~ It wants us to know it has its own motive power, the voice in his head informed him.

~ Oh, yes, of course. Ask it to work fast, would you? Tell it we’re pressed for time because there’s a Culture warship braking towards our position as we speak, coming to-

~ Think that’ll make any difference, Major?

~ I don’t know. Tell it to be thorough, too.

~ Quilan, I think it’ll just do what it has to do, but if you really want me to-

~ No. No, sorry. Sorry, don’t.

~ Look, I know this is hard on you, Quit. I’ll leave you alone for a bit, okay?

~ Yes, thanks.

Huyler’s voice went off-line. It was as though a hiss right on the boundary of hearing had suddenly been removed.

He watched the Navy drone for a moment. The machine was silvery grey and nondescript, like the pack from an ancient space suit. It floated silently across the near-flat floor, keeping about a metre off its surface, heading for the near, bow end of the ship to start its search pattern.

It would be too much to ask, he thought to himself. The chances are too remote. It was a small miracle we discovered anything at all in here, that we are able to rescue those souls from such destruction a second time. To ask for more… was probably pointless, but no more than natural.

What intelligent creature possessed of wit and feeling could do otherwise? We always want more, he thought, we always take our past successes for granted and assume they but point the way to future triumphs. But the universe does not have our own best interests at heart, and to assume for a moment that it does, ever did or ever might is to make the most calamitous and hubristic of mistakes.

To hope as he was hoping, hoping against likelihood, against statistical probability, in that sense against the universe itself, was only to be expected, but it was also almost certainly forlorn.