Lizzy, winded and dazed, gave herself a minute. She could feel the structure moving beneath her as arKhana gruntingly dragged himself up the incline. Sitting up, she saw the benched face some way distant. The skiff wasn't in view but she could hear the tat-tat-tat of the bluebolts striking its surface. She looked over the side and couldn't see the bottom of the mine. Darkness seemed to seep up from there. She turned and got to her knees and looked up towards the access point. They would have to go in on their bellies or crouching at best if arKhana's ankle could take it. He wasn't using that foot to climb with which was slowing him up. She would catch him before they got to the top. She thought about that. The top of the conveyor wasn't guarded and Riverdolly's plan was looking sound.

​The conveyor belt itself was looking tattered and worn. Its surface was smooth which made it harder to climb. The housing was sheeted to the sides with plastic curtains to prevent rubble from falling into the operational area of the mine, far below. Every cubit or so a nanosteel spur held the curtain in place and arKhana was using these to haul himself up the structure. Lizzy thought it would be easier for her to get to her feet and run up the thing, balancing herself using the rail at the top of the housing. She clambered to her feet and the whole structure shook alarmingly.

​arKhana turned to look at her: ''Fuck sake girl, subtlety's not one of your strengths is it?''

​''Outta my way old man!'' To avoid trampling arKhana underfoot she jinked first left, where the back of his knee made a little cleft, then right to just beneath his chin. This last was a bit risky but she'd practiced it in her head on the run up.

​''Ayah!''

​She might have just clipped his head with the heel of her boot. She never claimed she was dainty. It got the job done anyway and she was able, in no time at all, to make her way to the top of the conveyor before utThalé could divert a resource to protect the access.

​It turned out there was no need to rush. utThalé had other things on his mind. Lizzy crawled up through a tight, sheeted archway and, lying on her belly, could see from the end of the conveyor down into the Separation Hall. The space was taken up largely with a huge, leggy, double-spined crushing and screening plant. Ten cubits beneath the head of the conveyor belt, the primary stonecrusher's gaping maw yawned up at her. The main body, armoured and stiff like a giant insect, split off from the two spines into a series of screeners, their purpose to grade and further crush the rock into sand and aggregate on one side and various grades of Euphranium-rich pitchblend on the other. The primary screener just below the neck of the beast was, in its day, a highly sophisticated piece of kit, able to differentiate between pitchblend and plain limestone as it passed rapidly through its enclosed glands. Even though the plant was over three and a half spans old, heritage and maintenance droids had kept it in a state of serene dilapidation.

​The graded pitchblend would have been transferred, by a sub-system of conveyors ribbed off the main spine, to a walled platform which formed part of a larger elevator mechanism, feeding the domed building on the surface. The low-grade aggregate coming off the other spine would have been loaded into tipper trucks and driven out up a shallow ramp to the main access which was now cluttered with droids firing, presumably, at their skiff which would currently be making a nuisance of itself.

​Between the bottom of the ramp and the rising platform, tucked away from the screening plant in the corner of the space, utThalé, or his droids, had put together a large frame, covered by tarpaulin. The structure had a front entrance, facing to the side wall opposite. Even without the guards, Lizzy wouldn't have been able to see inside from this angle. The tent was lit from inside, however, and she could make out two inner compartments with various droid-like shadows doing something repetitive and slightly weird in the furthest compartment. In the outer compartment there seemed to be humans. Two of them, milling about and looking busy.

​''What can you see?'' asked arKhana.

​''He's built a Tabernacle,'' said Lizzy.

​''What? Let me up. I want to look.''

​Lizzy utilised arKhana's shoulder to push herself over the lip of the conveyor belt. It gave a little and he swore at her but it was fine. She dangled over the mouth of the crusher then swung herself across to a gantry and from there lowered herself onto a little parapet attached to the side of the crusher. From there she would be able to climb down the side of the crusher onto an access ladder.

​''I think you'd better wait up here,'' she said to arKhana. Instructed arKhana, really.

​arKhana's head popped out of the little space at the head of the conveyor: ''Fuck me.''

​''Does he have an A.R.C.?'' asked Lizzy.

​''Not that he's ever told me about,'' arKhana said. ''But that doesn't mean anything.''

​Lizzy got out her phone: ''Riverdolly?''

​''Here.''

​''How busy are you?''

​''Busy.''

​''Have you come across any exotic tech down here?''

​''Something's doing a good job of re-routing my signal jammers. It's fast. Could be an Exotic Alternative Intelligence.''

​''Okay.''
​''What is it you're after?''

​''utThalé's built a Tabernacle. We're wondering if it's just for show or if he's got the kit to go with.''

​''An Anomaly Resonance Condenser? I'm not picking up anything like that. I'd have to divert resource to give it a proper look. Mmh. That's interesting though.''

​''Go on.''

​''Paradigm have an anomaly registered down here. Any mining op to declare and work round.''

​''That can't be good,'' said arKhana.

​''Must have been a fractal coming in through that corner,'' said Lizzy. ''The mining outside would have severed it.''

''Likely,'' Riverdolly confirmed. ''High levels of radioactivity wouldn't have helped.''

​''That still doesn't tell us what the little fucker's up to,'' said arKhana, pulling himself up to a precarious-looking crouch at the top of the conveyor belt.

​''You'd best stay up here,'' instructed Lizzy, again. ''How far have you got with that droid mind-fuck thing?'' she asked Riverdolly.

​''Every pass I make I get a little closer but the Alternative's ice is shit-hot. Any hole I make is instantly repaired.''

​''Maybe we could take out the AI,'' said arKhana, itching for a fight.

​''She's one of us too, don't forget.''

​''Don't push that PC shit too far,'' hissed arKhana. ''utThalé's a human and a Gnostic but that's not going to stop me from taking the bastard out.''

​''Point taken,'' said Riverdolly, ''although your mutattë status and his previously expressed racism might have a bearing on that.''

​arKhana grunted. The ping had a point.

​''That being said,'' she continued, ''I am willing to concede that this particular alternative is one nasty bitch.''

​''Where is she holed up?'' asked Lizzy. ''She's got to be close by, right? Paradigm are in control of this whole volume.''

​''Correct,'' said Riverdolly. ''Hang on while I divert some resource.''

​arKhana rolled himself over the lip of the conveyor and hung there, wondering what to do next. The Wider told him to just let go, which he did, dropping onto his arse and bouncing into the jaw of the stone crusher. It wasn't a quiet operation, not least when arKhana screamed again. The structure of the crusher's jaw amplified his voice, booming it out into the voidspace for all and sundry to hear.

​Then he tumbled into the neck of the thing and Lizzy lost sight of him. ''Fucking idiot,'' she said fondly.

​''He's probably heading in the right direction,'' said Riverdolly. ''Early indications are that the alternative's physical fraction is situated within the Tabernacle.''

​''Okay, drill down into that,'' said Lizzy. ''Please.'' She pocketed her phone and manoeuvred herself to the top rungs of the ladder. The droids guarding the tipper truck access, however, had picked up on the source of arKhana's screams and had turned their attention inwards. A bluebolt hit the neck of the crusher just in front of her and she felt a jolt of electricity through the metal. This was quickly followed by several more which flashed past her head as she ducked down below the rim. From behind the cover of the primary crusher she could hear the tapping and scraping and chuntering of arKhana as he worked his way through the swollen neck of the First Screen.

​She climbed down the ladder to the point where the base of the crusher fed into the First Screen. Beneath her feet the screen went along a perpendicular route to the crusher, leaving a gap where a stream of bluebolts flowed. Some of them hit the ladder itself, sending jolts of tingle through her body. There was something sexual about it but it was going to knock her off before much longer. Below the gap the roof of a small office provided something to land on. The drop was about six cubits. The ladder continued down the front of the modular office building - directly in the line of fire. If she dropped to the roof of the office she would be an easy target but if she could get inside the office that would give her enough cover to work out her next move. There was a liquiglass rooflight in the office roof so she unholstered her blaster and liquified it. The hole was a bit tight so she made it bigger with a second blast. The drop onto the office floor was now nine or ten cubits. That would break an ankle or a leg unless she did it in two jumps.

​The bluebolts flew arbitrarily beneath her. It wasn't a continual stream but there was no way of judging when the next one would come so there was going to be an element of fate about it. She tried to jump but prevaricated, tried to jump and held off, tried to jump and held station. She was growing increasingly frustrated with herself and her throat started making some strange growling noises. She tried to jump but couldn't let go. A bluebolt flew beneath her. If she had let go it would have got her. She blew out of her mouth and growled.

​She heard a buzzing noise then, passing over the lip of the crusher jaw above, as a lamplighter drone fired a little jagged point of light which caught her between neck and shoulder. Little bastard. It felt like gravy dripped from a hotplate. She lost her hold on the ladder and for a moment laid on her back in the air. The drone let off another shot which hit her in the belly and she fired back instinctively, smashing the drone to bits. This motion prevented her from falling flat on her back and she landed on the roof on her good shoulder, phone buzzing angrily in her pocket.

​''Fuck you Riverdolly!'' she grunted, winded, rolling over to the hole in the roof.

​Over the hole she raised herself onto an elbow and kicked her legs around. She got up onto her backside and dangled her legs into the cabin. She pushed off and a Bigboy's bluebolt whacked her full in the face and everything went dark.