James was not called to testify until noon the next day when he was exhausted from waiting. To be precise, he was first told to return to the pilots’ sleeping quarters after morning formation and not to speak to anyone, and then to report to squadron headquarters, which turned out to be on C Deck and wait. Entered the outer office, he saw only Mike Hancock. The Investigation Commission had not disturbed anyone else from B-Flight, except, probably, the command staff. Mike had been called first and, after testifying behind closed doors, had left, apparently by another route, for he had not appeared in the outer office when a grim-faced Flying Officer, unknown to James, called his name.

The room he entered reminded him of the mission control centre of the training spacecraft. But instead of control stations with transparent screens, there were ordinary tables with monitors along the side bulkheads. James noticed a middle-aged woman in a uniform with a Warrant Officer patch at the last of these tables. The farthest and largest table at the end of the room, close to the rear bulkhead, was occupied by the members of the Commission. There were no monitors before them, just a pile of tablets.

The Flying Officer approached the table, said something quietly, and stepped aside, gesturing for James to come closer. On the bulkhead, behind the Commission members, James noticed the Space Force emblem, with the flags of the Western Alliance countries on both sides and the Space Force banner on the right. Apparently, this whole entourage was intended to put anyone who entered here in a serious mood.

Following an unspoken order, James made two steps towards the table to report his arrival in due form but was overtaken by Squadron Leader Sawyer, seated in the centre that suggested he headed the Commission.

‘Astronaut Second Class Jenkins?’

‘Astronaut First Class, sir,’ he was corrected by a round-faced, blonde-haired officer with Flight Lieutenant patches on his shoulders whom James had never seen before.

Sawyer raised his eyebrows in surprise.

‘Really?’ Leaning slightly over the tablet he was holding, he scrolled down the screen. ‘…Space Force Flying Training School Number One…’ he muttered thoughtfully, ‘…fourth on the list… Well, why First Class?’ The Squadron Leader raised his head and looked at James questioningly as if he expected an answer, then turned to a third member of the Commission sitting to his right. This officer was also unknown to James. Instead of responding to the head of the Commission, he just shrugged his shoulders.

‘…The rank of Astronaut First Class,’ Sawyer continued, ‘is awarded to graduates of the Flying School –’

‘Agreed, that’s very unusual, sir,’ the round-faced officer interjected again. James wondered if this was Flight Lieutenant Moncroft of the Secret Service Tomyn had told him about. ‘We can request information from the school, of course, but I’m afraid we’re unlikely to get an answer soon.’

There was a pause for a while.

‘Alright,’ Sawyer put his tablet down on the table. ‘I think it’s not so important. I mean, in this case. We can roughly imagine Mr Jenkins’s qualifications…’ He glanced at his right neighbour, then at the round-faced officer. ‘…Squadron Leader Dutton and Flight Lieutenant Jennings have outlined the situation well enough, so I suppose we can move on…’ He looked at James again. ‘…Would you like to give us some explanations, Mr Jenkins?’

James was confused. He had thought he would be asked questions, which were always easier to answer than formulate on his own.

‘Excuse me, sir, are you interested in my rank or –’ he began, stopping before he could finish under the Squadron Leader’s strict eyes.

‘We’re most interested in your actions during the training flight,’ said Sawyer, ‘especially the final phase when your fighter almost collided with the transport craft.’ The Squadron Leader’s expression changed, becoming more annoyed than interested.

‘I guess… sorry… I must have been… er… distracted, sir... so I didn’t notice the transport… uh… sir…’ James completely forgot how to explain what had happened that day and said the first thing that came to mind, or what he had already told Jennings, and fell silent.

‘Go on.’ James felt Sawyer’s icy gaze on him.

No one of the Commission members kept records. Records were kept by the Warrant Officer at the side table. Out of his eye corner, James noticed her hunched over the tablet, diligently typing something, only stopping when there was a pause. He even thought, what for? All conversations were supposed to be recorded by microphones built into the bulkheads or tables, and probably video recording.

‘…Go on, Mr Jenkins,’ the Squadron Leader’s voice brought him back to reality.

‘Yes, sir… I… er… I’ve collected my mind, sir…’

‘Well, have you collected your mind now?’ The head of the Commission asked this question in an iron tone.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Very well, go on. We’re looking forward to it.’

James had to make a considerable effort. He could not retrieve from his memory the whole story he had prepared in advance, which seemed to him to be more or less coherent. He had to pick up the words again and put them together into sentences, just as he did in his head while lying on his bunk in the pilots’ sleeping quarters, waiting for the call. This made the story anything but coherent, and he could only hope that the story he was now telling was comprehensible, more or less. Eventually, he managed to pull himself together and describe more or less clearly all his actions from the moment he saw the transport ship on the virtual screen of his helmet.

‘…Then I activated the main engine to lift the fighter into a rendezvous orbit.’ He fell silent. None of the Commission members said a word for the next half minute.

‘Well, well,’ Sawyer began after a long pause, looking at James intensely. ‘Go on…’

James was confused again. It looked like the Commission members were waiting for him to continue. But he had absolutely no idea what else to say.

‘…or you have nothing more to say?’ Sawyer’s voice came to him as if from a distance.

‘No, sir,’ he murmured. ‘I’ve got nothing more to say.’

The Squadron Leader’s eyebrows rose slightly, but only for a second before they returned to their previous position.

‘I see.’ He took a deep breath, looked around at the other Commission members, and then turned back to James. ‘Were you aware of the transport craft or not, Mr Jenkins?’

‘Uh… yes, sir… er… I wasn’t, sir…’

James thought this was not true. He knew about the transport craft, but he had gotten that information not from the Squadron command staff but from another source that would be completely inappropriate to mention now. But then another thought popped into his head. Mission Control had to inform Mike, at least, as commander of the return group, about the transport craft. And if they did, he had to hear it. The only moment he could miss radio contact was after he had switched the receiver back to the main frequency, hoping to find out what was going on with Lewis’s fighter. Squadron Leader Sawyer’s next words confirmed his suspicion.

‘So you haven’t received the transmission from Mission Control?’ said he in a half questioning, half affirmative tone.

Try as he might, James could not find the right answer and simply shrugged his shoulders.

‘I see…’ Sawyer squeaked the words through his teeth. ‘And Sergeant Hancock hasn’t informed you?’

James shrugged again. He did not want to frame Mike but could not remember if the Sergeant had told him about the approaching transport. If he had, it might have been when James handed the receiver back, or he might have thought everyone had heard his radio traffic with Mission Control.

‘Mr Jenkins?’ Sawyer’s iron tone brought him back to reality.

‘I don’t know, sir,’ he muttered. ‘Maybe Mike… oops, I mean Sergeant Hancock informed me, I just didn’t pick up his transmission. Frequency interference… I guess… maybe…’

‘Understood,’ Sawyer pronounced slowly, but his intonation made it clear he understood nothing. ‘What about the telemetry, Mr Moncroft?’

James realised it was the same Moncroft. The Flight Lieutenant of Technical Services – formally Technical but really Secret – was already looking at one of the tablets, then unfolded a virtual screen over the table. All three began to look intently at the columns of numbers and graphs on the screen.

‘Hmm, everything seemed to be alright,’ Sawyer said again after a long pause. ‘Here…’ he ran his hand over the screen, ‘the manoeuvring thruster was engaged, here…’

Moncroft nodded in agreement. ‘Looks like that, sir,’ he said.

‘What about the collision warning system?’ the third member of the Commission, whose name James did not yet know, interjected. ‘It should have worked by now at this distance. Besides, the fighter’s artificial intelligence should detect the transport craft and change its trajectory by itself; that’s what it’s for, right?’

Warning system! – flashed through James’s head. He even flinched. A pulsating red rectangle appeared in his mind’s eye. He could see it clearly on the virtual screen of his pilot’s helmet, and he did not react to it, although he should have…

Moncroft, meanwhile, scrolled through the notes on the virtual screen with his hand, and then shook his head.

‘Neither the artificial intelligence,’ he said, ‘nor the warning system worked… according to this data… Is that possible?’ He said the last word interrogatively.

Sawyer leaned forward, looking intently at the screen. James even wondered what he was looking at there. The virtual screen that Moncroft had set up above the table and the tablets of the commission members showed only some diagrams and columns of numbers that were, at first glance, completely incomprehensible.

‘Mr Andrews?’ After a short pause, the Squadron Leader continued with a note of surprise, turning to his colleague on the right.

This man leaned forward, narrowed his eyes slightly, then shrugged and spread his arms. ‘Hmm… strange… very strange,’ he said slowly, ‘however, according to this data, it is.’

‘But it shouldn’t be,’ Sawyer said sternly.

‘Agreed, sir,’ Andrews spread his hands again. ‘We can assume… a total programme failure, or…’ he paused for a second, ‘both systems didn’t recognise the transport craft, like… I mean, identification failed. In that case, the fighter’s artificial intelligence could have mistaken the transport for a hostile target, so the warning –’

‘Artificial intelligence can be wrong,’ Sawyer interrupted with a furrowed brow. ‘How likely is that?’

Andrews shrugged silently.

‘…Well, well…’ Sawyer spoke again after a short pause, ‘as a variant, I’m ready to agree, but I can’t believe that something like that is possible nowadays. A hundred years ago, maybe, but now –’ He paused for a moment, then shrugged and continued, ‘On the other hand, what are pilots for? Among other things, to correct such errors, at least that’s what we thought… Anyway, we got the identification codes of the transport craft before the mission. Or maybe you didn’t have enough time to enter the codes into the on-board computer systems?’

‘That was not necessary, sir,’ Andrews responded. ‘Identification codes are required for Mission Control to obtain information on orbit parameters, speed, and the like. Our friend-foe identification systems are totally identical to those of the Space Agency.’

‘Yes, indeed. Just I –’ Sawyer paused, thinking again for a moment. ‘Wait… if I’m not mistaken, in case of the visual warning system failure, the sound warning system –’

‘You’re right, sir,’ said Andrews, ‘unless there has been a serious programme failure or complete system shutdown. In that case, the audio warning system might not work too… That’s very unlikely… but possible,’ he added after a short pause. Sawyer nodded and turned to Moncroft.

‘What about the flight data recorder?’ he asked.

The Secret Service officer picked up another tablet and dove into the notes.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

‘The audio signal –’ he paused, then shook his head negatively, ‘I don’t see anything, so that means the signal… wasn’t recorded. That could mean…’

James guessed that Tomyn had not only done brown the fighter’s system telemetry. The flight recorder data had also passed through his hands. He was even surprised by such foresight. Frankly, he had not only noticed a red warning rectangle pulsating on the virtual screen of his helmet, but he had also heard a sound signal. This signal was well known to him and so specific that it would be difficult to confuse it with anything else. He heard it and ignored it. It was a fault worse than any of the others.

While James pondered, Andrews rejoined the conversation. ‘…Unlike civilian vehicles,’ the officer’s words reached him, ‘all fighters have no automatic course-changing systems in case of a dangerous approach. It’s assumed that –’

Sawyer nodded in understanding.

‘Yes, indeed –’ he paused, moved his eyes up to the virtual screen, scanned two columns of numbers and turned to his neighbour on the right. ‘But the visual and audible warning systems are completely independent. If both systems weren’t working simultaneously, it could mean a serious malfunction. What do you think, Mr Andrews?’

‘Agreed, sir,’ Andrews said hastily. ‘It seems all the vehicles should be given another thorough test.’

‘No doubt, Flight Lieutenant,’ Sawyer leaned back in his chair and continued, after a short pause, ‘Well, let’s assume we’ve dealt with that… Please… well, more on that later. Any more questions for Mr Jenkins?’ He looked around at his colleagues. ‘Gentlemen?’

Moncroft and Andrews both sat silent and motionless. Then, the counterintelligence officer shook his head negatively.

Sawyer nodded. ‘In that case, that’s all, Astronaut Second… er… First Class,’ he said.

James did not immediately realise that he would not be interrogated again. ‘I… er… can I go… sir?’ he said after a few seconds. Sawyer raised his eyebrows slightly.

‘I’ve already told you, Mister. Dismissed.’

It was only after these words that James felt he was beginning to emerge from the state of prostration he had gradually fallen into during this interrogation.

‘Yes, sir,’ he muttered. ‘Sir, yes sir!’ he managed to pronounce the last words more clearly, only then realising that a simple ‘yes, sir’ might be sufficient. He turned and walked out, almost not noticing where he was going, still waiting for some kind of trick from the Commission or, he no longer knew who.

In the corridor – James could not remember how he had passed through the outer office – it seemed as if something heavy had fallen from his shoulders. He leaned against the bulkhead and probably stood motionless for a few minutes before regaining his senses. Corporal Tomyn had kept his promise and at least saved him from a charge of negligence, which could have resulted in a demotion, possibly followed by dismissal from flying and transfer to the auxiliary team. And, of course, it could have been worse. The lad knew what he was doing. He has not only cleaned up the telemetry. He has also taken care of the device that records all the sounds in the cockpit. So, if necessary, he could add something to both recordings that would give the commission a reason to accuse James of sabotage.

James breathed a sigh of relief but then remembered that he would have to pay the bill. He felt an intense disgust in his heart. He shook his head, trying to get the thoughts out of his mind. It worked for a moment, but not for long. He was involved in such an ugly story with no way out. Tomyn, undoubtedly a scoundrel, only took advantage of the situation that James had almost literally created with his own hands…

He was so preoccupied with these thoughts that he did not even notice Flight Sergeant Rowling, whom he encountered, as always at the most inopportune moment, at the very hatchway of the living compartment. She said nothing, however, and even though she could not help but notice James, she pretended not to have seen him. He reached the sleeping quarters and climbed onto his bunk. The clock on the intercom monitor showed that dinner was not yet over, but although he was hungry, he had no desire to go to the mess room. He had a problem to solve: how to get rid of Tomyn. But no matter how much he racked his brain, he could come up with nothing …

… The Investigation Commission completed its work on the same day. However, the Squadron Command was not going to announce the results. Just as it turned out, the spacecraft’s crew members were well aware of this. Oliver, who dropped in on the pilots’ sleeping quarters just before lights out, said that according to the Commission’s conclusion, the accident was caused by an explosion of the external circuit of the reactor cooling system. The reason for this, in turn, was identified as a manufacturing defect. Young Specialist 3rd Class expressed his mind not so clearly but generally understandably. The damaged fighter could not be repaired under current conditions, so the command decided to dismantle it for parts and dispose of the reactor, simply jettisoning it into space.

The technical preparation of the reserve fighter needed time. Lewis was temporarily transferred to Section 1 as Sergeant Hancock’s wingman, and Kevin temporarily became the Flight commander’s wingman. James and Steve, in turn, would have to fly as wingmen with Flight Lieutenant Jennings as leader on a rotating basis. ‘For the improvement of their skills’, explained Squadron Leader Dutton as he called all three to his cabin immediately after formation.

‘…Well, this is not a dismissal anyway,’ Steve said, patting James on the shoulder…

…The comprehensive inspection of the fighters, announced by the command earlier, continued. The technicians tested everything from the propulsion system to the electronics, and everyone was so busy that James and Steve were ordered to carry the memory blocks of their fighters’ on-board computers to a laboratory for testing. This time in a very official way, by special permission, in electronic form, of course, on a tablet, signed by the Flight commander…

James suggested using the lift. He did not want to drag heavy devices up the companionways. The Endurance crew members scurried through the corridors, paying no attention to the two Space Force pilots. From time to time, the intercoms came to life, keeping the engineers and technicians in touch with each other and the Main command centre. The spacecraft was preparing to leave for the edge of the solar system, accompanying the transport craft with the second part of the detector array that would be deployed somewhere in the orbit of a stone-ice rock that orbited the Sun at such a distance that its solar year dragged on just a little less than the existence of human civilisation on Earth.

It was hard to imagine that this planetoid, less than six hundred kilometres in diameter – James recalled the characteristics Oliver had shown him once – had passed its perihelion when agriculture was unknown to man. This celestial body was approaching its aphelion, the point in its orbit farthest from the Sun where sunlight takes more than 12 days to reach. It would take more than four months to get there from the orbit of Neptune, where the Endurance was, including the time for acceleration and deceleration. At maximum speed, the Endurance could cover the distance in less time. However, the gravitational grip of the planetoid could not be used at maximum speed, which required the maximum distance to decelerate. The planetoid was too small for its gravity to hold a spacecraft travelling at that speed. That was all James could remember of Mrs Hastings’s lectures at No 1 Space Force Training School.

‘Look where you’re heading!’ A harsh voice brought him back from the world of memories. A guy of average height, wearing wrinkled overalls and with at least three days’ worth of stubble on his chin appeared just before James. Somehow, he reminded him of Ben from the warehouse where he and Oliver had once gone searching for a backup clock generator. Maybe it was him, but James had no time for recognition. The guy passed by without looking back, preventing James from being able to see him.

‘Fuck!’ Steve stopped at the intersection of two corridors and lowered the memory block onto the deck. ‘What a heavy bastard. How much further do we have to go?’

‘It’s the cooling system that weighs so much,’ James said, though he was not sure if he was right. ‘My guess is we’re not that far from.’ He immediately doubted his last words, for he had only been in the engine compartment once. The memory device was cumbersome indeed: even if he had not lied to Steve, it would not hurt to rest.

‘Why do they keep all the entrance hatches open?’ Steve nodded towards the nearest one, further down one of the corridors. ‘We’ve got the only airlock open between the living compartment and the next one where the mess room is, and even that’s closed at nighttime.’

‘Yeah, I wondered about that too,’ James agreed. ‘Hmm… maybe they’ve got different rules.’

‘Civvies.’ With a contemptuous snort, Steve leaned over to pick up his load but suddenly straightened up again. A girl who seemed quite pretty to James appeared from the wide-open hatch into the next compartment. He thought he had seen her before but could not remember where. It was hard to guess how old she was. Wearing a uniform flight suit with the Space Agency emblem and a patch on her sleeve, she looked to be about twenty-two to twenty-three years old, her collar insignia indicating that she was a Second Lieutenant. Long, thick brown hair was pulled back into a ‘ponytail’. James grinned involuntarily at the thought of what she would do if the artificial gravity system suddenly switched off and that ‘tail’ would stand up. Steve’s face broke into just the broadest smile.

‘Hi, I’m Steve,’ he said as the girl approached them. At that moment, James had a flash of memory of her. She was the same one he had met at the sickbay airlock on his second day aboard the Endurance. The girl stopped and looked at them intensely.

‘Am I looking like a kindergarten teacher?’ she said without emotion and continued down the corridor. Steve seemed about to say something but stood there with his mouth agape.

James nudged him lightly, ‘Close your mouth.’

‘Damn! You see… ’ve you seen?’ Steve shouted. He looked so comical that James could barely hold back his laughter. ‘…What a… what a… bitch…’

‘What happened, mate?’ James could not help himself and laughed out loud, guessing what had brought his friend to such a state.

‘Pfff, she’s a…’ Steve seemed unable to find the right words to fully express his feelings.

‘What the fuck! She’s just a bit older than us…’

‘So?’ James continued to laugh. ‘What got you so excited? Well, she’s a bitch indeed, but… Okay, tell me, what do you think of Oliver?’

‘Oliver who?’

‘You know him. He comes to see me from time to time.’

‘Ah, that kid…’ Steve calmed down a little.

‘Aha!’

‘What?’

With some difficulty, James managed to hold back another burst of laughter, without which it was almost impossible to look at Steve.

‘What – chicken butt…’ he patted Steve on the shoulder. ‘I mean, if he’s a kid from your point of view, being just a little bit younger than us, why are you so surprised that you’re a kid from her point of view?’

Steve replied nothing, just mumbled something, still in an unhappy tone …

… After handing the memory blocks to the computer technician, James had to stay on to sign several documents, two of which were not yet ready. Steve had probably gone back to the hangar deck; James was still waiting while the technician, about twenty-five years old, wearing the standard Space Agency flight uniform but without any rank insignia, took the memory blocks from them, typed a text on his tablet for James to sign and then copied it onto his tablet.

He squinted at James periodically and finally spoke, nodding at the name patch on James’s flight suit, ‘Jenkins? Are you happen to be Welsh?’

‘As it happens,’ James nodded in confirmation with a smile.

The technician nodded back, smiled, and held his hand to James.

‘Shake! I’m Dylan.’

‘James.’ James shook the outstretched hand, noticing his new friend’s name on the name patch:

‘Thomas’ and probably could not hold back an involuntary grin that did not escape the lad’s attention.

‘Unlike the guy you’ve got in mind,’ he grinned and continued in Welsh, ‘I don’t write poetry, but like him, I never say no to whisky.’

‘Even here?’ James said back with a laugh, continuing in the same language. ‘I mean in space?’

‘Not here, and certainly not now,’ Thomas grinned again. ‘Can you imagine what would happen to you if the artificial gravity system suddenly switched off at the worst possible moment? So the dry law in spacecraft is quite justified –’

‘Mr Thomas…’ An absolutely colourless voice interrupted the conversation that had barely begun. Looking back, James saw an unknown man entering the diagnostic laboratory. He looked to be in his fifties – his hair already noticeably grey – apparently of mixed European-Asian descent.

He was wearing not in uniform but in a surprisingly bright yellow overall. However, his manner indicated that he held a high position in the spacecraft’s chain of command.

Thomas stood up, gave the new arrival a respectful look, and spoke English again, ‘Sir?’

‘Have you finished?’ the man said in the same colourless voice, but distinctly stern.

‘Sorry, sir, I haven’t had time,’ Thomas replied apologetically. ‘They…’ he nodded at James, ‘jumped us.’

‘What do you mean, they jumped you?’ The man looked at James and seemed to be studying him intently.

‘I mean we were ordered to test all the memory blocks of the Space Force vehicles as soon as possible, sir,’ Thomas said. ‘Probably, because of the accident.’

‘You should have said that.’ The unknown man shook his head slightly and continued thoughtfully, ‘Very bad.’

‘Nothing to do, sir. I’ve got an order –’

‘Yes, of course, an order,’ came the reply in the same tone. ‘I feel it is necessary to have a word with Jean-Pierre. This equipment should be installed as soon as possible.’

Thomas shook his head and said apologetically, ‘I’m afraid I won’t be able to do it before tomorrow, sir. If only at night… well, I mean after the shift…’

‘You mean overtime?’

‘Oh… yes, sir.’

‘And you do not like it?’

‘Sir…’ it was noticeable how Thomas braced himself inwardly, ‘I… I’m not saying that I refuse. I just –’

The yellow overall owner’s face became stern, but his voice remained absolutely colourless, ‘It seems you cannot lift a finger without an official order. I must discuss this with Jean-Pierre right away.’

And he walked out.

‘Who is that?’ James asked. Thomas made a completely undefined sound. It was not clear what he was trying to express.

‘Dr Wong,’ said he, ‘the Chief Science Officer.’

‘What’s a strange man,’ James found the Chief Science Officer quite odd.

‘The scientist with a worldwide reputation,’ Thomas returned with a smile.

‘You think all scientists with a worldwide reputation are so…’

‘I don’t know,’ Thomas shrugged. ‘I’ve never met any of them except this Wong.’

‘His voice is so… unusual. No emotion.’

‘Yeah, he’s not very emotional himself,’ said Thomas. ‘Last week he lectured the crew on some new theory about star system formation or something. Nobody understood a word, not even the Chief Engineer. But after the lecture, one boy began to argue with him. Stubbs –’

‘Oliver?’

‘You know him?’ Thomas grinned. ‘Well, I’ve got nothing against, he’s a really smart kid, no kidding, just funny. He pestered Wong with his questions for at least half an hour after the lecture. Anyone else would have sent him away, but Wong didn’t raise an eyebrow.’

‘What’s the equipment he wants so badly?’ asked James. Thomas grinned.

‘Oh, it’s some kinda super-clever device to listen to the cosmos. Can you imagine that?’

James shook his head negatively.

‘…Me too,’ the technician grinned again. ‘Okay…’ he handed James his tablet, ‘go ahead and sign this balderdash. It’s time to take care of your flyers’ brains…’

On the way back, James barely resisted the temptation to look into the reactor compartment. But he changed his mind at the last moment, remembering that the technicians had asked him to give them all the documents as soon as possible. The boys needed time to report back to their superiors.

He did all this, reported back to Jennings and was on his way to the living compartment when someone on the companionway tugged at his sleeve. James froze, no longer doubting who it might have been. And he was not wrong. Turning, he saw Tomyn’s grinning face.

‘Hi,’ the Corporal said, quite friendly. ‘What about to chat?’

‘Do we have anything to chat about?’ James asked though he could guess what the answer would be. And he was right again.

‘Yes, we have,’ the Corporal’s voice became suggestive. ‘And you know what about.’

‘No idea.’

James would be happy to see Flight Sergeant Rowling instead of Tomyn, and he would not even mind if she sent him on chores as punishment for something, whatever it was.

‘Are you sure?’ the Corporal’s face was filled with a mocking grin.

‘I’ve got nothing to tell you yet,’ James said gloomily. Without taking the smirk off his face, Tomyn nodded his head twice. ‘Of course, you have.’

‘I have nothing to tell you,’ James repeated. ‘I mean, nothing like… like you might be interested in.’

Tomyn just chuckled. ‘All you have to do, Jimmy boy,’ he said ironically, ‘is listen and memorise what the folks are talking about. And what might interest me, isn’t your cuppa tea –’ He paused for a second, looking around. ‘So I’ll be waiting for you in half an hour… in the crew mess on E Deck. The place looks familiar, I suppose.’ With these words, Tomyn smiled his predatory smile, turned and started up the companionway.