“Yes, but why isn’t Jehornak reporting what they find? Why a tour group only once a year? They could be making a killing, here.”

  I opened my mouth to follow her line of thought, but a loud beeping made me close it again.

  “Damn.”

  Damn, indeed. The beeping in our skulls was a proximity alarm. Someone was coming.

  “You’re supposed to be unconscious,” Miss Delight told me, and switched off the jammer.

  I obliged, knocking the drink on my tray into the food and then tipping the plate. I tried not to feel too guilty as I slumped sideways and let the tray fall to the floor.

  “Took you long enough, you pig,” Miss Delight exclaimed, and began cleaning up the spill.

  I did my best to mimic loose-limbed unconsciousness as the door opened, and felt Miss Delight bump against me. The sharp sting of an auto-injector punching its way through my safari outfit was a surprise, and I almost swore.

  “You twitched,” echoed through my mind, as the drug dragged me under.

  “Double Da…”

  I came to the next day, but I did come to. To my surprise I wasn’t bound, although the floor beneath me felt like it was bare, cold stone. I kept my eyes closed and tried to ignore the low-level nausea roiling through my gut.

  Breathing in, I smelled the air. It was dank. Caves the galaxy wide had the same tang, even if none of them smelled exactly alike. Right, well, that was no surprise.

  I noticed a dull glow beyond my eyelids, and figured I wasn’t completely in the dark. That could be a plus. And then I heard voices. There was something familiar about the voices. I cracked an eyelid, to see what might lie beyond.

  The fact I’d been right about being in the caves, gave me little satisfaction, especially as where I was wasn’t a natural cave. It was a squared-off room that looked like it had been cut out of solid rock. There was no sign of stone blocks or mortar. If I had to guess, I’d say it had been laser-cut. Well, no way out there. I turned to inspect the silver bars running vertically across the front of the cell.

  Cool to the touch. I searched my pockets for something to test the metal with. Nothing. The steel buttons on the front of my shirt would have to do. They didn’t leave a mark. Not a soft metal, then. I shook each bar, but they didn’t budge, so I looked for a door, for hinges, for a lock—and didn’t find anything of the sort.

  The voices became clearer, and I could identify members of the tour group. They were chattering in whispers, talking about the alignment, wondering what they might see. One of the women was asking if it was okay to take photographs, and she was assured that would be fine. Happy sounds echoed up the corridor, and I slapped at the bars in frustration.

  “Ah, you’re awake.” Gerhard appeared from around a corner.

  “What am I doing here?” I demanded in my best Hipolito voice.

  “Well, that might work if we hadn’t traced you to Odyssey,” Gerhard said, “but I doubt you’re the multi-trillionaire you claim, particularly when he’s in a rehab facility we can’t get into.”

  I stared at him, keeping my face as blank as possible.

  Gerhard stopped outside the cell.

  “You can run,” he said, “but it won’t do you any good. The conjunction is about to start, and they’ll arrive soon.”

  “Who?” I asked, swallowing to ease the dryness of my mouth.

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  “The jelonar.”

  “Jelonar?”

  “Who do you think built this place?”

  I made a show of glancing around my cell, traced a finger over the glass-smooth surface of a wall.

  “They were advanced,” I said, dumping all traces of my cover. “Hard to believe they’re gone.”

  Gerhard smiled.

  “Want to meet them?”

  I shook my head, heard the first gasp of delight, and assumed the famed fluorescence was beginning.

  “What will happen?”

  “You will see.” Gerhard’s draw was so swift I barely registered the soft phut of the gun being fired, before a dart buried itself in my gut.

  “Nice,” I managed, hearing the injector hiss before I could pull it free. “Oh, crap.”

  Down the corridor, I heard another intake of breath, followed by sounds of wonder. The world went furry around the edges, and I watched as Gerhard palmed the wall beside my cell. The bars vanished in a twinkle, and he was at my side, hauling my arm over his shoulder as I flailed uselessly with the other.

  “Come along, man,” he said, sliding into his tour guide persona as easily as I had slid into the role of Hipolito. “Now’s not the time to be drunk.”

  I tried to disagree. Now, was the perfect time to be drunk. The computer in my head was telling me that alcohol would make a fantastic antidote for the cocktail racing through my system. I tried to resist as he guided me out of the cell and down the corridor toward The Ballroom. Whatever was going on down there, I was in no condition to deal with it—and where in the world was Emilia Delight?

  My head felt stuffed with cotton wool, the implant fizzing and sputtering like a rocket trying to light. We reached the Ballroom in spite of my clumsy attempts to fall down, turn around, or get free. I don’t even think Gerhard noticed how hard I worked to get away.

  “Take a good look at this,” he murmured, pausing where the tunnel exit led to a broad expanse of cavern.

  I took ‘a good look,’ and wished I hadn’t. Alice’s cats existed. They were filing into what looked like a series of balconies built all around the edge of the ballroom’s walls. Huge waterfalls of rock had slithered down from the ceiling in smooth, flowing arches carpeted with lichen. Crystals embedded in the walls glowed with an eerie radiance, and the lichen danced before my eyes without leaving the calcite rivers to which it was attached. My stomach churned. Small explosions of pain began low in the back of my head, and started marching themselves over the centre of my skull to burst along my forehead.

  I gasped.

  “Watch,” Gerhard instructed, placing a hand under my chin, as the cats began to sing.

  I watched, surprised to find their yowl more musical than discordant. I saw one of their number drift off the balcony surrounded by an aura of light. Strands of light reached out from the lichen cascades, and the tourists gasped again.

  Another cat followed the first, and then a third and a fourth, and I noticed how the golden-bronze of their fur took on the color of the light. Cameras clicked and flashed, and cell phones were raised to capture the spectacular sight. The cats grew bigger as they descended, and I fought to establish whether it was because the balconies were that high up, or because they actually were getting bigger.

  Balcony height, I decided, noting how long it took them to descend. Gerhard dragged me forward so I could see them touch down on the round dais of rock, in front of which the tour group was standing and staring in unabashed delight—not a single security guard, archaeologist, or Jehornak camp staff member were among them.

  Dammit! Where are you, Miss Delight?

  The electronics in my skull fizzed, and lightning sang through my brain. I felt my knees sag, heard Gerhard curse as he struggled to hold me upright. One of the cats looked toward us, and wrinkled its nose. Its mouth curved in a grin, showing fangs. I stared at it, but it dismissed me with a flick of its tail, and looked back at the gathered tourists.

  Another cat descended from the balconies to join those already on the platform. As soon as its feet touched the stone surface of the dais, the singing stopped. The tourists held their breath, and I did, too. Whatever this was all about, whyever my sister had disappeared, this was it.

  All around The Ballroom, the crystal light intensified, and the lichen fluoresced with an intensity that made the stone waterfalls shudder. More sounds of happy admiration echoed around the chamber. Pools of light ricocheted from the ceiling and walls to coalesce in multi-colored pools just in front of the dais. Shimmering columns of sparkling motes rose above each pool, and the cats stepped forward as one.

  And as one they rose on their hind legs, their bodies stretching into humanoid forms, their muzzles elongating, eyes hiding beneath deep ridges of bone as spikes formed a crest from the crown of their heads to the tips of their tails. Their scales glowed an iridescent bronze touched with rainbows, and beauty emanated from every pore.

  The tourists gasped, holding their phones aloft, filming with more powerful cameras, snapping pictures in a barrage of flashes and clicks. One of the reptiles raised a hand, and pressed its fingers to the base of its throat.

  “Come,” it said, and extended its other arm toward a slender socialite who held enough qualifications to command her own starship—if only she would forsake her fortune.

  I tried to protest, but my voice came out as a croak. I tried to raise a hand, and the movement caught the socialite’s eye. She looked at me, then glanced back at the creature that beckoned. She looked to me, once more, and then she screamed.