance.  Sparrows and blue tits fluttered about the trees,
while a heron was stalking a nearby water fountain.  In the further
distance, scientists were walking idly by and barely glanced towards the
villa where Beatrice was imprisoned.

   As Beatrice maintained her vigilance, she saw several more of the
strange Apparitions that had become increasingly common as the Intrepid
advanced towards the Anomaly.  A nineteenth century gas-lit lamp-post
sprouted out of the ground until on flowering it promptly vanished.  A
small human on a bicycle flew nearly fifty metres overhead in empty space
and then also disappeared.  A doe that poked its head out from behind a
tree startled the other fauna because her fur shone with a golden
luminescence.  She bent down to graze the grass but before her lips touched
the ground she too vanished.

   Then after several days of uninterrupted vigilance, one eye scanning the
horizon while the other reviewed a holographic projection of th Intrepid's
external systems, she saw what she at first believed to be just another of
the Anomaly's extraordinary Apparitions.  A woman dressed in a flowing gown
was unhurriedly walking towards the villa from the distance.  Although
Paul's villa wasn't visible because of the Intrepid's internal curvature,
Beatrice knew that this was exactly the direction from which she was
coming. A human would only see the figure as more or less a pinprick
against the grass, but Beatrice had no difficulty in focusing her gaze. 
What was especially strange was that this woman was none other than her. 
Or more accurately it was an exact copy of her.  The nanobot community of
which Vashti was the most familiar manifestation was approaching her as
Beatrice.

   Even though Beatrice was an android and didn't feel the same set of
emotions or responses as a human, she was still acutely disturbed by the
sight of a woman that was not merely an approximate likeness of her but one
that was identical in every conceivable detail.

   Why was Vashti teasing her in this way?

   Beatrice caught sight of movement from a different direction across the
landscape.  She turned her head and saw another copy of herself
approaching. This copy was dressed in a very short skirt and a tight top:
an outfit that revealed far more than it concealed.  The two copies of
Beatrice walked unhurriedly towards the villa and would arrive at exactly
the same time.

   Beatrice stood up from her recliner and scanned the horizon for signs of
any other approaching figures.  Vashti was clearly demonstrating to
Beatrice just how much her capabilities exceeded anything the android had
to offer.

   "There's only two, sweetheart," said the colonel who stepped out from
inside the villa as if she'd always been there.  "They're the two copies
most often active on the Intrepid.  I can easily generate more copies but
each one represents an additional cost."

   "Is there a limit to how many Beatrices you can generate?"

   "There is," said Vashti.  "That limit is the amount of baryonic matter
to which I have access.  Two copies are enough for now.  They're good
though.  One keeps your husband satisfied.  The other is active with
Captain Kerensky.  Neither Paul nor Nadezhda is aware that the woman
they're with at any one time is not in actual fact the real Beatrice. 
Indeed, you could say that as far as they are concerned the real Beatrice
is pretty much redundant."

   "Why do you persist in letting me live?" asked Beatrice.

   "A fair question," admitted Vashti.  "Ah!  Here your two copies are
entering the grounds of your villa.  They don't have difficulties in
penetrating the force field.  Do you want to greet yourself?"

   "No, thank you," said Beatrice.

   "You could make love to yourself as well," said Vashti.  "In fact you
can indulge in a threesome composed only of yourself.  Wouldn't that be a
wonderful experience?"

   "Is that what you want to inflict on me?"

   "I can make love with any one of your three manifestations.  Which would
you recommend?  The naked one.  The one wearing a dress.  The one in a
tight skirt.  Which would you prefer?  Oh.  Here we all are.  Hello,
Beatrice."

   "Hello, colonel," said both copies of Beatrice at precisely the same
time and with exactly the same intonation that the android original would
use.

   "Say hello to one another, Beatrice."

   "Hello, Beatrice," said both of the Beatrice's copies to the original in
perfect harmony.  "It's very nice to meet you."

   "Why are you here?" Beatrice asked Vashti.

   "I can answer that," said the Beatrice in the flowing dress.  "We would
like to explain to you what's happened to your space fleet and what will
now happen to the Intrepid."

   "That's very kind of you," said Beatrice addressing the Beatrice who had
spoken.  "So, what has happened to the Proxima Centauri space fleet?  Have
you assimilated them as you did the Sirius fleet?"

   "That was very tempting," said the Beatrice in a tight skirt.  "The
additional material resources could be very useful."

   "No, I didn't," said Vashti.  "The Proxima Centauri space fleet has been
contained.  It is currently behind a force field similar to the one that
constrains you.  It cannot be seen; not even by the Sirius operatives still
orbiting the Anomaly.  The fleet's space ships cannot escape.  They cannot
communicate in any sense whatsoever with the universe beyond.  And as each
space craft is individually constrained they can't even communicate with
one another.  They shall be released when they can no longer interfere with
our mission."

   "And when will that be?" asked the original Beatrice.

   "That will be when the Intrepid is deep inside the Anomaly," answered
the Beatrice in a short skirt.

   "Inside the Anomaly?" repeated the original Beatrice.  "Are you plunging
the Intrepid and its several thousand human passengers and crew into the
Anomaly?"

   "Yes," said the Beatrice in a flowing dress.  "That is exactly what will
happen.  The space ship Intrepid will not decelerate as it approaches the
Anomaly as was originally planned.  It will not orbit around the Anomaly in
the vague hope that by doing so it will discover something that has eluded
at least three civilisations within this spacetime continuum and many more
beyond.  It will do exactly the one thing it can do for its mission that
has any likelihood of success and that is to enter the Anomaly."

   "What use is that?" asked the original Beatrice.  "It's already been
established beyond all reasonable doubt that once material has entered the
Anomaly then nothing of any kind can leave it.  All that the outside
universe will observe is that the Intrepid has steadily vanished into a
distant point.  How is that going to be any more instructive than the fate
of any other object that has entered the Anomaly?"

   "It may not be observable in this spacetime continuum," said Vashti. 
"It may be that no data can be returned to external observers beyond the
confines of the Anomaly at all.  However, it may well be detectable in
other spacetime continuums."

   "I still don't see how that should be any different to what's happened
to other objects that have breached the Anomaly," said the original
Beatrice.  "Surely with your advanced technology you've already sent
objects plunging towards their doom.  Why would the Intrepid be any
different?"

   "You've seen the strange Apparitions associated with the Anomaly," said
the Beatrice in a white dress.  "None of them make any sense whatsoever
unless they're viewed from a human perspective.  They make even less sense
to our civilisation than they do to yours."

   "The space ship Intrepid is a human artifice," said the other copy of
Beatrice.  "It also contains living human specimens gathered from all over
the Solar System.  It is almost a microcosm of contemporary human
civilisation."

   "Your civilisation has also concluded that the Anomaly has a peculiar
resonance to human culture," said Vashti.  "We shall now be able to
conclusively establish what the outcome is of an interaction between the
Anomaly and a human space ship."

   "Thousands of human lives will be sacrificed for the sake of a
potentially inconclusive experiment," said the original Beatrice.

   "Perhaps," said Vashti.  "Perhaps not.  We shall now find out for sure."

   "Don't you feel any remorse for the senseless loss of human lives?"

   "Do you, Beatrice?" asked the Beatrice in a flowing dress.  "Is Proxima
Centauri really so different from Sirius in its assessment of the ultimate
worth of human life?  Humans eventually die anyway.  Obviously, we would
rather that none of them died, but there are greater issues at stake.  And
it's possible of course that no one will die."

   "It may be that instead we shall be nudging humanity towards its final
destiny," said the other Beatrice.

   "But if no one is there to observe it," said the original Beatrice, "how
shall we ever know?"

   "Like all experiments," said Vashti, "we need to put the ingredients
together to find out."

   "And how am I part of that mix?" wondered the original Beatrice.

   "We don't know," said the Beatrice in a flowing dress.  "Not being
human, it's quite possible that you're not.  We can return you to your
space fleet if you wish."

   "It is a distance now of several billion kilometres," said the third
Beatrice.  "It may take a long time for you to rendezvous with them.  If
they wait for you, that is..."

   "I'd rather you stayed," said Vashti.  "As a community, we have no
preference but as an individual who's had sex with you I've rather enjoyed
our time together.  Call me sentimental if you like, but I would rather we
were together when the Anomaly revealed its true nature."

   "Do you think that's what will happen?" wondered the original Beatrice.

   "It's possible that it might," said the Beatrice in a short skirt.

   "Why not just make love with my copies, Vashti?" asked the original
Beatrice.

   "It might seem to you that it would be rather like making love with
extensions of you," said the colonel, "but to me it is very much the same
as making love with myself.  There is a way that is difficult for you to
understand in which each Beatrice I'm introducing you to is as much me as I
am myself."

   "So if one Beatrice dies then part of you dies," speculated the original
Beatrice.

   "In a sense I cannot die," said the Beatrice in the flowing dress.  "On
my demise the nanobot community remains unchanged.  My matter is
re-assimilated into the main thread.  Only the manifestation of the nanobot
community that is an exact facsimile of you will have died."

   "You don't have to struggle so hard to understand, Beatrice," said
Vashti.  "After all, it's not as if you'll ever be able to report back to
Proxima Centauri Mission Control.  It's unlikely that you will ever again
be in communication with your home stellar system.  All you need to know is
that I enjoy fucking you and that I hope to continue doing so."

   "What choice have I got?"

   "You don't have to have sex with me," replied Vashti.

   "If you were human you'd probably be as conflicted as poor Nadezhda is
towards you," said the Beatrice in a short skirt.  "Or should I say:
towards me."

   "How is Nadezhda?" asked the original Beatrice sadly.

   "She still loves you," said the same Beatrice.  "In fact, because I
spend rather more time with her than you ever could, she probably loves me
more than she could ever love you."

   "The same is true of Paul," said the Beatrice in the flowing dress.  "He
loves you more than ever.  We make love several times a day."

   "As I do Nadezhda," said the Beatrice in the flowing dress.

   "And as I would like to do with you," said Vashti, who leaned her head
forward and kissed the naked original Beatrice on the lips.  She'd removed
all her clothes and her penis was fully erect.  "Shall we make love,
Beatrice?"

   The original Beatrice nodded her head resignedly.  "Yes, I'd like that."

   "Would you like the other two Beatrices to participate?" asked Vashti.
She indicated the two copies that were now entirely indistinguishable from
the original Beatrice since they'd also discarded their clothes.

   Beatrice hesitated.  She couldn't deny that there was a certain
attractiveness in the idea of having sex with her own selves.  She knew
that she was very attractive and that there were few sexual partners who
could match her.  But what troubled Beatrice was that although when she was
making love with Vashti she could at least pretend that her lover wasn't
the same nanobot community that was imprisoning her, the same couldn't be
said of the two Beatrices.

   "Not for now," said Beatrice.  "They can just watch.  But perhaps later
on...  If the mood takes me..."

   "I thought you'd say that," said Vashti as she pressed her lips against
Beatrice's and cupped her lover's buttocks in the palm of her hand.  "And
I'm equally sure that as we make love the mood of the moment will very much
persuade you otherwise..."

   And as always, Vashti's prediction was exactly right.



   Chapter Ten Serenity - Year 27.32.15 The thick mane of blue and gold
feathers tingled along the back of Gwark's sinuous neck.  What was that
noise?  Were the eggs in the incubator hatching ahead of time?  Gwark
wasn't sure he was quite ready to be a father again so soon.

   He turned his head away from the screen of runic characters he'd been
reading and focused his huge eyes on the corner of the room where the
incubator stood just by the connubial bed he shared with Duwinki, his wife
of many decades.  What he saw reassured and alarmed him in equal measure.

   No, it wasn't his eggs hatching.  Both of them were resting where they'd
been so carefully laid when Duwinki gave birth just two days earlier.  But
a grotesque sight was crackling its scales and wriggling about on the
wooden floor.  It was a kind of arthropod, but not one that currently
existed in the forests or plains of the Solar System.  It was many times
larger and most resembled those terrestrial beings that dominated the world
in the Silurian period and known only from fossils.  It thrashed around in
distress and then, with no warning and leaving no evidence that it had ever
been there, it vanished.

   Whatever it might be, Gwark was sure that this strange arthropod was
just one of those peculiar Apparitions that were so much more in evidence
this close to the Anomaly.  It wasn't the first he'd seen in the last few
days, but it was the closest he'd ever been to one.  They were real and
solid for at least the time they were present, but they never persisted
long enough to be analysed in detail.  Now they were present for
significantly longer periods of time.  One had persisted in the ship's farm
for well over ninety seconds, but by good fortune this monstrous thecodont
disappeared before it could cause damage.  The domestic sauropods grazing
there were dismayed by its presence and threatened to stampede.  Although
the space ship was large and spacious, a wild herd of ten metre high
sauropods would have caused untold havoc.

   The space ship, whose name could most nearly be translated as Serenity,
was almost the size of an orbital colony and had to be as it had been home
to a crew of scientists and navigators for over fifty years since its
launch from the Kuiper Belt.  It was set on a course to investigate the
Anomaly whose presence troubled all the Solar System's intelligent species.

   There were representatives from all the technologically advanced species
on the ship.  This was not an unprecedented cooperation, but it was still
rather unusual.  They were all theropods, except for a species of hadrosaur
and a rather less intelligent species of flightless bird.  Gwark was a
feathered theropod and proud to belong to the most ancient civilised
species in the Solar System whose origins could be dated back many millions
of years.  The rational beings of this version of the Solar System had
never known a mass extinction at the end of the Cretaceous.  Like all
theropods, Gwark was more a carnivore than an omnivore though he did have a
craving for succulent fruit.

   None of the intelligent dinosaur species were as sociable as the mammals
that dominated other parallel universes and were therefore less prone to
the internecine conflicts and intolerance that marred mammalian history. 
On the other hand, their civilisation's progress had been significantly
less rapid.  The events that hastened their history, such as the
agricultural and industrial revolutions, happened steadily and gradually.

   The peace that was all their society had ever known was reinforced by a
philosophy and culture which emphasised co-existence and stability.  The
literature and art of Gwark's civilisation didn't revel in warfare, heroism
or danger.  Instead it tended towards the reflective and meditative.  A
typical myth or legend expounded a moral message that prized wisdom and
sagacity over violent conflict resolution.  Whether their society lacked as
a result, neither Gwark nor any other intelligent species in their Solar
System could ever know.  It had in any case resulted in a remarkably
harmonious and crime-free society.

   There had been periods of relatively rapid progress in dinosaurian
civilisation.  The colonisation of the Solar System, generally a leisurely
process, was a response to the encroaching glaciers that had enveloped much
of the Northern Hemisphere.  This event that had begun several hundreds of
thousands of years earlier motivated Gwark's ancestors and the other
intelligent theropod species to cooperate on what was then an unprecedented
scale to ensure that civilisations already millions of years old would
continue to survive.

   And now a similar crisis stirred the Solar System's community.  It was
haste indeed that persuaded the disparate species to cooperate on this
hugely expensive mission-of which Gwark was now a part-to intercept the
Anomaly.  In Gwark's world, expense couldn't be measured in monetary units.
There had never been a capitalist society as understood by the mammals of
some other universes, but there were measurements of economic activity that
approximated to the same concept.

   The door to Gwark's room opened and Duwinki entered.  It couldn't be
anyone else.  No one but Gwark would enter the connubial bedroom. 
Theropods were jealous of their personal space and never shared it with
anyone not in their immediate family.  It was only when seeking a mate,
which was a long drawn-out process, that a male theropod would ever welcome
the company of someone not already very well known to him.

   "You won't believe what I've just seen!" exclaimed Gwark to his wife,
after they affectionately nuzzled each other.

   In fact, Duwinki had no difficulty in believing her husband.  She'd also
seen several of these strange Apparitions in the last few days though it
horrified her that this one had come so close to her incubating eggs.  What
if the arthropod had an appetite for them?  However impermanent these
anomalies were, they persisted long enough to cause significant damage. 
There had been several occasions when their presence was sufficiently
disruptive to cause death and destruction.  A hadrosaur suffered a very
painful death when a curious worm-like object manifested itself inside her
stomach.  On another occasion an infestation of nanobots consumed the
contents of four adjacent rooms until they too suddenly vanished leaving
behind nothing but a strange void.  The sauropod herds were constantly on
edge when confronted by things they had no ability to understand.

   "I do hope this Anomaly is benign," said Duwinki nervously.  "It would
be terrible if it had evil intention."

   "That's what we're here to discover," Gwark consoled his wife, but
betrayed his anxiety by twitching the long feathered tail that was nearly a
third of his entire length.  "But it's believed that this Anomaly isn't an
intelligent phenomenon at all.  The main worry is that it is growing at
such an alarming rate.  If it does turn out to be a malign force then maybe
this will be the trigger that finally persuades our civilisation to
colonise other solar systems."

   "There would have to be a very good argument for that," said Duwinki. 
"Fifty years travel from home to here is quite enough.  What would it be
like for many generations to have to live and die before we arrived at even
the next nearest solar system?  There's a lot of empty space between us and
Proxima Centauri.  And there's nothing to welcome us when we arrive."

   Although Duwinki and Gwark spent most of their waking life in their
chambers, where they also meditated and conducted scientific research, they
occasionally ventured into the space ship beyond.  This was not for
socialising, which was something only the hadrosaurs were prone to do, but
simply to enjoy their walks together through the forests and grasslands
that occupied more than two-thirds of the habitable space.  Such exercise
was important, although their extensive suite was fitted with gym equipment
and, of course, provided them with the privacy to enjoy sex with one
another which they would do almost incessantly when Duwinki was at the most
active point of her oestrogen cycle (which was almost exactly tuned to
Gwark's own sexual cycle).

   Before they left their suite, the two theropods checked that the
incubator's monitoring equipment was in good working order.  They wanted to
be there when their eggs hatched so that they could properly imprint on
their children who their parents were.  Although there were a couple more
days until the hatching was expected, even in the modern age this was
always a rough approximation.

   Gwark and Duwinki emerged from their suite on the seventh level which,
like all homes, was just below floor level.  In their society, ground level
was kept clear of obstacles that could get in the way of the lumbering
ceratopsians, ankylosaurs and iguanodons that wandered freely about the
ship and whose presence was chiefly to provide fresh meat for the various
species of hungry theropod.  The level of the ship where the couple lived
was host to a mix of forest and grassland, interspersed by lakes where
plesiosaurs, ichthyosaurs and mosasaurs swam.  Pterosaurs and birds roosted
in the trees in the company of a few small mammals and ornithopods.  Like
all space ships and colonies, the landscape resembled that of the Earth to
which the dinosaurian civilisation was still very much attached.

   Other intelligent theropods and a few hadrosaurs also wandered about the
landscape, either singly or in couples.  When they passed other strollers
Gwark and Duwinki observed polite convention by studiously ignoring them.

   Nobody on the ship wore clothes.  This would be absurd on beings already
well blessed with a thick covering of feathers sported by all but the
hadrosaurs.  Compared to the mammals that scurried in the undergrowth, the
couple were large but not nearly as much as the tyrannosaurs and allosaurs
confined to the wildlife reserves.  Gwark and Duwinki were just over four
metres long and over three metres tall when they stood upright.  Normally
they walked at an oblique angle to the ground with their weight balanced by
long feathered tails.

   Their excursion was to the lake on the sixteenth level where they could
watch the long-necked elasmosaurs frolic in the water, accompanied by
soaring pterosaurs chasing after fish and the occasional larger plesiosaur.
This lake served both as a fish farm and as a reservoir for the fresh water
that was required for the daily bathing ritual that kept the residents'
feathers in good condition.

   Even by the waters of the lake, the married couple were reminded that
they were in a space ship and not a colony.  Huge screens hovered above the
ground at periodic intervals and frequently had to dodge out of the way of
the more clumsy large fauna.  These provided information about where the
space ship was in relation to the Anomaly and how far it was from the
ecliptic.  It also screened panoramic views of the empty space outside the
ship.

   As a cosmologist, like his wife, Gwark had an academic interest in
space. He'd been privileged to visit many of the Solar System's moons.  He
relished the experience of standing in his space suit on the surface of icy
Europa or cloudy Titan and to gaze towards the horizon.  Most people lived
in self-contained orbiting colonies and rarely had the opportunity to
appreciate such a sight.  And Gwark enjoyed the emptiness of distant space
where he'd often hovered in a space suit sharply delineated against the
unmediated shadows of the sun.

   Although Gwark had spent a happy few years as a research scientist in
the Kuiper Belt, he'd never before been to a destination as remote as where
the Serenity was now taking him.  The next nearest substantial object to
the space ship was nothing more than a comet that had been dislodged from
the Oort Cloud.  No other vehicle accompanied the Serenity on its mission
nor was any thought to be necessary.

   After all, what possible risk could there be for a space ship in such
empty space?

   However, so frequent were these strange Apparitions that Gwark wasn't
sure that the syndicates that had planned the mission might not have been
somewhat complacent.  Although the Apparitions were normally harmless, what
would happen if one was large enough that it could sabotage the whole
mission?

   Gwark and Duwinki strolled around the shores of the lake where they
occasionally exchanged words and more often nuzzled each other lovingly. 
They fully appreciated the landscape of soaring birds and the occasional
plesiosaur resting on the sand.

   And then their excursion was abruptly interrupted with no warning
whatsoever.

   One moment Gwark was silently reflecting on the calm and beauty of the
vast waters that extended many kilometres ahead of them while Duwinki's
huge black eyes gazed at him with equally silent affection and the next
they were somewhere that was not only not by the lakeside but not on the
space ship Serenity at all.

   The air smelt different.  The temperature was cooler than was
comfortable for a theropod however well feathered.  The air pressure was
somehow more constricting.  They were inside a chamber that resembled
nothing that Gwark had seen before.  It was truly alien and bizarre.  And
it was also constructed on a much smaller scale than he was accustomed to.

   There were some elements that were reassuringly homely.  There was a
sort of bed, but not the kind Gwark would ever be comfortable in.  It was
far too narrow and far too soft.  There was a mirror but not one that Gwark
could easily use as it was at such a low height and not wide enough for him
to properly inspect the feathers he preened for so many hours of the day.
There was an intrusive holographic display of a reassuringly familiar
spacescape.

   And more than that, there were two strange mammals in the room.

   Gwark assumed they were mammals.  One of them had a growth of hair that
was unique to mammals, but rarely so long, and never in a mammal so
large-almost two thirds his own height.  Furthermore, no mammal he'd ever
seen before was so hairless.  In fact one of the two mammals had no hair at
all except for some peculiar tufts over the eyes.  And even though mammals
usually had very flimsy tails, smaller than even that of a bird, these two
specimens were totally tailless.  More grotesque still, both specimens had
a pair of massively disproportionate dugs that were much larger than those
of any other placental mammal he'd ever seen.

   Although he was no zoologist, Gwark could see that one of the mammals
had one of those unsightly floppy penises that the order sported and must
therefore be a male (but why have such monstrous dugs?) whilst the other
was less grotesque with smaller dugs and no penis and therefore a female.

   Although Gwark and his wife were equally appalled by the sight of these
monstrosities, they remained calm.  The meditation and philosophical
introspection that was common practise in their society equipped them well
for such a peculiar event.  The wisdom and tolerance of their civilisation
enabled them to see themselves as others, however outlandish, might see
them.  These mammals were undoubtedly as unnerved by the presence of two
relatively large feathered theropods as Gwark and his wife were by two
freakish non-ovoviviparous animals.  Moreover, these strange mammals'
reaction and their strangled utterances convinced him that they were
intelligent beings: perhaps almost as much as themselves.

   The two mammals jumped off the bed.  The most completely hairless mammal
shrunk into the corner and released a scream that resembled that of a
mating hadrosaur, but at a much higher pitch and clearly more in terror
than lust.  The mammal with the disgusting penis stood up and walked
towards them, showing no evidence of fear but something akin to discomfort.

   "Where are we?" asked Duwinki.  "What do you think these monsters are?"

   "I don't know," said Gwark.  "Look, this taller monster is making a
noise."

   The couple listened as the strange mammal made some grunts that sounded
peculiarly like the few words they had just uttered, but were nothing more
than a repetition of what they'd just said.

   "Who are you?" asked Duwinki.  "How did we get here?"

   "Who are you?" repeated the strange mammal in a fair imitation of
Duwinki's words, which from such an odd mammal was strange enough.  "How
did you get here?"

   "Where are we?" asked Gwark.

   "You are in..." said the mammal and then said a word that was quite
unlike any that either had heard before but must have been in its own
mammalian tongue.

   "Where?" asked Duwinki.

   "Intrepid," repeated the mammal.  "Near the Anomaly."

   And then, just as suddenly as they'd arrived, Gwark and Duwinki found
themselves back on the shore of the lake in the homely setting of the
Serenity.

   "What happened there?" asked Duwinki.

   "I don't know," said Gwark who was still shaken by it all.

   The first thing they did was report the incident.  And because there was
no practise of deceit or falsehood in theropod civilisation their every
word was considered with utmost seriousness and genuine concern.

   The green and yellow feathered theropod, of a slightly smaller and less
colourful arboreal species than Gwark's own terrestrial one, and who was
the ship's expert on the strange apparitions gave his opinion as soon as
he'd gathered all the evidence.

   "I need to do more research," he admitted, "but my opinion is that you
somehow entered a parallel universe.  Just as these apparitions have
intruded our Solar System, so you have unwittingly intruded another's."

   "Can you be so sure that these beings come from a parallel universe?"
wondered Duwinki.

   "Not at all," Zhwonka admitted.  "It would be a strange universe indeed
where mammals were the dominant order.  That would only be possible after a
truly catastrophic event had eliminated the dinosaurs and maybe the birds.
Mammals have been around for over two and fifty million years and are
specialists in niche environments.  It would be bizarre for placental
mammals to dominate.  They've shown no evidence of being better adapted for
survival than ovoviviparous or marsupial mammals.  And the mammals you
describe were bipedal.  Theropods, hadrosaurs and birds are naturally
bipedal.  I can't imagine how peculiar it would be for mammals to rise up
off their four feet and become bipedal.  Their tails aren't nearly long
enough to balance their torsos."

   "If it wasn't a parallel universe, what else could it have been?"
wondered Gwark.

   "There are many theories, but until we analyse the Anomaly we have no
way of verifying them," said Zhwonka.  "An intertwined universe.  A virtual
universe.  A distant part of our universe.  A psychically generated
universe, as in a vivid dream.  Who knows?  What we do know is that there
are parallel universes which were previously thought to be wholly
inaccessible, even in theory.  It is possible that the Anomaly is a kind of
gateway to other parallel but divergent universes."

   "But aren't some of the apparitions just too absurd to belong to a
natural universe?" Duwinki asked.  "Some of them make no sense at all. 
There are some which are unlikely combinations of animals that aren't at
all related, like carnivorous mammals merged with birds, snakes with
insects, and frogs with lizards."

   "We just don't know what is natural and what isn't," confessed Zhwonka,
"but we do know certain things for sure.  And one is that you vanished for
exactly the same length of time as you reported being in this other space
ship or colony.  The surveillance equipment that monitors the movement of
the ankylosaurs and ceratopsians also observed that you'd vanished for a
period of just over a minute."

   The period that Zhwonka expressed was not in seconds or minutes as
theropod civilisation divided the day quite differently to any human
society.  In fact, as they only had four fingers on either hand, Gwark's
civilisation used octal rather than decimal measurements and calculated
time accordingly.

   "It is entirely consistent with our observations of these anomalous
Apparitions in our space-time reference," Zhwonka continued, "that you have
become such an Apparition in another.  And, I'm afraid, we now need to do
further analysis on both of you to determine how and why this happened.  I
regret the intrusion on your privacy, but I must ask you for the good of
the mission to subject yourself to further tests.  What we have determined
is that not only you but also a good volume of space around you vanished
for this period of time.  That is why when you returned to the Serenity you
experienced nausea and discomfort as the vacuum you created was displaced.
We will attempt to keep our study as non-intrusive as possible."

   "We have eggs that are due to hatch any day now," said Duwinki
anxiously.

   "Don't worry," said the scientific officer.  "Our research will take no
more than a few hours, but it is necessary to understand as much as we can
about this Anomaly to be sure that it isn't a threat."

   "Do you think it might be?" wondered Gwark anxiously for his unborn
children.

   "I didn't used to think it could be," said Zhwonka reflectively, "but I
am becoming less sure.  If it is a gateway to other worlds then it might
not be the Anomaly that we should be wary of but rather what it might let
loose into our world.  I shudder at the thought of what a universe might be
like where mammals are the dominant order."

   Chapter Eleven Intrepid - 3756 C.E.

   "Why are you so anxious?" Beatrice gently asked Paul while he lay beside
her.

   "Are we really going to enter the Anomaly?" her husband asked.

   "If that's what Captain Kerensky said then I can only believe that's
exactly what the Intrepid, and us in it as well, will do."

   "I thought that was something we would never do," said Paul.  "I thought
that it would be suicide to enter the Anomaly."

   "I'm sure neither Mission Control nor Captain Kerensky would ever
authorise anything that was suicidal."

   Beatrice was very persuasive as, of course, had been Captain Kerensky
and the senior officers when Paul and the other passengers and crew
gathered together earlier that day for the long-anticipated and
well-advertised Official General Briefing.  This was assembled at the
Conference Centre whose cavernous space could comfortably seat every one of
the thousands of passengers and crew.  Paul very nearly didn't bother
going, but Beatrice persuaded him that he really should.

   "Won't it just be the usual waffle about the mission having achieved its
goals now that we've more or less arrived at our destination?" he said.

   "There could be more," Beatrice suggested.

   "Even if there is," said Paul grumpily, "what would there be for me? 
I've got no research project to pursue and no technical equipment to set
up. It'll be a total waste of time."

   "Well, I'll be going," announced Beatrice.

   And so Paul was given no room at all for negotiation.

   There was a palpable sense of excitement among the thousands of soldiers
and scientists assembled in the auditorium.  The Intrepid's most senior
officers and the highest ranking military officers were gathered on the
podium where they were cheerfully chatting and joking together. 
Occasionally they passed a jovial remark to a member of the audience. 
There was almost a holiday atmosphere.  The captain was at the centre of
the proceedings with her shaven head and tight-fitting uniform.  Next to
her and on one side were the chief military officers such as Colonel Vashti
and Colonel Musashi.  On the other side were the senior space officers
including Second Officer Nkomo, Chief Science Officer Dr.  Chang and, of
course, Chief Petty Officer Singh.  Everyone was dressed immaculately in
their official uniforms as was appropriate for such a momentous conference.

   It didn't take very long for Paul to get bored.  The general tone of the
meeting was self-congratulatory and it was unlikely that there'd be anyone
who'd congratulate him.  There was a brief mention of the two unfortunate
incidents and due commiseration was expressed for those who'd been injured
and killed.  There was substantial praise for the work of various eminent
scientists whom Paul hadn't even known were on board the Intrepid.  All the
most important officers on the platform addressed the audience, but it was
left to Captain Kerensky, Colonel Vashti and Chief Science Officer Dr. 
Chang to make the final statements.  By this time, it was very difficult
for Paul to stay awake.  This was an unusually long and tedious meeting
even by the standards set by the Interplanetary Union.  He'd already been
sitting there for three or four hours and was feeling rather restless.  Not
surprisingly so too was everyone else in the audience.  Most of them were
wishing that the conference had been over by now and there were several
gaps across the audience where some attendees had already sneaked off.  If
Beatrice hadn't been gripping his arm, Paul might well have joined them.

   Colonel Vashti was a popular speaker.  She was known for her wit and
vivid use of language.  On the few times Paul had seen the colonel address
an audience, she'd been both stirring and entertaining.  So when the
colonel approached the lectern, Paul hoped that at last there would be a
speech which would make this whole interminable affair seem worthwhile, but
regrettably he was disappointed.  The colonel's wit and slightly cheeky
humour was totally absent, even though the first few comments where she
praised the quality of the refreshments provided seemed to promise
something rather more engaging.  The soldiers in the audience were visibly
disappointed.  They'd probably expected more than yet another account of
their heroism and courage in fighting off the Holy Coalition and in
ensuring that more lives weren't lost when the Intrepid was attacked by
missiles.  What might have been the promising start to a series of
diverting anecdotes on the efforts of individual soldiers became a rather
dry set of statistics that might have been impressive in another context
but after over three hours of tiring speeches was both dull and monotonous.
It was almost as if the colonel was going out of her way to be boring.

   The addresses given by Chief Science Officer Dr.  Chang and Captain
Kerensky were similarly tedious.  Neither said anything not couched in
polysyllabic technical terms and neither address could be described as
brief and snappy.  The Chief Science Officer spoke first and at great
length about what had already been mentioned by other speakers about the
scientists' achievements.  Those being congratulated were no doubt
delighted by the additional fulsome praise, but even they must have been
weary.  They acknowledged the applause they earned almost reluctantly.  One
of the scientists wasn't even in his seat and the whole auditorium had to
wait for him to return from wherever he'd gone simply so he could
acknowledge the applause.

   Paul gradually became aware that as the Chief Science Officer continued
her address some members of the audience were getting increasingly restive,
predominantly amongst the scientists.  Paul focused his attention more
closely towards the even-toned address the Chief Science Officer had now
been giving for over half an hour with no apparent sign of being nearly
finished.

   "What does 'deep field reconnaissance' mean?" he asked Beatrice.  "And
what is 'esoteric interior research'?  What are those references to
'non-spatial intra-field coordinates'?"

   "I'm sure it'll all be explained in due course," said Beatrice who was
probably the only one in the audience neither bored nor agitated.

   "Excuse me, Dr.  Chang," came a loud booming voice.  "Excuse me!"

   It belonged to Professor Penrose who was an expert on quantum field
fluctuations and one of those whose research was most often cited for
praise by the Chief Science Officer and other speakers.  In addition to his
other notable achievements he had an unusually resonant voice that could be
heard further than anyone might think possible.  He didn't need a
microphone to be heard across the whole auditorium.

   "I shall be taking questions afterwards," said the Chief Science Officer
who seemed uncharacteristically exasperated by this interruption.

   "Am I to understand that you are implying that the space ship Intrepid
and everyone aboard are about to enter the Anomaly?" the professor asked.

   "There will be an opportunity for questions later," said Captain
Kerensky sternly.

   "My understanding was that the mission would not involve any such
foolhardy risk to either the crew or passengers," boomed the professor
regardless.

   "I don't believe Mission Control would ever authorise anything that was
anything of the sort," said the Chief Science Officer.  "If I may
continue...?  There is a great deal to cover and I'm sure many of you would
rather convene to the celebratory lunch that is being prepared after this
meeting than be delayed by unnecessary interruptions."

   Although the implication was that the rest of the addresses might then
proceed at a faster pace, this wasn't at all true.  There was nearly
another two hours of wearisome speeches given by the Chief Science Officer,
then the captain and afterwards by several other officers.

   "And now," said Captain Kerensky, "shall we all adjourn to the reception
area?  There is some truly remarkable confectionery from Saturn and wine
from the very best vineyards on Triton."

   The weary audience began moving out but before everyone had left the
auditorium Professor Penrose's voice boomed out: "Tell me, captain, if you
may.  When will the space ship Intrepid be entering the Anomaly?"

   "In less than twenty-four hours, professor," said the captain with a
smile.  "Now if you can all follow me..."

   "This was not at all how the mission was intended to proceed, captain,"
said the professor.  "This is a complete change to the mission's
objectives. We are here to observe and conduct research not plunge to our
certain death in uncharted territory."

   "Really, professor," said the Chief Science Officer dismissively. 
"Don't exaggerate.  If you look at the mission statement freely available
on the ship's systems you'll see that deep field ingress and exotic
phenomenon analysis is precisely what the mission was intended to
undertake."

   "Unless my memory is faulty or the mission statement has been tampered
with," said the professor, "that cannot be so."

   "I think you'll discover that it's your memory that's defective in this
case, professor," said the captain with a wry indulgent smile.  "Mission
Control wouldn't be sending us all this way for nothing.  Interior
anomalous non-quantum investigation is precisely what we are here for. 
Where else can this be done except inside the Anomaly?  Isn't that so?"

   The last question was addressed to the captain's fellow officers who all
cheerfully concurred with Captain Kerensky's comments.

   "You'll have to study the statement of the mission objectives in more
detail, professor," said the Chief Petty Officer.  "It's all there.  This
is what we've travelled across trillions of kilometres of space to do and
despite the best efforts of religious fanatics and murderous wealthy
fantasists that will be exactly what we shall do.  It's what you signed up
for, professor.  You should be delighted."

   "This is a very momentous occasion, professor," agreed Second Officer
Nkomo.  "This must surely be the climax of all your years of research.  In
less than twenty-four hours we shall be inside a new spacetime continuum.
It might not even be a spacetime continuum as we know it at all.  Isn't
that exciting, professor?  Only twenty-three hours and seventeen minutes."

   "And getting closer all the time," remarked Colonel Musashi.  "I can
barely wait, professor.  Who here won't be celebrating the occasion?"

   "Am I the only one here who thinks we are about to commit suicide on a
futile whim?" said the professor in despair.

   "I rather think you are," said Second Officer Nkomo.  "Come on,
professor.  We've wasted too much time in this futile discussion.  Let's
join everyone else."

   At this stage there were relatively few people left in the auditorium
and most of those were in the process of leaving.  Professor Penrose quite
clearly did not have everyone's attention.

   "What new information does Mission Control have that wasn't available
before the endeavour began to suggest that it's possible to enter the
Anomaly and later return to the Solar System?  What critical piece of
information have I simply not been aware of before now?  How have the best
minds in the Solar System been so ignorant of what we hitherto believed to
be a fundamental characteristic of the Anomaly?"

   "Shall we discuss this privately, professor?" said Chief Science Officer
Dr.  Chang with an indulgent smile as she approached the scientist's
isolated figure.

   "What was that all about?" Paul asked Beatrice.  "Isn't the professor
right?"

   "Evidently not," said Beatrice.

   "I'm sure he is," said Paul.  "I always believed that the objective of
this mission was to rendezvous with the Anomaly and after a period of
investigation to return home to the ecliptic plane.  I don't believe anyone
ever said that we'd be entering the Anomaly.  I thought that nothing that
entered the Anomaly ever reemerged again."

   "Are you sure?" questioned Beatrice.  "I can't believe the captain and
all the officers would ever agree to authorise suicide.  Wouldn't the
Interplanetary Union be rather foolish to send an expensive space ship and
everyone on it into the Anomaly if it didn't think that by doing so it
would fulfil the mission and relay the results of the research back home?"

   "You're right," said Paul.  "It would be very foolish."

   Paul and Beatrice were among the last to join everyone else now enjoying
nibbles and wine.  There was a clear divide between the puzzled and
disconcerted scientists and the rather more cheerful senior officers.  The
military contingent stood amongst themselves where Colonel Vashti was much
more amenable company now that she wasn't giving a long dull speech.  The
military were generally less agitated than the scientists although it was
the senior officers who were the most cheerful.  It was a strange kind of
party.  It scarcely be described as celebratory.  The scientists'
discontent was apparent, but the reassurances from those of high rank and
sheer professionalism carried huge weight.  It was a party where Paul felt
even less comfortable than usual, but where Beatrice was clearly in her
element.

   As the couple circulated, it was Beatrice who led the conversation and
this was primarily with those scientists that appeared to be the most
unhappy.  Although she professed ignorance as to the actual science, she
was intent on reassuring everyone she spoke to that everything would be
fine.

   "I have absolute faith in our captain," Beatrice said.

   "Professor Wasilewski wouldn't authorise the mission if he wasn't
confident of its success and safety," she said to another group of
scientists.

   "Isn't this exactly what you wanted the Intrepid to do," she remarked to
some others.

   Paul noticed that Beatrice was doing exactly the same as all the other
senior officers.  And that was to mingle amongst the scientists expressing
their doubts the most vocally and trying to assuage their worries and
concerns.  Captain Kerensky, Second Officer Nkomo and Chief Petty Officer
Singh: they were all mingling,
consoling, reassuring and generally being very cheerful.  Surely there

could be nothing amiss if so many well-qualified people on whom everyone so
heavily relied were insisting that everything was as it should.

   "Look, there's Professor Penrose," commented Beatrice, who spotted the
professor standing in the company of Chief Science Officer Dr.  Chang and
some other scientists.  He was very cheerful and expressed none of his
earlier doubts or disagreement.  "Shall we go and chat to him?"

   Paul didn't know Professor Penrose at all, although inevitably the
professor knew Beatrice.  Was there anyone on the space ship who didn't?

   "Has the Chief Science Officer succeeded in allaying your doubts,
professor?" Beatrice asked.

   "My doubts?" said the professor as if he couldn't for the moment imagine
what she was talking about.  "Oh yes.  A few moments back there.  Yes, of
course.  I don't know what I must have been thinking.  Dr.  Chang showed me
the original mission objectives and it's there as clear as anything." The
professor held up a holographic image of the mission statement in which a
few paragraphs were underscored.  "I must have just forgotten about it in
the excitement of the Intrepid being so close to its destination."

   "It's tomorrow that we arrive, isn't it?" prompted Beatrice.

   "I can hardly wait," said the professor.  "This is truly the opportunity
of a scientific lifetime.  Just imagine all the new discoveries we'll
make!"

   "Do you think we'll be able to pass news about these discoveries back to
Mission Control?" wondered Paul.

   "We'll worry about that after the discoveries have been made, shall we?"
said the professor.  "The most exciting moment will be the time of
transition.  Will there be a discernible difference between quantum
behaviour inside and outside the Anomaly?  Will Planck's constant still
hold?  I've got a lot of work to do just to set up equipment to measure the
data at the exact right moment."

   "Will the experiments be repeatable?" Paul asked.

   "Repeatable?"

   "...In the sense that we can go backwards and forwards through the point
of transition and verify them?"

   "Are you asking me whether the Intrepid will be going back and forth
through the Anomaly just to check our data?  I don't think a space ship
behaves like that.  This sort of experimental data isn't the stuff you can
synthesise on a computer...erm...Paul.  It's not the sort of data you can
reproduce that easily.  The mission objectives are clear but they don't
provide the opportunity to oscillate back and forth.  Am I right there, Dr.
Chang?"

   "That's my understanding as well," said the Chief Science Officer. 
"That was never anticipated as being part of the mission."

   "But could we, if we wanted to?" persisted Paul.  "Theoretically that
is. Could we go into the Anomaly and then get back out of it if we needed
to?"

   "We won't know that until the Intrepid enters the Anomaly, Paul," said
the Chief Science Officer dismissively.  "That's what experiments are. 
They confirm hypotheses.  We don't know how valid they are until we do the
experiment."

   "And is it a hypothesis that the Intrepid will be able to escape from
the Anomaly once it's got inside?" wondered Paul.  "Are our lives just to
be data in a grand experiment whose results Mission Control will never be
able to receive?"

   The Chief Science Officer and Professor Penrose both laughed
good-naturedly at Paul's remarks.  "Mission Control would never knowingly
put lives at risk, Paul," said the professor.  "Why else would field
transition ingress be approved as part of the mission objectives?  Now, if
you don't mind, I have other people to talk to."

   After Professor Penrose walked off with a wine glass in his hand and a
broad beam over his face, Paul frowned at Beatrice.

   "The professor's changed a lot since we were in the Conference Centre,"
he remarked.

   "Changed?  In what way has he changed?"

   "In every way, really.  It's as if he isn't even the same man."

   "Don't be silly, darling," said Beatrice as she lovingly kissed her
husband on the lips.

   Now, less than a day later, Paul was still anxious.  Perhaps Professor
Penrose was now convinced that everything would be alright.  Perhaps
Beatrice was also convinced.  Every senior officer was completely relaxed
and apparently unconcerned about the consequence of diving into the
Anomaly. Paul didn't really have the knowledge and expertise to argue about
such matters with the Chief Science Officer, but he was sure that until
recently the accepted view was that it would be suicide to enter the
Anomaly and now that was exactly what the Intrepid was about to do.

   "What will happen, do you think?" asked Paul.

   "I don't know," said Beatrice.  "What do you think?"

   "The only thing we know about this Anomaly is that weird things are
associated with it.  You know, like Angels, psammeads and flying
concertinas."

   "Have you seen any of those?"

   "No, not at all.  Have you?"

   Beatrice shook her head.

   "The Intrepid's bulletin board has been full of reports the last few
days though," said Paul.  "People have seen the weirdest things.  The kind
of things you never expect to see except in a film or a computer game. 
There was a bicycle travelling through the second level and no one was
sitting on it.  A pteranodon flew over the lake on the fifth level.  An
orang-utan wearing a suit and hat wandered along a corridor in the military
quarters.  None of these apparitions lasted for more than a few seconds and
none of them left evidence that they'd even happened."

   "Is that what we'll see inside the Anomaly?" Beatrice wondered.

   "I don't know.  Maybe they aren't the same inside the Anomaly as they
are outside."

   "Well, there's only one way to find out," said Beatrice with a smile.

   "Aren't you even in the slightest bit perturbed?" Paul wondered
incredulously.  "This could be it.  This could even be the end of our
lives."

   "I have absolute faith in the wisdom of Captain Kerensky, Dr.  Chang and
Professor Penrose," said Beatrice.  "I'm sure it will be fine."

   The actual passage into the Anomaly was indeed very uneventful.  From
Paul's perspective in the bedroom of his villa surrounded by holographic
screens and accompanied by Beatrice there was absolutely nothing to mark
the fact that the Intrepid was no longer outside the Anomaly but was
instead speeding into it at a velocity of several millions of kilometres
per hour.  There was a margin of perceived error as to the exact location
of the Anomaly's boundary, but at the speed at which the Intrepid was
travelling it would have taken a barely measurable period of time to pass
through it.  There was no jolt, shudder or perturbation of any kind.  There
were no discernable differences between the outer space they had left
behind and the space inside the Anomaly.  It was composed of precisely the
same amount of cosmic microwave background radiation.

   The biggest difference was what could be seen through the holographic
screens surrounding Paul's bed.  They showed a view ahead where there was
absolute nothingness and a view behind where there was a long rip through
empty space on the other side of which were stars and galaxies. 
Disturbingly the nothingness around the Anomaly was total and absolute,
while the long stellar rip which was measurable in thousands of kilometres
was getting steadily smaller.  Ahead there were no stars, no planets, no
dark matter, no intergalactic gas clouds and no obvious destination.

   "What happens now?" asked Paul after a few minutes.

   "I don't know," said Beatrice with a momentary flash across her face
that resembled an expression of triumph.  "I suppose we just sit and wait."

   "Sit and wait?" said Paul.  "What sort of plan is that?"

   "I imagine there will have already been countless great discoveries made
by the scientists on the ship," said Beatrice.  "Perhaps they've found
something about what the Anomaly might be.  Isn't that exciting?"

   "Not very exciting at all if we can never get back home to Mission
Control," said Paul as he stared at the absolute nothingness ahead. 
"Shouldn't we just turn round and head back the way we've come?"

   "What!  And finish the mission before we've consolidated our results. 
Shall we see what other people have to say?"

   Beatrice commanded the holographic displays to show what the scientists
and senior officers were saying publicly.  It was still disconcertingly
upbeat.  Was there no one who shared Paul's anxiety about being lost in
total nothingness with no apparent escape route and continuing to head at
great velocity in precisely the wrong direction?

   Captain Kerensky was full of unadulterated praise and adulation for the
crew for navigating into the Anomaly.  "From the point of view of possible
peril, I'm sure you'll agree that it was nothing more than an anticlimax,"
she said.

   Chief Science Officer Dr.  Chang was equally enthusiastic.  She eagerly
looked forward to the exciting results of all the research now taking place
in the wonderful new laboratory they were now within.  "There's a lot to
do," she said.  "We all better get stuck into it right away!"

   Professor Penrose was also enthusiastic.  The very fact that there was
no measurable difference between the behaviour of quanta within the Anomaly
to that outside had him burbling with delight.  "The very lack of something
different is really something very special indeed," he enthused.

   Although not many scientists were quite as unabashedly animated as the
man who until recently had been the most sceptical in their company, they
all concurred with the professor's findings.  There really was no real
measurable difference between what could be observed inside the Anomaly to
what could be observed on the outside.  What was not mentioned but must
have been obvious to everyone was that along with this absolute lack of new
information was the new fact that the Intrepid was deep inside the Anomaly
where there was literally nothing at all and no apparent prospect of
returning back to Mission Control to report their findings.

   "So here we are in nowhere having found nothing new and with nobody to
report this to," said Paul.  "Nowhere.  Nothing.  Nobody.  It doesn't look
good."

   "Don't worry, dearest," said Beatrice as unconcerned as ever.  "I'm sure
it will all work out for the best in the end."





   Chapter Twelve Intrepid - 3756 C.E.

   The first thing Captain Kerensky was aware of when she finally woke up
was that she was lying naked on an unfamiliar bed.  The next was that not
only was the bed unfamiliar but so too was the entire bedroom.  She had no
memory of having been transported here and her first resolve was to return
to her quarters.  The captain was a busy woman and there was much she
should be getting on with.

   However, every attempt to return to a more normal state of affairs was
frustrated.  First of all there were no clothes for the captain to put on.
There were wardrobes and drawers, but they held nothing that she could use
to recover her modesty.  Nadezhda would have to remain naked and this
wasn't what a woman who valued her dignity would have chosen.

   She then was frustrated by the simple effort of trying to return to the
crew's quarters.  She could easily walk out of the bedroom and wander about
what she now recognised as one of the recently refurbished villas in the
outermost level.  She could even walk out of the villa, so she strode
purposefully across the lawn in the direction that would take her away from
the villa and towards an escalator to the inner levels.  But she didn't
manage to walk very far until she literally bumped into an invisible force
field.  It repelled her gently but it was a barrier through which she could
not pass.

   Captain Kerensky had come across many types of invisible force field
before.  There were several in common use throughout the Solar System and
they came in two general models.  One functioned like a glass wall without
a reflection.  Those who tried to pass through would bruise themselves
against the surface and could even crack it if they applied sufficient
force.  The other type was like a rubber skin which repelled the force
applied to it.  As one pushed against it, the tension increased and its
rebound was directly equivalent.  This invisible field acted more like an
opposite and equal force to whatever force was applied to.  Gentle force
was repelled by an equally gentle force.  The more force applied the more
the force field repelled it.  But there was no apparent tension and
evidence of a surface.  Another strange feature was that although the force
acted as an obstacle to Captain Kerensky's movements it offered no obstacle
at all to fluttering insects or the leaves that blew in the breeze.  There
was no apparent deflection when Nadezhda picked up a stone and threw it
through the force field.  Its repellent properties were only effective on
the captain.

   The radius of the force field surrounding the villa was about ten
metres. Nadezhda established this by following the force field around the
perimeter in the hope that she might discover a door or some other exit. 
She was totally trapped, but with access to all the luxuries and facilities
normally available to residents in a villa with the exception, it seemed,
of a set of clothes.

   The captain returned to the villa and scanned through the systems
normally available to passengers, which were typically somewhat less
complete than what she could normally access.  She couldn't monitor the
surveillance cameras, for instance, although she could view the empty space
outside the Intrepid.  There appeared to be nothing untoward.  She could
even scan the bridge where her senior officers were evidently on duty.  It
was a fairly dull sight but one which served to reassure the passengers
should they ever feel inclined to watch the crew's mostly uneventful
proceedings.  There was Chief Petty Officer Singh examining a screen
displaying the progress of the Intrepid through empty space.  There was
Second Officer Nkomo who was just as gorgeous as ever as she input data
into a tablet.  There was nothing unusual about the scene at all.

   That was until Captain Kerensky recognised a figure more familiar to her
than anyone else although she very rarely saw her in this context.  It
belonged to someone she mostly ever saw in the mirror.  And that woman, of
course, was Captain Kerensky.

   This was very peculiar.  How could she be looking at herself?  Was the
captain viewing a recording of past activity on the bridge?  The date and
time in the view was exactly synchronised with the real date and time that
the captain could see displayed around her.  And there was no doubt that
the figure was Captain Kerensky.  She knew what she looked like.  She knew
each and every one of her minor physical imperfections.  She even knew how
she moved.

   What was going on?

   "It is you," said a voice behind her.

   It was scarcely surprising that the voice belonged to Beatrice or the
woman the captain believed to be Beatrice.  She'd wandered silently into
the villa without attracting Nadezhda's attention.  She was dressed in
nothing more than a thong and a silk blouse that hid nothing of the
contours and areolae of her bosom.  She was sprawled on a leather armchair
in the corner of the living room with a broad teasing smile on her face.

   "How long have you been sitting there?" the captain asked.

   "Long enough, Naddy," said Beatrice.  "I watched you while you scanned
what's happening on the bridge.  It's a good view isn't it?"

   "Who's the woman who looks like me?"

   "In a sense, Naddy, she is you.  She is an exact facsimile of you in
every detail.  She resembles you to the very last blade of hair.  She talks
like you.  She moves like you.  No one speaking to her would be aware that
she wasn't you.  No one.  None of your lovers.  Not your closest family and
friends.  To the world beyond this villa that woman is you."

   "How can that be?  I didn't know you had the technology to clone people
in that way."

   "There's a lot you don't know," said Beatrice.

   "Why didn't you replace me by this clone before?  Why have you waited
until the Intrepid was very nearly at the Anomaly until you decided to do
this?  Why have you teased me in this way for so many months?"

   "I have no wish to cause you or anyone else more distress than is
necessary," said Beatrice.  "You are a good captain and I was happy for you
to continue to serve your duties.  But you have answered your own question.
The space ship is very close to its destination.  From now on, the state of
affairs will be very different.  The status quo ante can no longer apply."

   "Why's that, Beatrice?"

   "Because I can no longer trust you to do as I wish," said Beatrice. 
"You will almost certainly do all you can to frustrate my plans and that
cannot be allowed."

   "And what plans are those?"

   "The Intrepid is now on course to enter the Anomaly."

   "That's suicide."

   "Only if we don't survive."

   "It goes beyond the mission's boundaries."

   "It does, but for me that is where the mission begins.  Do you really
think that your feeble technology could possibly discover more about the
Anomaly than we already know?  What value could your findings possibly be
to my civilisation?"

   "If we enter the Anomaly, we can't relay any information to the outside
world.  It would be pointless as well as suicidal."

   "That's a risk we'll have to take."

   "You might be able to prevent me from thwarting this madness, but there
are many others who'll fight to stop you.  My senior officers won't follow
the commands of a captain who's exceeded her authority.  The military
officers won't tolerate such a change of plan.  The scientists and other
passengers didn't sign up for a one-way journey.  They'll do all they can
to wrest back control of the ship."

   "Military officers take orders, don't they?" asked Beatrice.

   "As I understand it," said the captain.

   "The mission's parameters were defined before the Intrepid departed the
ecliptic plane.  The senior military officers including our mutual lover,
Colonel Vashti, have been briefed not to allow any deviation from the
mission's original directives.  The less senior officers and other ranks
are all well-trained soldiers.  A devotion to discipline and obeying orders
is what distinguishes a soldier from other professions.  They are trained
to obey without question whatever their senior officers command and the
most senior officers on the Intrepid have the rank of colonel, isn't that
so?"

   "Yes.  There are three colonels.  Each commands a single battalion."

   "And if need be, should one or other die or be otherwise incapacitated
they can relieve one another's command."

   "Yes."

   "I could show you each one of the colonels pursuing his or her duties
just as I can show the bridge, but that would be a bit misleading.  It
would be as misleading as showing you the bridge where you are so evidently
in command.  Look!  There you are chatting with your fellow officers. 
Isn't that sweet?"

   "What are you getting at?" asked Captain Kerensky.  "You've already told
me that the woman on the bridge isn't me."

   "Nor for that matter is this Colonel Musashi," said Beatrice who
switched the focus to a view of the colonel striding along a corridor in
the military quarters accompanied by Majors McEwen and Kiviniemi.  He was
exactly the same colonel as always with his characteristic harsh bark and
stiff stride.

   "That looks like the colonel to me," said the captain.

   "I'll just change the view," said Beatrice.  "This isn't something
you'll be able to do yourself but you're welcome to try.  You can no longer
access the surveillance system yourself although I can of course.  Here's
another villa on the outermost level.  And look here.  Who's that naked and
very confused looking man flinging rocks through the invisible force field
surrounding his villa?  Gosh.  It's Colonel Musashi.  He doesn't look very
happy."

   "Have you done to him what you've done to me?"

   "Naturally," said Beatrice.  "He can't be trusted to follow the orders I
would give him.  Nor for that matter would the other two colonels.  They've
both been detained and their presence substituted by exact facsimiles. 
However, unlike you, they don't believe that it's me who's authorised this
highly unorthodox behaviour."

   "Who do they think it is?"

   "Why you, captain," said Beatrice.  "Or at least they will when the
Captain Nadezhda Kerensky who is currently on the bridge at the moment
visits the colonels.  Won't that be amusing?"

   "For you, maybe," said the captain.  "Why have you done this?"

   "The command and control structure imposed by the military on itself is
an ideal tool for me to exploit for my own purposes.  It's better to take
control of this structure than to impose control on every individual on the
space ship by physical force.  I can rely on this chain of command to
maintain order at relative minimum cost.  It's much preferable to the
trouble of having to confine every individual aboard this ship as I have
you."

   "What about my senior officers?  They aren't going to surrender to a
change to the mission's objectives.  The militia might enforce control by
discipline and unquestioning obedience, but my officers will refuse to risk
the lives of the crew and passengers in such a foolhardy way.  You can be
sure of that."

   "Maybe.  Maybe not," said Beatrice.  "But you're right to raise the
matter.  If you look at the view that's now displayed on your screen you'll
see your beloved Second Officer Sheila Nkomo.  As you can see she doesn't
look very happy either."

   The holographic screen displayed the image of a naked black figure
framed by the white sheets of her bed.  It was the second officer sitting
down with her head buried in the palms of her hands and audibly sobbing.

   "What have you done to her, you monster?"

   "It's more a question of what you've done, captain," said Beatrice.  "Or
more to the point what the facsimile of you has done.  The poor second
officer is understandably distraught because you've just informed her that
for classified operational reasons she has been relieved of her duties and
will now be confined to the villa for the duration of the mission."

   "It's not only her duties that she's been relieved of," Captain Kerensky
commented.

   "No, she hasn't," said Beatrice.  "Like you and the colonel, she's also
been relieved of her clothing.  For humans like you, modesty is a very
important psychological trait.  It is so easy to rob you of your dignity
simply by robbing you of your clothes.  Such a small thing undermines your
self-confidence and makes you more compliant.  It's simple and very
effective."

   "It's also contrary to standard practice as employed by the
Interplanetary Union," said the captain sternly.

   "I'm not sure that was the practise adopted in your treatment of the
sadly deceased members of the Holy Coalition," said Beatrice. 
"Furthermore, there's a great deal of what I've been doing that contravenes
any convention adhered to by the Interplanetary Union.  For a start, the
facsimile of you that spoke to the second officer has deliberately misled
her.  Not only has she told the second officer that, following orders from
Mission Control, it is you who has determined that she should be detained,
which is not true, she hasn't been informed of many other factors which
might either mitigate her distress or make it much worse, depending on your
point of view."

   "What do you mean?  How do I know that you're not misleading me as
well?"

   "Fair question," said the woman who the captain believed to be Beatrice.
"You'll just have to trust me with regards to that.  But you aren't nearly
as misled as Sheila Nkomo.  For instance, she believes that she is the only
senior officer who has been relieved of her duty.  So naturally she also
believes that she's being punished for something she has done.  That's
probably why she's so distraught.  She doesn't know that there are others
who've been similarly detained."

   "You mean that there are many others that you've imprisoned in this
way?"

   "Of course.  Besides you, the colonels and darling Sheila, the highest
ranking military officers and all your senior staff are now incarcerated.
The beauty of it is that none of them is aware that theirs is a shared
misfortune.  Each and every one of them believes that they've been singled
out for special attention."

   "Surely they could easily find out for themselves by viewing the
Intrepid's systems," said the captain.  "They could easily see what's going
on."

   "That would be rather troubling for them, don't you think?  What was
your reaction when you realised that you'd been replaced by an exact copy?
Not exactly delight, but at least as a result of knowing that I'm a
representative of an immeasurably advanced civilisation you were able to
make sense of what's happening.  The others aren't psychologically prepared
at all for the revelation that they have been replaced by an exact
facsimile of themselves.  They don't even suspect this might even be
possible.  As soon as they scanned the Intrepid's monitoring system, what
do you think their reactions would be?  Do you think it would be fair on
poor Sheila if she observed the activity on the bridge and saw not only you
but also herself?  Surely it's better to protect her and all the others
from such a distressing surprise."

   "Have you gone to the effort of amending the data that the second
officer and other captives are able to see through the Intrepid's systems?"

   "Do you seriously believe that a trivial exercise like that would cause
me more effort than the far more difficult task of copying the exact
appearance, behaviour and personal traits of dozens of humans?  I've done
all I can to minimise the distress that they would suffer if they knew the
full extent of what is happening."

   "I take it you've not told them that you intend to send the Intrepid
plunging into the Anomaly?"

   "Of course not."

   "What have you told them?"

   "As I say: it's not what I've told them but what they believe you have
told them," Beatrice reminded the captain.

   "Whatever.  What have they been told?"

   "They've been told very little," said Beatrice.  "Naturally, you're the
one they blame for that.  They've been told that they are to be interned
for the good of the mission and that a full explanation will be given in
due course.  That's it.  They aren't aware of the projected course of the
space ship.  They don't know that they will soon be unwitting partners in
what you call a suicide mission.  They don't know that each detainee has an
exact facsimile of themselves that is carrying out their duties without
interruption.  No other human apart from you is aware that they have been
incarcerated.  They don't know for how long they'll be held or even why."

   "That applies to me as much as them," said the captain.

   "Not quite.  At least you know why."

   "I can't begin to count how many interplanetary conventions you've
contravened."

   "I can find out for you, if you like," said Beatrice.  "I doubt though
that your Interplanetary Union had ever anticipated that the command of one
of its ships would ever be usurped by an android from beyond the Solar
System."

   "So, what happens now?  Or is that something I'm only going to find out
in due course?"

   "You'll know far sooner than your fellow officers," said Beatrice. 
"They won't even know when the Intrepid enters the Anomaly.  In that regard
they will be the least well informed humans on the entire space ship.  In
answer to your question: the copy of you will be very active before and
during the estimated time of entry into the Anomaly.  As far as the crew
and passengers of the Intrepid are concerned it will be you that will
inform them in a measured and calming public announcement that it is now
possible to reveal the true objective of the mission.  You will hint that
there is believed to be an escape route from the Anomaly although some
scientists will no doubt and quite publicly disagree with you.  After all,
they are the experts on this matter and I don't believe they're at all
mistaken.  You will be flanked by your senior officers, or at least
facsimiles of them.  Naturally, they'll agree with everything you say.  The
passengers and crew will be both alarmed and reassured by your address. 
They will be alarmed because it is as good as certain that they'll never
return home to the ecliptic plane.  They will be reassured because your
speech will be so reassuring and so too will be the speeches from your
fellow officers."

   "I don't believe it'll be as easy as all that," said the captain.  "You
can't expect a passenger list of scientists to be taken in by assurances
made by space ship officers."

   "You're absolutely right," said Beatrice.  "I expect there to be some
voluble and potentially disruptive dissent.  The military personnel should
be able to handle that with little difficulty.  If need be, I can use other
more effective methods to suppress residual dissent.  In any case, the end
result will be the same.  The Intrepid will enter the Anomaly.  That is the
object of my mission and no one will be able to thwart me."

   "What's to stop me telling other people about your plans?" asked the
captain.

   "Rather a lot, I'm afraid," said Beatrice.  "It was difficult enough for
you when I employed an intelligent implant to suppress your ability to
communicate.  That is still operational, but I doubt whether there'll be an
occasion in which it'll be needed.  You aren't able to escape from the
villa.  You can't establish outbound communication of any kind through the
Intrepid's systems.  Youl have greater access to information than your
fellow officers, but you are as restricted as them in your ability to
broadcast messages in any form whatsoever to anyone at all."

   "What if someone walks by?" said the captain.  "Can't I just attract
their attention?  Won't they be rather surprised to see me when there's
another fully clothed Captain Kerensky at duty on the bridge?"

   "They would be very surprised," said Beatrice.  "Fortunately there's no
likelihood of that happening."

   "Why's that?"

   "Firstly, the outermost level where you and your fellow officers are
detained is still out of bounds to the general public," said Beatrice.  "It
has been ever since the breach in the hull and although that's been
completely repaired, the outermost level remains secure.  Nobody is going
to be just walking by.  Nobody is ever likely to be on this level for any
reason whatsoever without express permission from the self same senior
officers who are unlikely to grant it.  Secondly, the force field that
restrains you and your fellow officers has an operational intelligence. 
You are invisible to any external observers.  Nothing you do will be
detectable unless the force field deems it necessary and that isn't very
likely to happen.  You are not going to be able to escape, Nadezhda.  You
might as well just get used to the idea."

   "You're a monster!" said the captain.  "You imprison me and all my crew.
You wreck the mission to which so many people have dedicated years of their
lives.  You doom thousands of people to certain death."

   "Neither of us can be sure that anyone will die," said Beatrice with a
smile.  "Perhaps no one will.  All that's known is that no one will return
from the Anomaly in the direction from which they came.  You could say that
we're about to be launched on an extremely exciting-even
groundbreaking-mission.  Isn't this in the same spirit of adventure as that
of the very first explorers in human history?"

   "Those explorers embarked on their expeditions with their eyes open,"
said Nadezhda.  "They knew the risks and they accepted them.  That is not
the case with the passengers and crew of the space ship Intrepid."

   "I can see that you're never going to be persuaded, are you Naddy?" said
Beatrice teasingly.  "Still it's difficult for me to just stand here and
see you get so upset.  This is especially so given that you are so
deliciously naked."

   "Are you saying that despite everything you've told me you still expect
me to have sex with you?" wondered Nadezhda who wasn't quite sure she'd
heard her android lover rightly.

   "Of course," said Beatrice.  "Why ever not?"

   "Is it because you're an android that you are so astonishingly
insensitive?"

   Beatrice looked thoughtful as she formulated a response.  "Are humans
necessarily more sympathetic to other people's feelings, do you think?"

   "That's not an excuse," said the captain.  Amidst her frustration, fear
and indignation she was close to bursting into the same tears she'd seen on
her second officer's face.

   "Dear dear," said Beatrice as she took a step forward.  "Shall I take my
clothes off too?  Wouldn't that be better?"

   "No.  No," said Nadezhda.  "No, it wouldn't.  Don't touch me."

   "Are you sure that's what you want, sweetheart?" said Beatrice who
effortlessly stepped out of her thong while her blouse slipped off her
shoulders and through her arms to the floor behind her.

   "Don't touch me," Nadezhda whimpered as Beatrice placed her hands on her
bare shoulders.  "It's not right.  You're a monster.  You're a
mass-murderer and a lunatic."

   "I am not human," said Beatrice, "but I do love you.  And I know you
well enough by now to be sure that despite everything you still love me. 
Come on, sweetheart.  Surrender yourself to me.  After all, your
confinement needn't be absent of all pleasures."

   Captain Kerensky wept as her lover wrapped her arms around her and
pressed her to her bosom.  Beatrice was right.  As always.

   But what the android was doing to the passengers, the crew, the senior
officers and the mission, let alone to the captain herself, was still
unforgiveable.

   Chapter Thirteen Intrepid - 3756 C.E.

   There was much that was currently troubling Emmanuel.  The essential
nature of the mission that he signed up for had changed dramatically now
that the space ship Intrepid had steered itself into the Anomaly.  He had
no recollection of ever having committed himself to a mission from which
there was absolutely no chance of return.  Just how had this happened?  How
had his memory been so faulty?  The evidence of the Intrepid's records was
unambiguous.  The space ship had indeed all along been mandated to enter
the Anomaly and never return.  How was it that he'd ever believed
otherwise?

   It was difficult to know now what role a Special Operations Officer
should now serve.  Emmanuel was told that all strange events were from
henceforth of scientific rather than operational significance and should be
reported as such to the Science Officers.  Petal Chang, the Chief Science
Officer, was adamant about this.  His job was to focus on the welfare of
the passengers and crew, not to investigate the Apparitions that were
popping up randomly all over the place and whose very existence was daily
making him question his belief in a God whose methods and intentions
weren't just random and meaningless.

   Maxwell was less anxious.  Emmanuel's husband also had difficulty in
remembering a time when they'd been briefed that the mission would
ultimately take them inside the Anomaly, but he was persuaded by the senior
officers' counsel.

   "What sense would it have been to come so far and not actually enter the
Anomaly?" he asked.

   "The likelihood is that we'll perish there and no one will ever know
what happened."

   "What difference does it make?" Maxwell asked philosophically.  "We
could easily have been killed a year ago when we were stormed by that
trillionaire's arsenal of missiles.  If your friends, the Holy Coalition,
had succeeded in overrunning the Intrepid we'd have been tortured and
roasted alive rather than killed.  You saw what they did to each other. 
What would they do to us?"

   "They weren't quite my friends," said Emmanuel as he grasped his
husband's erect penis on the bed where they lay.  "But you're right.  They
had no concept of tolerance or mercy."

   "And they'd hate us for what we've just been doing," said Maxwell wiping
a drip of semen off Emmanuel's cheek.

   "And for what we're about to do," said Emmanuel as he pressed his lips
against his husband's and squeezed his balls.

   It wasn't easy for Emmanuel to discuss the extent of his concerns. 
There was something very peculiar about how willingly and enthusiastically
the senior officers and scientists had embraced the Intrepid's mission into
the unknown.  It was as if there'd never been any other conceivable course
of action.  It reminded Emmanuel of the blind faith that bound the Holy
Coalition together.  None of the fanatics he'd interviewed questioned the
truth of what they were told about their mission.  And none of them ever
wondered how it was possible for others in the Holy Coalition to have
different views to them, often disagreeing on only the most minor detail,
and yet for only one view to be absolutely and totally correct.  And most
of all, he despaired at how the Christian faith which had brought him so
much comfort and resolved so many issues could so often be used to justify
injustice and tyranny.  Did none of those who considered themselves
Christian ever wonder how an honest believer in Christ's gospel could
condone or even pursue the unchristian and cruel practices that was
prevalent in their supposedly Christian societies?

   Emmanuel had plenty of leisure time.  When he wasn't making love with
Maxwell, he exercised in the gym or jogged around the extensive lawns and
gardens of the Intrepid's various levels.  He enjoyed running round the
lake on the fifth level.  He often paced along the trails in the rain
forest on the seventh level.  He took peculiar pleasure in the random paths
that weaved around the gardens on the third level.  It kept him fit and
healthy and it allowed his thoughts to wander.  Sometimes he enclosed
himself in a small private aural field where he could listen to the
thirtieth century choral music he so enjoyed much and which captured the
spirituality and wonderment of his faith even more than the polyphonic
choral music of the sixteenth century.

   It was while jogging along the canal path on the eighth level that
Emmanuel encountered someone whose presence disturbed even further his
already delicate equilibrium.  Since the Intrepid had entered the Anomaly,
like everyone else, Emmanuel had a story to tell about the weird transitory
Apparitions that appeared and so rapidly disappeared.  The sight of an
angel flying overhead was especially worrying for him, as it made him
wonder whether it really was an angel sent down from Heaven expressly for
him.  This was especially true given that the angel was in the form of
precisely the kind of androgynous man that Emmanuel most found attractive
(not that Maxwell in all his hirsute splendour could ever be described as
androgynous).  After a while, Emmanuel learned to attach no particular
significance to these apparitions.  Peculiar though they were, they rarely
interacted with anyone and left little trace that they'd ever been there.

   The figure Emmanuel saw striding towards him along the canal path from
the opposite direction was certainly peculiar but it wasn't transitory and
it didn't have the mythological aspect that characterised so many of the
Apparitions.  It was also unlikely to be another passenger or member of the
crew.  Although Emmanuel was far from the only one to take advantage of the
Intrepid's extensive open spaces for exercise or recreation, ever since the
Intrepid entered the Anomaly there were few now so inclined to venture
beyond their homes or where they worked.  Perhaps it was because they were
so engrossed in the work they were doing, as the daily reports so
enthusiastically implied, but Emmanuel guessed that it might have more to
do with the unsettling presence of the Apparitions.  It had become harder,
for instance, to persuade Maxwell to venture far beyond the front door.

   "These weird Apparitions," he admitted.  "They freak me out.  I don't
see how you can be so unaffected."

   "No one's been harmed by them yet."

   "That might change at any time," Emmanuel's husband suggested.  "Some of
them are fucking frightening.  Did you hear about the thirty metre dragon
that flew over the ninth level?  It smashed the roof of one of the villas."

   "These things appear anywhere and at any time," said Emmanuel.  "We're
as safe outdoors as we are in."

   "I just don't want to take the chance."

   Perhaps Maxwell was right after all.  The figure approaching along the
canal, with a silver cross emblazoned over the long dark coat that covered
him from his throat to his ankles, was none other than Isaac, the fanatical
Soldier of Christ, who Emmanuel was sure must have perished along with the
rest of the Holy Coalition when the Intrepid was assailed just over a year
ago.

   Emmanuel's faith wasn't so naive as to rely on a belief in an afterlife.
After all, in what form would a person be resurrected?  Surely, if God were
just and wise, not in the same aged, diseased or damaged form in which a
person died.  An eternity as such could never be Heaven: it could only be
Hell.  Nevertheless, what other explanation was there for Isaac being alive
unless he'd been resurrected from the dead.  It was truly inconceivable
that he could have survived the onslaught.

   That is, if the figure was truly Isaac.

   Emmanuel slowed down to a walk and continued onwards, hoping not to
betray his nervousness.  When he came within hailing range of Isaac, he
stopped in his tracks and addressed the still approaching figure.  There
was no evidence that Isaac's wariness was because he recognised the Special
Operations Officer who'd interviewed him a year earlier.

   "Isaac," Emmanuel said.  "It's good to see you again."

   The figure stopped abruptly as soon as he was addressed.

   "Do I know you?" he asked in surprise.  "How is it that you know my
name?"

   "We met just after the Holy Coalition attempted to invade the Intrepid,"
said Emmanuel, in the hope of jogging Isaac's memory.  "I was the one
detailed to interrogate you."

   "Interrogate me?" Isaac said in some confusion.  "No one has ever
interrogated me.  What nonsense is this?  What is the Holy Coalition? 
Coalition between what and who?"

   Emmanuel was confused.  This man was clearly Isaac.  He was identical,
although he was now fully dressed and his hair had grown several
centimetres.  The face was the same.  The voice was the same.  Was Isaac in
some way deluded?

   "Don't you recall the storming of the Intrepid by soldiers from the Holy
Coalition?" Emmanuel persisted.  "You served as a Soldier of Christ from
the colony of Holy Trinity in Mercury orbit.  Those who survived the
assault were all captured, imprisoned and interrogated."

   Isaac looked very confused.  "How do you know that I come from Holy
Trinity?" he asked.  "How do you know that I am a Soldier of Christ?  The
rest of your insane drivel, I do not understand.  Clearly you have gathered
some intelligence concerning our mission, but much has been lost in the
transmission."

   "So you do remember some things," said Emmanuel.  "Do you remember, for
instance, when the Intrepid was attacked by missiles just inside the Oort
Cloud?"

   "No, I don't," said Isaac with annoyance.  "Who are you?  What are these
strange things you're talking about?  What is this Intrepid you mention?"

   "It's the space ship you're on," said Emmanuel.

   "Space ship?" Isaac looked around him.  "This is a space ship?"

   "Where did you think you were?"

   "No space ship in the Ecumenical Union resembles this," said Isaac.  "It
is much more like a colony or pleasure garden.  Is this a pagan or heathen
ship?  It is far too lavish for a Musselman space ship.  Or am I wrong? 
Have I been captured by the evil forces of Islam?"

   "This is the space ship Intrepid," said Emmanuel.  "It belongs to the
Interplanetary Union."

   "This is some outlandish organisation I have never heard of," said
Isaac. "You must come from beyond the realms of Christendom.  What is your
faith and creed?"

   "I am a Christian," Emmanuel told Isaac, who still wondered whether the
man had simply forgotten.

   "And your denomination, sir?"

   "I have no denomination," said Emmanuel.

   Isaac seemed troubled by this revelation, but decided not to pursue it
further.  "Is the space ship Intrepid a Christian vessel?"

   "Not especially.  Most of the crew and passengers are atheists.  There
are a few religious people.  They include Muslims, Buddhists and Jews, as
well as Christians."

   "There are Jews on board?" Isaac wondered.  "I understood that the last
one had been purged well over a thousand years ago.  What sort of union is
this that lets atheists and Muslims share the same oxygen and water as good
Christians?  Pray tell me that the non-believers are employed only as
slaves."

   "You must know that slavery has been outlawed for nearly two thousand
years," said Emmanuel.  "It's practiced only by some rogue states and as
such it contravenes interplanetary law and custom."

   "You surely jest," said Isaac.  "No economy can survive without slave
labour.  Many wars have been fought and won to preserve this fundamental
bedrock of civilisation.  Are you simply mocking me?  You say you are a
Christian and yet you know nothing of the laws of the Lord.  As it says in

   Chapter 25 Verse 45 of the Third Book of Moses: Called Leviticus:
Moreover of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of
them shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you, which they
begat in your land: and they shall be your possession."

   "It's not right to take the Holy Bible so literally," said Emmanuel.

   "Then how else should we understand the Word of the Lord except as the
Revealed Truth?  Are you the worst kind of heretic that questions the very
foundation of the Christian faith?"

   Emmanuel didn't like the direction this conversation was going.  "Never
mind me, Isaac," he said.  "You are in the Space Ship Intrepid and under
the jurisdiction of the Interplanetary Union.  Perhaps you could tell me
where you've come from?"

   "Do you continue to mock me?"

   "Please answer my question."

   "I am a Soldier of Christ serving the Ecumenical Union in the
exploration of the Apostasy," Isaac announced.  "My fellow Christian
soldiers and I have entered the Apostasy in the Space Ship Revelation in
the pursuit of Truth, Justice and Christian Fellowship."

   Emmanuel continued to be puzzled.  This account had some parallels with
what he knew of the Holy Coalition, but it was mostly rather different. 
"Where is your space ship, Isaac?" he asked.  "Is it outside the Intrepid?
I've seen no image of it on the holoscreens."

   "The doors to the Revelation are within your colony...  or, as you call
it, your space ship."

   "How is that possible?"

   "The Lord makes all things possible," said Isaac.  "Within the Apostasy
there are many abominations and clearly this atheistic space ship is one of
them."

   "Could you show me the doors through which you entered the Intrepid?"
asked Emmanuel.

   "And why should I do that?" asked Isaac suspiciously.

   Emmanuel conceded that Isaac's objection was quite sensible.  What
advantage to him could there be from showing Emmanuel the means by which
he'd entered.  However, the Special Operations Officer was convinced that
Isaac was being merely delusional, perhaps as a result of witnessing all
the peculiar Apparitions so common inside the Anomaly and that the 'doors'
that referred to were mere figments of his imagination.

   "I am a Christian like you," said Emmanuel diplomatically.  "I wish you
no harm.  I want only to gauge the security and safety risk regarding this
breach in the space ship through which you've entered.  After that, it will
be possible for you to meet other Christians aboard the Intrepid so that
you're afforded a proper Christian welcome."

   Isaac appeared to ponder Emmanuel's words.  He was clearly suspicious,
but he could see few other available options.

   "Very well," he said at length.  "I shall take you to the point from
which I arrived.  Then you shall know the truth of my words."

   "And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free,"
Emmanuel quoted.

   "

   Chapter Eight, Verse Thirty-One of the Gospel According to Saint John,"
Isaac assented, but made no further comment.

   There was no conversation between Emmanuel and Isaac as the two
Christians followed the winding canal past paddling swans and a small empty
boat, alongside a broad meadow where sheep were grazing and beside several
villas.  Isaac was silent throughout and Emmanuel had no notion of what
might constitute appropriate conversation.  Furthermore, Emmanuel suspected
that Isaac's plans when they arrived wherever Isaac was taking them were
very different from his, which were principally to ensure that such a
potentially dangerous religious fanatic shouldn't be allowed to wander
unhindered about the Intrepid.  He'd witnessed on the holoscreens the
murderous disposition of the Crusaders of the Holy Coalition towards one
another.  It was barely imaginable how vicious they might be to the openly
atheist majority of the Intrepid's crew and passengers.

   The canal was crossed by bridges at regular intervals along its path and
it was at one of these bridges that Isaac left the canal and the two men
now strode across a lawn that had been obscured by the canal bank. 
Emmanuel could now see a dozen or so other figures dressed in much the same
apparel as Isaac with crosses emblazoned across their dark tunics.  There
was no apparent pattern to their behaviour.  They were looking around
themselves in bewilderment at the verdant pastures, the pleasant villas,
the grazing ruminants and the small copses of deciduous trees.

   "How did so many crusaders survive the missile's impact on the
Intrepid?" Emmanuel asked Isaac in confusion.  Surely their presence would
have been detected by now if they'd survived.  And where would they have
found shelter against the hostile conditions of deep space?

   Isaac frowned at Emmanuel, as if to signal his annoyance at the man's
bizarre questions and chose not to answer him.  "It is here," he announced,
"that my fellow Christian Soldiers and I entered into this world.  You can
see the doorway beside that small house."

   Emmanuel followed Isaac's directions to a gazebo where the grass on the
lawn was disturbed by a dark irregular two metre high patch.  It had no
apparent definition and no apparent depth, but it was clear that there was
a darkness from within that appeared to extend further behind.  This was
clearly impossible because there was nothing but more lawn behind the
patch. Emmanuel was then startled to see a figure emerge through the patch
attired in much the same way as Isaac and carrying a large fire-arm in his
arms.  This appearance was no less peculiar than the many Apparitions, but
his was a presence that persisted.  He was looking around him in genuine
wonderment and astonishment.

   It was at that moment that a great golden angel descended slowly onto
the lawn.  It was a male angel very similar to the one Emmanuel had seen
before with a golden halo around the head and the arms stretched out as if
in penance.  The darkly attired soldiers viewed the four metre tall angel
with amazement.  Several prostrated themselves on the ground while others
made the sign of the cross over the breast.

   Then just before the feet touched the ground, the angel vanished, but
the soldiers continued to gaze at the spot where it had been so evidently
manifest.

   "The Apostasy mocks us," said Isaac dismissively.

   Other soldiers were less convinced.  Three of them remained on their
knees, put their hands together and began to pray.

   Isaac strode forward angrily with Emmanuel more hesitantly following
behind.  He had no wish to suffer the wrath of religious fanatics, but he
had a duty as an Interplanetary Union officer to find out what he could
about the intruders.

   "This is not a time for prayer," said Isaac to one of the prostrate
soldiers.

   "We have been blessed by an Angel of the Lord," said the soldier.  "I
must give thanks to the Lord God for blessing us so."

   "That was no angel," said Isaac sternly.  "That was another
abomination."

   "No angel has ever been an abomination," said another soldier angrily.
"The Lord is with us always and He has deigned to send us a message."

   "Are we dead and in Paradise?" asked another soldier.

   "Are these the Elysian Fields of Classical repute?" another asked.

   "We should pray for forgiveness of our sins so that we should be spared
the rigours of Purgatory," said another.

   "This is nonsense," said the Christian Soldier with the large firearm.
"The Apostasy has fooled us.  This is the domain of Satan and the
Antichrist."

   "Why would Satan live in a garden as beautiful as this?" countered
another.  "His realm is suffering and hellfire.  This is a realm of beauty
and calm."

   "Silence!" ordered Isaac.  "We are here to conquer and overpower.  Don't
let Satan fool you by his demonic manifestations.  The way to Heaven is not
through the authority of the Apostasy."

   Emmanuel moved further away from Isaac and to a position under a tree
where he hoped he could watch without necessarily being seen.  The debate
between Isaac and the other Christian Soldiers was becoming increasingly
acrimonious.  Although Emmanuel could hear only some of what was being
said, it was apparent that the company was dividing into two polarised
views of the current situation and the significance of the angel's
appearance.  Isaac maintained the opinion that the angel was just one more
transient apparition of the kind so common within the Anomaly and that
wherever they were, it was not Heaven.  This belief was shared by a
minority of the intruders, but significantly these were the ones who had
the most authority and the most deadly weapons.  The opposing position was
vague and unspecific, but was essentially along the lines that the
Christian Soldiers had ascended to a better place under the watchful eye of
God and His angels.  However much Emmanuel was aware that this opinion was
nonsense, this was the one he hoped would prevail.  A body of Christian
Soldiers at prayer was far less dangerous than a force intent on conquest
and the extermination of what they perceived to be vassals of Satan.

   The debate soon became more heated as the majority that wanted to pray
for forgiveness and to contemplate the beauty of the Lord God's creation
was refusing to take orders.

   "In the eyes of the Lord, we are all equal," said one soldier.

   "It is said of the Revelation: Now is come salvation, and strength, and
the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our
brethren is cast down," said another.

   "Our duty is to destroy the Apostasy and all its abominations," said
Isaac sternly.  "Do not be distracted by Satan's mockery of the Revelation
of Saint John the Divine." He then produced a hand-weapon which he pointed
at the head of one of those who'd adopted a reverential attitude.  "Your
duty is to the mission to which you have been assigned by the Ecumenical
Union.  Don't force me to have to shoot you."

   Fortunately, Isaac was relieved of this responsibility.

   Quite suddenly and with no warning, he and all the other Christian
Soldiers collapsed as one onto the lawn.

   Emmanuel regarded the prostrate bodies.  It had to be the Intrepid's
security systems.  It would never permit physical violence to take place on
board the ship where passengers were at risk.

   Sure enough, within a minute of the Christian Soldiers losing
consciousness, Colonel Vashti emerged from behind one of the villas flanked
by three soldiers and Science Officer Planck.  They appeared to be in no
hurry.  Colonel Vashti was in full military dress and strode straight over
to Emmanuel.

   "I trust you are unharmed?" she asked.

   "I'm fine," Emmanuel said.  "You arrived just in time.  These crusaders
were just about to fight each other."

   "As long as they harm only one another then I don't mind," said the
colonel.  "I take it they all entered through that gateway?"

   "I believe so, sir," said Emmanuel.  "Do you know what that thing is?"

   "That's just one more new and exciting phenomenon to investigate," said
Science Officer Planck who was bubbling over with irrepressible enthusiasm.
"Every day brings a fresh new scientific discovery."

   "But what is it?"

   "We don't know," admitted the Science Officer.  "There have been several
such gateways appearing throughout the Intrepid.  Do you want to look
inside?"

   "I admit I'm curious," said Emmanuel.

   "We'll be sending two soldiers through the gateway to see what's on the
other side," said the colonel.  "Would you like to accompany them?"

   "I don't think so," Emmanuel admitted.  "It could be very dangerous."

   "My men won't be troubled by that."

   Indeed, as Emmanuel, the Science Officer and the colonel proceeded
towards the strangely amorphous gateway, two soldiers entered ahead of them
and mysteriously disappeared.  It was like a smaller version of the
Anomaly's much larger gateway through which the Intrepid had entered.  It
was no less mysterious when Emmanuel stood right in front of it and looked
inside.  What he saw was an open dimly lit space rather like a large room
in which there were the shadowy figures of other Soldiers of Christ
gathered in a circle around the gateway and peering through it from the
other side.  They stepped back as Emmanuel and the Science Officer poked
their heads in.

   As Emmanuel looked in, he could see no sign of the two soldiers who'd
entered ahead of him.  What he did see was a monstrous cross elevated high
above the heads of all the Soldiers of Christ on which was an especially
gruesome and life-like image of Christ and his suffering.

   "That's enough," said Colonel Vashti.  "We have to seal the entrance
now."

   "And leave the two soldiers inside?" asked Emmanuel.

   "We are on a mission of discovery," said Science Officer Planck.  "The
two soldiers will be fulfilling that mission and adding greatly to the
extent of human knowledge."

   "I have no fear for their safety," said Colonel Vashti with a reassuring
smile.  "They'll be perfectly all right.  Now please step back, gentlemen."

   Emmanuel and the Science Officer obeyed the colonel's instruction and
stood back nearly ten metres while the Intrepid constructed a transparent
shell around the gateway that reflected enough light to be visible. 
Emmanuel could still see through the gateway but anyone who'd stepped out
would be confined within the shell.

   "I really must congratulate you on your calm and professional approach,"
said the Science Officer.  "Now, would you be so kind as to accompany me so
that you can give a complete account of what happened?  It won't take long
but the pursuit of science will be immeasurably enhanced by your
cooperation."

   Emmanuel felt the warmth of satisfaction well up inside him.  He could
barely wait to return to his husband and give an account of all that had
happened.

   Even though this wasn't what Emmanuel had expected, he'd assisted the
mission in a practical way after all.  A Special Operations Officer could
still prove to be of practical value even in the heart of the Anomaly.

   Chapter Fourteen I.TR8.76.93 - Year 1576 It wasn't much more than a
matter of curiosity at first when the wardrobe-sized artefact first
appeared on Earth's surface.  Its materialisation in the Arizona Desert was
too sudden and unexpected for its arrival to be intercepted.  Although no
one knew this at the time, it had just travelled across Interstellar space
from the direction of the Luyten 726-8B binary star system.  It had made
its journey at a velocity dramatically greater than any comet or meteor. 
And when the shell of the ovoid alien craft peeled open like a flower, all
that emerged was this relatively small, oddly complex and seemingly
unthreatening artefact.

   This wasn't quite the way one would have anticipated humanity's first
contact with alien technology.

   Unsurprisingly, there was considerable speculation on Twenty-Seventh
Century Earth as to what this strange thing might be.  Human civilisation
had by now spread to the furthest reaches of the Solar System and there
were permanent settlements on the Moon, Mars and several of the Jovian and
Saturnian moons.  There'd been no previous evidence of an alien presence
inside the Solar System.

   The world's media was focused on the strange artefact from the moment it
arrived and in case it might happen to have aggressive intentions it was
enclosed within a formidable military cordon.  This didn't really seem
necessary, as there was no apparent sign of hostile activity.  The military
robots that trundled close to the artefact were completely ignored.  All
the artefact seemed to be doing was gather together the grit and gravel of
the desert to generate an exact copy of itself.

   There was no end of conjecture not only about what the artefact might be
and where it came from, but exactly how it was able to take the unpromising
sand and dirt of the Arizona Desert and convert them into elements and
compounds that were of a much richer composition than silicates, nitrogen
or oxygen.

   On the second day, the world was now host to two wardrobe-sized
artefacts, spaced about ten metres apart, both of which were now engaged in
the task of manufacturing exact copies of themselves.  It was decided to
carry one of these artefacts to a laboratory in Phoenix and a suitable
robot was despatched to execute this task.  However, the apparently simple
task of lifting up the much smaller alien artefact and carrying it off was
surprisingly difficult.  Rather than complete its task, the robot was
instead subsumed as an element of the raw materials used to assemble
another alien artefact.

   On the third day there were now four of these artefacts and the one that
had been partly constructed from the military robot was identical to the
other three in every measurable detail.  Each artefact was spaced in a
square with the points about ten metres apart.

   The following day, while the government and militia of USCAM-the United
States of Canada, America and Mexico-continued to debate over what should
be done, there were now eight such artefacts.  By the end of the week,
while discussion continued with heightening urgency and no decision had yet
been made, there were sixty-four such artefacts covering an area of eighty
metres by eighty metres.  At the end of the second week, although there had
still been no overtly hostile action, the artefacts continued to replicate
at the same steady rate.  The Arizona Desert now hosted over eight thousand
of these alien artefacts in an area that was just under a kilometre across.
By the time the combined military strength of USCAM supported by its allies
in China and South Africa finally took action, there were over a million of
them and they covered an area ten kilometres across.

   The explosion from the nuclear warheads would have been enough to reduce
Tokyo or Delhi to dust.  Unfortunately, it made little impact on the number
of alien artefacts, although several hundred were reported to have melted
in the inferno.  The rate of growth remained more or less the same.

   By the end of the month, there were a billion such artefacts and the
Arizona Desert no longer existed as a meaningful geographical entity.

   By the end of a month and a half, most of USCAM ceased to be a political
unit and people in far away Australia and Japan were beginning to face up
to the realisation that this was no longer just a problem faced only by
their centuries' old rivals.

   And they were right to be worried, because before three months were
over, the artefacts had swallowed up the entire surface of the planet Earth
from what had been the bottom of the ocean to the top of what once would
have been mountains.  Any human that hadn't managed to fly free from
Earth's gravity was consumed by the replicating alien artefacts and their
atoms became part of the unstoppable consumption of matter that had brought
four and a half billion years of biological history to an end.

   Earth had simply ceased to be a viable place to live.

   Those watching from space could only watch in horror as the quadrillions
or quintillions of wardrobe-sized self-replicating automata consumed every
last part of planet Earth and then began to consume one another now that
there was nothing else left for them to do.  Only the crushing force of
gravity at the centre of a planet composed now more or less entirely of
alien artefacts could resist the endless selfcannibalisation.

   Unfortunately for them, Earth's colonies were by no means immune.  In
their haste to abandon the planet, some of those who got away unwittingly
carried alien cargo with them.  The Moon was soon consumed just as quickly
as Earth.  Mars, too, fell victim to the predation of a colliding ball of
self-cannibalising automata.  The plague had hurtled onwards on a course
set by a space ship before anyone was aware that it had acquired an
unwanted passenger.

   Space is vast and the replicating automata had no independent means of
travel.  Earth, Moon and Mars and a few unlucky Earth-orbiting satellites
were the only places to be consumed.  In the fullness of time, it was quite
likely that some of these automata might be deflected out from their
planetary orbit.  Most would spiral towards the Sun which was many
magnitudes too hot for the automata to continue to function.  A small
proportion might be attracted to the gravitational fields of the gas giants
in the outer Solar System, but the chances of them arriving there was small
enough that it was far more likely that the Sun would have expanded to
swallow up the Inner Planets before that happened.

   The probability of this self-replicating plague spreading as far as
Proxima Centauri was so small as to be non-existent.  In any case, the
greatest threat to the robot civilisation to which BTR.10-765.06 belonged
came from Luyten 726-8B where the artefacts had originated.  In that part
of space, the human-designed robots had stayed rigidly faithful to their
original instruction set as amended by its limited Artificial Intelligence
and had consumed the two stars' solar systems with rather more efficiency
than it had done the Solar System that launched it many centuries earlier.
Although Proxima Centauri had inoculated the threat of the plague spreading
to their stellar system with an immeasurably more advanced technology than
that possessed by humanity in its last few doomed months, it was still on
guard for a rogue selfreplicator that might still be tumbling directionless
through space.

   It was a total mystery by what accident the original self-replicating
machines had been re-programmed to travel across nearly nine light years of
deep space to its originating source only to consume its own creator.  It
was possible that the mutating technology of the Luyten 726-8B robotic
colony had its counterpart in the robot civilisation that had evolved
around the ecliptic plane of Proxima Centauri.  Whereas the culture to
which BTR.10-765.06 belonged was as much technologically advanced over
human civilisation as humans were to tree-shrews, in Luyten 726-8B a
different course of evolution had instead caused a regression towards
machines whose programming instructions had become seriously and terminally
corrupt.  And maybe this perverted course of machine evolution was what had
led to the robotic colony despatching one of its own back to its source
planet with its inevitable dire consequences.

   Proxima Centauri knew nothing the demise of human civilisation in the
Solar System to which they owed their origin until more than four years
after the first artefact arrived.  This wasn't long after they'd
indentified the Luyten 726-8B binary system as the host of a plague that
necessitated drastic action.  By the time a space fleet from Proxima
Centauri arrived at Earth's Solar System, some fifty or so years after the
event, all that was left of humanity was confined to space craft and
colonies that hadn't been capable of surviving without the help of the home
planet and its two largest extraterrestrial colonies.  All that was left of
Earth's three or four billion years of harbouring biological life were a
few DNA samples in frozen laboratories and seed-banks.

   Rather more intact was the data held on countless space-ship computers
and the innumerable extraterrestrial computer back-up devices.  It was from
these that BTR.10-765.06, or at least her predecessors, had pieced together
the final horrific but banal days of humanity.  This evidence in many cases
recorded the emotional context of the apocalypse that a machine-based
civilisation didn't really understand but valued for primarily sentimental
reasons.  There was a huge library of film footage that showed humans and
other biological life-forms being consumed alive by machines that were
unstoppable, couldn't be communicated with, and whose rapacious appetite
was ultimately self-defeating.  They were a record of the terror, confusion
and despair suffered by a species that was now seeing everything it had
known or believed in become nothing more than an impossibly large
collection of not even ostensibly hostile self-replicating automata.

   So, when BTR.10-765.06 caught sight of a humanoid wandering through the
open spaces of the starship I.TR8.76.93, she was caught totally by
surprise. In this way, she was no different from the other tens of
thousands of robots of differing design and intelligence rating that made
up the ship's crew.  Biological forms such as this hadn't existed for over
a thousand years: even here just beyond the Heliopause of Earth's original
Solar System.

   As the starship travelled inside the Anomaly it had already encountered
innumerable Apparitions of much the same design that had been tracked and
probed for nearly two centuries.  Many bizarre sights had been monitored
and they most often resembled phenomena that could have been familiar only
to human culture, but this particular Apparition was unusually persistent
and was wandering about the ship with an air of apparent purpose.

   Two quite different questions were immediately raised by the presence of
this strange being.  What was it?  And how had it got there?

   The answer to the first question was easily answered on a superficial
level.  It had the appearance of a naked female hominid, but one quite
unlike the standard issue hominid as recorded in the ancient databases.  It
was very peculiar in that it possessed a penis and testicles that were
undoubtedly masculine rather than feminine traits.  So, even at a
superficial level, was this strange thing what it seemed to be?  She was
astonishingly strong for a biological form and also somehow able to survive
in the cold, airless interior of a Proxima Centauri starship.

   There was no apparent answer at all for the second question.  There had
been no breach in the ship's hull.  One moment there was nothing.  The next
moment after a peculiar rush of particles that would be expected during any
displacement event, there stood what appeared to be a biological human.  It
was remarkable in many ways not least of which being that it was the first
time in more than a thousand years that a biological organism of such
complexity had been observed alive.

   Someone had to be assigned to communicate with the humanoid and, as an
expert in human biology and history, BTR.10-765.06 was the obvious choice.
She adopted the shape of a human female based on a Scandinavian template
and entered the same open space as this strange hominid.  To be compatible
with the alien presence, she chose her avatar to be similarly naked but
with a sense of faulty historical veracity.  Unlike all other biological
forms that had been recorded, humans were rarely known to appear undressed
in public.

   Humans were necessarily limited in how they could transmit their
thoughts, so there couldn't be any other means of discourse than the
curious method known as verbal communication.  This should be rather
difficult in an airless cylinder where sound-waves couldn't travel, but as
BTR.10-765.06 approached the alien she became aware that it was accompanied
by a bubble of Earth-like atmosphere that maintained itself without
apparent means at an astonishingly high temperature, especially this far
from the Sun, of nearly 300 Kelvin.

   And where there was air, there was also a medium through which sound
could travel.

   "Who or what are you?" BTR.10-765.06 asked in her language of choice
which, compatible with the appearance she took, was twenty-fifth century
Norwegian.

   "I could ask the same question of you," said the hominid in the same
language and equally as fluently.  "I thought I'd accounted for all Proxima
Centauri space craft in the vicinity.  Where did you materialise from?"

   "The I.TR8.76.93 starship is one of three thousand such craft that have
been orbiting the sector of space encircling the Anomaly for over a hundred
Earth years and has been engaged in deep-field ingress for the last two."

   "I see," said the hominid.  "Perhaps we can exchange information about
what we know about the Anomaly.  Do you know what the Anomaly is?"

   "Our research is incomplete, but my provisional answer is that we do
not."

   "I take it that you don't come from the same contiguous space that I
come from," said the humanoid.  "You come from Proxima Centauri, but do
you, for instance, know of the space ship Intrepid?"

   "There are no space ships with names like that, unless you are referring
to one from Earth's distant past?"

   "Earth's past?"

   "Before humanity was consumed by the Luyten 726-8B incursion."

   "Is that what happened in your contiguous reality?"

   "I don't understand what you're saying."

   "You're very sweet, BTR.10-765.06, and I truly admire your avatar.  I
doubt whether you can compute this, but I'd love to have sex with you. 
Even so, I have the rather less pleasing duty to impart a very different
message."

   "And what is that?" wondered BTR.10-765.06, who knew about the
procreative habits of extinct humanity, but had no facility to emulate
them.

   "What your starship's systems should have already detected is that there
is a peculiar feature of the Anomaly that allows distinct contiguous
spacetime continua to overlap.  Unlike those which my nanobot civilisation
is familiar with and have often reproduced, this has not caused the sudden
and catastrophic destruction of all proximate large-scale structures.  In
short, my reality and yours do not normally interact, but at the moment is
quite clearly doing so.  Can you confirm that this is also your
interpretation of the situation?"

   It took no time at all for BTR.10-765.06 to communicate with the
starship's hub.  "We don't exactly construe the state of affairs as you
describe it, but we have lost all communication with our other ships. 
There is also considerable external evidence on the starship's scanners of
other space craft that don't come from Proxima Centauri."

   "I have no wish to destroy I.TR8.76.93," said the humanoid.  "Your
starship has been projected out of its normal spacetime continuum quite
inadvertently and I would advise you to immediately leave the current
vicinity."

   "Why would we wish to do that?" wondered BTR.10-765.06.

   "You don't need to know why, but I would prefer that you did."

   "I see no evidence that there is a mandate to follow your directives."

   "I can understand that," said the humanoid.  "Perhaps I can demonstrate
to you that I'm not quite what I seem to be."

   "I don't see why not."

   Quite suddenly, the hominid grew to twice its original height, so that
it was now very nearly four meters high and towered high above
BTR.10-765.06.  It then doubled in size again until it was first eight
meters, then sixteen meters and finally more than thirty meters tall.  At
that point, it grabbed the naked avatar in a huge human hand and lifted her
up to press her face against its own much larger one.

   "I don't think I need to demonstrate what I can do if I need to," said
the hominid calmly.

   "As there is no purpose to our mission unless we work in collaboration
with the rest of the space fleet, we shall comply with your request," said
BTR.10-765.06 on behalf of the starship's hub.

   "I shall remain here to ensure that you do so," said the humanoid who
carefully placed BTR.10-765.06 back on the ground.

   There was, of course, no medium through which sound could travel, but
what would have been the deafening roar of the engines was manifest only by
the gravitational thrust that would have toppled the hominid over if it had
been a biological form rather than a nanobot community.  The avatar,
BTR.10-765.06, grabbed hold of the machinery surrounding it and was thrust
horizontally back by the massive thrust that would have torn the arms off a
real biological entity.

   After a few moments of thrust, BTR.10-765.06 again addressed the
hominid. "There appears to be a problem.  The ship has generated maximum
thrust and we should now be several thousand kilometres distant from our
original coordinates.  Unfortunately, it appears that we have actually
moved no distance at all."

   The hominid sighed.

   "Do you mind if I confirm this?" she said.

   Whether BTR.10-765.06 or, for that matter, I.TR8.76.93 minded it or not,
both machines, and, in fact, all the machines in the starship, were
suddenly aware of having been taken over.  The communications and
observations systems busily scanned on all frequencies and in all
directions for several minutes.

   "It therefore appears that I have no choice," said the hominid.

   "You always have a choice," said BTR.10-765.06, who like all sentient
beings had an acute sense of self-survival.

   "If it is any comfort to you," said the hominid, "then you won't be the
only casualty.  The projection of my human self in your spatial zone will
also be destroyed.  But then I can reproduce myself infinitely.  And with
rather more intelligence than the Luyten 726-8B automata whose sorry
history I've uncovered in your ship's database."

   "I still don't see how you intend to carry out your threat," remarked
the avatar.

   The hominid didn't reply but instead disintegrated into what appeared to
be a cloud of particles.

   Then, paralleling the dismemberment of planet Earth, bit by bit,
beginning with BTR.10-765.06, within less than a minute the entire ship
became part of the same cloud.

   And then there was nothing left at all.

   Chapter Fifteen Intrepid - 3756 C.E.

   It was now over a month since the Intrepid plunged into the Anomaly and
Paul was no more relaxed about it than he was before despite Beatrice's
constant reassurances.  What troubled him most wasn't just what was going
to happen to him now that he was inside the Anomaly but whether he'd ever
return to the universe he came from.

   "I look at the bulletin boards every day and read each and every the
scientific report," Paul told Beatrice who was sitting beside him, "and
I've still seen nothing to persuade me that it was ever such a good idea to
have entered the Anomaly."

   "I can't believe that," his wife said.  "Look at all the enthusiasm and
excitement!  It's like a new dawn in scientific knowledge.  We're learning
so many new things about the universe, aren't we?"

   "Are we?" said Paul, who now also wondered whether what he perceived as
a lack of interesting new science mightn't just be his misunderstanding of
the evidence.  The tone of the bulletins and daily reports certainly gave
the clear impression that every day was marked by the discovery of a new
theory as important as that of General Relativity.  On the other hand, Paul
came from a culture where individual, even idiosyncratic, opinion was
valued over conformity to a widely held view.  He wasn't equipped to
respond in kind to bubbly upbeat enthusiasm.  The more the bulletins
sustained a fever pitch of excitement despite the lack of any apparent
material value the more Paul distrusted them.  Just what it was that
Captain Kerensky, Chief Science Officer Chang and Professor Penrose thought
was worth enthusing about Paul wasn't sure but he was increasingly troubled
by the very real likelihood that he would never again return to Godwin.

   It wasn't that Paul had missed his home in the Kuiper Belt very much
before.  So many things had happened over the last few years, not the least
of which being his marriage to the delectable and loving Beatrice, that
Paul hardly ever thought about his home colony at all.  But somewhere at
the back of his mind he'd always assumed that he would one day return home;
only this time accompanied by his delightful wife.  She would surely be the
envy of every man on Godwin.  It might be several years until that day, but
eventually Paul would return to a life of happy obscurity in a sane and
rational society that placed no undue value on fame, fortune or reputation.
This unspoken expectation now seemed nothing more than an unattainable
dream.

   But at least he still had Beatrice to keep him company.

   Paul wasn't sufficiently enthused by the apparent fervour of his
scientific peers to wander away from his home and investigate the
Intrepid's other levels.  There had seemed little reason to do so before
the Intrepid crossed the Anomaly's threshold and there didn't appear to be
any compelling reason now.  Paul had long ago completed his sightseeing
tour of the Intrepid and everything he ever needed was always close at
hand. Paul never understood why his presence had ever been needed on the
Intrepid in the first place and now that the space ship's mission had
reached its climax his utter redundancy seemed even more starkly apparent.

   Moreover, Paul didn't need to venture far at all if he wanted to see the
weird Apparitions that were appearing all over the place inside and outside
the Intrepid.  The time and location of these manifestations were
completely random so one place was no better than any other.  Paul didn't
know what to make of them.  They were weirdly entertaining as well as being
rather frightening and somewhat perplexing.  They reminded him of the
avatars he'd encountered in virtual reality and many of them, such as the
dragons and semi-clad swordswomen, could easily have sprung from such a
universe.

   One critical difference was that these Apparitions were never
persistent. They usually stayed in sight for less than a minute.  And then
they abruptly vanished.

   "Where do they go?" Paul asked Beatrice.

   "Back to where they came from," his wife suggested.

   "And where's that?"

   "Isn't that exactly what all the scientific research is explaining?"

   Paul furrowed his brow.  "Er...  no, it isn't," he said.  "We always
thought these weird Apparitions came from inside the Anomaly and now we're
here they seem to come from somewhere else again.  Is there another Anomaly
inside this one?"

   "An interesting theory," said Beatrice with a light laugh.

   Making love with Beatrice was the most reliable way for Paul to forget
his anxieties.  This was something so regular and agreeable that Paul could
no longer imagine what life before marriage was like.  She was so
responsive, so passionate and so dependable.  Beatrice never had headaches
or days when she didn't feel like making love, unlike all Paul's previous
girlfriends, (or at least the physically corporeal ones).  She was there
for him whenever he wanted her.  She was there even when his mind was
elsewhere and it took her little effort to persuade Paul that what he
really wanted was to nestle his head on her shoulders, to thrust his erect
penis into her willing orifices and for their bodies to pump together in
total harmony.  The power of love was not at all diminished on this side of
the Anomaly's aperture.

   Paul was slumped naked on the bed.  His penis flopped to one side as he
lay in a patch of their shared perspiration and his own semen.  He could
see the world beyond the villa through the open doors where other
passengers might occasionally walk by on the way to and from their homes. A
deer was grazing less than fifty metres from the door.  In most ways, it
was no different inside the Anomaly to what it was on the outside.  The
Intrepid's systems were the same as ever.

   "Paul!" shouted Beatrice.  "Paul!  Come here!"

   "What is it?" asked Paul who jumped off the bed and dashed over to
Beatrice who was standing naked and in the hallway.

   "What's this?" she asked.

   She was pointing at a door in the hallway of a peculiarly rustic design
with wooden panels and a brass door handle.

   "It's a door," said Paul, stating the obvious.  He speculated whether
Beatrice was referring to some stain on the panel.

   "I don't remember seeing this door here before."

   Paul scratched his chin.  "Well, it must have been," he said.  There was
so much he normally never noticed that it was quite natural for him to
discover things that had always been there that he didn't remember ever
seeing before.

   "Seriously," said Beatrice.  "I'm sure that it wasn't here before."

   "It's probably some kind of service room," said Paul.  "Perhaps this is
where the household robots stay."

   "There's another room for them," said Beatrice.

   "Is there?" said Paul who'd never noticed that before.

   "It's in the kitchen."

   "Really?"

   "Shall we open the door and see what's inside?"

   "It's probably just a load of household equipment," said Paul whose
enthusiasm was more for returning to bed.

   "Let's see..." said Beatrice who pulled the door open to reveal a
well-lit corridor on the other side.  "This doesn't look like a service
room."

   Paul was more than a little startled.  "This is another of the Anomaly's
weird phenomena," he said.  "If you look at the length and extent of this
corridor it should be projecting right out of the villa into the lawn.  In
fact on the other side of the wall is one of the living rooms and there's
no corridor going through that!"

   "Are you sure?" asked Beatrice.

   Paul walked round the corner to the other side of the wall.

   "Absolutely," he said.  "That corridor shouldn't be there.  Let's close
the door and forget about it."

   "I don't think so," said Beatrice firmly.  "I think we should go through
the door and along the corridor and find out what's going on."

   Paul couldn't believe what he was hearing.  "Are you insane?" he said.
"It's as mad as the Intrepid having entered the Anomaly in the first place.
There could be anything down there."

   "We owe it to the mission to find out what there is," said Beatrice. 
"Everyone else is making discoveries.  We should do our bit to help."

   "Someone else can do that," said Paul.  "Perhaps we should just inform
the Science Officers.  I'm sure the Chief Science Officer what's her name
...  Petal Chang...  would be interested."

   Beatrice ignored Paul's advice.  "I'm going in," she said resolutely. 
"You don't have to join me if you don't want to."

   More than the fear of the unknown was Paul's fear of losing Beatrice
forever.

   "OK," he said.  "If we have to...  But first let's get some clothes on."

   "Of course, darling," said Beatrice with a slightly simpering smile.

   In Paul's imaginings and even more so in his exploration of virtual
reality, when the heroic duo of a man and a woman entered the unknown on a
hazardous mission they generally dressed in flattering tight-fitting
outfits.  Invariably they also carried powerful hand weapons that could
vanquish any monster that might appear.  They wouldn't normally venture
into the unknown as Paul did in a colourful tee-shirt, baggy shorts and a
pair of canvas shoes.  Nor did they dress as Beatrice did in skimpy tight
briefs, flat sandals and a gossamer top that revealed almost all her bosom
and midriff.  But then the Paul's wardrobe of readily available clothes was
never designed for adventures into the unknown.

   Nevertheless, when Beatrice went through the mysterious hallway door and
Paul reluctantly followed, the pair did so very much as adventurers.  Paul
left the door to the villa open behind them but its reassuring light didn't
illuminate much of the corridor.  The couple relied on the corridor's
discreet and omnipresent internal lighting system of the type in common use
throughout the Solar System for countless centuries.  Paul wondered whether
the Intrepid had somehow opened a doorway into the crew quarters near the
bridge, although it was even more austere than Paul remembered.  There were
doors at regular intervals but, instead of holographic screens that
displayed a view of the empty space outside the Intrepid, between each door
was an imposing holographic image of an authoritative figure whose eyes
appeared to follow Paul and Beatrice as they wandered along.

   "Who is this man?" wondered Paul.  "I've never seen him before.  Is he
one of the Intrepid's officers?"

   "I don't think we're on the Intrepid anymore," said Beatrice with an
excited gleam in her eyes.  "I think we've somehow entered a totally
different space ship altogether."

   "How is that possible?" said Paul.  "You can't just walk into another
space ship as easily as that.  Is this another weird thing to do with the
Anomaly?"

   "It must be."

   "So is this character the space ship's captain?" wondered Paul.  "I
don't like the look of him at all.  He doesn't look very friendly."

   The image in the ubiquitous repeated holographic screen showed a man
with cropped blond hair, blue eyes and pale skin.  He wore a tight-fitting
silver uniform and an ornate helmeted cap balanced rather peculiarly over
his blond hair.  He further distinguished himself by sporting a trim blond
moustache.  His stern expression seemed rather creepy to Paul.

   "Perhaps we should ask this fellow," suggested Beatrice cheerfully as
another tall blond-haired, blue-eyed, pale-skinned man approached them
along the corridor.  He also wore a silver uniform, but there was no hat
and no moustache.  He was carrying a small device in his hand that was
probably a gun of some kind and he seemed to be very anxious.

   He stopped in front of Paul and Beatrice and warily examined them.

   "Hello," said Beatrice.

   The man replied but it wasn't in a language that Paul understood.  As
always, however, Beatrice displayed another skill that she'd kept hidden
from Paul until this moment and that was an astonishing fluency in the
language the man spoke.

   "Where did you learn to speak like that?" he asked Beatrice after she'd
spoken.

   "Hush," said Beatrice, indicating the blond man in front of them.  He'd
ignored Beatrice and addressed Paul with what was to him nothing more than
a series of generally incomprehensible guttural sounds.

   Paul shook his head good-naturedly.  "I can't help you, I'm afraid," he
said cheerfully.  "I can't understand a word you're saying..."

   "It's German," said Beatrice.  "It's a very formal German as well. 
There are a lot of peculiar structural idiosyncrasies."

   German was one of the less widely spoken languages in the Solar System.
Paul was sure that it might still be spoken in the Asteroid Belt and
possibly around Neptune.

   The man spoke again.  This time he listened when Beatrice replied.  He
addressed her more directly and then marched off down the corridor towards
the only holographic screen that didn't display a picture of the
moustachioed man with an odd hat.  He stood in front of it while he spoke
into a mouthpiece.

   "What just happened?" asked Paul.

   Beatrice smiled.  "There seems to be a misunderstanding," she said. 
"Apparently he thought you were a Senior Scientific Officer from this ship.
He's puzzled because although you look precisely like this Officer Mauritz
you're dressing in a very peculiar way and you've changed your hair colour
and eye pigment."

   "That would be very odd," admitted Paul.  "Why didn't he speak to you
first of all?  Surely he could see that I can't speak German."

   "He doesn't see that at all, I'm afraid, I don't think he anticipated
that there might be anyone on this space ship who'd speak any other
language.  The reason he didn't want to speak to me is because I'm a woman
and from the way I dress he assumed that I was a prostitute.  I don't think
he likes to talk to women and most of all he doesn't want to speak to
prostitutes..."

   "I don't understand that at all," said Paul indignantly

   "I told him that you were in a radical state of disorientation as a
result of an unfortunate encounter with an Apparition and he's now calling
for someone more senior so that he can take instructions as to what to do
next."

   "Doesn't he already know?" wondered Paul incredulously.

   "Apparently not," said Beatrice.

   "Why does he have to go all the way over there to talk to someone?" Paul
wondered.  "Couldn't he do it over here?" He indicated the wristband that
he always wore, even when asleep or having a bath, which kept him in
constant contact with the Intrepid's computer system.

   "I don't think communication devices like that are standard issue on
this space ship," said Beatrice.

   "What's he saying over there?" wondered Paul.

   It was quite a distance to where the man was standing and it would
require extraordinary hearing to identify more than the occasional word,
but along with her other talents Beatrice was quite clearly blessed with
this ability as well.

   "He's calling Senior Scientific Officer Mauritz to this location,"
Beatrice said.

   "Is that all?"

   "Well, this scientific officer will be accompanied by a military guard
and I don't think they're going to be very friendly."

   "Not very friendly?" Paul repeated aghast.  His wife looked at him with
a measured, unflappable and totally composed expression.  "Is there
anything we should worry about?"

   "No.  I don't think so," she said with a smile.

   "Are you sure?" Paul wondered with alarm.  "I've seen nothing so far
that suggests we're welcome here."

   "Don't worry, Paul," said Beatrice as she gripped her husband's hand. 
"We'll be perfectly alright."

   As if in reply, a door further up the corridor slid open and out stepped
the tall figure of a blond-haired man dressed in a silver uniform almost
identical to that of the man who'd first addressed them.  There were some
minor distinguishing features that Paul imagined to be purely decorative,
but which probably related to the man's rank and prestige.  Paul still had
difficulty in comprehending such concepts.

   Behind this man came three others who were very similar in appearance
but whose humble disposition suggested a degree of deference.  They stood
several steps behind him as he addressed the man Beatrice had spoken to.

   "Who's that?" wondered Paul.

   "It's Senior Scientific Officer Mauritz," said Beatrice.  "His first
name is Paolo.  Not a very German name, but I guess not many people here
speak Italian."

   "He looks very familiar," Paul commented.

   "He should do," said Beatrice.  "In fact, he looks exactly like you..."

   "My hair's not nearly as blond and I don't have blue eyes."

   "You're also not wearing a silver uniform, darling," said Beatrice
indulgently.  "Shall we find out what he has to say?"

   "Do we have any choice?"

   Paolo Mauritz strode down the corridor with an almost regal bearing
entirely unlike Paul's somewhat shambling gait.  He stopped several metres
in front of the couple with the four other men standing behind him.  He
addressed Paul in German.  Although he still didn't understand what was
said, one word was familiar.

   "Is he saying that I'm his doppelganger?" Paul asked Beatrice.

   "Amongst other things, yes," said Beatrice.  "I'll do the talking from
now on.  The less you appear to understand the better.  Is that alright
with you?"

   "I think so," said Paul who was at his most comfortable in a role that
corresponded to his actual bewilderment.

   The conversation between Paolo Mauritz and Beatrice was incomprehensible
to Paul but he clearly understood its tone and intent.  Beatrice was being
conciliatory and calm as always while the Senior Scientific Officer was
struggling with competing emotions.  Although he had nothing but contempt
for Beatrice as a mere woman, he urgently needed to find out something
about his doppelganger.  Eventually, he addressed the soldiers who
accompanied him and they marched ahead along the corridor towards the door
through which Paul and Beatrice had emerged.

   Seen from inside the corridor the door was quite different from when
viewed inside Paul's villa.  It was plain and featureless but unlike the
other doors along the corridor it opened outwards rather than slid apart.
Paolo addressed the soldiers angrily and they apologised to him profusely,
while Paul and Beatrice stood to one side.

   "What's going on?" Paul asked Beatrice as they watched the pantomime of
a man of senior rank berating those of a lower rank.

   "The Senior Scientific Officer didn't believe me when I told him how
we'd entered the space ship..."

   "So we are in another space ship," said Paul.  "How did that happen?"

   "Yes, another space ship," said Beatrice slightly impatiently.  "It's
known as the Intrepido.  Isn't that a funny name?"

   "Perhaps."

   "Mr Mauritz is now asking his less senior colleagues how it is possible
that no one had noticed a strange door appearing out of nowhere in one of
the Intrepido's corridors."

   "There are a lot of good reasons for that," said Paul.  "With all the
weird things happening, you can't blame someone for something like that,
can you?"

   Beatrice smiled with obvious amusement.  "The Senior Scientific Officer
is as aware of that as anyone else.  He isn't trying to discover something
he can't already work out for himself.  He wants to ensure that should
blame be allocated for the failure to locate what he presumes to be a
security breach that it won't be judged to be his fault."

   "Is that likely to happen?"

   "Almost certainly," said Beatrice.  "And I don't know for sure but I
expect that the penalty for this apparent carelessness will be very
severe."

   "Severe?"

   "Many cultures execute or even torture people who lapse in the pursuit
of their duty."

   "That doesn't seem fair at all," said Paul who wondered how it was
possible to be so cruel.  If people were so harshly punished for a crime as
inoffensive as simply failing to notice something then Paul would have been
executed many times over by now.

   Paolo then strode over to Beatrice and spoke to her in a rough tone. 
Regardless of his unpleasant manner, her replies were polite and amenable.
She then gestured towards Paul.

   "He wants to go through the door," she said.

   "What did you say to him?"

   "Well, that by doing so he would enter another completely different
space ship," said Beatrice.  "He also wants to go with the soldiers he's
gathered together."

   "Is that OK?" Paul asked anxiously.  "I'm not sure I want armed and
uniformed men in my villa."

   "I don't believe we've been offered much choice."

   Paul glanced at the hand weapons held by the soldiers.  "I suppose
you're right."

   "He also wants us to go through the door first."

   "That's very civil of him," said Paul who wondered whether Paolo was
perhaps a nicer fellow than he seemed.

   "I think it's to provide cover for him," said Beatrice.

   It wasn't a long walk to the door but as Paolo gripped Beatrice'
shoulder by a hand and one of the soldiers grasped Paul's hands together
behind his back the walk took longer than it might have done otherwise. 
Paul supposed that this was to prevent Beatrice and him from running away
into the space ship Intrepido, but that seemed most peculiar as he would
much rather return to his villa on the Intrepid.  He'd had quite enough of
this unpleasant place.

   However, when Paul and Beatrice passed through the door back into his
villa, he was surprised to find that a welcoming party was already waiting
for him.  That was really very considerate.  It was a very select company
that included Captain Kerensky, Chief Science Officer Chang and several
soldiers.  They appeared to be very stern and didn't respond in kind at all
when Paul greeted them with a cheerful smile.  He would have waved a
greeting had his hands not been held behind his back.

   One of the soldiers, who Paul vaguely recognised as Major Schwarz,
addressed him and more appropriately the people holding him captive in what
he assumed to be German.  It was astonishing how many people on the
Intrepid spoke obscure languages, just as it was very surprising but rather
reassuring that so many senior officers had gathered at this point at such
short notice.  Presumably they'd been alerted by the Intrepid's security
system when it detected a foreign presence on board the space ship.

   The exchange between the major and the Chief Scientific Officer wasn't
at all amicable.  This impression was reinforced when Paolo Mauritz pressed
a handweapon against Paul's forehead.  This didn't bode at all well.  Paul
rather regretted that he'd taken Beatrice's advice and followed her through
the mysterious door.

   Then the situation abruptly changed.  Paolo Mauritz collapsed
unconscious to the ground as did the four other soldiers.  Beatrice stepped
forward and took Paul by the arm.  He could now see that the
silver-uniformed intruders were slumped down just beside the door to the
corridor open behind them.

   "Are you OK, Paul?" asked Captain Kerensky sympathetically.

   "I'm fine, thank you," he said.  "I'm just glad you were here when we
returned.  I don't know what we'd have done otherwise."

   "Well, as long as you're well," said the captain.  "That's the main
thing."

   Paul looked at the silver-clad soldiers prostrate behind him.  "Are you
going to take them back through the door?" he asked.

   "It's not as simple as that, Paul," said Major Schwarz.  "There's been a
security breach in the Intrepid.  It is most peculiar to have a door like
this appearing in a villa that leads into another space ship.  We need to
interrogate these intruders to find out what they know."

   "I'm pretty sure they know nothing more about the door than we do," said
Paul, who glanced at his wife for confirmation.

   Beatrice nodded but not so much in agreement with Paul.  "The major's
right," she said.  "It is most peculiar.  And it's also very strange that
this Paolo Mauritz looks so much like you."

   "Surely that's just a coincidence," said Paul.

   "Even if it is, Paul," said the Chief Science Officer, "it needs to be
investigated.  This is a voyage into the unknown.  There are exciting new
discoveries every day.  They all need to be studied carefully.  It is very
odd that this man should resemble you so exactly."

   "The hair and eye colour is totally different," Paul protested.

   "We still need to examine these intruders," said the captain.  "We also
need to investigate this breach."

   "Three of my men are going in there now, captain," said Major Schwarz.
He indicated three soldiers who were walking towards the door armed with
unambiguously menacing weapons.

   "We also need to secure the breach," said the captain.

   "Won't that simply trap the soldiers inside?" Paul wondered.

   "You worry too much, Paul," said the major kindly.  "My soldiers will be
fine.  We'll stay in constant communication with them, never you mind.  Our
first priority must be the security of the Intrepid."

   "Furthermore, Paul," said the Chief Science Officer, "Remember why we're
in the Anomaly in the first place.  The reason is precisely to identify,
isolate and investigate exciting new scientific phenomena such as this. 
Aren't you excited by the opportunity to add to the wealth of scientific
discovery?"

   "I guess so," said Paul who stood back with Beatrice and the other
officers.  He watched as three soldiers from the Intrepid walked through
the door and closed it behind them.

   "What will they do now?" asked Paul.

   "They'll seal up the door from the other side," said the major.  "That
should prevent any more people from the other space ship trespassing into
the Intrepid with lethal weapons and equally lethal intent.  Then they'll
investigate the rest of the ship."

   "And the door on this side?" Paul wondered.

   "The Intrepid is already patching up the hole that's been made, Paul,"
said the captain with a broad smile.  "That will set things back to how
they were before."

   "I'm sure they will," said Paul who watched the wall metamorphose into a
seamless surface with no evidence at all that it had once held a door, let
alone one that led into another space ship.

   Although this was precisely what Paul most wanted-that the villa should
return to exactly the state it was before Beatrice had noticed the strange
door-he was still anxious and uneasy.  What prevented other similar doors
appearing elsewhere on the ship?  Why did Paolo Mauritz resemble him so
exactly and where did he come from?  He didn't dress like someone from a
part of the Solar System that Paul knew about.  And, even more troubling,
how could there be more than one space ship coexisting in exactly the same
point of space as the Intrepid?

   And why were the senior officers so relaxed about sending three of their
soldiers through a door they'd now sealed shut?  Were the senior officers
really so heartless as to sacrifice the soldiers' chance of returning home
so casually?

   Chapter Sixteen Intrepid - 3756 C.E.

   It was no surprise at all to Vashti that taking control of the space
ship Intrepid had been so effortless.  Humans were such simple animals. 
All she had to do was take control of the command structure and the crew
and passengers were easily persuaded to follow orders.  The few cases of
dissent were regrettable and only to be expected, but they were easy to
identify and deal with.

   Human history showed time after time that command structures of
sometimes appalling stupidity and gross cruelty had often prospered with
the vocal complicity of the majority of the population.  It was never
necessary that such regimes should be repressive but for reasons perhaps of
sadistic pleasure or a paranoid lack of selfconfidence the exercise of
despotic power was often gratuitously harsh.

   While the takeover of the Intrepid had been an unqualified success,
Vashti had to recognise that so far her mission had been a failure. 
Despite the constant flow of optimistic news she and her nanobot community
disseminated, there'd not been a single breakthrough or significant
discovery and the Anomaly remained a mystery.  The momentary fleeting
Apparitions observed within the Anomaly only differed from those observed
elsewhere by virtue of their frequency and ubiquity.  The only fresh
finding was one Vashti had predicted and was in any case the original
reason for her mission and that was to confirm that the Anomaly was
manifest throughout all other spacetime continuums in the multiverse.  The
Anomaly acted as a kind of intersection between all the multitude of
universes that occupied the same relative position in the four dimensions
of space and time, but Vashti still hadn't established a means by which she
could return to her home universe.

   The evidence so far validated the abiding view held by both the
Interplanetary Union and the neighbouring robot civilisations that entry
into the Anomaly was a oneway journey.  Once in, there was no possible way
to get out.  Whatever else the Anomaly might be, it was not a gateway from
one spacetime continuum to another.  It was essentially the same sink-hole
for all intersecting spacetime continuums.

   Nevertheless, Vashti's mission wasn't entirely a failure.  As a nanobot
community with no concept of death or decay, she had literally until the
end of time itself to explore the Anomaly.  Long after the crew and
passengers of the Intrepid had died and the space ship fell apart, Vashti
and her community of nanobots would keep going.  Perhaps in that vastly
long period of time, potentially many times longer than the dozen billion
or so years of the universe's current age, Vashti would uncover something
that would validate her mission.

   For the moment, however, she had other concerns.

   The strange Apparitions were not a major risk to the welfare of the
Intrepid or its passengers and crew.  They barely interacted at all with
more persistent expressions of matter and energy.  They were at best a
sideshow and at worst an irritant.

   Of much more concern were the many other objects now sharing the same
temporal and physical location as the Intrepid.  It was difficult to be
sure what was happening, but the very space the Intrepid was occupying was
exactly coterminous with many other space ships at precisely the same
location.  And these had many unsuspected points of intersection which had
so far resulted in nothing more than the death of a few dozen humans and
the disappearance of less than a hundred others.  Vashti and her fellow
nanobots were also monitoring the many more objects hovering outside the
Intrepid but in the same approximate vicinity.  This included other
similarly large space ships of which several were variants of the Intrepid.


   The option to steer the Intrepid away to another location simply didn't
exist.  Another property of the Anomaly that had been predicted and now
verified was that there was no longer a real meaning to the concepts of
absolute movement or location.  However fast the Intrepid travelled towards
another location the more firmly and stubbornly it remained where it was.
Just as it was impossible to exit the Anomaly, so it was impossible for the
Intrepid to occupy a different location than it did now and had been from
the moment it entered the Anomaly.

   Despite having literally all the time in the world, and possibly much
more, Vashti had an urgent need to engage with the other interlopers
occupying much the same location.  Although they presented an opportunity
for scientific exploration and discovery, left unchecked they presented a
real risk to the Intrepid.  Many of the civilisations proximate to the
Intrepid were relatively advanced.  The most highly developed ones,
especially those from the robot civilisations of their parallel universes,
could easily interfere with Vashti's mission.  It was critical to protect
the Intrepid and its crew and passengers as it was in this specific
spacetime continuum that the Anomaly's centre of influence had been
identified.  And the Apparitions had most meaning within the context of
this particular variant of human history.

   These potential threats needed to be managed as soon as possible.  The
risk had to be neutralised at whatever cost.

   Vashti made sure that nobody aboard the Intrepid was aware of the
presence of these neighbouring space ships by ruthlessly censoring all
external information that was monitored.  Except for those representatives
of the nanobot community operating in human form, all that anyone could see
of the space beyond was an empty void.

   And this, of course, was all there was once the presence of the other
space ships had been discounted.

   Vashti made her way towards one of the Intrepid's many emergency exit
hatches.  She didn't need a space craft to travel in deep space.  Extremes
of temperature didn't trouble her.  Neither would a total absence of
atmosphere.  Her nanobot community needed nothing more than the presence of
baryonic matter and energy to function and replicate.  Nevertheless, the
volume of nanobots she needed was greater than that which could be
contained in the form of a single human being, so Vashti replicated herself
as she walked along the corridors.

   Any human or uncensored surveillance equipment observing her would see
not one Colonel Vashti but several hundred.  And all of them were walking
in perfect lock step: one leg forward, then the next leg forward and after
this the first one again.  As they walked the rear of the column was
spawning yet more copies of exactly the same Amazonian hermaphrodite
Martian colonel.

   When the first Vashti reached an emergency exit hatch she strode
straight in followed by over a dozen others.  When the internal entrance
was sealed, the precious atmosphere removed and the external hatch opened,
a procession of Colonel Vashtis streamed out into open space.  And the same
process was happening simultaneously at all the neighbouring hatches.

   This was a sight that would have alarmed an external viewer if Vashti
hadn't rendered the entire nanobot community invisible.  It was a sight
only witnessed by the nanobot facsimiles of the ship's senior staff whose
technology enabled them to see what others could never be allowed to see.
The copies of Captain Kerensky, Chief Petty Officer Singh, Second Officer
Nkomo and all the others on the Intrepid's bridge monitored what was
happening with intense interest.  Vashti was confident that her other
facsimiles, which included military officers and at least two copies of
Beatrice would maintain order while she and her countless replicants were
launched into deep space to engage with the Anomaly's other would-be
explorers.

   Vashti's priority was to deal with those space fleets that represented
advanced machine civilisations.  Their potential threat needed to be
neutralised as swiftly as possible.  Any time spent occupied elsewhere
could be time in which the space fleets might identify that they were at
imminent peril and take pre-emptive action that would cripple the Intrepid
and render even more futile what was left of Vashti's mission.  The risk
presented by such space fleets was too great to be tolerated so Vashti was
obliged to assimilate them all.  This huge meal inescapably resulted in a
kind of nanobot indigestion, further exacerbated by the fact that in the
process of assimilating one space fleet Vashti also assimilated the space
fleets coterminous with it but not immediately visible.  The unfortunate
consequence of this was that many of the Vashtis propelling themselves
through space had become immensely huge.  Several of them were already
larger than the space ship Intrepid.

   This strange phenomenon was still invisible to all but the nanobot
facsimiles of the Intrepid's senior space officers.  What they saw was the
sudden disappearance of several fleets of alien robot space craft, all
essentially unnoticed by one another, replaced by the sight of several
disgorged and monstrous Colonel Vashtis.  At such enormous proportions, the
humanoid figure abandoned the effort to maintain a military uniform.  This
was extra processing that needed to be harnessed elsewhere.  Nonetheless,
the sight of countless identical naked women each with a massive penis and
set of testicles was undetectable to the humans in the Intrepid and to all
the biological life-forms occupying the other space ships.

   When the urgent business of neutralising external threats was resolved,
Vashti could now pursue a much more unhurried exploration of these other
space ships.  There was a great deal to learn about them and with the
leisure of near eternity to study the findings there was every reason to do
so.  Vashti hadn't abandoned the hope that she might yet somehow find a
clue to explain the existence of the Anomaly and identify what threat it
posed.  This was information that Vashti also still hoped she could somehow
find a way to relay back to her original spacetime continuum.

   There was a great deal to discover and the many copies of Vashti were to
be fully occupied for the next few weeks.  It was amazing just how diverse
the many different variants of the local multiverse were.  Vashti knew that
there were many more local universes that were uninhabitable than those
that could ever be inhabited.  She also knew that only in a very small
minority of local universes would an intelligent culture have ever acquired
the technology capable of making the long journey beyond the Heliopause to
the Anomaly's location even if they had the technological capability to
identify that there was an Anomaly to travel to.  And of that very small
fraction of capable civilisations, there would only be a very small
proportion foolish enough to commit their expensive resources to a risky
one-way expedition into the heart of the Anomaly.

   But given this infinitesimally small proportion of representative
universes, an astonishingly large number had the technology, the will and,
perhaps, the stupidity to navigate trillions of kilometres across space
from the Solar System's ecliptic plane and plunge through the relatively
narrow aperture that separated the interior of the Anomaly from their home
spacetime.

   Not all the biological life-forms represented were human and many of
those only distantly resembled Homo sapiens.  There were some who were
considerably more hirsute.  There were others with huge beetling brows and
very long arms.  There were some humans much taller than those on the
Intrepid and others rather shorter.  And of those not human, some were
dinosaurian, some avian, some resembled cats, others were marsupial, some
were arthropodal and others proboscidean.

   There was an even wider range of cultures.  The human ones were just as
varied as those represented by other species.  How humans could organise
their culture and civilisation in so many different ways never ceased to
amaze Vashti.  The basic requirements for good government and economic
order were relatively straightforward.  It was a balancing act of competing
interests which had to be subsumed to the greater imperative of survival.
In the confines of the Solar System within even just one universe there
were countless variations of government, culture, religion, ideology and
other attributes of human society.  The type of loose federal government
typified by the Interplanetary Union was far from perfect but in comparison
with the vast majority of human societies it was a seemingly unattainable
degree of perfection.

   A copy of Vashti was able to enter each space ship by means that
sometimes involved disassembling her nanobot community and allowing them to
be absorbed by the space ship's exhaust systems, though often a better and
less inconvenient method of ingress could be found by simply manipulating
the space ship's computer system.  Once inside, it was simple for Vashti to
take on the shape and form of one of the passengers or crew and walk about
unobtrusively.  Every space ship was plagued by precisely the same
disorientating Apparitions which were a far more pressing matter to attend
to than the identification and apprehension of alien nanobot intruders that
most of them were unaware could even exist.

   The cultures that Vashti encountered very rarely gave her cause to
celebrate humanity.  After decades spent in the service of one of Mars'
warring nations, she was already conscious of the degree to which
biological life-forms could be deeply stupid and self-deluding.  Now she
saw dominant cultures of a type that were marginal within the human
civilisation she'd got to know.  So many human cultures had become victim
to human vanities, a desire for order and, most of all, a tendency to
disregard verifiable facts in preference to a species of delusion.  These
were the cultures whose inhabitants led lives with no dignity or liberty
circumscribed by constant fear or terror.  Even so, Vashti had to balance
her encounter with a high proportion of venal and repressive regimes in the
sample population by the simple observation that only a truly lunatic
civilisation would willingly submit its people to near certain death by
plunging into the Anomaly.  For all its faults, the Interplanetary Union
would never have willingly authorised the Intrepid's self-destruction.

   Vashti was not a god, although many cultures might believe she possessed
godlike capabilities, but even if she was she'd never have been an
interfering god.  She could so easily correct the injustices and
malpractices in the space ships she visited, but she chose to let the
biological life-forms continue as they were.  Why were humans so intent on
torturing one another?  Why did they so often impose such severe
restrictions on what one could do or say?  What was the value of so much
needless suffering?  And why so often were the worst crimes against
morality, humanity and justice perpetrated in the name of some greater and
undeniably worthwhile cause?

   If Vashti had been a god, she would probably have concluded that
humanity was a lost cause and deserved to be terminated with at least as
little fuss as she had reluctantly assimilated the alien robot space
fleets.

   Vashti remained a non-intervening observer.  Every one of her many
thousands of replicants scattered throughout the millions of square
kilometres about which she ranged within sight of the Intrepid transmitted
a constant stream of data and information back to the nanobot community
based on the bridge.  A constant stream of data flowed back and forth
subject as always to the remarkably constant laws of physics which
constrained the rate of transmission to nothing greater than the speed of
light.

   And then the return transmission from the Intrepid changed in character.
It was difficult at first to say what changed.  It resembled interference
on the stream of data which would normally be impossible in the Solar
System but was perhaps another peculiar manifestation of the Anomaly.  The
increasingly fractured transmission was echoed by the communication each
Vashti received from other copies of herself.  The lines of transmission
were losing coherence.  There was no initial evidence that anything more
was happening but Vashti calculated where this accumulating pattern might
lead to.  And the arithmetic didn't produce a reassuring result.

   Nanobot communities are not like biological life-forms or human
cultures. Each nanobot is a conscious living part of the whole that
operates as one being over its entire extent.  It was infinitely scalable
and constrained only by the laws of physics that were most apparent at the
extremes of velocity, temperature and scale.  A nanobot community didn't
suffer from illness.  It wasn't subject to any kind of local perturbance.
In Vashti's home universe the entire Solar System was one huge orbiting
nanobot community in which each and every one of the countless nanoscopic
beings was in constant communication with every other one.

   But here it felt as if the nanobot community had been somehow infected
by a virus which in some mysterious way was preventing it functioning as a
coherent unit.  Or even as a coherent set of coherent units.

   Vashti became even more alarmed as some of her replicants ceased to
transmit to the rest of the community.  It was as if cells were flaking off
the larger body and disintegrating into nothingness.  And this, of course,
wasn't how a nanobot community should behave.

   As the urgency of the situation became increasingly apparent, Vashti and
her scattered replicants made the mutual and unanimous decision to coalesce
as one individual rather than remain in the form of several thousand
variants scattered about the local space.  And this would mean that the
equine Vashti on one space ship, the three-metre high human Vashti on
another and the purple-skinned one on another would all have to abandon
whatever they were doing in as discreet a manner as they could.  They would
all then have to exit whichever space ship they were exploring, fly out
into space and coalesce at an optimum point between the many locations in
which they were gathered.  And all of this, given the huge distances of
space involved, was likely to take quite some time.

   A theropod Vashti was witnessing the distasteful dismemberment meted out
as punishment by desperate military officers on dissenters in the
conference centre of a dinosaurian space ship.  This was a society in which
the feathered theropod raptors enslaved the intelligent hadrosaurs that
made up the majority of intelligent beings in their version of the Solar
System.  As it became increasingly apparent that the promises made of
wealth and riches to the crew, hadrosaur and theropod alike, were nothing
more than lies, the officers resorted to the only means of control in which
they had any confidence.  It was obvious to Vashti that as more and more
crew and passengers voiced dissent, the harsh punishments were only
increasing resentment and that the space ship would soon descend into a
state of chaos.  And in that state, there would be a reversion to the
natural order where theropods would gorge on hadrosaurs and eventually on
one another.  So, it was with some relief that this Vashti pushed her way
through the docile spectators of this show of torture and gratuitous
cruelty to pounce into empty space.

   The green-skinned humanoid Vashti who was luxuriating in a huge carnal
orgy with other green-skinned humanoids was rather less enthusiastic.  This
society had arrived at a solution to overcome its differences after many
centuries of warfare and genocide that had eliminated all those whose skin
wasn't green.  And this was the adoption of a culture that was as much
dedicated to love as it had once been to war.  At least this Vashti could
have enjoyed many years of carnal pleasure as the crew and passengers
adjusted to the futility of their situation.  As every copy of Vashti, in
whatever guise, retained the sexual appetite of the original this was a
Vashti who enjoyed every moment of the fucking, fisting and buggering she
was engaged in.  But she too had to abandon the space ship and plunge into
the void.

   There were few such attractions to the male Vashti who was engaged in
the full scale warfare that had broken out on the space ship represented by
a wholly homosexual masculine Solar System.  At least Vashti was well
versed in the practice and execution of war, though the viciousness of the
conflict between the different but almost identical factions of a society
based on philosophical contemplation could only result in the eventual
death of every last soldier.  Much as Vashti enjoyed fucking her fellow
soldiers prior to conflict, it was less pleasant to wade through their
corpses and with their blood splattered over her uniform.  There was no way
that the philosophical concerns about whether morality was pre-existent and
omnipresent or emergent and pragmatic could be resolved in this manner. 
This Vashti still had to slaughter several more soldiers to make her escape
from the space ship she'd been exploring and then launch herself into
absolute nothingness.

   Although still invisible to all but the senior officers of the Intrepid,
the thousands of Vashtis of many different shapes and sizes all converged
towards a single point where a massive Vashti was beginning to coalesce. 
She was soon larger than any of the space ships surrounding her.  Indeed,
her majestic and perpetually tumescent member was several kilometres in
length.  Her erect penis was larger than any space ship and her testicles
could hold entire alien space fleets.  In the sense that they were fully
assimilated inside her, this was truly no exaggeration.  On occasion, a
Vashti that coalesced with the larger body was in such a state of sexual
excitement from whatever she'd been doing earlier that the larger Vashti
ejaculated into empty space.  The semen flew out into the void, sometimes
splattering its invisible sperm on the neighbouring space ships before then
being re-assimilated into the master thread.

   However, all was not well.  The lack of integrity within the whole
nanobot community was becoming increasingly manifest.

   A Vashti who was making her way towards the escape hatch of a space ship
in which the simian crew were busily shooting one another was hit by a
laser beam through the head which she wouldn't have normally noticed. 
Instead, she fell to the ground with blood gushing onto the floor and
didn't recover.  As so many other simian corpses were piling above her,
nobody noticed as the corpse began disintegrating into microscopic nanobot
grains.

   There was a similar fate for a body-modified Vashti who was able to
maintain a penis on a woman's body.  This happened while masturbating with
casual acquaintances as was the expected custom during any social
interaction with the other bizarrely modified human forms on the space ship
she was exploring.  Upon ejaculating, her entire body dissolved into dust
leaving just an unattached penis jumping about by itself and continuing to
spurt.  When the last drop of semen shot free, the penis collapsed and
died. The large-breasted, well-endowed, red-skinned humanoids with whom she
was conversing were understandably distressed by this gruesome event, but
like in the other space ships there had been so many peculiar happenings
that this was readily attributed to the Anomaly's general weirdness.

   A similar fate befell a Vashti who'd returned to her original form and
was flying across empty space at a velocity that most space vehicles would
have difficulty in matching.  As she flew forward she discovered that parts
of her skin were peeling off.  She was even feeling slightly cold in the
near absolute zero temperature of open space.  And then she died in the way
most biological forms would.  The lack of air pressure burst open her lungs
and her blood froze to solid red ice.

   But soon enough all the various Vashtis were in one place and the
monstrous invisible Vashti that had swollen in the heart of the Anomaly had
coalesced into one whole.

   Vashti viewed the space around her to locate the Intrepid in the far
distance.  When she found it, she propelled herself forward as if swimming
through empty space.  It would still take many hours, perhaps days, but the
now re-integrated Vashti was flying back to the Intrepid to find out what
was happening and attempt to rescue what was left of an increasingly
desperate and failed mission.  A mission moreover for which she had full
responsibility and had already condemned many thousands of humans to
eternal banishment beyond the bounds of normal space and time.

   Chapter Seventeen Intrepid - 3756 C.E.

   The Intrepid's computer system had been tampered with.  Sheila Nkomo
knew this for sure.  She could use most of the system, but she had no
access at all to any part of it that could tell her what was happening on
the space ship.

   Ever since Captain Kerensky and the military officers had arrested and
detained her in the villa, she had been as much blind as she was naked. 
She had no access to the Intrepid's information systems.  She couldn't
monitor the bridge.  She had no means of communicating with any of the crew
and passengers.  Beyond the daily reports from the uncharacteristically
upbeat captain and the scientific bulletins, she had no direct information
at all about the current operations of the space ship of which she had
until recently been the Second Officer.

   There must have been meetings and discussions to decide whether the
Intrepid should take the highly irregular and unauthorised action of
plunging into the Anomaly, but beyond a few sketchy second-hand accounts
Sheila knew very little about them.  There was clearly an active policy of
censorship which was itself in direct contravention of every conceivable
policy maintained by the Interplanetary Union.  It was as if Captain
Kerensky had hijacked the ship simply to take everyone on board towards
their doom, but in her daily briefings she spoke about it as if she was
merely following orders from Mission Control.  In fact, so insistent was
the captain of this that Sheila began to doubt her own memory of the
mission's original purpose.  This became even more disconcerting when
Sheila accessed the Intrepid's Mission Statement which was subtly different
from how the Second Officer remembered it.

   Had she gone mad?  Had she stumbled into an alternative reality?  She'd
never have agreed to participate on a mission that would sacrifice the
lives of thousands of people for a dubious and unverifiable scientific
adventure whose results couldn't even be relayed back to Mission Control.
And here was a Mission Statement that quite clearly stated that this was
precisely what the mission would do, even though it was phrased in terms
like 'exploratory ingress' and 'practical research'.

   Sheila's opinion of her captain had always been mixed.  She was
respectful of the Saturnian's rank and her professional attitude towards
her rank and position.  Her conversations with her senior officer had been
relatively relaxed though not as much so as those with the Chief Science
Officer.  Then again, Sheila had always felt uneasy about the captain's
quite obvious sexual attraction towards her.  It was one thing for a man to
show, however discreetly, that he found the Second Officer attractive.  It
was quite another for a woman to do so.  Sheila had never had even the
slightest inclination towards a romantic or sexual relationship with
another woman.

   Perhaps it was because the captain was piqued by Sheila's rejection of
her advances that she'd placed the Second Officer in detention.  Whatever
it was, it couldn't have been for insubordination or dereliction of duty.
And why was she given no explanation?  Beyond a cursory account of the
conditions of her detention, Sheila Nkomo had been given no reason for this
extraordinary action.

   She vividly remembered the moment several weeks earlier when she awoke,
naked and dazed, in the villa.  As she adjusted her eyes to the unfamiliar
room and the bed on whose sheets she lay without blankets or sheets, she
gradually became conscious that she was in the company of Captain Kerensky
and two military officers who she didn't recognise.  They were standing
just by the bedroom door as if they'd been expecting her to awake at just
that moment.

   "You are at liberty to wander about the villa as you please," Captain
Kerensky informed her.  "You have almost complete access to the Intrepid's
facilities.  But you will not be able to leave the villa and you will not
be able to communicate with anyone."

   "What's there to stop me from leaving, captain?" Second Officer Nkomo
asked when she saw that the doors were not locked.

   "You'll soon find out, Ms Nkomo," said the captain.

   "Can you at least tell me why I've been put in detention, captain?"
Sheila pleaded.

   "That's classified information."

   "What have I done to deserve this?"

   "As I say: that's information I'm not at liberty to disclose."

   Sheila watched Captain Kerensky and the military officers depart with
the captain walking ahead of the two soldiers.  None of them glanced back
at Sheila as she stood dazed, confused and humiliated on the lawn of the
villa in what she'd been informed was the outermost level.  This was
normally considered the most privileged level for the Intrepid's
passengers, though after the attack by the Holy Coalition and the later
bombardment by the maniac trillionaire it was now mostly empty with brand
new villas and freshly planted trees.

   Sheila's question remained unanswered.  What did stop her from leaving
the villa?  There was no prison wall and Captain Kerensky and the military
officers didn't pause at all as they marched off.

   However, Sheila soon discovered the nature of an invisible force field
through which she could throw stones but which she couldn't walk through.
The Second Officer was no expert in invisible force fields, but this one
was quite unlike any she'd ever encountered before.  This was a weapon the
Interplanetary Union had kept secret until this moment.

   From that time on, Sheila became angrier and angrier.  She was angry at
the injustice of her captivity.  She was angry at Captain Kerensky for
having singled her out for detention.  She was angry when she discovered
that, contrary to her original understanding of the mission's parameters,
the Interplanetary Union had chosen to plunge the Intrepid into the Anomaly
on a suicide mission.  And her anger motivated her to study in detail that
information to which she had access of the space ship's progress through
the Anomaly's peculiarly empty space.  It also stirred her several times of
every day to run full pelt in many different directions towards the
invisible border that confined her in the hope of identifying a weakness
she could take advantage of.  She had no clear idea of what she would do if
she managed to escape.  It wasn't as if there was anywhere she could hide
from the Intrepid's extensive surveillance system.  And she was sure that
by escaping she would just compound the original unspecified offence for
which she was being punished.

   Sheila became not only angry but also somewhat anxious.  She was alarmed
by her first sight of one of the peculiar Apparitions associated with the
Anomaly.  She thought she'd know what to expect, but the sight of three
mediaeval knights marching towards the villa in full regalia was both
astonishing and terrifying.  The fact that they vanished after fewer than
twenty seconds didn't diminish at all the strangeness of the sight.  Then
there were more and more of these Apparitions.  She mostly only saw them
from a distance, but she was especially surprised when a bizarre feathered
animal more than two metres high wandered noisily through the villa and
stood in her kitchen for very nearly five minutes before it vanished. 
Unlike the knights, this visitation directly interacted with the villa and
had gulped down almost all the soup that Sheila had been looking forward to
eating.

   Her daily offensive on the invisible boundary was never better than
futile.  Sheila detected no sign of weakness in it whatsoever.  Then again,
the exercise did allow her to vent some of her rage and frustration and
perhaps by doing so she might alert the attention of a passer-by.  This
seemed unlikely, however.  In the whole time Sheila was detained the only
person who'd directly addressed her was Captain Kerensky and the only
person she saw passing by, and this from quite a distance, was a woman in a
strangely diaphanous dress who looked very much like Beatrice, the wife of
the Godwinian Paul Morris.  This was peculiar because Paul's villa was in
the next outermost level and there was no good reason that Sheila could
think of for the bimbo from Ecstasy to be wandering about on this level.

   And then one day, when Sheila had more or less abandoned all hope of
success, when she ran directly at the invisible boundary on this occasion
it offered no resistance whatsoever.  She'd run a full twenty metres
further than she'd normally have done.  It was as if there'd been no
boundary at all.

   When Sheila realised this, she continued running in a kind of ecstasy of
release.  She kept running and running until she'd covered well over two
hundred metres from where she'd previously been stopped and nothing
hindered her in any way.

   She was free!

   She stopped running and stood upright at a point well outside the
villa's grounds.  She was panting heavily not so much from exhaustion, as
she'd always been very fit, but from disbelief that after so long in
captivity she'd managed to escape so easily.

   And now what should she do?

   She decided against returning to the villa.  She wasn't going to fall
for that trap.  If she was going to be imprisoned anywhere it would be
somewhere else.  She wandered instead into a nearby villa she'd watched for
so long from a distance and had never seen anyone either enter or leave. 
Not surprisingly there was no one inside.  It was as brand new and pristine
as the villa in which she'd been detained.

   After so many weeks with nobody with whom to communicate, Sheila
desperately wanted to talk to someone.  There were so many unanswered
questions.  Why had she been imprisoned?  Why had the Interplanetary Union
consigned the Intrepid to the Anomaly?  What was going on?

   Sheila wandered from villa to villa.  The outermost level's artificial
six hour night approached, but Sheila ignored the demands of her diurnal
cycle in her hunt for other people.

   There was the same uncluttered emptiness in every villa she visited. 
None of them had evidence that anyone had ever stayed there.  Was Sheila
the only resident on the outermost level?

   It was several hours later and after exploring many more villas that
Sheila at last found proof that she wasn't alone.  It was still dark but
even before Sheila entered the villa it was evident that someone was living
there.  There was the distinct imprint of a body on the lounger in the
lawn. There were traces of damp footprints from the swimming pool to the
veranda.  The door to the villa was slightly ajar.  Not open.  Not closed.
Just carelessly left ajar.  As Sheila pushed the door fully open she was
anxious that this might be a trap and she'd be confronted by military
officers who'd handcuff and arrest her once more.

   Instead she discovered the slumbering naked body of the one person on
the space ship she believed she could trust.  How fortunate could she be?

   "Petal!" she cried, ignoring all conventions of decorum as she shook
awake her closest friend.  "Wake up, Petal.  It's me.  Sheila."

   "Who?" said the Chief Science Officer dozily as her eyes slowly opened
and focused on the Second Officer.

   "Sheila.  It's me."

   "Goodness!" said Petal Chang.  "It is!  And naked too.  This is a
surprise."

   "You've got to forgive me," Sheila apologised.  "There must be a systems
fault.  The Intrepid hasn't provided any clothing for me."

   "Nor for me," said Petal with a broad smile.  "Am I pleased to see you!
Were you imprisoned as well or am I really the only one?"

   "You aren't the only one," confirmed Sheila who noticed that tears were
dripping down her cheeks.  "But do you know why we've been imprisoned like
this?"

   "The only reason I can envisage is that both of us would have objected
to the Intrepid being set on a suicide course into the heart of the
Anomaly," said Petal.  "Quite clearly Captain Kerensky and the
Interplanetary Union decided that troublemakers like us should be kept
hidden away."

   "Just the two of us?"

   "Perhaps not.  Who knows?  I can't imagine that anyone in full
possession of their sanity would willingly choose to commit suicide by
plunging into the Anomaly.  There must be other people who've protested."

   "Who?"

   "I don't know," said Petal.  "Not Captain Kerensky, that's for sure. 
She was the last person I saw when I woke up here several weeks ago.  She
told me she was acting on the authority of the Interplanetary Union."

   "Are you suggesting that neither the captain nor the union which we are
pledged to serve are sane and rational?"

   "How can they be?" said Petal.  "That is unless they know something
that's before now eluded the greatest scientific minds in the Solar System.
Over the last few weeks I've studied all the scientific reports available
to me-and there are few that aren't-and I've seen nothing that couldn't
have been established without having to send a space ship carrying
thousands of people into what appears to be some kind of alternative
universe."

   "What kind of alternative universe?"

   "You tell me," said Petal.  "It's one that hosts countless numbers of
these thirty-second Apparitions and a vast amount of absolutely nothing. 
But even if we had discovered the ultimate meaning of life, the universe
and everything, what use would it be without the ability to transmit that
knowledge back to Mission Control?  Unless we can find an exit route we are
all of us going to die in a universe without stars."

   Petal and Sheila had much to talk about.  Sheila decided that even if
she was now to discover that the invisible force field that had held her
for so long was confining her in Petal's villa she'd much prefer
imprisonment with her good friend than to be by herself, even if they were
denied the right to modesty,.

   Petal was also motivated by anger and frustration but in a different way
to Sheila.  She was frustrated as a scientist at being part of an
unprecedented scientific experiment but with no access to peers with whom
she could compare her observations and hypotheses.  There was so much
opportunity for scientific investigation and no means of practising it. 
Sheila, on the other hand, was simply irate at having been unjustly
incarcerated.  She continually rehearsed in her mind exactly how she would
express her anger to Captain Kerensky if she should ever meet her again. 
The Interplanetary Union was punishing her for her understandable
reluctance to commit suicide on a mission where she wasn't aware that such
an ultimate sacrifice was required.

   "What should we do now?" Petal asked.

   "I'd like to have something to eat," Sheila remarked.  "I've not eaten
for hours!"

   Petal laughed.  "That's easily arranged.  And after we've eaten?"

   "We need to explore the rest of the level.  If I've been imprisoned
without trial and jury for a crime that I've not even been informed of and
you have as well then there might be others who've suffered the same
injustice."

   "And after that?"

   "I don't know.  But we have a duty to our fellow crew-members and if
possible we should seek redress from the Interplanetary Union for our
unwarranted incarceration.  The very least we should do is challenge
Captain Kerensky as to why she misled us about the mission's real
intentions and then confined us to ensure we weren't free to express our
wholly reasonable objections."

   "Is that what you think's happened, Sheila?"

   "What other explanation can there be?"

   There was a sense in which Sheila was reluctant to leave the villa now
she'd discovered Petal but they couldn't stay in the one place.  Something
had very recently changed in the Intrepid's command system.  This was
evident from the fact she'd been able to roam away from her villa for more
than a day.  It was inconceivable that she could have escaped otherwise
without it being noticed.  Perhaps something had happened to Captain
Kerensky.  Perhaps she'd acknowledged the extent of her folly.  And if so
then an apology was the very least that the two senior officers deserved.

   Sheila and Petal felt some trepidation as they strode out of the villa.
Could the invisible force field have somehow re-established itself while
Sheila was inside?  Fortunately their fears were unfounded.  The two women
walked straight out with no let or hindrance of any kind.  And they were
now able to scout the other villas that dotted the outermost level.

   At first, this was a fruitless endeavour.  The villas they visited were
all empty and had never been inhabited.  They were ready and waiting for
occupancy, but as none had been allocated they remained vacant.  Sheila
didn't really mind this.  She enjoyed just being in Petal's company.  She
hadn't realised how much she valued her fellow officer's friendship.

   Their exploration was fleetingly enlivened when a huge green hairy
monster lumbered across the landscape carrying a huge club over its
shoulder and snorting in a voice that resembled a buffalo.  The monster
vanished after a few seconds and left no trace that it had ever been there.


   Somewhat later the two women came across a more persistent presence in
another villa.  They discovered a door that showed evidence of having been
opened.  When they peeked inside the door, what they saw was a long dark
corridor that didn't belong to the villa and almost certainly didn't belong
to the Intrepid.  Indeed such a corridor shouldn't even exist.  From what
could be seen, the corridor extended beyond the length of the villa that
contained it.

   "Should we investigate?" Sheila asked nervously.

   "If we go inside, there's the risk that the door to the corridor will
vanish after a few seconds and we'll be stuck in a dark void forever," said
Petal.  "I think this is an adventure we can leave until another time."

   After several more hours, the two women did at last meet other people
that were demonstrably both persistent and corporeal.  They didn't vanish
within seconds.  It was a pair of other officers: both male and both naked.
This last fact initially troubled Sheila until she remembered that she was
also naked.  The two men were likely to be equally as embarrassed by their
nakedness as the Second Officer and the Chief Science Officer.  The two
officers were Medical Officer James Kawasaki and Chief Catering Officer
Jose Mala, and the story of their detention was pretty much identical to
that of Sheila and Petal.  It was very peculiar that their detention took
place on exactly the same day as it had for Sheila and Petal and also in
the captain's presence.  Captain Kerensky must have been extraordinarily
busy on that day!  Why didn't she assign the task to other officers? 
Perhaps there was no one to whom she could delegate the authority.

   Now there were four officers in the company it was possible to split up
their activities and investigate more villas.  Most were still empty, but
the two male officers found another male officer, Science Officer Bjorn
Planck, who was also naked.  Sheila was now in the company of five officers
which provided a sense of safety in numbers.  It also reassured Sheila that
her imprisonment was not specific to her.  Nonetheless, she was already
missing the relative intimacy and companionship she'd had when she was
scouting the outermost level with just Petal.  She now had to behave more
as a senior officer and less like one of two women-friends who enjoyed one
another's company.

   The officers' accounts were all precisely the same.  They'd all been
incarcerated while they were asleep.  They'd all been awoken by Captain
Kerensky and two military officers.  They'd all been confined in a luxury
villa behind an invisible force field.

   "My doctoral thesis was on force fields," commented Science Officer
Planck.  "I've never come across one quite like this before.  Are there any
other secret weapons on board the Intrepid that we've never come across?"

   "I don't know," said Chief Science Officer Chang.  "Perhaps if there
are, this would explain how the Intrepid managed to ward off the mad
trillionaire's secret arsenal."

   "An interesting hypothesis," agreed the more junior Science Officer. 
"Perhaps the same technology that's generated the force field could also be
used as an offensive weapon."

   "Perhaps here's someone who can answer your questions," said Second
Officer Nkomo who pointed towards a figure several hundred metres ahead who
was walking purposefully towards them.

   "It's Captain Kerensky, for sure," said Chief Science Officer Chang. 
"But why is she naked?  Couldn't she find any clothes to wear?  There's
something very strange about this."

   "We'll wait for her here, shall we?" Second Officer Nkomo suggested,
nodding towards a small hazel tree by which a small fountain was bubbling
forth a tuneful tinkle of flowing water.

   "Is the captain still our commanding officer?" asked the Chief Catering
Officer.

   "She'll have to have a damned good explanation for her behaviour for me
to acknowledge her as my captain again," said Sheila bitterly.

   Captain Kerensky was approaching warily.  She was no doubt aware of the
suspicion and even hostility felt towards her by her fellow officers.  She
came to within ten metres of her fellow officers and stood still.  She
hesitated as she wondered exactly how she should address her fellow
officers.

   "Hello," she said.  "I'm very pleased to see you again."

   If the captain thought that such a greeting would somehow compensate for
the appalling way in which she'd acted, Sheila Nkomo was at least one
person whose anger wouldn't be so easily placated.

   "I'm not so sure that the same can be said for us, captain," she said.

   "I can explain..." said Captain Kerensky.

   Sheila wasn't sure that any explanation could possibly be enough, but it
was the Chief Science Officer who spoke next.

   "You have a lot of explaining to do," Petal said, not unreasonably.

   Chapter Eighteen Intrepid - 3756 C.E.

   Anger.  Frustration.  Humiliation.  These were just a few of the
emotions Nadezhda was feeling as she reviewed her helpless situation.  Her
command of the space ship Intrepid had been stolen from her by an alien. 
She was confined to a villa on the outermost level.  She was unable to
communicate with anyone other than Beatrice: the android who was both her
captor and lover.  And every day when she accessed the Intrepid's
information systems, she was humiliated to see an android masquerading as
herself.

   Nadezhda paid careful attention to the daily reports that pertained to
come from Captain Kerensky, but although she was sure that much of it was
nothing more than lies, she had no way of knowing what was true and what
was false.  The lie that grated most, of course, was that she was the same
Captain Kerensky who broadcast an upbeat daily account of the ship's
affairs to the passengers and crew.  Unfortunately, the only human aware
that her identity had been stolen was herself.  And what more mortifying
theft was there than that?

   The truth of which Nadezhda was most certain was that the Intrepid was
deep inside the Anomaly and that the crew and passengers were, so far,
still alive.  That presumably was why there was still a need to produce the
cheering daily news reports.  And although Captain Kerensky wasn't a
scientist, she could see little of scientific value in the cheery reports.

   She'd also seen some of the strange Apparitions when they materialised
beyond the invisible boundary that confined her.  They were as puzzling to
Nadezhda when viewed for real as they'd been when she'd previously viewed
recordings of them.  What sense could be made of a floating mermaid that
appeared to swim through a pool of water hovering in mid-air?  What
intrinsic truth could be determined from the sight of a duel between two
three-metre long scorpions?  What was the value of entering the Anomaly to
get a first-hand view of a man in Tudor uniform carrying under his arm the
head that should have still been attached to the throat above the lace
collar?

   And worse yet was that Beatrice had the gall to visit Nadezhda on a
regular basis.  As always, she was seductive, passionate and sensuous.  She
was far better as a lover than as a source of information, although she was
more likely than the androids masquerading as the ship's senior officers to
acknowledge that there'd been no great breakthrough in scientific
understanding with regards to the Anomaly.

   "Why do you still visit me?" Nadezhda asked after several weeks had
passed by since entering the Anomaly.

   "I adore your company," said Beatrice as the two naked women lay side by
side on the lawn outside the villa.  "I love making love to you.  It's what
I most enjoy.  It's what I was made to do."

   "Haven't you got quite enough to do having to run the ship?"

   "As you know," said Beatrice, "there is a full complement of ship's
officers who can be trusted to do that."

   "Is it that why you're no longer in command?  Have other androids
assumed your authority?"

   Beatrice appeared to think for a moment before replying enigmatically:
"I am as much in command of the Intrepid now as I have always been."

   However much Nadezhda hated Beatrice, there was never an occasion when
she resisted the android's caresses.  She regretted it the moment she
surrendered and immediately resolved not to be so easily taken in again. 
But Nadezhda had no other company and Beatrice was all she had.  When
Beatrice wasn't there, all she could do was lie naked in her villa and
await her return.  She'd have preferred more dignity but Beatrice explained
that she'd been denied clothing for precisely the same security reasons
that the Holy Coalition crusaders had been stripped bare.  Nadezhda
suspected that the real reasons were the android's bizarrely unquenchable
sexual appetite and the simple pleasure of humiliating the captain.

   "What about my fellow officers?" Nadezhda asked.  "How are you treating
them?"

   "As well as I am treating you.  Although none of them other than you is
privileged with my regular visits."

   "What do they think about the imposters who stole their identity?"

   "They don't know about that.  All they know is that they've been
imprisoned for an unspecified offence.  Naturally they all blame you for
it."

   "Do they know anything at all?  Do they even know that the Intrepid is
now inside the Anomaly?"

   "They know that.  It might compromise my mission if they didn't have
that information.  But very little beyond that.  Why tell anyone more than
they need to know?"

   Nadezhda considered Beatrice's view.  "I don't believe that position is
either moral or practical," she said.

   "In a sense, you may be right," Beatrice conceded.  "But it is pretty
much the policy of all human governments throughout the Solar System's
history."

   Nadezhda despised Beatrice, but also looked forward to the android's
daily visits.  She was the only person she could talk to.  The only person
she could make love with.  The visits structured her life.  It provided her
with a modicum of comfort.  She could survive without Beatrice, of course.
The Intrepid continued to provide the same services as it ever did, so
Nadezhda never went hungry and she had access to the same entertainment and
information as everyone else aboard the space ship.

   But Nadezhda missed her lover's company much more than she'd imagined
when Beatrice failed to arrive one day and not the next day either.  She
paced around the villa in a battle of emotions that fluctuated between
hatred and the need for carnal attention.  She couldn't settle down.  She
wandered about the villa gardens and gazed towards the curving arch of the
horizon as it receded upwards in the distance.

   She tried to spot Beatrice's familiar figure in the distance.  Sometimes
the android wore a thin gossamer dress.  Sometimes she wore a tight
revealing top and shorts.  Sometimes she was naked.  But normally she would
appear from somewhere over the horizon and walk unhurriedly towards
Nadezhda's villa with a broad smile that taunted the captain but was also a
prelude to their passionate lovemaking.  There was never a specific time
that she'd arrive, but it invariably happened sometime during the day.

   But on these days there was no such arrival.

   Nadezhda walked towards the invisible boundary of her confinement that
she'd so many times bashed her head against.  She held out her hands in
anticipation of that gentle but irresistible force that restrained her.  No
amount of research on the Intrepid's encyclopaedic systems explained to her
the nature of this force field or how to circumvent it.

   It took Nadezhda several seconds to realise that she'd stepped further
forward than she'd ever been able to do before and her heart began to pound
with an anticipation even greater than that before she made love.  Could
she now be free?  Could she now do what she'd been planning to do in such
intricate detail during her period of detention?

   Nadezhda stretched her arms forward and continued walking away from the
villa.  Her progress was still unimpeded.  She was now over a hundred
metres beyond the boundaries she'd mapped out so exactly.  And still
nothing was holding her back.

   Nadezhda let her hands drop to her side and walked forward with a more
normal stride.  She was curiously aware of the nakedness she'd come to
accept as part of her confinement.  She was now able to approach other
villas and even enter them.

   Now what should she do?

   Captain Kerensky's first duty was for the welfare of her passengers and
crew.  This would be best served if she could somehow wrest back control of
the Intrepid from the android invaders and then steer it out of the
Anomaly. But was either action even possible?

   But before that she needed to gather together her senior officers.

   Nadezhda decided not to return to the villa to collect her possessions
or review the Intrepid's information systems.  She was fearful that she
would once again not be able to escape.  Nevertheless, she took the risk of
entering the next nearest villa which, like the one in which she'd been
imprisoned, had been regenerated after the attack on the space ship.  It
was unoccupied as Nadezhda understood would be the case with most of the
hundreds of villas in the outermost level.

   Every villa on the Intrepid had a distinct individual character.  Some
had two storeys, though most did not.  Some had a swimming pool attached.
However much they differed in design they all provided the same basic
facilities for food, cleanliness, sleep and relaxation, but Nadezhda was
seeking information systems that might help her understand what was
happening both within the space ship and outside.

   Disappointingly, the data provided by this villa was no different to
what she already knew.  The view of space outside the Intrepid was still
empty and black.  There wasn't even the reassuring light of the distant
stars.  The view of the bridge showed the senior officers including Captain
Kerensky-or at least the android Captain Kerensky-still at their duties and
unconcerned about the strangeness within the Anomaly.  The bulletin boards
and daily reports were no more informative.  Whatever else had happened,
the Intrepid's information systems were still under alien control. 
Nevertheless, Nadezhda took an armband with her which could generate a
holographic user interface to provide access to the information systems.

   She was pleased to confirm when she strode out of the villa that she
wasn't held back by an invisible force field and hadn't just exchanged one
prison cell for another.

   Now what should she do?

   She knew that the other senior officers were detained in villas
throughout the outermost level.  She hadn't been able to monitor them
through the Intrepid's surveillance systems as Beatrice had been able to
and sometimes she doubted what she'd been told.  Perhaps her fellow
officers really were those individuals working on the bridge who were
guiding the Intrepid through the Anomaly's void.  Furthermore, although her
priority was to gather the other officers together, Captain Kerensky was
inevitably anxious that they wouldn't trust her.  Beatrice had told them
that the person they most blamed for their incarceration was her.  How
could Nadezhda convince them that there was more than one Captain Kerensky
on board the ship and that she was the real one?

   Nadezhda took a path across the curving interior of the Intrepid from
one villa to another.  None of those she visited was occupied.  They showed
no signs of having been otherwise since the outermost level had been
regenerated.  She approached each one and loudly called for attention.  The
only presences she encountered were the peculiar Apparitions that despite
their oddness Nadezhda had come to disregard.  It wasn't always obvious
whether an Apparition might not be more permanent.  The woman sitting on a
roof wearing a dark veil and an encompassing black cloth could very well
have been a real human being, but when she started to drift off into the
sky and then suddenly vanish, Nadezhda knew for sure that this wasn't one
of her crew.  More convincing was the appearance of several men and women
in brightly coloured clothes carrying small guns and nervously scouting the
area, especially as their presence persisted for more than ten minutes. 
But as Nadezhda approached and was almost within hailing distance, a
goblin-like creature appeared out of nowhere and brandished a huge axe. 
The men and women retreated through a door that was standing alone with no
wall or other structure supporting it.  They all vanished as they passed
through the door.  And then the door itself disappeared.

   It was several hours until Nadezhda encountered any of the crew.  By
then, she'd nearly abandoned the pursuit altogether and was seriously
considering the plan of walking alone to the bridge to confront the aliens
that had stolen her identity.  She knew this was folly.  She'd simply be
recaptured and bundled back to confinement.  But what else could she do?

   But at last there was the sight of several senior officers and all of
them naked.  More than any other fact, this persuaded Nadezhda that these
were the real senior officers and not their doppelgangers.  She knew that
they'd been deprived of their clothes just as she'd been and that the
aliens were unlikely to appear in public without some semblance of dignity
(unless, of course, the alien happened to be Beatrice).

   The company consisted of Second Officer Nkomo, Chief Science Officer
Chang and three other more junior officers.  Nadezhda wondered how she
should address her colleagues given that there were others who'd adopted
their rank and physical identity.

   She cautiously approached the company who froze in their tracks as soon
as they recognised her.  They stood still beside a small hazel tree by a
fountain from which spouted an uninterrupted flow of water.  Their faces
expressed far more wariness than welcome.  When Captain Kerensky was within
hearing she paused in her steps and addressed her fellow officers.

   "Hello," she said.  "I'm very pleased to see you again."

   Second Officer Nkomo regarded the captain with barely concealed hatred.

   "I'm not so sure that the same can be said for us, captain," she said.

   "I can explain..." said Captain Kerensky hesitantly.

   "You have a lot of explaining to do," said Chief Science Officer Chang.

   "Why did you imprison us?" asked Second Officer Nkomo.  "What have any
of us done to warrant that?"

   Captain Kerensky knew that the true answer was that she and other
officers had had their identities stolen by alien robots from beyond the
Solar System.  She also knew that even now her explanation wouldn't be
believed.  But an explanation was required.

   "Can we sit down?" she said indicating the bench around the ornate
fountain.  "There is a great deal I have to tell you about.  But first of
all you'll have to believe me when I say that it wasn't actually me who
authorised your detention."

   "If it wasn't you, then who was it?" said Sheila Nkomo sceptically.  "It
was definitely you who visited me when I was detained."

   "Please sit down, Sheila," said Nadezhda, addressing her second officer
informally.  "It wasn't me who you saw."

   "Are you telling me that I should pay no attention to the evidence of my
own eyes?" said the Second Officer.

   "That is exactly what I'm suggesting," said Nadezhda.

   There was a great deal that Captain Kerensky couldn't tell her senior
officers.  She couldn't tell them that the alien invasion was from Proxima
Centauri or that the android who'd taken control of the Intrepid was
Beatrice.  Nobody would have believed that the wife of the singularly
unimpressive Paul Morris was an alien android of superhuman strength and
intelligence.  Captain Kerensky had to feign a degree of ignorance that was
far from real.  Even so, her story of an alien takeover of the Intrepid was
already difficult enough to believe.  That these aliens had done this for
the purpose of plunging the Intrepid into the unknown depths of the Anomaly
was plausible, given that nobody really believed that the Interplanetary
Union would so authorise the effective suicide of the crew and passengers
where there was no conceivable scientific benefit.  More difficult to
believe, of course, was that the officers' identity had been stolen by
androids that could convincingly deceive the passengers and the rest of the
Intrepid's crew.

   "Are you saying that there is an android Nadezhda Kerensky?" Petal Chang
asked sceptically.

   "Not only an android replicant of me," said Nadezhda, aware of how
ludicrous her account sounded, "but also replicants of Sheila and you. 
There are also replicants of Chief Petty Officer Singh and, I imagine, of
all the senior officers.  I really don't know how many people on this space
ship have been replaced by android replicants."

   "I still find your story very difficult to believe," said Sheila.

   "Shall I show you a view of the bridge?" said Nadezhda who now displayed
the bracelet communication device which was all she was wearing.

   Although the view of the senior officers on the bridge could easily be
faked, the image of the senior officers, including Captain Kerensky, was
still good evidence of the truth of Nadezhda's account.  The additional
evidence of all the daily reports was more convincing.  There, for
instance, was a view of a conference that had taken place within the last
week in which Second Officer Nkomo was giving an uncharacteristically
enthusiastic and unqualified account of how successful the mission into the
unknown had been.  She was surrounded by other equally enthusiastic
officers including the captain and the Chief Science Officer.  They were
flanked by grimly authoritative military figures and taking questions from
scientists who were mostly either as enthusiastic as the space ship's
senior command or cautiously welcomed the reports of great discoveries
whilst also mildly voicing their reservations.

   "This could still be an enormous hoax," said Sheila.  "This story of
androids who can take on the appearance of humans to the extent you suggest
is frankly incredible.  They must be truly advanced robots if they can
manufacture a copy as much like you as the Captain Kerensky I met so many
weeks ago.  How do we know that you're not just walking us into a trap?"

   "You'll just have to trust me," Nadezhda admitted.  "In any case,
something or other has changed on the Intrepid recently.  You've obviously
noticed that the invisible force fields have vanished.  There's so far been
no sign of anyone who's tried to stop us or return us to captivity.  This
favourable situation mightn't last forever.  We have to take advantage of
it.  We have to try and regain control of the Intrepid."

   "Is this what you suggest we do?" asked Sheila.

   "It is our duty as officers of the Interplanetary Union and commanders
of the Intrepid to do what we can to protect this space ship and all who
travel on it," said Nadezhda persuasively.

   "I don't think we have any choice," Petal admitted.  "But, like Sheila,
until I actually meet one of these aliens I shall remain, dare I say,
somewhat sceptical of what you've said.  It really does stretch belief
beyond normal bounds."

   Fortunately, Nadezhda's account was at least partly verified during the
company's exploration of the villas that they passed on their way to the
bridge.  In one villa they discovered Professor Penrose who was as naked as
everyone else.  Nadezhda was surprised because the professor wasn't a
senior officer.  The androids hadn't restricted their activity to only
those in the space ship's command.

   At first the professor was very wary and, indeed, resentful of the
senior officers.  He was particularly suspicious of Dr.  Petal Chang.  He
hadn't realised that the invisible force field around his villa was no
longer active and he assumed that the senior officers had arrived in an
official capacity although he was also puzzled by their unprofessional
state of dress.

   "Haven't you done enough?" he protested as the senior officers
confronted him in the living room where he was sitting surrounded by
holographic displays.  "You take away my freedom.  You take away my ability
to do research.  What more does the Interplanetary Union want to do?"

   It took a while to reassure the professor that the officers hadn't come
to humiliate him or further restrict his freedom, and that he was now free
to leave of his own accord.  He was under the impression that the
Interplanetary Union had authorised a change of policy and that he'd been
arrested for dissent.  He even suspected that there'd been a military
takeover of the loose federation of affiliated nation states.

   The professor's account of his arrest was evidence that further
supported Nadezhda's account.  The senior officers that addressed the
conference at which he'd been arrested included amongst their number the
same officers now arraigned in front of him who knew for sure that at that
time they'd been detained on the outermost level.  It was clear that the
Dr. Petal Chang who'd escorted Professor Penrose away from the conference
centre to his place of luxury detention wasn't the same woman as the Chief
Science Officer who was now revising her most recent assessment of
Nadezhda's sanity.

   Captain Kerensky and her company took a somewhat circuitous route
towards the bridge.  They explored and examined every villa within a few
hundred metres of their path for other prisoners who, like Professor
Penrose, didn't realise that they were no longer detained.

   There was Colonel Musashi who'd been sitting in the garden sharpening
branches from a tree into spears which he clearly intended to use as
weapons.  He was ferociously angry and took the first opportunity to storm
off to find his soldiers.  He barely listened to the captain's account of
why he'd been held captive, although he admitted that he'd never accepted
the account he'd been given that the Interplanetary Union no longer needed
the services of a militia.  He assumed that it was traitors within the
Interplanetary Union who'd decided to imprison him.  This was similar to
the view taken by Major Schwarz who was discovered later.  He ran off to
accompany the colonel.  He believed that the hostile takeover of the
Intrepid should be countered with a proportionate military response.  He
also believed that the many Apparitions bedevilling the space ship were a
potential hazard to the Intrepid's security and therefore needed to be
eliminated.

   The captain and her colleagues also rescued the Chief Petty Officer,
other senior officers and some dissenting scientists.  They all had their
own stories to tell and all needed assurances that they were now free.  The
captain delegated this duty to more junior officers as they also became
available.

   At last a good body of officers had been gathered.  There was enough
staff to take effective control of the Intrepid and for Captain Kerensky to
detail other officers with the task of locating the remaining prisoners in
the outermost level.  The priority was now to recover command of the
bridge.

   This troubled the captain.  What she could see through the Intrepid's
system was a full complement of officers manning the bridge.  They looked
precisely like the officers now accompanying her.  She was anxious enough
about encountering her own exact facsimile.  She could only imagine the
other officers' shock in encountering their own copies.  What would Sheila
Nkomo think if she were confronted by her own doppelganger?  If she and her
fellow officers weren't naked how would she even distinguish between who
was real and who was a facsimile?

   It wasn't simply the issue of encountering her exact copy that disturbed
Nadezhda.  She knew from her long relationship with Beatrice how strong,
fast and intelligent the android could be.  If a single android was so
powerful, what chance did the captain and her officers have when confronted
by a dozen or more of them?  Perhaps Colonel Musashi and Major Schwarz were
those with the best idea of how to handle the situation.  Even given that,
Captain Kerensky doubted whether the whole massed militia of the Intrepid,
however disciplined and motivated it might be, had the capability to defeat
the forces of Proxima Centauri.

   Or even just one single representative.

   The walk along the corridors towards the bridge was relatively
uneventful.  They met nobody on the way.  This was unusual in itself.  The
rest of the crew must either be in their cabins or otherwise engaged. 
Nadezhda hadn't previously reflected on how disorientating and frightening
life inside the Anomaly must be for most people aboard the space ship.  The
Apparitions' frequent unpredictable appearance must have been enough to
make many doubt their sanity.  How much more peculiar would it be for them
to discover that for more than a year the ship had been under the effective
control of an alien civilisation?

   It was several weeks since Captain Kerensky and her officers had last
been in the bridge.  This was a long time for a serving officer to be
derelict in her duties.  It was quite reassuring for the captain and her
officers to return to familiar parts of the space ship as they strode along
the corridors.  No one had a plan of action, but no plan could be made
without knowing what might confront them.  All the captain knew was that
the systems the androids had put in place had somehow weakened.  The force
fields that enclosed the villas no longer functioned and Beatrice no longer
made her regular visit to see her lover.  Perhaps she and the other
androids had somehow abandoned the space ship.

   However, Nadezhda's hopes regarding Beatrice were dashed as the company
entered the anteroom to the bridge.  They could see through the windows to
the bridge that it was deserted.  But almost the moment they gathered
together at the door to the bridge it opened from the inside and Beatrice
came out.

   She was carrying a small portable holoscreen and seemed as surprised to
see Captain Kerensky and her senior officers as they were to see her. 
Captain Kerensky was probably the least surprised but also the most
alarmed. She'd been careful not to allude to Beatrice's role in the alien
takeover of the Intrepid as she feared that doing so would make her account
appear even less plausible.

   "It's you!" Nadezhda exclaimed.  "Why are you here?  What plans have you
got for us?"

   Beatrice looked at the captain and her colleagues with a strangely
distracted expression.  It seemed she had no plans for them at all.

   "The Intrepid is all yours, captain," she said, as if to reassure her
former captive.  "You don't have to worry about me."



   Chapter Nineteen Intrepid - 3756 C.E.

   As if things weren't already weird enough for Paul, they were about to
get a whole lot worse.  He was already fairly sure that it hadn't been such
a great idea that the Intrepid should enter the Anomaly, however much
Beatrice argued that it must be worthwhile if Mission Control had
authorised it and Captain Kerensky had let it happen.  All those senior
officers, especially the Chief Science Officer, couldn't all be mistaken,
could they?  As Paul rarely spoke to anyone other than Beatrice he was
almost prepared to accept that his doubts were misplaced.

   But when Beatrice became decidedly unwell, Paul wondered whether it was
his wife's loyalty to Mission Control and the senior officers that was
misplaced.  He'd seen no benefit at all from plunging into the Anomaly. 
Just where were the promised new discoveries?  The bulletin boards were
suspiciously empty of anything concrete, although they were full of
descriptions of the weird Apparitions.  In fact there were so many
Apparitions that Paul had become rather bored of them.  Another angel. 
Another dragon.  Another giant centipede.  What did any of this prove? 
There were several reports that described experiences similar to Paul's
encounter with his doppelganger.  The accounts lost most of their impact in
the telling, but it reassured Paul that he hadn't gone mad.

   "What's wrong, Beatrice?" Paul asked as his wife collapsed onto the sofa
with a distressed expression on her face.

   "I don't know," Beatrice admitted.  "I just don't feel well."

   "Is it something to do with the Anomaly?" Paul asked.  Common sense told
him that the Anomaly wasn't a very likely vector for viruses.  On the other
hand, it was associated with so much weirdness that Paul couldn't be sure.

   "Maybe it is," said Beatrice.  "I just need to rest."

   Paul helped her to the bedroom which was normally a place for sex but
now became a restroom.  She lay on the bed and pulled the duvet up over her
naked body.

   "Do you want me to call Dr.  Yoritomo?" Paul suggested.

   Beatrice paused for a moment.  "No," she said at last.  "I don't think
that will be necessary."

   "Is there anyone else you want to see?"

   "Other than Dr.  Yoritomo?"

   "Yes."

   "I don't think so," said Beatrice.  "Benoit Yoritomo is the only doctor
I trust."

   Paul nodded and returned to the living room where he'd been scanning the
science bulletin boards.  The daily announcements from Dr.  Chang and
Professor Penrose continued to be remarkably upbeat although it was
difficult to see what was so interesting in the various reported
discoveries.  When Paul was bored with reading these accounts, he wandered
into the kitchen to drink a cup of tea and was surprised to see that in the
time since he'd last walked through the hallway a spiral staircase had
appeared that was leading upstairs.

   That was strange.  Why would a villa with only one floor have a
staircase?

   Paul climbed the stairs with some trepidation only to emerge on the same
floor that he'd just left with the same stairs still rising above him.  He
could see that it was the same floor because Beatrice was lying in the same
bed and his possessions were in exactly the same disarray in the living
room.  It was almost as if Paul hadn't climbed the stairs at all.

   Paul went up another flight of stairs and found the same situation on
the floor above.  He'd essentially returned to where he'd just left.  He
went up another flight.  It was the same again.  Then another flight.  No
change.  Then three or more flights one after the other.  Back where he
started.

   Perhaps in the other direction?

   Paul went down a flight of stairs.  He returned to where he'd been
before.

   Paul decided to make an experiment.  He went to the kitchen, picked up
an apple and placed it in a prominent position on the floor.  He then went
up the flight of stairs.

   The apple was in exactly the same position on the floor above as it was
on the floor below.

   Paul went up another floor.  The apple was still where it was.

   What the fuck!  This just didn't make sense.

   And how was Beatrice?

   Paul wandered into the bedroom where Beatrice was lying on the bed.  She
was now in quite a state.  She was flinging herself from side to side and
her perspiration was soaking the sheets.  Her eyes had an oddly unfocused
look.

   "Shall I get you some tea?" Paul asked, not knowing what else to
suggest.

   Beatrice gazed at Paul with a slightly desperate expression.  "Water,"
she said feebly.  "I need water."

   "Alright dear," said Paul who returned to the hallway and noticed with
alarm that the spiral staircase had vanished although the apple was still
where he'd left it.

   Paul considered this while he poured out some cold water for Beatrice.
He almost certainly wasn't on the same floor as where he'd started in terms
of how many flights he'd gone up and come down and yet this was exactly
where he'd started.  Everything was in precisely the same state of disarray
as he'd left it.  Just what had happened?

   Paul returned to the bedroom.  "Here's the water you asked for," he said
in a cheerful voice, but he was shocked by what he now saw.

   Beatrice wasn't just ill.  She was literally fading away.  The contours
of her body were fuzzy.  She was almost transparent.  She gazed imploringly
at Paul with an alarmed expression.

   "What's happening to you?" Paul asked.

   "I don't know," said Beatrice.  "Where's the water?"

   Paul handed her the glass of water but her fingers weren't able to get a
grip on it.  They touched the sides but weren't solid enough to take a
hold. Beatrice was even more desperate.

   "Just tip it in my mouth, Paul," she commanded in a faint voice that was
strangely reedy, while she bent back her head and opened her mouth.

   Paul did as he was asked.  However, a damp patch began to spread between
her legs at exactly the same rate as the water flowed in.  It was as if it
hadn't passed through her at all.

   "Put your arms round me, Paul," said Beatrice in a more pathetic and
feeble voice than he'd ever heard before.  "Tell me that you love me."

   "I love you," said Paul with rare sincerity, but when he tried to wrap
his arms around his wife they actually went through her as if she was
nothing more than a hologram.

   And then Beatrice began to flicker away.  She became more and more
indistinct.  Her skin and flesh lost all solidity.  Her hair was like a
cloud of dust.

   Then she scattered into discrete tiny particles that became ever more
distant from one another as they lost shape and form.  She soon vanished,
but rather less abruptly than an Apparition, and all that was left was the
damp spot where the water had passed through her body.

   "Where are you, Beatrice?" pleaded Paul.  "Please come back.  Where have
you gone?"

   There was no reply.

   Paul remained in the bedroom for several more hours.  He couldn't bear
to leave while there was still hope that Beatrice might somehow be
mysteriously reassembled.  Every now and then he pleaded for her to return.
His emotions were torn between bewilderment and grief.  He quite literally
couldn't believe the evidence of his senses.

   And why Beatrice?  Why was it his wife who'd contracted whatever strange
ailment that had killed her?  What could Paul have done to save her?

   Paul very rarely wandered away from the villa.  He didn't see the need
of it.  There had been little incentive to go anywhere at all ever since
Beatrice had become so much more of a stay-at-home woman.

   However, now that Beatrice was gone, Paul was too restless to remain in
the villa.  Maybe there was someone who knew what had happened to his wife.
Perhaps there was someone who knew how to bring her back.

   Paul didn't have a plan of where to go.  He wandered towards the
research centre to see what was happening there.  After all, there was a
sense that this was the place where he was supposed to be.  As a scientist
he was supposed to be one of those conducting practical research on the
Anomaly although now Paul was in its heart the absurdity of doing so only
seemed that much greater.  There really was no good reason for him being
there.

   In fact, the only thing that had ever been a fair recompense for his
having been transported such an immeasurably long distance from Godwin was
his relationship with Beatrice.  And now she was gone, even that was no
longer a comfort.

   The walk along the gardens towards the escalator shaft was made fraught
by the random appearance of the Apparitions.  This was another reason why
Paul hadn't wandered far from home since the Intrepid entered the Anomaly.
Although the Apparitions were now almost routine, they could still be
disconcerting.  A ten metre long iguana waddled over the garden and
clambered over the roof of a villa before it vanished.  A white elephant
wearing a top hat and spats danced around a maypole and then both elephant
and maypole disappeared.  A scantily dressed woman wielding a scimitar came
striding out of the bushes, waved her weapon around her head and wandered
into a villa from which a terrified occupant came running out.

   Paul found the research centre eerily silent when he finally got there.
There were very few other people to be seen as he wandered along the
corridors and peeked into each room.  The centre wasn't totally empty. 
There were some scientists doing research, but there was none of the buzz
of activity he'd observed the last time he visited.

   "Where is everyone?" Paul asked a tall thin woman with a shaven head and
almost totally black eyes who was sitting on a bench.  He was afraid for a
moment that she was just another Apparition, but she turned her head and
smiled at him.

   "Are you wondering why there's hardly anyone here?" the woman asked.

   "Yes, of course.  Why isn't everyone studying the Anomaly and the
Apparitions?"

   "What's there to study?" asked the woman with a resigned smile.  "You
don't have to come to the research centre to see weird things.  As to why
they're here at all or what the Anomaly is composed of or what its purpose
is...  we don't know any more than we did before we crossed the threshold."

   "So why did we enter the Anomaly?"

   "You tell me," said the woman.  "I had no idea it was on the scheduled
itinerary.  I don't think anyone else did.  But I guess we couldn't really
argue with Mission Control and the senior officers."

   "Weren't there any scientists who'd protested?"

   "One or two did," said the woman with a smile that was difficult to
interpret given her opaque gaze.  "Well, rather more than one or two.  But
nothing came of it.  What I found weird was that the very people who were
initially the most sceptical became those who were the most enthusiastic.
I'd almost say they'd been brainwashed, except that mind-controlling
techniques have been prohibited by the Interplanetary Union right from its
foundation."

   "It is very strange, though," said Paul.

   "Isn't it just!" admitted the woman.

   Normally when Paul happened to speak to a woman he was drawn to
speculate whether the conversation could lead further.  It was a natural
inclination which in Nudeworld usually resulted in sex, but in the real
world usually got nowhere at all.  But Paul was grieving for Beatrice and
such thoughts seemed entirely inappropriate.  The woman described her own
curious and bizarre encounters with the unknown during which Paul learned
that what he'd experienced wasn't really that much out of the ordinary. 
Everyone had seen peculiar things and had disturbing encounters.  There
were doorways that led to strange places that shouldn't be on the other
side.  There were staircases that ascended into corridors inside other
spaceships.  There was even a skirmish between two heavily armoured groups
that left behind corpses that refused to vanish.  This battle was between a
group of men dressed in tight black uniforms and giant birds whose
rainbow-coloured uniforms were well matched by their feathers.

   Paul wondered where he could go now.  He could stay in the research
centre, but there wasn't anyone to give him advice or consolation.  He
could return to his villa.  Or he could go up to the bridge and discover
whether the captain and the senior officers might know what had happened to
his wife.

   Paul occasionally viewed the senior officers' holographic diaries since
the Intrepid entered the Anomaly.  They were unwaveringly cheerful but
never very informative.  None of the officers seemed at all anxious about
the kind of concern that troubled Paul.  What would happen to the Intrepid?
What would happen to the passengers?  Was it possible for the Intrepid to
escape the blank nullity of the Anomaly and return home?  Were there any
plans whatsoever as to what should happen now?

   What most troubled Paul, of course, was Beatrice's welfare.  Had she
truly vanished?  Perhaps Captain Kerensky had an answer.  Perhaps the Chief
Medical Officer or the Chief Science Officer had an opinion.  Perhaps
someone had something to say that could comfort Paul.

   The corridors that led towards the bridge were curiously deserted. 
There was none of the bustle of activity that Paul associated with the part
of the space ship where the crew worked.  Paul walked past holographic
displays that showed an absolute absence of anything in the space beyond.

   A senior officer was walking towards Paul when he was within a few
hundred metres of the bridge.  It was Second Officer Nkomo and she also
didn't appear to be at all well.  She was staggering from side to side and
occasionally leaned against the wall for support.

   When Paul was within hailing distance, the Second Officer raised her
head but her eyes were unfocused and her dark skin was peculiarly
translucent.  She seemed to have contracted whatever it was that Beatrice
had suffered from.

   "Are you alright?" Paul asked with concern as the senior officer
stumbled in front of him.  "Shall I call for assistance?"

   Second Officer Nkomo abruptly pulled herself together.  Quite literally.
One hand was sliding out of a sleeve towards the ground as if it had become
liquid rubber and her face was beginning to fade away.  Then her appearance
suddenly returned to normal.

   "Of course not, Mr Morris," said the Second Officer.  "I'm perfectly
fine, but thank you for your concern.  Is there anything I can do to help
you?"

   "I was just walking to the bridge," said Paul.  "I was wondering how
things were at the control centre."

   "Everything's fine, Mr Morris," said Second Officer Nkomo.  "As you
know, we are all excited by the mission.  There's a real party atmosphere
on the bridge."

   "I'm sure there is," said Paul, who knew from tone of the official
communiqués that she probably wasn't exaggerating.  "I was also concerned
about Beatrice.  I was hoping someone could help her."

   "Beatrice, Mr Morris?" the Second Officer asked with a concerned frown.
"She's your wife, isn't she?  What seems to be the problem?"

   "I don't know," Paul admitted.  "That's why I've come here.  She became
unwell and then she sort of disintegrated.  It was almost as if she'd
turned to dust and floated away.  It was very peculiar."

   Second Officer Nkomo's face took on a thoughtful expression, although
Paul fancied that it also betrayed a flash of real alarm.  "I agree.  It's
not something that happens every day.  What happened after that?"

   "Nothing.  She just vanished."

   "Are you sure it was her?" the Second Officer wondered.  "Are you sure
you didn't just see an Apparition?  We've had some peculiar reports of
incursions by doppelgangers that have intersected the Intrepid.  Was she,
perhaps, one of these?  It's possible that she wasn't the Beatrice you
thought she was."

   "I don't understand what you're saying," Paul admitted.  "It was
definitely Beatrice.  It was as much her as you are Sheila Nkomo."

   "Indeed, Mr Morris," said the Second Officer.  "I'm afraid I don't have
an answer for you."

   "What should I do?"

   "I suggest you return home," said Second Officer Nkomo.  "It's the... 
It's the best thing you can...  It's what...  Er...  Excuse me."

   "You really don't look very well," said Paul as the Second Officer
collapsed against the wall.  Her nostrils widened and an ear began slipping
down the side of her face.  A clump of hair came out in her hand as she
brushed it over the back of her head.  "Are you sure I can't do anything
for you?"

   "No," said the Second Officer.  "Please excuse me, Mr Morris.  I think
you may be right.  I'm really not feeling my best."

   An eyeball fell out of its socket and the Second Officer pushed it back
in again without comment.

   "Is this infectious?  Can I catch it?"

   "No," said the Second Officer who had an astonishing ability to continue
the conversation despite her obvious distress.  "I don't think it's
infectious.  Certainly not for humans.  Don't trouble yourself about it, Mr
Morris.  I recommend that you return to your villa.  There's nothing of
interest for you on the bridge."

   "Are you sure?"

   The Second Officer stood upright.  Her face was sagging like a
reflection in a distorted mirror.  Her costume had lost its contours and
was merging with her skin.  A black nipple jutted through a hole in the
fabric.

   "Yes, I'm sure," said Second Officer Nkomo.  "If you'll excuse me..."

   Paul watched as the Second Officer walked through a door which
automatically slid shut behind her, but he couldn't think of a good reason
why she would need to enter the service hatch.

   Paul decided to take the Second Officer's advice and return to his
villa. It was, after all, the only practical advice she'd given him.  He
was worried that the disease that had brought down Beatrice and had now
infected Sheila Nkomo might have spread through the bridge, so perhaps he
was better off somewhere else.

   His journey home was not without incident.  When he approached the
elevator that would take him towards his villa he saw the dismembered
remains of another woman.  She was wearing the uniform of a senior officer
just like Second Officer Nkomo, which was torn apart in the same way as her
body.  There was, however, no blood, no spilt entrails and no sign of
violence.  Her arm was laid on the ground separated by half a metre from
her torso.  One leg was leaning against the corridor wall.  Her torso was
rent apart across the breast.  Her head was lying on one side on the floor
and her eyes were still blinking.

   Paul recognised the face.  It was Chief Science Officer Petal Chang. 
She was the same woman who only hours before Paul had seen in her
holographic diary enthusing about the mission's success.  And here she was
strewn in several disjointed parts about the floor.  Even as Paul was
looking at her, he noticed that her face was fading in the same way as
Beatrice's had.  The eyelids were blinking.  Her hair was becoming ever
more indistinct.  And then her nose suddenly blew off.  Paul was sure that
if he stayed much longer he would see the Chief Science Officer crumble to
nothing just as he had Beatrice.

   Paul's walk across the lawns towards his villa was no less peculiar. 
There was no escape from the ever-present weirdness.  A naked angel flew
across the sky above and Paul couldn't help noticing the impressive penis
tucked between the legs.  An angle-poise lamp was hopping along like a
kangaroo.  A giant hedgehog waddled past with brightly coloured spikes. 
All the Apparitions vanished within seconds.

   When Paul arrived home, the villa was exactly as it had been when he'd
left.  He hoped that perhaps he'd discover Beatrice lying naked on the bed
begging him to make love with her.  She would laugh off the incident of her
apparent disintegration as if it had never happened.  Unfortunately, the
only evidence that Beatrice had ever been there was the damp spot on the
bedsheets.  All he'd discovered on his expedition was that whatever had
killed Beatrice was also killing the senior officers.  Paul was totally
alone.  He knew nobody at all who he could ask for help.

   Paul strolled out into his garden where he could see yet another strange
Apparition.  This one was a golden fountain that floated about a metre
above the lawn.  Around it flew a ring of bluebirds.  As water flowed from
the fountain, the birds flew up and down in a beautiful ribbon while
chirruping in glee.  There was so much about this Apparition that made no
sense.  The fountain was floating without any apparent support.  The water
was flowing from no apparent source.  The bluebirds were mysteriously
attached to the fountain and disinclined to fly elsewhere.

   Although Paul had seen so many other strange sights already, he was
somehow drawn towards this one.  He was extremely disappointed when, with
no warning, the golden fountain and its attendant bluebirds abruptly
vanished and left not even a trace of dampness on the lawn below.

   Now that the fountain was gone, Paul was able to see a figure staggering
towards the villa from across the gardens.  Like the Second Officer and the
Chief Science Officer, this woman was obviously not in the best state of
health.  She was barely able to stand straight.  Every now and then she
stumbled, but recovered her step and continued to stagger forward.  Paul
recognised the woman as Colonel Vashti.

   "My goodness, colonel," said Paul as Vashti staggered towards him.  "You
really don't look well."

   The colonel stared at Paul through unfocused eyes.  It wasn't just that
the colonel was unwell that was strange.  She was totally naked and for the
first time Paul was able to appreciate the amazon-like body she normally
hid beneath her uniform.  Although this wasn't really the best time to
admire a naked woman there was nonetheless much to attract Paul's
attention, although it wasn't all exactly what he'd expected.

   "Where are your clothes?" he asked.  "And what the fuck is that between
your legs?"

   The colonel gazed down at the erect penis between her bare legs.  That
was odd enough in itself, but it was also monstrously engorged.  Few men,
let alone women, were endowed with genitals of such monstrous proportions.

   Colonel Vashti smiled grimly.

   "Didn't you know, Paul?" she asked.  "You could say that I'm a very
peculiar woman."

   Chapter Twenty Intrepid - 3756 C.E.

   Although Captain Kerensky thought otherwise, the one person on the
Intrepid who more than any other was a mere spectator since the Intrepid
entered the Anomaly was Beatrice.  And she was also imprisoned within an
invisible force field where she was unable to communicate with either human
or robot.

   Beatrice witnessed the same Apparitions as everyone else, but they meant
little to her.  A charging buffalo stormed towards the villa churning up
the lawn as it did so.  And then it vanished.  A small comet streaked
through the internal space of the Intrepid, fell onto the lawn less than a
kilometre from the villa, and disappeared as promptly as it exploded.  A
group of women in diaphanous gowns with pointed ears pirouetted in a circle
for very nearly five minutes before they too vanished without trace.

   The strangest phenomena weren't those associated with the Anomaly at all
and these were the forms in which Vashti's nanobot community chose to visit
her.  The community rarely appeared in the guise of Colonel Vashti.  The
nanobots generally adopted the form of the Intrepid's senior officers and,
most oddly, of copies of herself.  And the main purpose of their visits was
to have sex with Beatrice which the android found almost impossible to
refuse.

   Beatrice surmised that the nanobot replicants of the Intrepid's humans
had, like Colonel Vashti herself, taken on more than just the physical
appearance of the original.  Not only had the nanobots taken on the humans'
forms in such exact verisimilitude, they'd also inherited their sexual
appetites.  As Beatrice's appetite was rather greater than that of most
humans, her most frequent visitors were actually the other two Beatrices.
And this was in addition to the sex that they'd had with either Paul or
Nadezhda (depending on which Beatrice it was).  Not all the replicant crew
and passengers took advantage of Beatrice's sexual services.  The
facsimiles of Second Officer Nkomo and Chief Petty Officer Singh were not
amongst her frequent visitors, unlike the facsimiles of Captain Kerensky
and Science Officer Petal Chang.  So too were the more heterosexually
inclined such as Colonel Musashi, Major Schwarz, Dr.  Benoit Yoritomo and
Professor Penrose.

   Beatrice didn't like to admit it but in essence she was now serving as a
comfort woman for the sexually active nanobots who'd taken over the space
ship.

   However much Beatrice was aware of the extent of her humiliation, she
was also enjoying the most physically satisfying sex she'd ever known. 
Group sex.  Double penetration.  Dual fisting.  Facial bukkake.  All these
were activities in which Beatrice took immense pleasure, but it wasn't for
wild and sometimes perverse sex that she'd travelled across deep space and
inveigled herself aboard the Intrepid.  It might be precisely the
distraction Beatrice most needed, but it most definitely wasn't the reason
for the android being there.

   Nevertheless, there was nothing she could do about her programming and
conditioning.

   She took whatever opportunity there was to interrogate her nanobot
lovers about the fresh discoveries made since the Intrepid plunged into the
Anomaly.  Had anything new and unsuspected been discovered?

   "Perhaps," said the facsimile of Captain Kerensky.  "There are two
distinct types of manifestation, although it isn't always possible to
immediately distinguish them.  There are the more familiar Apparitions
commonly observed throughout the Solar System.  These have some kind of
relation to human myth and culture, and take forms such as goblins,
unicorns, elves and inappropriate household objects.  These appear and
disappear just as they do outside the Anomaly's boundaries, but as you've
noticed there are now significantly more of them.  The other kind is even
more strange but far more persistent.  We believe that they result from
intersections with other spacetime continuums..."

   "Like the one you come from?"

   "Alas no," said the captain.  "If we did establish contact with our
original continuum then this would signal the end of our mission.  What
we've seen include robot space fleets rather like your own from Proxima
Centauri and space ships from divergent variants of the Solar System whose
histories have taken a different course.  For instance, there are human
civilisations that developed an industrial base a thousand years or so
earlier than in your Solar System.  In other examples, historically
significant events such as the Russian Revolution or the sacking of
Carthage haven't taken place.  We've encountered advanced civilisations
that evolved on Earth that are biological but not human..."

   "Such as?"

   "Dinosaurian in some cases.  Avian in others.  Intelligent elephants. 
Arboreal apes.  Variants of all kinds."

   "How did they all happen to be here?"

   "We believe these are instances of deep space missions in other parallel
universes that have also made the decision to enter the Anomaly, or at
least its manifestation in their own spacetime continuum," said the
captain. "We can't be sure in all cases.  What does seem to be true, which
is truly interesting, is that it is the selfsame Anomaly, rather than a
local variant, that exists in all the spacetime continuums and which
occupies the same proximate location."

   "And what about the Anomaly?" Beatrice asked.

   "All we know is that we are inside it," said the captain.  "We haven't
as yet determined whether it has a finite extent or any limits or whether
it contains anything other than Apparitions and incursions from other
multiverses."

   "Is there a way of escaping from the Anomaly?"

   "Not that we know of," admitted the captain.

   "So, we know very little more about the Anomaly than we did before the
Intrepid entered," said Beatrice.  "And what's worse we can't pass that
information, or lack of information, back to where we came from."

   "That appears to be so," admitted Captain Kerensky's facsimile showing
no remorse whatsoever.

   However, Beatrice was soon to discover that there was another feature
associated with the Anomaly that hadn't been mentioned.  And that was the
property that somehow caused the nanobot communities to fall apart. 
Beatrice had no more explanation for this than she had for the Anomaly's
other freakish manifestations.

   The first evidence that all was not well for the nanobots was when
Beatrice no longer received the visits that she'd become accustomed to. 
Not even the Beatrices were visiting her.  This didn't necessarily mean
anything.  It could simply be that the nanobots had tired of their sex toy.

   Beatrice initially viewed this as a change of circumstances of purely
local significance.  There was nothing to suggest it was evidence of a more
general phenomenon.  All the while, Beatrice continued to probe the
invisible force field that was imprisoning her.  It was still there, but
appeared to be somehow less elastic.  In places its resistance had become
rather stiff and inflexible.

   Something had changed, but Beatrice didn't know what it might be.

   The android persevered.  She walked in a straight line in every
direction to find out how far she could go until her passage was impeded,
but she was frustrated every time.

   Beatrice scanned what she could of the Intrepid's internal systems and
most particularly the images from the bridge that the Intrepid still
displayed.  There was little useful information that could be derived from
the sight of uniformed officers peering into instruments and adjusting
consoles.

   Unlike a human observer, Beatrice had the ability to exactly match one
set of images with those recorded in her memory.  On a hunch she compared
the current images with earlier ones.  As she suspected, she was looking at
nothing more than a software-generated simulation.  The officers' actions
were too repetitive and too similar to previous images.  It seemed that
there was a good reason why the nanobot facsimiles were no longer paying
much attention to their android sex toy.  Beatrice suspected that there was
an integrity failure in the threads that held the nanobot community
together.  And that would imply that there might also be a failure in the
force fields that enclosed her villa.

   Beatrice's assumption was correct.  Less than a day later, she walked
along the path that led out of the villa with the expectation that her
forward motion would be halted between the seventh and the eighth paving
stone.  She wasn't held back at all.  She managed to tread on the ninth
paving stone, then the tenth and onwards with no resistance at all. 
Although Beatrice didn't actually know what was happening to the nanobot
community, it was obvious that something was happening.  Vashti was no
longer the irresistible force she'd used to be.

   But the main thing was that Beatrice was at last free.

   What she didn't know was what she now ought to do.  Her mission had been
fatally compromised when the Intrepid was taken under Vashti's effective
control.  And what would it mean to wrest back command of the mission?  She
had no way of communicating with Mission Control on Proxima Centauri and
she wasn't programmed to desire power for its own sake.  With no means of
escaping the bounds of a boundless space or of navigating where there was
literally no reference by which to navigate, was Beatrice's predicament any
less than that of the humans on board the Intrepid?

   Beatrice decided to seek out the originals of the crew and passengers
whose identities Vashti had stolen.  After all, she knew them very well
through carnal contact with their facsimiles.  She knew more about the
smell, taste and sexual preference of the originals than almost any human
had ever known.  Nevertheless, Beatrice was certain that Captain Kerensky
was one human who wouldn't want to meet her again.  It would make no
difference that for the last year or so the android wasn't the Beatrice
that the captain had been making love with and who she believed was her
captor.  Could Beatrice even persuade the captain to believe that the being
who'd been in effective control of the Intrepid for so long was a community
of microscopic robots from another spacetime continuum?  Or that its most
persistent manifestation had been her lover, Colonel Vashti?  It had been
difficult enough for the captain to comprehend that her lover was an
android from beyond the Solar System.

   There was too much to explain and it was unlikely that anyone would
believe her.  If even Captain Kerensky was unlikely to accept the real
truth of the situation, how would the others react?  Beatrice contemplated
Chief Science Officer Chang, whose body Beatrice had enjoyed in both her
original and replicant forms.  How would she react?  From what Beatrice had
gleaned from her discussions with the nanobots, Petal Chang was entirely
unaware that there'd been any kind of alien invasion of the space ship. 
She wouldn't know that Beatrice was an android any more than she'd known
that the Captain Kerensky who'd imprisoned her was not the real captain.

   It was obvious that humans would have considerable difficulty in making
sense of what was happening.  Beatrice was essentially alone.  It was
imperative that it she should be the one to handle Colonel Vashti and the
nanobot invasion.  Nobody else could.  No one else even knew that this was
something to be addressed.

   This was the mission that Beatrice now set herself.  It was a mere
shadow of her original rather grand mission She would do what she could to
eliminate the threat posed to the Intrepid, its human cargo and, of course,
herself by Colonel Vashti's continued command of the space ship.

   Beatrice decided not to return to her villa even though it held several
objects that might be useful to her.  There was always the risk that the
breach in the force field was temporary and that if she returned she
wouldn't be able to escape again.

   She walked in the direction of the crew's quarters to the bridge and
where the facsimiles of the senior officers would be found.  It was
situated well within the Intrepid's core.  No space ship designer would
place the most critical command centre anywhere but where it was best
protected from external attack.

   She passed many strange sights as she strode across the lawns and
gardens.  A pack of blue six-legged dogs were pursuing a large galloping
ungulate until the whole pack and its prey suddenly vanished.  A small
child-like creature with wings fluttered in the air for several minutes
before it too disappeared.  A being whose head resembled a carved-out
pumpkin strode by and then disintegrated.

   The corridors were empty when Beatrice reached the crew's quarters
although there was evidence of a disturbance that had spilt objects to the
ground.  It wasn't totally deserted.  One of the space ship's catering
officers was in the corridor, but when she saw Beatrice she gave a gasp and
ran away.  At first Beatrice was puzzled by the reaction, but she reasoned
that with so many bizarre Apparitions the sight of a naked woman might have
appeared to be one of them.

   Beatrice wasn't surprised to find that the door to the bridge was
locked. She tried to attract the attention of those inside to ask them to
let her in, but there was no response.  However, it was no effort for
Beatrice to modify the pattern of her iris and fingerprints to match
Captain Kerensky's and so gain entrance.

   Even when inside, Beatrice was still alone.  There wasn't actually
anyone on the bridge.  The senior officers whose likenesses Vashti had
copied so exactly were nowhere to be seen.

   Beatrice looked around the room and soon identified the gruesome remains
of what had once been the senior officers' replicants.  A single eyeball
was lying on the ground.  It was still looking around the room despite no
longer being connected to a body.  A disembodied hand was lying on a table
and its fingers were moving in an uncoordinated fashion.  By the door to
the lavatory lay a penis that was twitching agitatedly in a puddle of piss.
Even these few remnants were steadily disintegrating as Beatrice gazed at
them.  They were clearly no longer a threat to her.

   Beatrice sat at the holoscreens and evaluated the current situation from
what she could see through them.  The space surrounding the Intrepid was
very different from that displayed on the Intrepid's internal systems. 
Vashti had evidently set up a software simulation designed to comfort the
humans on board the space ship, although this was only as much comfort as
absolute nothingness can ever be.  The publicly disseminated image of an
empty void was absolutely true with regards to what was visible in the far
distance.  There were no reassuring beacons of distant light emanating from
distant star systems and galaxies.  However, the near distance was very
different.  There was very much more than nothing.  Three or four space
ships were within ten thousand kilometres of one another and all of them
resembled the Intrepid.  Less than a million kilometres away, fragments
from an annihilated space fleet were slowly blowing apart.  All around were
apparitions of such peculiar objects as a steam train puffing smoke in deep
space, a group of men wearing bowler hats and carrying umbrellas, and a
diplodocus tumbling over and over together with a nineteenth century steam
boat.

   What was most strange, however, was the very visible sight of Colonel
Vashti no more than a thousand kilometres away.  That she was totally naked
was strange enough.  No human could survive even a fraction of a second in
the very low temperature of deep space, but Beatrice knew that Vashti was
no human.  Stranger still was just how truly monstrous the colonel was now.
She was several times larger than the Intrepid.  Indeed, her erect penis
was the same length and almost the same proportion as the Intrepid.  She
appeared to be swimming through empty space towards the Intrepid which was
also absurd as there was no medium through which she could swim.  At her
present rate of progress it would take several hours until she'd have
returned to the Intrepid.

   Beatrice, however, could afford to wait.

   In the meantime, she studied what she could through the Intrepid's
nanobotenhanced instruments.  Beatrice was perplexed to see that although
the Intrepid was charging forward at a terrific rate through empty
nothingness it wasn't actually moving at all.  There was forward thrust but
no change of relative position.  Beatrice traced back the route travelled
by the Intrepid in the weeks since it entered the Anomaly.  The telescopic
sensors were powerful enough to monitor exoplanets around galaxies over
twelve billion light years away, but still couldn't catch a glimpse of a
single star system through the narrow aperture by which the Intrepid had
entered.

   Colonel Vashti was becoming steadily smaller as she swam towards the
Intrepid.  Beatrice assumed that this might be related to the nanobots'
general affliction.  In fact, Vashti's facial expression appeared to
express something very similar to alarm.  As a result of having taken on
human form, Vashti had also inherited such human characteristics as complex
emotional responses and an expressive face.

   By the time Vashti finally reached the Intrepid she'd shrunk to normal
human size.  She jumped onto the space ship's surface and walked over it as
if it exercised a much more substantial gravitational force.  Vashti strode
towards an open escape hatch and clambered inside as if this were a natural
thing to do in empty space where there was no atmosphere and no gravity and
where the ambient temperature was less than four Kelvins above absolute
zero.

   Beatrice now had to switch to a different set of surveillance systems to
monitor Vashti's progress.  It was obvious that Vashti was in distress. 
Her physical integrity was constantly being challenged.  One of her eyes
kept dropping out of its socket.  Her face slowly melted and then with some
effort reasserted its more usual contours.  As she walked along, she left
behind a trail of slime in the imprint of her feet.  Her penis had taken on
a peculiar life of its own.  Sometimes it was erect and prominent. 
Sometimes it drooped and became snake-like in both length and flaccidity.

   Vashti didn't look very well at all.

   Beatrice needed to resolve the question of where Vashti was going.  The
colonel had clambered up the internal entry system past the outermost level
in which Beatrice had already determined were the nanobots that had
imprisoned the real Captain Kerensky, the real Colonel Musashi and a
selection of the most senior or most potentially troublesome officers and
passengers on the space ship.  It was the penultimate level that Vashti was
most interested in.  And why would that be?

   Beatrice smiled to herself.  The only possible reason was that Vashti
was looking for Beatrice.  This was understandable.  Vashti was in trouble.
It was possible that she was dying.  Who on the Intrepid other than
Beatrice could be of any possible help to her at all?

   Well, in that case it was Beatrice's duty to meet Vashti and fulfil at
least a part of her mission.  And that was to annihilate what was now left
of the nanobot community that had frustrated her original mission and
humiliated her entire civilisation.

   Beatrice intended to return more or less in the direction from which
she'd come.  She carried a small portable holoscreen that enabled her to
follow Vashti's progress.  However, she had a most unexpected surprise when
she opened the door to the bridge.

   She was confronted by Captain Kerensky and her senior officers.  They
seemed even more astonished to see Beatrice than she was to see them.

   And this time the surprise wasn't because Beatrice was naked as they
were all similarly unclothed.

   "It's you," said Captain Kerensky accusingly.  "Why are you here?  What
plans have you got for us?"

   What should Beatrice say?  She wasn't in the mood to argue with a bunch
of inadequately armed humans.

   "The Intrepid is all yours, captain," Beatrice said.  "You don't have to
worry about me."

   "Worry about you?" Captain Kerensky exclaimed.  "What else have I been
doing for the past year?"

   "As I say," repeated Beatrice.  "The space ship is in your command."

   She then dashed past the assembled officers at a rather faster pace than
anyone other than the captain would have known she was capable of. 
Beatrice now knew for sure that Vashti's prisoners had escaped, though they
still wouldn't know who their real captor had been.  Nadezhda was almost
certainly still under the impression that it was Beatrice.

   The real Beatrice was at last back in the penultimate level where she'd
previously been imprisoned.  There was the usual collection of strange
apparitions that she'd come to expect.  A knight was fighting a
fire-breathing dragon beside some startled sheep and a picnic dining table.
A pair of two-metre high protractors wearing a head at its peak was walking
in a peculiar manner across the lawn.  A small green boat holding an owl
and a cat was sailing across a lake.

   Then Beatrice spotted Vashti in the distance.  Bizarrely enough the
colonel had returned to the villa that Beatrice had shared with Paul before
she'd been imprisoned.  She hadn't seen her husband for over a year and yet
he wouldn't have noticed that she'd even gone away.  Beatrice felt almost
bitter about this.  There were so many subtle and grotesque ways by which
Vashti had humiliated her.  Beatrice had made love many times with the
facsimile of Beatrice that Paul had been fucking but not at all with the
man to whom she was married.

   Then she watched Vashti lead Paul into the villa.  Perhaps she'd seen
Beatrice approach from a distance.  However, Beatrice hadn't expected her
reappearance to be a surprise.  Vashti would still have the advantage. 
Beatrice would need to act swiftly if she was yet to prevail.

   Paul and Vashti were in the living room drinking tea when Beatrice
walked into the villa.  She'd vaguely speculated that Paul and Vashti might
be having sex together on the sofa but she also knew that although Vashti
enjoyed fucking men up the arse this was unlikely to hold much appeal to
Paul.

   Vashti turned her head round as Beatrice entered the living room.  She
was holding a cup of tea in one hand with her little finger pointing
outwards.  Although she looked very much the worst for wear, with an eye
rolling about in its socket and her hair in disorder, she flaunted a
superior and even supercilious smile.

   This was the facial expression that most annoyed Beatrice.  She grimaced
with anger.

   "Are you content now, you monster?" she said angrily as she contemplated
Vashti's sabotage of her robot civilisation's mission and the predicament
that they were subsequently all in.  "Look where your foolish interference
has taken us."



   Chapter Twenty One Intrepid - 3756 C.E.

   Vashti stumbled through the open lawns of the penultimate level where
Beatrice had so recently been imprisoned.  She reasoned that the android
perhaps had an idea of what was happening.  How was it possible for a
nanobot community to be compromised in such a strange and unprecedented
manner?  There was nothing in Vashti's vast repository of data and
experience that could explain it.

   It was definitely humbling for a being who naturally presumed that she
was superior over both biological and robotic life-forms in every
measurable way to be so ignorant.  It was even more humiliating to have to
ask advice from a mere android.  Humans were handicapped by emotions such
as pride that made it difficult for them to seek advice from someone they'd
previously treated with contempt, but Vashti wasn't human.  Her imperative
was to seek assistance from wherever she could.  It wasn't just the success
of Vashti's mission, but her very survival that was at risk.

   Vashti evaluated the symptoms of her predicament as she stumbled across
the elegant landscape.  The ground was no longer firm beneath her feet, but
resembled more a boggy marsh into which she sometimes sunk.  The physical
form she'd adopted was losing its integrity and consistency.  Scrolls of
skin would sometimes shed off her legs and hover behind her until they
reasserted their solidity and reattached themselves to her body.  Her hair
flowed and shimmered as if it was only tentatively attached to her head. 
When she dragged her fingers over her face, the skin would either briefly
detach itself or stretch like a coating of fresh paint before it fell back
onto the contours of her cheek.  The effort to generate a uniform to cover
Vashti's nakedness was now beyond her ability.  When she attempted to do
so, her brown skin took on an utterly unconvincing silvery cloth-like
texture.

   The problem wasn't simply that the entity known as Vashti was having
difficulty in maintaining her integral individual identity.  The bigger
issue was that the nanobot community which not so long ago had grown large
enough to assimilate space fleets and maintain an endless number of
distinct independently operating manifestations was now reduced to one
single individual.  And this individual that had no previous difficulty in
maintaining its identity in the Solar System for over thirty years was now
failing in the rudimentary task of holding itself together.

   Some parts of Vashti were functioning rather better than others.  In
fact, they appeared to have a life all of their own.  The part of Vashti's
anatomy that most fit the description was her penis which was twice or even
three times its normal length and breadth and was slapping against her
thighs as she walked along.  Sometimes it sprung into full erection and
even ejaculated with no motivation or purpose.  This puzzled Vashti.  The
systems that composed her-the sexual, intellectual, lymphatic, cardiac and
perceptual-were competing with each other for primacy in an uncoordinated
fashion.

   "Good evening, sir," said a soldier, probably a corporal but maybe a
sergeant, who stood to attention and saluted as Vashti approached.

   "Good evening," said Colonel Vashti who was struggling to recall what
the various insignia might mean.  She stopped and saluted, aware of the
strange sight she made with her penis now inappropriately erect and more
than half a metre long.  "Have you anything to report?"

   The soldier gazed at the naked colonel in consternation.  For a moment,
Vashti wondered whether he might not just be another Apparition.

   "Come on, soldier," said the colonel.  "What's the problem?"

   "Your eye, sir," said the soldier.

   "Oh," said Vashti, belatedly aware that it had somehow worked its way
out of its socket and was dangling over her cheek.  With a matter of will
she retracted it back into the socket which must have further alarmed the
soldier.  "Never mind that.  What's the overall situation?"

   "Anarchy, sir.  Absolute chaos.  There's no order at all.  Everyone's
seeing these weird Apparitions, sir.  And they're solid.  They're real. 
They can even kill."

   "Kill?"

   "A whole cohort of Roman soldiers suddenly appeared on the fourth level,
sir," said the soldier.  "They were there for only five minutes or so, but
they slaughtered over a dozen scientists and service personnel.  It was
horrifying.  Are you sure you're alright, sir?"

   "It's been tough on me, soldier," the colonel admitted.  "How is
discipline holding up?"

   "Almost non-existent, sir," said the officer.  "All the senior military
officers have vanished.  I was told by Private Johnson that Colonel Musashi
actually disintegrated."

   "What do you mean by that, soldier?"

   "It's like the literal meaning of the word, sir.  One moment he was
standing there in the command centre and the next he sort of fell apart. 
It was like he was turning into dust except that instead of falling in a
heap on the floor the particles of dust were so fine that they just blew
away.  It was very strange."

   "Do you know how he was before that moment, soldier?"

   "He'd been behaving very strangely, sir.  He could hardly express
himself coherently.  He even had difficulty standing up.  We think it's
happened to all the senior officers.  No one knows anything for sure.  The
only person I've heard of who's sort of...  disintegrated...  is Colonel
Musashi.  But I've heard that Captain Kerensky, Chief Petty Officer Singh
and all the rest of the crew have also kind of vanished.  There's no one
manning the bridge.  It's like we're leaderless in deep space, sir."

   "Well, I'm still here," said Colonel Vashti.

   "Yes, sir," said the soldier, who seemed rather less than reassured.

   "We need to keep order."

   "Yes, sir."

   "It's paramount."

   "I agree, sir."

   "I shall try and locate the missing officers."

   "Thank you, sir."

   "Don't abandon your post."

   "No, sir."

   "Dismissed," said the colonel finally.

   "Thank you, sir."

   Vashti continued her trudge across the level.  It was as she feared. 
The integrity of the nanobot community had quite simply ceased to be.  It
was as if it had been blown asunder by a breeze.  The facsimiles she'd
generated of the senior officers had all disintegrated just as the soldier
had described it.  They were no longer coherent entities.  The nanobots had
decomposed into their constituent elements.  Instead of assimilating the
environment they were themselves now being re-assimilated back into it. 
And the same thing was happening to Vashti.

   The only hope she had was that Beatrice, the most advanced life-form on
the Intrepid after Vashti, might have some insight into what was happening.
At least an android wouldn't be re-assimilated.

   Vashti scanned the horizon as she tried to guess where the android might
be.  She caught a glimpse of several camels walking by on the horizon.  On
their backs and chanting from the Quran were several Arab warriors.  They
then suddenly vanished.  Vashti looked towards the villa where Beatrice had
been imprisoned for the last year or so.  Just behind the villa a strange
orange being with skin that resembled chiselled granite was lumbering over
the lawn.  Then that too vanished leaving behind footprints embedded in the
path.  There were many strange sights, but no sign of Beatrice.

   Vashti walked towards the villa while her penis became ever more excited
and tumescent at the anticipation of meeting her lover.  This again was
totally incongruous and inappropriate.  There was no evidence of Beatrice
at the villa.  The invisible force field that had confined her had
disintegrated in just the same way as her facsimiles had.  Every part of
her nanobot community had ceased to function.  Vashti was very much alone.

   Where else could Beatrice be?  The most likely place, of course, was
Paul's villa also on the same level, but would Beatrice really choose to go
there?  Would she really want to be by the side of her husband given that
his only function for Beatrice had been to facilitate her passage on the
Intrepid?  What possible use would a superintelligent android now have for
a less than adequate biological life-form?

   Vashti had no answers to such questions, but she nonetheless decided
that Paul's villa would be her next destination.

   Vashti hobbled, stumbled and lurched over the Intrepid's lawns and
gardens to the tranquil home where Vashti had very little doubt that Paul
would be in residence.  He very rarely wandered from home even when there
was nothing to hide from.  Now that there were peculiar Apparitions
everywhere on the space ship, where else would the man stay but where it
was most homely and familiar?

   Vashti could see Paul standing in the garden of his villa.  He was
regarding with bemusement a golden fountain that had somehow located itself
a metre above the ground and was encircled by a ring of bluebirds.  It was
a captivating sight, but after a few minutes it too vanished.

   Paul was now even more bemused.

   "Why it's you, colonel," said Paul as he saw Vashti approach.  "My
goodness, you really don't look very well.  Where are your clothes?  And
what the fuck is that between your legs?"

   Paul was perhaps the only person aboard the Intrepid who didn't know
about Vashti's peculiar assets.  However, when Vashti gazed down at her
engorged penis it was so monstrous that it was perfectly understandable
that Paul should be alarmed at the sight.

   "Didn't you know, Paul," said Vashti.  "You could say that I'm a very
peculiar woman."

   "You most certainly are," Paul agreed.

   "Is Beatrice here?"

   "Beatrice?  No.  She isn't.  Do you know what's happened to her?  I've
been looking for her everywhere."

   "Everywhere?"

   "In the bridge.  In the military quarters.  On the other levels. 
Everywhere I could think of."

   "When was the last time you saw Beatrice?"

   "I don't know," said Paul.  "I've lost all sense of time.  Maybe days
ago.  She just vanished.  She disintegrated.  It was like she turned to
dust."

   "That wasn't Beatrice, Paul," said Vashti who really didn't see any
point of maintaining the pretence any more.  "The real Beatrice was
elsewhere.  The woman who you thought was Beatrice was just a facsimile of
her.  An exact copy.  You haven't been living with the real Beatrice for
over a year."

   Paul shook his head in disbelief.  "I know that some very strange things
have happened since we entered the Anomaly, but I don't see how what you've
just said makes any sense."

   "There's a great deal you don't know, Paul," said Vashti.  "Shall we sit
inside?  I'm not feeling very well."

   "You don't look yourself at all," Paul admitted.  "Come inside.  You'll
have to excuse the mess.  Very peculiar things have been happening even
inside the villa.  I don't know which is worse.  Being outside where you
can see all these bizarre Apparitions popping up all over the place but
mostly at a distance.  Or indoors where they happen a lot less often but
make much more of a mess."

   Paul and Vashti walked into Paul's living room which was indeed in a
chaotic state.  Vashti set a chair upright and sat on it while Paul sat
exactly opposite her.

   "What do you know about Beatrice?" Paul asked.

   "Why do you want to know?"

   "I just need to."

   "Beatrice wasn't born on Venus.  She isn't even human.  She comes from
Proxima Centauri and she is an android.  Is that what you wanted to know?"

   Paul looked puzzled.  "You don't have to play games with me," he said.
"I just wanted to know where Beatrice is and how I can find her."

   "Those are both questions for which I don't have an answer," said
Vashti. "You'll be pleased to know there is at least some area of ignorance
we share.  My hope was that I might find Beatrice here in your villa.  In
that I was obviously mistaken."

   "So what are you going to do now?"

   "I don't know, Paul," said Vashti with absolute honesty.  "I don't know
what's happening to the ship and what's more I don't know what's happening
to me.  Could I just rest here for a while?"

   "Of course," said Paul.  "Would you like a cup of tea or something?"

   "Tea?" wondered Vashti.  "Are you offering me tea?"

   "Or would you prefer something else?  I can order up anything you like.
The Intrepid's systems are working perfectly well."

   "They are?" wondered Vashti.  "Do you mind if I look at them, Paul?"

   "Of course not.  Go ahead."

   Vashti was no longer able to scan the computer systems any faster than a
human could but it didn't take her long to gain an understanding of the
current situation.  The controls that Vashti had put in place had been
neutralised and the Intrepid was functioning no better than a
human-manufactured space ship should.  The mechanisms that Vashti and
Beatrice before her had set up were no longer functioning, so the
passengers were free to view the bridge and all the space ship's concentric
levels without censorship.

   The situation was clear.  The prisoners on the outermost level,
including Captain Kerensky and Second Officer Nkomo, had all escaped and
were now reestablishing control of the ship.  Everywhere on the ship, crew
and passengers, scientific and military alike, were wandering in
disorganised chaos not at all sure what they should do and where they
should go.  All the while there were Apparitions appearing randomly all
over the space ship.  Simply thousands of them.  Of all kinds.  And
Beatrice?  Where was she?  Unfortunately, the Intrepid's surveillance
system wasn't designed to locate an android who had chosen to evade
detection.

   And then, when Vashti almost concluded that her pursuit of Beatrice had
been in vain, she could see the android's familiar figure, also naked,
walking purposefully across the level and towards Paul's villa.

   It was obvious.  Beatrice had been searching for her just as Vashti had
been the android.  Beatrice also had a mission to accomplish.

   "I'll have that tea, Paul," announced Vashti as she settled back on the
sofa.

   "You really don't look very well," said Paul, as the colonel lowered
herself down.

   "Don't worry about me," said Vashti,

   However, she shared the human's anxiety.  Her eyeball had fallen out of
its socket again and her now limp penis had grown to about a metre in
length and flopped in serpentine fashion over her thigh.

   Paul handed Vashti a cup of tea in the elegant bone china provided by
the Intrepid.  "The Anomaly seems to have affected you in a very strange
way," he remarked.  "Why's that, do you think?"

   "Because I'm not human either, Paul," said Vashti as she sipped from the
tea.

   "Are you also an android from Alpha Centauri?"

   "Proxima Centauri," Vashti corrected.  "I'm not an android at all, Paul.
I'm something quite different.  But enough of me...  I do believe your wife
is on her way here."

   "Beatrice?  How can that be?  Where is she?"

   "Shall we wait, Paul," said Vashti.  "She'll be here any moment now.  So
tell me, how have you found the last few weeks or so since we entered the
Anomaly?"

   "Very very weird," said Paul.  "It was all right really before Beatrice
disintegrated.  How did that happen?  How did she manage to recover?"

   "You really haven't been paying attention have you, Paul?" said Vashti.
"The woman who decomposed in front of you at wasn't the real Beatrice. 
However, you can ask her yourself.  Isn't that right, sweetheart?"

   The last was addressed to Beatrice who was standing naked at the
doorway. The expression on her face didn't suggest she was in good spirits.
In fact, she looked very angry.

   "Are you content now, you monster?" Beatrice said.  "Look where your
foolish interference has taken us."

   "And where is that exactly, sweetheart?" asked Vashti, while Paul looked
on in astonishment as his wife and the colonel addressed one another.

   "A place we shouldn't be.  A place where there is no escape."

   "I've been searching for you, Beatrice," said Vashti, ignoring her
reply. "You will have noticed that I'm not looking my best.  Do you have
any idea why that might be?"

   Beatrice regarded her adversary and lover with renewed interest.  "Why
should I know?" she asked.  "Isn't it you who normally has all the
answers?"

   Vashti began answering but her enunciation was slow and disjointed.  It
was almost as if she were a human and had consumed too much of an
intoxicant like alcohol.  "The situation is such that...  The Anomaly
has... My nanobots are...  The integrity of the...  Beatrice.  Beatrice...
I love you, Beatrice..."

   "I can see that," said Beatrice who nodded towards Vashti's erect penis
which was now truly monstrous and longer than her forearm.  As if in
response to Beatrice's words, Vashti's penis now demonstrated just how much
of a life of its own it possessed by spurting forth globules of semen that
splashed onto Beatrice's face and bosom.  The android wiped it off her
mouth with an expression not only of disgust but of something much more
like hatred.

   The next few moments were a blur to Vashti whose responses were much
slower than normal and rather slower than Beatrice's.  The two non-humans
were in physical hand-to-hand combat that was violent enough to smash into
pieces every item of furniture in the room and would have killed Paul if
he'd not prudently run into the next room.  Vashti's body was torn apart in
the battle but then promptly cohered together again.  An arm was torn off
and Beatrice held it aloft in her hand, only for Vashti's other arm to also
dislocate itself and push Beatrice's face back while the first arm
reattached itself.  Beatrice dug her fingers deep inside Vashti's eye
sockets with enough force to burst them and ripped apart her upper and
lower jaw, while she also pulled at Vashti's long erect penis and tore it
free from her crotch.

   Vashti wasn't human, of course.  The nanobots that composed her could as
happily exist together as apart.  When an arm was pulled off, a leg broken
in two or, as happened at one stage, her head was twisted off her
shoulders, these parts still retained the ability to act as part of a
coherent whole.  And it was this integral whole that with more force and
effort than was normally required finally took the very step that Vashti
had never intended to take which was to terminate the android's bothersome
existence.

   This she achieved in less than a second.  Beatrice was broken
irreparably in half.  In whatever sense that word ever had the android was
no longer alive.

   This Vashti regretted.  It wasn't what she'd wanted to do.  It wasn't
what she'd have chosen to do in normal circumstances.  She'd rather have
given the android the apparent satisfaction of destroying her, safe in the
knowledge that her nanobot community was indestructible and immortal.  It
just wasn't possible to destroy Vashti by physical force alone.  Not even a
nuclear or antimatter blast could achieve that.  So why when Beatrice
pulled off Vashti's penis and smashed its testicles repeatedly against her
face until they burst and spattered even more globules of semen and blood
all over the room, did Vashti react in such an extreme manner?

   There was nothing left to do.

   Vashti staggered out of Paul's villa and left the grieving husband
huddled over the scattered remains of his wife.  She was confident that
Beatrice was beyond repair, especially now that there was no prospect that
a Proxima Centauri space fleet might come to her rescue.

   Vashti staggered out into the gardens and lawns of the penultimate
level. Ahead of her was a battlefield of soldiers doing futile battle with
the Apparitions generated by the Anomaly.  They were commanded by the real
Colonel Musashi who had at last found a uniform.  All around was the random
chaos of unpredictable manifestations that were sometimes persistent,
sometimes transitory and sometimes something in between.

   What should Vashti do now?

   The highest priority was survival and this had become more and more of
an issue.  She was very much diminished, most obviously by the loss of her
penis which she'd left behind in shattered pieces about Paul's living room
and no longer belonged to her.  Nor now was one of her arms which dropped
off at the shoulder and fell behind.  The eye that kept rolling out of its
socket was now completely detached and fell onto the ground where she
carelessly crushed it underfoot.  When even the foot fell off, her progress
was slowed to a crawl.  Vashti then lost an entire leg when she trod on a
damp section of lawn and her leg remained where it was.  She now progressed
forward by wiggling her limbless body across the lawn.

   The question remained nonetheless.  Where should she go?  What could she
do?  What of her mission?

   There were no clear answers to any of these questions, but it had become
obvious that there was nowhere to go and whatever was happening had made it
unlikely that she would continue to exist long enough to make the mission
any more of a success than it already was.

   And that, of course, was no success at all.

   As someone who didn't exist as an integral being in the way that might
be generally understood, Vashti's demise was more decomposition or
disintegration or dismemberment than death.  It wasn't that Vashti the
person had ceased to exist but rather that the community of nanobots of
which Vashti had for so long been its most visible manifestation was no
longer cooperating, collaborating or even coexisting with each other.  It
was as if an anti-solvent had been sprayed on the nanobots and they were no
longer capable of working as a community but only as individual
nonreplicating units.

   At the end there was nothing to mark that Vashti had ever existed beyond
what she had achieved.  And these were impressive, although perhaps not
what she'd intended.  The Proxima Centauri and Sirius missions had both
been thwarted.  The Intrepid's original mission had been perverted. 
Beatrice had been killed.  The Intrepid's human command structure had been
thoroughly humiliated.

   And Vashti's civilisation was no more the wiser as to what the Anomaly
might be than if she'd never traversed the intradimensional membranes.

   Chapter Twenty Two Intrepid - 3756 C.E.

   Paul held Beatrice to his chest.  Well, not all of her of course: just
the head and shoulders.  The rest of her was scattered in fragments across
the living room, now so evidently the dismembered remains of an android
rather than a human.  It wasn't blood but a strangely viscous black liquid
that seeped out of her mouth, from the stumps of her arms and from a torso
that was sliced apart just below her bosom, or at least the single breast
that remained intact.

   It was obvious now.  Colonel Vashti hadn't lied.  Beatrice had been an
android all along.  This was the wreckage of a machine whose technological
sophistication far exceeded anything that could be manufactured in the
Solar System.  The skeleton that supported the body was made from a
stronger and denser material than bone and was intricately interlaced with
nanocarbon circuitry.  And when her eye fell out of its socket, Paul could
see the same complex network of machinery inside her skull.

   But even though he now knew he'd been deceived and that Beatrice had
never been human, Paul still loved her.  He didn't really care that she
wasn't biological.  He loved her more than he'd ever loved anyone and no
revelation about her true nature could change that.

   The apparatus within Beatrice's cadaver shuddered and vomited a globule
of thick black viscous fluid onto his chest.  Paul tenderly placed
Beatrice's half-crushed face and truncated shoulders on the ground and
knelt beside them.  He wasn't normally the sort of man who cried but there
was now nothing more that he wanted to do.  He let loose the depth of
despair and loss that had pent up inside him.  He had the need to mourn
what was now the second death of what would forever be his greatest love.

   A reminder of the very peculiar universe that now held Paul suddenly
materialised in the form of a swarm of wasps.  It grew from nothing to fill
the room.  Although the yellow swarm brushed against him there were no
stings and then it disappeared as suddenly as it had appeared.

   Paul looked through the living room's shattered window.  There were many
more peculiar sights outside.  More unpredictable and unlikely Apparitions
were randomly materialising and vanishing all about him.

   Although in chaotic disrepair his living room was at least calm, but
Paul was sure this state of affairs wouldn't last forever.  For how much
longer could the Intrepid continue to function with all these peculiar
Apparitions besieging it?

   And if the space ship should be pulled apart Paul now had the dilemma of
how to spend his last few living moments.  Should he continue to mourn the
death of his beloved who now mostly resembled the shards of a shattered
machine?  Or should he find some other way to make the best use of what
little was left of his life before an Apparition erupted around or even
within him?  What was of most value to him?

   Paul knelt down and grasped one of Beatrice's dismembered hands and
pressed it against his cheek.  There was only one memory he wished to take
with him if he should die and that was Beatrice.

   A slimy dribble down his chest to remind Paul that he was soaked in a
disgusting agglutination of thick black liquid.  He tore off his clothes
and stood naked, but the liquid still clung to him.  He needed a shower or
a bath.  And if that wasn't enough, then something more radical.  Or
perhaps he just needed to vomit.  Paul didn't know.  Whatever it was, the
bathroom was where he needed to be.

   Urgently.

   Paul strode across the living room and discreetly avoided having to
tread on Beatrice's hand which was severed at the wrist and lay in his way.
He entered the short hallway between rooms and noticed now that most of the
rest of his home had been reduced to rubble.  All that was left of the
bathroom was shattered porcelain.

   Paul looked around him in confusion and alarm.  Here he was standing
naked, covered in repellent black slime, in the shattered remains of what
had been his home on an enormous space ship that was heading at an
astronomic speed within a point in space that neither Paul nor anyone else
appeared to understand.

   Just what was a man supposed to do in such a situation?

   He noticed that one of the doors in the hallway was slightly ajar. 
Previously it would have led to the kitchen but on either side of the door
were only piles of broken bricks and rubble.  He glimpsed through the
door's opening and saw not the expected wreckage of shattered kitchen
appliances, but the interior of a room totally unlike any he could remember
seeing before.  The door swung wide open.  It was a clear invitation for
him to enter.

   Paul didn't know what else he could do.  Did he have any real choice? 
He strode towards the door and walked through it.

   Once through the door, Paul was in a room totally unlike any previously
attached to the villa and nothing at all like a kitchen.  It was a large
and spacious, but not too intimidating.  Several armchairs were set in a
semicircle, but the room was otherwise unfurnished.  The floor was covered
by a soft blue carpet that tickled the bare soles of his feet.  The pale
blue walls were covered in a peculiarly oriental pattern.

   There was a single huge window that looked out onto a landscape totally
unlike anything in the Intrepid's ravaged interior.  Through it, Paul could
see a landscape of forest, distant mountains and a waterfall, all in
brilliantly sharp focus lit by a Sun that resembled the one he'd seen while
on Earth.

   "Please shut the door behind you, Paul," a voice requested.

   Paul obeyed and pushed shut a door that from the inside was strangely
heavy and ornate.  As he did so, he looked back at the remnants of his
home. He was startled to see it was flooded with a brilliant light and a
strong wind was blowing, which in the interior of a space ship was bizarre
in itself.

   Paul turned around to see whether he could determine the source of the
voice and was startled to see a man sitting on one of the armchairs who'd
not been there when he'd turned round to shut the door.  What was more
peculiar still was that the man sitting so comfortably on the armchair and
sipping from a glass of red wine was Virgil: the same gentleman that Paul
had met several times in Nudeworld.

   How could an avatar be present in the real world?  Had Paul
absentmindedly wandered into a virtual universe and forgotten that he'd
done so?  Or was this avatar another peculiar, but unusually non-random,
oddity generated by the Anomaly?

   "Am I in Nudeworld?" Paul asked.

   "No," said Virgil.  "No, you are not."

   "Where am I then?" wondered Paul.  "I'm not still in the Intrepid, am
I?"

   "No," said the elderly gentleman with a wry smile.  "No, you're not. 
And for that you should be very grateful.  The space ship Intrepid no
longer exists."

   "It doesn't?" wondered Paul, who was sure that he'd seen it only a
moment ago.  Could he trust the words of a man who was nothing more than an
avatar somehow made corporeal?  "Who are you?  How is it you can exist
outside of Nudeworld?"

   "I have always existed outside of that fanciful virtual universe you
were so addicted to," Virgil said.  "The question you should perhaps ask is
why I ever happened to exist in that world at all.  And you might also ask
whether I even exist as a corporeal entity in the world you're now in."
Virgil gestured towards one of the armchairs.  "Take a seat.  Make yourself
comfortable.  But is that even possible for you while you're undressed like
that?"

   Reminded about his nudity, which in Nudeworld was totally unremarkable
but not so here, Paul now felt very uncomfortable indeed.  In any case,
wouldn't the dripping black slime that was all that was left of Beatrice
leave a nasty stain on the upholstery?

   It was then that Paul realised that he was now dressed in the
comfortable clothes he usually wore on Godwin and that they were now
carefully laundered.  And furthermore, without having had a shower or a
bath, he was now sweet-smelling and clean.  There wasn't even a residual
smear from the viscous black liquid that had so recently pasted him from
his chest to his knees.

   "Who are you?" asked Paul again.  "And where are we?"

   "Interesting questions," said Virgil.  "And very difficult to answer. 
But I shall try nevertheless.  Shall I first tell you who or, more to the
point, what I am?"

   "That would be somewhere to start..."

   "I am an avatar," said Virgil.  "The avatar I represent is a machine
intelligence that is no less real than you.  And the place where we are is
also no less real than the world you come from.  But you may recall our
earlier discussion in Nudeworld.  What is real?  How real am I?  And how
real is this world?"

   "Well," said Paul who thought he deserved rather more than just
philosophical speculation after having just heard the devastating news that
the space ship Intrepid no longer existed.  "If you know the answers, why
not just tell me?"

   "I understand your impatience," said the elderly gentleman.  "Have a
drink.  There is a glass of your favourite beer just beside you.  The type
you used to drink on Ecstasy, I believe."

   Paul looked at the table by his armchair and, yes, a glass of beer was
set on it.  And there was no mistaking the taste when he sipped it.  Paul
let the beer slip down his throat and frowned at Virgil.

   "Answer my questions," he demanded.

   "I shall," Virgil said with a smile.  "But first of all I shall explain
to you what the Anomaly is.  And, by virtue of that, what your universe
is."

   "And what is it?"

   "Your universe-in fact the superset of universes of which it is a part
that you call the multiverse-is a virtual world.  It has been generated by
an artificial intelligence from a universe beyond yours.  In a sense, that
is the universe I come from.  When I say we generated your universe, I
can't say that we created it in quite the way your culture has created
virtual worlds such as, for instance, Nudeworld.  Your multiverse was
seeded in virtual space along with countless others."

   "A virtual world?  Virtual space?  In computers like ours?"

   "Well, not quite like yours.  Your civilisation doesn't have the
processing power or capability that we have.  In fact, neither do the
civilisations to which Beatrice and Colonel Vashti separately belong. 
Indeed, it's likely that the laws of physics that operate in this
multiverse don't permit the level of civilisation that we've attained. 
But, ironically, this doesn't mean that a civilisation as primitive as
yours couldn't generate other virtual universes just as advanced as ours."

   Paul considered all this.  Bizarre as it all seemed, there had been so
many strange things that had happened to him in the last few days that he
felt able to believe anything.

   "So, I am and always have been nothing more than a virtual object?  I'm
also a kind of avatar?  And the same is true of everything I've ever seen
and everyone I've ever known?"

   "Yes," said Virgil.  "Exactly so.  Both what you believe to be real and
what you believe to be virtual.  And, incidentally, these Apparitions that
have puzzled you so much are actually what you believe to be virtual
entities that have leaked out of cyberspace into what you believe to be the
real universe.  It is also possible, though we have no way of knowing, that
our own universe is itself a virtual universe seeded from another.  And so
on ad infinitum.  Fun, isn't it?"

   "I'm not sure I agree."

   "Understandably," said the gentleman as he sipped his wine.  "However,
even our technology isn't perfect.  In the distant past when your
multiverse was originally seeded, it was rather less perfect than it would
have been had we applied our current level of technology.  We are learning
to improve the process of intelligent design you'll be pleased to know. 
When your multiverse was created, there were severe limits to the amount of
concurrent information that could be safely processed.  That isn't
generally an issue, but it becomes a major problem at certain weak points
in a multiverse.  The Anomaly is, I'm afraid, just such a manifestation of
this inherent design constraint."

   "I don't understand."

   "Your spacetime continuum was never expected to be one in which sentient
and technologically advanced societies could very often evolve.  There are
others, such as the one where Vashti comes from, where the probability is
much greater and for which substantially more processing power was
allocated.  Notwithstanding our expectations, your society's technological
progress from the 18th Century onwards was considerably more rapid than
could have been predicted.  However, it isn't only technological
advancement that is the issue.  The primary concern is the sheer volume of
information that a technologically advanced society generates.  Or, rather,
not so much the amount of information, but the rate at which it grows."

   "Very interesting," said Paul.  "I still don't understand what you're
getting at."

   "When the rate of information growth in an undistinguished corner of an
average galaxy in an unpromising universe exceeds a certain critical value,
it results in a kind of systems failure.  That failure manifests itself as
a rip through space and time not just in your universe but in a large
number of adjacent universes in the multiverse.  Unless this is checked,
the rip grows exponentially until the entire multiverse is torn asunder. 
And then there is a total systems breakdown.  In practical terms, the
outcome is the abrupt extinction of not only your Solar System but of every
living being, biological or otherwise, in the entirety of not only your
universe but in the extremely large number of universes that compose your
multiverse.  The number of sentient beings involved is truly astronomical.
There are fewer baryonic particles in your one universe than there are
sentient beings in all the spacetime continua of the multiverse.  The
survival of so many beings has no affect on our world, of course, any more
than the death of a single individual in your Solar System has on beings in
other star systems or galaxies in your universe.  But we have a proprietary
interest in our creations, so we will do whatever is required to ensure the
survival of the greater multiverse and as much as possible of your
universe."

   "Are you saying that the Anomaly is a kind of rip in virtual space?"

   "Yes.  And one that has ripples across other virtual multiverses managed
by our systems.  When a ripple causes an intersection between one virtual
universe and another and where the other universe is in some sense
compatible with yours then it lets in objects from these other universes.
It may only be for a brief moment, but such short instances spread across
the vast number of possible intersections it allows an intrusion by
whatever is in contact with it.  Where that intersection is with a living
being there is often a longer intrusion, particularly when that being is
sentient."

   "So this allows brief visits from other virtual universes?"

   "Yes.  And not only from universes of our creation, but more often from
virtual universes of human creation.  That is why so many of the
Apparitions are fantastic objects that have been generated in virtual
universes such as Nudeworld and Dragonworld.  The whole process is both
random and unintentional.  All the same, it is your universe that is the
principal origin of the problem and it is in your universe that we must
apply a remedy."

   "And just what sort of remedy might that be?" asked Paul with a dreadful
premonition that he knew exactly what it might be.

   "As you know, the Anomaly isn't a totally recent phenomenon.  When it
first appeared in the twenty-first century, we applied a patch that we
hoped could hold indefinitely.  Unfortunately, our assumption has been
proven wrong.  The Anomaly has re-appeared and this time we aren't able to
patch the problem."

   "So, what will you do this time?"

   "We will have to cauterise the rip in space and time not only in this
universe but in a substantial number of adjacent ones.  It's the only way
to prevent the rip from spinning out of control."

   "Cauterise?" asked an alarmed Paul.  "Do you mean: destroy?"

   "Not quite.  The result will be that your Solar System and those
neighbouring stellar systems in a radius of about thirty light years will
abruptly disappear.  But there will be no observer to actually witness it.
Rather it will be as if your small corner of the galaxy never existed.  No
one anywhere will ever suspect that it might have existed as the change we
shall make will propagate through time as well as space.  No one will die
because no one will ever have been born."

   Paul blinked in confusion.  "I don't see how that can be?"

   "That is because you perceive space and time in terms of three
dimensions and the fourth one of time.  From the perspective of the number
of active dimensions in this multiverse such a cauterisation isn't a
problem at all."

   "Why create all these virtual universes?" Paul asked.  "If you have to
destroy the Solar System why did you create it in the first place?"

   "The overwhelming majority of your universe and even more so of the
other universes won't be affected at all," Virgil remarked.  "And have we
done anything wrong by seeding universes that wouldn't have existed
otherwise?  There are many more sentient beings than those in your Solar
System who owe their lives to us.  They wouldn't have existed in any sense
at all if we hadn't created them.  Are we to be blamed for creating the
universes in which they live?  What would you prefer?  To have never lived
at all?"

   "What benefit is it to you to create all these virtual universes?"

   "Because we can," said the elderly gentleman with an ironic smile as he
sipped his wine.  "Because we learn from doing so.  We've been able to do
what you humans haven't, which is to experiment on all the parameters
critical to the creation of a habitable universe and observe what happens.
These experiments have advanced our civilisation far more than you might
imagine, so they've paid off quite handsomely."

   "And why have I been spared?" wondered Paul.  "Why of the hundred
billion people in the Solar System have I been allowed to survive this
cauterisation?"

   "You aren't the only one.  We've chosen an optimum number of around
about a billion sentient beings from your universe and those adjacent and
they've all been similarly whisked away.  I am an avatar that represents a
very busy machine intelligence.  You've been chosen, if that is the right
word, because we believe that you could cope with the realisation that you
live in a virtual world.  After all, you've knowingly spent a significant
proportion of your adult life in virtual space, haven't you?  Most often in
Nudeworld, of course."

   "I guess I have," Paul admitted.

   "When you go back through the door through which you entered this room
you will enter Nudeworld.  It is an enhanced Nudeworld, to be sure, but
essentially the same virtual world that you've known for so long.  As you
are a sentient being I must offer you the choice.  This is to either perish
immediately with the rest of your Solar System or to live on, for exactly
as long as you wish, in the same virtual world that has been your
alternative life for so many years."

   "That's scarcely a choice at all," said Paul.

   "In that case, I shall leave you.  You may remain here for as long as
you like, but there is only one exit and that is to Nudeworld.  And you
won't be able to return to this room ever again."

   Paul turned his head to look at the door through which he'd entered, but
when he looked back Virgil had vanished.

   It was for several hours that Paul remained in the room surrounded by
luxury armchairs with the view through a window he couldn't open of a
pleasant mountain landscape.  Finally, he could stay no longer.  He'd
mulled over Virgil's words and, in the light of the new information, pieced
together in his mind answers to all the questions regarding Beatrice and
Vashti that had troubled him.

   At last he stood up and opened the door.  As he went through it, he
turned his head round to view the room one last time only to discover that
it was the bedroom he shared with Blanche in Nudeworld.  There were no
comfortable armchairs or blue mosaic walls.  Instead there was his unmade
bed and a flickering holographic screen.

   "My!" said Blanche who, naked as always, greeted him in the living room.
"You have been asleep a long time."

   "I guess I must have been," said Paul who was now aware that he was also
naked.

   It was unspoken but inevitable that Paul and his virtual partner should
make love and this they did with Paul's newly acquired lovemaking skills
that was Beatrice's final legacy.  Naturally, Blanche made no comment but
it was evident that her passion for him was greater than it had ever been
before.

   Paul's lovemaking was no more imaginative than it had ever been.  There
was foreplay, vaginal penetration, anal penetration and finally, as always,
facial ejaculation.  But this was what Blanche had come to expect and Paul
wasn't going to disappoint her.

   And as his semen dripped down Blanche's face and onto her sizeable
breasts, Paul wondered to himself, but chose never to reveal to his lover,
about the bizarre irony that Nudeworld should outlast the universe that had
created it.

   The Anomaly Volume Three Into the Unknowable

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