I slid through the Interstice a little concerned for my wellbeing, but nothing came to stop me. Naked Eye remained in effect regardless of what form I was taking, but there wasn’t much to see out here that I couldn’t already. Mainly I had it ready for the Waste.

I arrived back at the decaying mine’s loading dock as a ship, right where I’d departed previously. The station door still lay open, letting in the vacuum of space.

Nothing had changed since I was last here. Nothing – except for me. It made all the difference. The structure I floated in wasn’t a station, but the Capital – not ‘a’, but ‘the’. Everything outside it – stars or other devices – were simply destroyed, as the Garrison’s map had declared. The large door up ahead was still impassable, but the small maintenance shafts spoke of entry.

Somewhat apprehensively, I made it as close as I could, almost ramming against the dock’s domed wall, and triggered Gear Shift. If I needed to, I’d change back straight away.

Fortunately, my human body in this universe seemed able to cope in a vacuum. My veins ran with electricity and recyclable air supply, and a layer of metal hid just under my skin. Cameras sat in my eyes, reducing my scope of vision. I switched across to my vehicle sight, which was better, and let a touch of oxygen escape to propel me the rest of the way to the hatch.

It was locked and sealed from the other side, but as I approached, an automated voice spoke over the station’s comms channel. I was a little impressed I could still pick it up.

“Identified,” it said. “Welcome.”

“Thank you,” I responded in kind, reasonably surprised it was that easy.

After a moment, the hatch popped ajar by about a centimetre, clearly stuck on the frame. I pulled it open the rest of the way and myself inside, closed the door tight and pushed myself up to the other end of the airlock. It opened before I arrived.

Neither air nor gravity flowed in, which was more of a surprise. I pulled myself along by the wall into a modest hallway full of drifting particles. Dust on old ships generally wasn’t a positive sign.

The voice hadn’t spoken again, so I initiated an attempt at conversation while working myself up the long corridor. “What can you tell me about this place?”

No response arrived. The voice didn’t seem to be an AI, or even a particularly sophisticated program. Given Jadal Cai’s initial reaction to me, I shouldn’t have been surprised. Maybe AIs were the reason the Empire had suffered an apocalypse. It wouldn’t have been the first time.

Checking the station through the Garrison's construct revealed nothing on the map but my own profile. The universe might have been on its radar, but it seemed it had never visited.

I wondered what it was doing now.

After some wrangling, I managed to get the interface to centre on the Garrison. It was surreal to have a window into another universe in real time; I didn’t know of anything else that could accomplish the same.

Several hundred-strong, the city’s entire population had converged for the announcement around the central palace, or were currently on their way. I spotted Er Jid and Chi Ohon hovering at opposite far edges of the crowd, and even Allie Wei, apparently still alive and kicking after twenty years. Her profile listed her as a expeditioner in her day occupation, which made me smile and reminded me I still had to choose mine.

I did so now for the irony, scrolling past lists of openings while hitting a junction in the corridor. The adjoining space was wider and designed more for regular traffic rather than maintenance, but just as neglected and failing. At several points panels had fallen off, cracked and rusted debris floated in the air, and more lights were dark than lit. The dust was thicker here.

I’d made the assumption Jadal Cai had been stationed here, but nothing I’d seen was inhabitable. Even I wouldn’t last long; the ferocious cold seared at my skin and my air supply was limited; maybe only enough for an hour or two, assuming I didn’t deplete it for mobility.

Left would take me further towards the station’s centre, so that was the way I headed. Various rooms and smaller corridors bordered the hallway. I ducked my head in each as I passed, but all were dead and dark. Naked Eye helpfully identified residential quarters, recreational areas and the age of decay – about four thousand years, give or take.

The Empire had preserved things remarkably well.

Among the available Garrison occupations were tailoring, artisanry, lightcraft, historianship, trading, recruitment and administration, but I chose expeditionry. There was something about diving into an old civilisation that appealed to me in a way the multiverse didn’t tend to provide – much like I was doing now.

We’d see if I ever made it back to make good on it, or if the Chapel revoked my infiltration mission. I’d gone rogue enough as it was already.

The hall terminated in a wide, curved staircase. I made my way up. It opened into what had likely once been the jewel of the station – a vast three-hundred-and-sixty-degree pavilion boasting a distant curved ceiling covered in large daylight-imitating panels. Most of them had since fallen and smashed onto the central chamber, itself staggered with empty terraces I assumed once contained trees. The debris floated throughout the void. Most of the remainder had gone dark, with only a few remaining lit. Similarly terraced balconies bordered the outer walls, some with the occasional functioning light.

But there was only one obvious destination – the overseeing control centre at one end adjacent to the ceiling. It was heavily patched up with scaffolds and repurposed machinery, but fully functioning. Naked Eye deemed it a throne.

I shortcut my way to it with some of my air supply, floating up with a few adjustments in trajectory until I made it to the balcony.

The windows had all been taken out long ago, leaving only the metal frame. Toggling off Naked Eye, I floated in and recognised the backdrop from Jadal Cai’s video feed. Everything was hard metal and cracked plastic. A broken chair sat welded in front of the console, its original seat replaced with scrap metal. The console itself had been patched and repatched, with none of the parts matching. It had been worked on for a while.

But the place was unliveable.

I turned towards the console and heard a chime through the comms channel.

“Identified,” said the same voice as before. “Awaiting instructions.”

I frowned. This was strange. “Give me a status report.”

“Status report for the Capital: Remaining operating time estimated at a further two hundred and thirty years,” the voice replied. “Life support, navigation, AI, shields and gravity generators are offline. Energy converters, defensive weapons and offensive weapons are in need of repair. Communications systems are in need of repair. Central control and distress beacon are functional.”

“Can I see your logs?” I asked.

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“All AI functions are offline.”

“Are there any non-AI logs?”

“Playing backup of the last one hundred days.”

The feed through my cameras vanished, replaced with a split-screen recording I remembered from personal experience. I found myself watching myself as a spaceship negotiating a ceasefire with Jadal Cai with an eyepatch. Funny how both of us had changed. In the backdrop of Jadal Cai’s feed, the room was in exactly the same state of disrepair I found it in now, but the man seemed alive and well. Maybe he’d had a robot or cyborg body – although if so, he'd presented in far better condition than anything else on this ship.

The interaction ended along with the feed, and my vision returned. “Can you keep it running with what happened after?”

“Logs not recorded,” said the voice. “No other interactions were found for the past one hundred days.”

“Give me a status report on Jadal Cai,” I tried.

“Status report for Imperial Highness Jadal Cai,” the voice intoned. “Physical health in need of treatment. Mental health diagnostics offline. Function interrupted by corruptive influences.”

The phrase ‘Imperial Highness’ hit me like one of the station’s deadly laser cannons, only for the mention of Function to follow it up with another barrage a few seconds later.

It was possible Jadal Cai was the heir of a long line of emperors, or even a recent usurper, but judging by the looks of this place, I suspected it was the same man Er Jid had mentioned ruling during the cataclysm.

Somehow I hadn’t considered it. Plenty of universes were home to long-lived populations, or even immortals. Especially the advanced worlds. Probably it was because nobody else in the Garrison seemed to live very long. Lost secrets, maybe – or one of those tiresome inequitable arrangements where the ruling class or individual shared none of their privileges with their subjects.

If it was the same man, Jadal Cai had been living in hellish conditions for a very long time.

And if he was the Garrison's emperor… I’d not only been the catalyst for his escape, but had just put him in touch with his people. The chances of one of those things happening were astronomically low.

What are you playing at? I asked Near Miss. I wanted to trust it, but it was making me struggle. It really did seem like it was trying to help the Garrison while deceiving me about it, and I kept gullibly falling for it. Was I only here now as a delaying tactic? If it was because of me that Flinpen didn’t arrive with the third-tiers –

But I was here, and finally getting answers. By Fate, I couldn’t leave now.

I hastened to get the questions out of my head. “How old is Jadal Cai?”

“Imperial Highness Jadal Cai is four thousand, five hundred and seventeen years old.”

That answered that.

“What is Function?” I asked.

“This question is outside the guidance of this system.”

Probably too basic a definition, like asking for a dictionary term. “Explain the ‘corruptive influences’ on Jadal Cai.”

“Corrupted Function will severely limit performance. Destroying the contaminated elements is advised.”

“Where did the contaminated elements come from?”

“Multiple sources detected, specifics unknown. Any individual found tampering will be executed.”

“And how will these elements limit performance?”

“Breadth of Function will be severely limited.”

Corrupted Function referred to augments, I was guessing. The Brightman and Naked Eye had both suggested as much. Er Jid had also believed Function could do anything, and augments – which were clearly similar in nature – could not. If Jadal Cai had been trapped here for four thousand years, there might either have been some already here, or… he’d had a run-in with someone else who carried them. I hoped it was the former. Next time I ran into ‘Imperial Highness’, I’d examine him with Naked Eye.

“What corrupted elements does Jadal Cai possess?” I asked.

“All Function is the property of Imperial Highness Jadal Cai,” the station answered.

“What corrupted elements does he have with him currently?” I corrected myself.

“This question is outside the guidance of this system.”

Urgh. I decided to change tacks. “Why was Jadal Cai trapped in this universe for so long?”

I expected another non-answer, but the station surprised me. “Imperial Highness Jadal Cai’s Function was depleted during the destruction of the Capital. Without it, interdimensional travel is not possible. It is likely it would have been dispersed throughout the multiverse, but without the means to retrieve it, it has remained unclaimed.”

Remnants. The stuff the Garrison made their refined version from.

And maybe, somehow, the Reins. I didn’t know if the Garrison was seeding them intentionally or they were just there as some weird magical echo, but they were all over the multiverse and riddled with versal signature. Even their names, looks and personalities were similar, like each universe was trying to fill some kind of emperor-shaped void.

Maybe they were.

“What destroyed the Capital?” I asked.

“The Capital was destroyed by an accident of Function,” stated the station. “However, the Empire lives on through His Imperial Highness.”

“How?”

“His Imperial Highness is eternal.”

“Not that part,” I said. “What was the accident that destroyed the Capital?”

“His Imperial Highness attempted to unify all universes under the guidance of the Empire,” the station stated in the same tone it used for diagnostic reports. “The attempt failed.”

“Why did it fail?”

“This question is outside the guidance of this system.”

I sighed over the comms line mainly to express my dissatisfaction, although it was of course lost on the station. In reality, I had more answers than I knew what to do with, while simultaneously having nowhere near enough.

“How would one remove Function from Jadal Cai?” I asked, going back a conversational step.

“Only Imperial Highness Jadal Cai could extract Function in such a manner,” the station replied.

“I am getting so sick of hearing ‘Imperial Highness’,” I muttered.

“Acknowledged, Jadal Cai.”

I paused, floating over the highly underwhelming ‘throne’, wondering if I’d misinterpreted. The station didn’t enlighten me by providing any clarification.

“Who… am I?” I asked it after a moment.

“You are Jadal Cai.”

So I hadn’t misheard. “Why do you think that?”

“Your Function is a match for Jadal Cai, albeit interrupted by corruptive influences.”

Oh. Either by malfunction or design, it was confusing the magic with the person. I had the equivalent of slightly more than a Sept’s worth of versal magic currently swimming in and around me in various states and pieces. It seemed like the kind of error an unsophisticated ancient system could easily make.

I fished one of the excess World Slides out of its pouch and held it up to the camera. “Am I holding Jadal Cai in my hand?”

“Jadal Cai is in your hand, Jadal Cai.”

I grinned. The station was suffering without its AI. But it had granted me easy access, so I wasn’t complaining.

“Activate defensive weapons,” I ordered experimentally.

Outside the control centre, the ceiling rotated through the gaps in the broken sky panels, firing up with a thundering whirr. “Defensive weapons activated.”

“Deactivate defensive weapons.” I had nothing to target, anyway.

This would be useful to report to the Chapel. The Empire’s station was in terrible repair, but the knowledge it contained, however limited, could be invaluable.

“I’d like to extract your complete databases with the minimum amount of hardware required to run them,” I said. “What would that involve?”

“A full knowledge backup can be extracted now in this control centre, accessible via Function.”

“Do it.”

With a faint vibration, a small vertical drawer popped open in the decaying desk in front of the scrap chair. Naked Eye called it index and answers. It fit in the palm of my hand.

I assumed we wouldn’t have the equipment ready to run it, but the Chapel would figure it out – or send agents through to the original station to verify it here. If it identified me as the emperor, I was sure it would let any of us in.

I checked on the Garrison map, which hadn’t changed much. From the indented hemispherical positions of the crowd, it looked like the announcement was in full swing. The speaker didn’t appear on the map.

It occurred to me it was probably Jadal Cai.

On the one hand, I knew where he was even without the need to rely on Near Miss. On the other, bringing agents near the Garrison through the Interstice could get any of us killed as wraiths.

If Near Miss wasn’t trying to make me secretly work for the Empire and was telling the truth about helping to stop him, I might be able to rely on it to protect us.

If. And if all Function originated with the emperor… how much did I trust Near Miss’s loyalties, anyway?

It left the question: Did I really want to start a war?