The slim young man messaged his qualifications to Stefan Rix's fone, but he didn't bother to look at them.

'I don't need you,' he said to the man. 'The AI can fly the ship.'

'It's Syndicate policy, sir,' the man said. 'This is a Syndicate ship, and therefore must be piloted by a designated Syndicate pilot with at least a Level 3B licence. Of course, you're right, the AI really does the flying, but traffic control won't let us launch without one of us being a dedicated pilot....' He trailed off. Both men knew about the infernal safety regulations of the Syndicate, especially when one of its ships was at stake.

The ship that would take Stefan Rix to the Shepherd Moon was some special transport organised by Zeus. It was fast and serviceable, and bore the bureaucratic designation HY-146 rather than some fanciful name. They were at Clavius spaceport—not at the part of it the public used, of course, but at a private docking bay normally engaged by noble Elites who preferred discreet access. There were a number of other yachts parked beside theirs, all owned, no doubt, by Elites too rich for their own good and who thought Rix, as a Lunar, beneath their contempt. He had toyed for a while with stealing one of their ships and using it to transport himself to Shepherd Moon, but of course that would be dangerously stupid. He needed the Zeus sub-routine's help, and if it insisted on supplying a Syndicate ship then that was what had to be done. It was a logical enough cover: the Shepherd Moon itself was a Syndicate vessel, and it made sense that it should be visited by another. Zeus was hiding things even from itself.

'I don't have much choice, then,' said Rix, and the young man smiled.

'Don't worry, sir. I'll get you there. Ready?'

There was no one else around; they'd passed through security and were alone on the ramp. The door of the ship was open, a pale blue light spilling out. Rix balked at the entrance. It was the first time he'd been off the Moon. He regarded the visible part of the ship's hull and found himself swallowing a sudden rush of moisture in his mouth.

'In the event—' he said.

The young man grinned. 'In the event, as you say, we'll suffer a long and arduous death from asphyxiation or whatever. But don't worry. That sort of thing doesn't happen these days. Much.'

Rix forced himself up the ramp onto HY-146. Thankfully there were two separate cabins, although they were mere holes in the wall, scarcely bigger than the bunks they contained. There was a tiny bathroom cubicle and a bridge containing two seats, an AI panel and nothing more. The ship wasn't capable of Void, so it would take a couple of days to reach Shepherd Moon, wherever it was.

The door closed and a male voice came over the comlink giving details for launch. The pilot ensured Rix was strapped in securely and grinned again when Rix swore at him. It was embarrassing to be coddled like this. However, when launch came it was an anticlimax: with the inertial dampers engaged there was no sensation at all of departing.

'Smooth as silk,' said the pilot, who was already stretched full-length on his bed. He hadn't even bothered to strap himself into a chair. Rix swore and slapped the buckles that confined him. He stood upright and continued to feel no sensation at all. While they were under acceleration the AI adjusted the inertial dampers to give them a pleasant ride. In a few minutes, once their trajectory was finalised, no doubt they would be switched off to conserve power and they would be in microgravity. Rix saw the ominous hand-holds and grips arranged around the walls of the craft to enable them to manoeuvre within the cabin.

He sat down again and removed his gun holster which was way too high and cutting into his shoulder. The pilot saw the motion.

'I haven't yet been informed of your mission.' For the first time doubt had crept into the young man's voice.

Ignoring him, Rix activated his hedfone. According to the plan, the Shepherd Moon was at some predetermined place within the asteroid belt, waiting his arrival. The Helot named Monk was now in charge and the Sape crew dead. All that was needed was Rix's presence to give the co-ordinates to secure the appropriate asteroid and then the final numbers to put the ship on its terminal course.

The asteroid was named 1170 Shiva. Rix had heard the name somewhere before. He used a keydisc attached to his wrist to search the fone so he didn't have to verbalise in the pilot's presence. Information appeared before his eyes as his optic nerves were directly stimulated by the hedfone. A quick search turned up the information: Shiva, or Siva as it was often spelled, was a Hindu god, also known as Mahadiva the Destroyer. How appropriate. But more than just a destroyer of worlds: also a transformer of the soul and the anachronistic. There was a picture of the god on the file, head crowned with a crescent moon.

Perhaps Zeus, in all its cybernetic glory, was more poetic than Rix had thought. Of course, the asteroid's name had been decided following its discovery ages ago, but maybe the name had been some influence in its choice.

'When we get to the Shepherd Moon,' he said, 'You turn this ship around and head back home, understood?'

'Those are my instructions.' The pilot sat up and seemed more serious. 'I don't want to interfere with Syndicate business.'

'And you say nothing about this flight.'

'I assure you, it's not even logged.' The man's eyes flicked to the gun holster still visible under Rix's clothes.

Rix smiled, removed the holster with the gun and set it down on the floor. 'All right. There you are. Happy now?'

'I don't know why you have a gun anyway. We're in space. A bullet would go through a hull like...well, like something pretty easy.'

'You better not give me cause to fire it then,' he sighed.

The Moon appeared in the window, dropping behind as the AI accelerated the ship. A couple of attitude jets fired and for a moment Rix was pushed into his seat as a new trajectory established. He clutched the desk in front of him, then let go when he saw the grin returning to the pilot's face.

I wish the AI would warn us if it wants to do that, he thought.

Rix used his keydisc to move through the rest of the document. Rendezvous, co-ordinates, it was all there. So simple an AI could do it.

'AI,' he intoned out loud. 'Do we have Message Stick access on this ship?'

'There is Metcalf-Levington Data Bridge link to the MS system at Newton Crater on the Moon. Messages from this ship can be relayed through that at a per kilobyte cost of—'

'I get it: the answer's yes. Set it up.'

'Authority will be required for use of the system.'

He entered a security code.

'Authority is valid.'

Of course it was valid. The code was given to him by Zeus itself. Why did AI's have to constantly state the blindingly obvious?

'Who are you going to talk to?' the pilot said, still on his bunk, but he'd settled back to look out of the window.

'Ordering some takeaway food.'

'I hate Italian.'

There would be some hours' time lag by conventional comlink, which was limited to the speed of light, between Shepherd Moon and HY-146. Message Stick, which could short-cut through Void, would render the time lag down to seconds. But the power drain was criminal and the necessity of relaying through the MS system at Newton jeopardised security. Zeus would disapprove; Rix didn't give a shit.

He entered a message into his fone and sent it out. The MS system would track down the Shepherd Moon and let him know when—if—a reply came back.

ON COURSE. ARRIVAL IMMINENT. PLEASE ADVISE STATUS OF CARGO FACILITIES.

He added his personal code identity which Zeus had set up. Ursula. Where the fuck did it get that?

'We're coasting,' said the pilot from his bunk.

Rix could feel it: the ship had switched off its engines and was flying through space at some unguessable speed. The Moon had vanished after the trajectory change and there was nothing but darkness outside and the stars were invisible against the glare of the ship's internal lights. But it sunk home to Rix just how far out in space they now were. He was further from home than he'd ever been. A feeling of loneliness, of emptiness, filled him. The gap of vacuum between the ship and the Moon seemed like a deep hole into which he could fall at any moment. There seemed no reason at all that the ship should continue on its path, and every reason to believe it should plummet down, down, into the darkness forever.

From the pilot's bunk came the sound of snoring.