His lights were still on, but the banks of screens that surrounded him were dark and dead. He sat slumped in his chair, tears streaking his face. Glyph lay curled on his lap.

"What happened?" Wixa gasped.

"After the station was secured a destructive program attacked my systems. Destroyed everything. I'm blind and deaf."

"Maiga." Wixa whispered it.

"It has to be. She has the technical skill. All my software, wiped out. Hardware fried. The work of years."

"I can't believe she's turned on us like this!" Wixa smashed a fist down on a console.

"It's not that," Gry said, standing up, making Glyph climb onto his shoulder. "She just wants to make sure we have no choice but to do what she wants."

"She said she's leading. That she's doing what we chose her to do."

"A leader sometimes has to be ruthless." Gry's voice was bleak as he looked up at his screens. "I do still have the station wide comms. I heard the announcement."

Wixa took a deep breath. Could she do this? Drag him out into the light? Before she could speak, Gry plucked Glyph from his shoulder and handed him to Wixa.

"I only have one choice, Wixa. I can't leave."

"If you're still here when they scan the station --"

"I'll be here. I just won't be alive."

Wixa froze. Did he have a weapon? She'd never seen one down here. He'd have some means of doing it though. Something quick and painless.

"Gry, you know I can't let you do that." Tears welled in her eyes.

"I appreciate your feelings about it, my dear."

He said it with a soft smile, which reminded her of the man he used to be. The genius she'd learnt so much from. The man she'd thought she loved for a while. The man whose smile she'd seen on the face of her little boy. Something she never told him.

Then the past went away and he was once again a crazy old man in a cave. And she'd let it happen. She should have brought Sheni down here years ago.

"No, Gry. You're coming with me. If you don't leave, then I won't. I'll sit here even if you die and I'll let them attack or board the station when they scan my life signs."

"Wixa, you can't do that. The station... Jimmy must survive."

"It's just a place. And Gry, you have it all in here." She reached out to touch the side of his head. "You say you are part of the station, but it's the other way around. The station is part of you. Nobody else knows as much about it as you. If you die then all that dies too. The heart of Hollow Jimmy will die."

He frowned. "That is a good point. And, well all my surveillance software was wiped, but not my data, my notes, everything about the station. If I took all that with me..."

"You could write the definitive history of the station."

"You know, I always did want to see my name on a book." He laughed. "Hell's bells, girl, you always could talk me into anything."

"And don't you want to see what the hell Maiga has planned anyway?" Wixa grinned now. His sudden mood shift should be disturbing, but if it got him out of here she'd take it.

"I certainly do. She's smart. You said it yourself. We thought we could control her, but she's moved beyond us. Far beyond. Now!" He clapped his hands, making Wixa jump. "I have data to download!"

~o~

The Plaza was havoc, with people running around, carrying their belongings in carts, and crates, on trolleys, or just hauling them along by hand. The Klaff Station Security guards showing up had persuaded the humans that this was no joke. They weren't dreaming this. They really did have to leave.

They may tear me apart, Maiga thought, as she stepped out of a lift and started to walk down the steps to the Plaza. Half-way down, she stopped and waited.

Gradually more people noticed her standing there, and stopped and looked up at her expectantly. The noise level dropped. Maiga looked around. Up on the circuit, looking down over the rail, stood Wixa and Gry. She smiled; glad Wixa had brought him out. They'd need people as smart as him.

She saw Jaff, helping the doctors, evacuating the clinic patients, to the Trebuchet. She saw Chullan stripping his shop of what he could take away. Fine. They'd need good coffee. Jasini, there with her husband, a trolley piled high with luggage, a cat carrier on top. She saw other familiar faces, surprising herself how with many she recognised. Friends, and enemies too. Watchmen, organising and helping, were trying to keep it all from descending into chaos and panic.

I have to speak now, Maiga thought. She was afraid of this part, she'd admit it. Bara would have had the crowd eating out of her hand in moments, but Maiga didn't have that gift, that charisma. But she had a message and she had to convey it.

"I know this is frightening," Maiga called out, over the heads of the crowd. A couple of babies cried, and some insulting words came her way. "But please trust me that I know what I'm doing. When we leave, I want you to follow me. Follow me and I will lead you home."

They stirred, baffled. Home? What could she mean? Maiga wondered if some of them guessed it though.

"If you mean this New Earth, we'll never make it!" Someone yelled from the crowd. "The Big Four ships will destroy us before we get out of the sector!"

"They won't. Trust me. Follow me. Follow the Trebuchet and you will be safe. And from this moment, forget your differences. Lifers and Drifties, Bara's people and..." She almost said 'mine' but changed it at the last second. "Jimmy's people. We must stand together. It's the only way for humans to be strong. Stand together and follow me. That's all I ask." She glanced at her watch. "Continue the evacuation and make it orderly. No panic. Help each other." She pointed at a Klaff security man. "Show them that we still have discipline. The ships are waiting. There's enough space and supplies for everyone."

No cheering. Bara would have expected cheering. Good. Maiga didn't want them excited, but instead calm and determined. She spoke up once more.

"We leave in one hour."

~o~

When the signal came, Chervaz knew what he had to do. He scooped Bara up into his arms, Sheni hastily gathering her medical kit and following him.

"I hope Maiga's stowed our gear for us, like she said she would," Sheni said. "I have some shoes I'm very attached to."

Chervaz smiled at her. He didn't think he had any personal belongings he'd mind leaving behind. His Snapper and various memory chips, containing copies of everything he'd ever written, were nestled in his pocket. He needed nothing else.

They had an electric cart, scrounged from Jaff, identical to the one he'd used for the mercy dash to the Free Clinic. That seemed like a hundred years ago now, Chervaz thought, as he put Bara into its trailer. Sheni climbed in beside her and Chervaz took the controls.

They had to pass through the now abandoned human sector on the way.

"Eerie," Sheni said, from behind him as they crossed the deserted Plaza, which was littered with dropped belongings. Different from night, this was a sucking, gaping emptiness.

Chervaz pulled a cover over the trailer as they left the human sector and moved towards the docks. As far as the Klaff security men knew, he was the last man out. They didn't care; they just wanted to see the back of the damn humans before the damn Big Four arrived and either started blasting the stuffing out of the station or boarded and started blasting the stuffing out of them. One of them swore at him and told him to hurry up.

Chervaz obliged and put his foot down, moving fast through to the docks. How strange, to see only aliens and no humans. All the humans were aboard ships now holding position orbiting the station.

Only the Trebuchet remained. Actually docked this time, to take on the refugees. A tube locked the ship to the station. A couple of Klaff guarded the station end of it. When Chervaz pulled the cover off the cart's trailer and Sheni popped up, they jumped forward. Chervaz picked Bara up.

"Hey, that's her!"

"Back off."

Maiga. She'd appeared from down the docking tube. A couple of the Trebuchet's Marines at her back, carrying rifles.

"Back off and let them through," Maiga said. "Let's not end this with bloodshed."

"You people are all going to die," one of the security men said. His companion flushed, and snarled something in their own language, apparently less happy about it than his friend.

"Go on," he said. "Get out of here."

Chervaz and Sheni edged past Maiga and the Marines and walked down the tube, into the Trebuchet's airlock. When Maiga and the Marines boarded, she closed the airlock, and went on the comms line.

"Bridge, disengage the docking tube and get us out of here."

"Yes, Captain."

When Maiga turned to Chervaz, he smiled at her.

"Captain."

"It's my rank."

"And position."

She shrugged. "Temporarily. How's Bara?"

"Stable," Sheni said. "But I have to get her to the sickbay right away."

"Go ahead. Chervaz, take her there and then, please, join me on the bridge."