10

Bubble Metal: These materials were first developed by the Cryon Corporation in 2110. The process of manufacture is simple. A base metal (or alloy) is poured into null-G moulds (hence their development in the first satellite factories) and, while still in a molten state, injected with gas (usually inert). The resultant 'foamed metal' is then allowed to cool. Components made by this process are usually high in compressive and tensile strengths, but are prone to corrosion. Further developments brought us anti-corrosive gases and ceramoplastic injectants. This technology has become widely applied, the only solid-cast components now being those used in electronics applications, where the crystal structure or purity of the metal is a requirement.

From a Cryon Corporation catalogue

Cormac gradually woke to the gentle but insistent voice ofHubris calling to him, and immediately felt the silence. He groped for the link like a terminal nicotine addict searching for his first cigarette of the day and finding the packet was empty. Where was the voice in his head and the small synaptic charge that could bring him instantly awake and alert? He experienced a pang of loss and repressed it. He was hearing this voice with his ears.

'Ian Cormac… Ian Cormac…'

'Yes, what is it?'

'Chaline told me to inform you that her probe is transmitting from the blast-site. There are some anomalies.'

Choline…

He rolled over and reached across the bed, vaguely remembered a disentanglement of sweaty limbs, a kiss on the cheek, a chuckle in the darkness.

'Tell her I'm on my way.'

He checked the wall clock: ten hours, and not many of them sleep. Feeling only slightly guilty he got out of bed and headed directly for his shower. Ten minutes later he was dressed in trousers and shirt, shuriken snug to his wrist, and heading for Downlink Com, which was the nearest Hubris had to a bridge or operations room.

The room was long, with a large circular chamber at its end from where the probes were dispatched. Its longest walls were packed with screens and other instrumentation. Before five consoles sat people clothed in the distinctive blue coveralls of runcible technicians. Some of them were auged in: optic cables plugged directly from their augs. These technicians remained still; all their activity was between their ears and in the various subminds of Hubris. Chaline was squatting on the floor, below one of the consoles, with a panel open before her and instruments and chips scattered all around. Cormac squatted beside her. She looked up, smiled at him, and he found himself unable to respond.

'Anomalies, you said.'

Her smile faded to puzzlement, then she shrugged and gestured with a debonding torch at a flashing light on the console above her.

'That's a contamination warning,' she said.

'The probe is at the blast-site,' he replied.

'We programmed it to ignore isotopes. We knew it was going to be hot down there, so the warning isn't about that.'

With a thoughtful expression on her face she laid the torch beside her and began plugging chips back into the panel. He could see she was pissed off by his lack of acknowledgement, but this was business; he couldn't let last night get in the way, could he? Emotion must not be allowed to interfere.

'I thought we might have a problem that diagnostics couldn't trace. Hubris ran a check as well. Everything seems all right here. The problem is with the probe.' She looked up at the ceiling. 'Hubris, have you finished running that check on the probe?'

'I am still checking. The probe seems to be developing structural weaknesses,' said the ship AI.

'You used the present tense,' said Cormac.

'The process is continuing. Initially the weaknesses were in its sampling arms, now more weaknesses have appeared.'

Cormac turned to Chaline. 'I know this is not my territory, but it might be an idea to get the probe into orbit or at least out of the blast-site, if that's still possible.'

'We'll want it back for study, you mean,' she said.

He nodded and she continued to look at him. After a moment she gave him a slow nod in reply, and a look that meant 'later', then she addressed the AI. 'Hubris, how far gone is the probe's integrity?'

'It is still capable of taking high G. The weaknesses seem to be developing only in the ceramal components. The probe has a foamed alloy skeleton.'

'What could cause that? The cold?' Cormac asked.

Chaline shook her head in perplexity. 'Ceramal? No… Hubris, what is the temperature outside the probe?'

'One-eighty Kelvin.'

'I don't know why I asked. Ceramal retains its structural integrity down to ninety Kelvin.'

'Acid? Some kind of caustic gas?' asked Cormac.

'No, has to be something more specific than that, else the sampling process would have picked it up… Wait a minute… Hubris, how old were the Samarkand run-cible buffers?'

'The Samarkand runcible was installed solstan 2383.'

'Yes,' said Chaline with satisfaction. Cormac raised an eyebrow and she went on. 'Wide-spectrum superconductors were introduced in 2397. The Samarkand runcible had the old sort; super-conducting ceramic-impregnated tungsten steel and bathed in liquid helium. The room-temperature superconductors they had then couldn't take the kind of surge a runcible buffer receives. We are talking about a huge EM pulse here.'

'And?' asked Cormac, wondering why she felt it necessary to over-explain her area of expertise.

'Don't you see? Tungsten steel impregnated with ceramic? That is what ceramal is.' Cormac nodded. 'So whatever screwed up those buffers is now screwing up your probe.'

Chaline said, 'Hubris, would it be possible to run an interior microscan of the probe?'

'Scanning.'

'What do you expect to find?'

'Sabotage… too specific to be anything else.'

'How?'

'Well, the buffers would have been too cold for some kind of manufactured virus, and are screened to everything bar neutron radiation, so it has to be nano-machines.'

'If it is nanomachines… can you do anything about them? Will you be able to set up your runcible down there?'

Chaline chewed on her knuckle. 'They would have survived a fusion explosion… Getting rid of them is like getting rid of a disease: there's always one bacillus survives to start the process off again. But… but they are not prone to mutation like a bacillus or virus. Once we get a sample, we should be able to make a counter-agent.' She glanced up at his puzzled expression. 'Counter nano-machines, ones with the singular purpose of hunting down and destroying the nanomachines there. It would take ages though, and years for Samarkand to be clear.'

'And the new runcible?'

'Oh, we can protect it. There isn't a great deal of ceramal used in its construction. The buffers are carbon-seventy-based superconductors. The nanomachines won't touch them. We will need to set up a proscription scan like that used for weaponry.'

Cormac waited for her to continue.

'To stop it getting taken off planet,' she explained, as if tired of dealing with an idiot. 'Samarkand would also have to be limited to runcible transport until it's clear. Therefore, no ships.'

'As a way station it wouldn't get many anyway,' Cormac said.

'True,' said Chaline, and returned to pushing chips back into place.

'Nanomycelium detected,' said Hubris, before the silence between them became too stretched.

'Mycelium?' asked Cormac.

Chaline looked round and frowned. 'Fibres like a fungus; we need to get some here for analysis. We'll have to use class-one isolation—'

Hubris interrupted. 'It will not be necessary to bring it here. Nanomycelium also detected in shuttle bay.'

Suddenly warning lights began flashing on the walls and the voice of the AI was heard throughout the ship.

'Warning, possible hull-breach in shuttle-bay area. Section fifteen to be sealed in ten minutes.'

Downlink Com was not in section fifteen. Cormac, Chaline and the five technicians watched the screens showing that section. There was no panic. If the situation had been dangerous, Hubris would have sealed the section and the people would have been evacuated in emergency suits. As it was, they walked to the section's exit looking mildly annoyed. At that exit four technicians waited with hand scanners that bore a disturbing resemblance to truncheons. They ran these over each of the evacuees, paying particular attention to the soles of their footwear. While they watched, one irritated man, an ophidapt with a spined crest on his bald head, had to remove his shoes and toss them in a canister by the exit.

'Will the detector pick them all up?' Cormac asked.

No one felt inclined to answer him.

'Let us hope you can make a counteragent, then,' he finished.

They watched as the section was finally cleared, and the doors closed and hermetically sealed.

'Hubris, we need samples,' said Chaline.

The picture being showed to them changed to a view into the shuttle bay. The camera zeroed in on a section of polished floor. On the floor were dull footprints from which spread black fibres like dry rot. The camera pulled back to show a little remote drone hovering a few centimetres from the floor. It was a chrome cylinder not much bigger than a man's forearm. All along its underside it had pairs of manipulators. In one crab claw it held a sample bottle. As it approached the footprints another arm unfolded. By one of the footprints that arm folded down and smoke spurted up. The yellow laser beam only became visible in that smoke as the drone meticulously cut two strips of flooring, levered them up with what could only be a screwdriver, and dropped them in the bottle.

'I'll have to get down to Isolation,' Chaline said to Cormac. 'I have a lot of work to do. The entire hull of this ship is ceramal.' She waited a moment for him to say something. Cormac let her go without comment.

Back in his cabin, Cormac called up a view into Iso- lation and watched the dracomen eat yet another meal. Could it have been them? he wondered. Somehow that did not seem Dragon's style. It was possible, but why would Dragon do such a thing? Why would Dragon want the people of Samarkand killed? Or perhaps he was asking the wrong question. Why would Dragon want the Samarkand runcible destroyed? He shook his head. There was not yet enough evidence to put any theories together.

'Hubris, any luck with that submind?'

The AI's reply was quick and succinct. 'I do not have the capacity to spare for it at the moment.'

'The mycelium?'

'Two-thirds of my capacity is being used for decoding it and designing a counteragent.'

'OK, can you put me through to the submind?'

'Yes.'

'—throw away archetypes but keep ideas bathwater baby hell hath no hungry mole lord of pain lord of pain where is edge? Sinter snapping hove to green rotting fruit—'

Running his finger down a touch-strip Cormac turned the sound down. He said to the submind, 'The runcible buffers were destroyed by a nanomycelium.'

He turned the sound back up.

'—hungry hungry eater green green grass is green fell into the rainy day bleed break men lizard Janus—'

Men lizard?

'Who destroyed the runcible buffers?'

'—gain gone flee on invisible wings rotting fruit blackthorn thorns peach—'

Cormac clicked the voice off. For a moment he thought he had something there, but would the runcible AI have known who planted the mycelium? It seemed unlikely. Had it known, it would have transmitted more information before its destruction. Had it known, it would have instantly shut down the runcible. Freeman might have ended up lost in underspace, but that would have been better than him causing the deaths of 10,000 people.

'Hubris, show me that mycelium in the shuttle bay.'

The picture on the screen changed. There was no word from the AI. Perhaps it was getting impatient with him. He stared at the picture. Even with part of the deck cut away the shape of the dull footprints was evident. They were long and splayed, with a mark for a back toe; obviously not human and obviously the footprints of dracomen, but was that damning evidence? Anyone who had been to the surface could have carried some of the mycelium away with them. The dracomen had been there longer, so it was more likely to be them.

'Hubris, the dracomen brought the mycelium aboard.'

'Already aware.'

Cormac rattled his fingers on his desk.

What now?

He could try the dracomen again, but his last attempt at communication had tried his patience to the limit. He was sure they were quite capable of speaking with him in some manner, but one of them just sat there and grinned while the other just sat staring at the food dispenser. Perhaps what he needed was face to face, rather than gestures through the viewing window and speech through the intercom.

'Damn it!'

He stood up and headed for Isolation.

As he came from the drop-shaft Cormac saw that Mika was standing before the viewing window to the isolation chamber. She stood in an attitude of deep contemplation, an elbow cupped in one hand and her other hand under her chin. Standing like that she appeared less of a girl. Or was he seeing her differently now? He wondered how old she was. She could be anywhere from eighteen to 300 years. Appearance had not been a way to judge age for the last four centuries. He walked up beside her. She did not acknowledge his presence until he was two paces from her.

'Ah, Ian Cormac.'

'Just Cormac. Something bothering you?'

'No, not really - not bothering me. I'm just intrigued. I did some checking.' She pointed to the floor of the isolation chamber by the far wall. 'You see those?'

Cormac looked across and saw what appeared to be a couple of screwed-up polythene bodysuits. He looked from them to the two dracomen, who were squatting motionless in the middle of the chamber, and noticed that they appeared cleaner, brighter.

'Skins,' he said. 'They shed their skins.'

'They've done it three times since they were put in here. They're regenerating: sloughing off and excreting radiation-damaged cells, and rapidly replacing them.'

'Yes, Hubris told me.'

She glanced at him. 'Did it also tell you that they are also immune to cancer, to replication error?'

'A handy trait, but it is also one we have.'

'Yes, but ours is done by viral or nanomachine repair of our DNA based on the corrected birth blueprint. We still develop cancers and they still have to be cured. This is completely different.'

'I don't know whether or not it is relevant, but, as well as it being proposed that dracoman was one of the race Dragon claimed to represent, it was also proposed that he was some kind of organic machine.'

'We are all organic machines. No, you miss my point… I analysed some of that skin. They are without DNA. They replace cells by direct protein replication. It's been done before, but no creature has ever evolved that method. Far too complex.'

'So they are some kind of machine?'

'If you want to call them that. Philosophy is not my field.'

Cormac felt a twinge of embarrassment. 'I guess that was a stupid thing to say.'

'It was.' She smiled briefly to take the sting away, and went on. 'But these creatures definitely were made in some way. You call them dracomen and in doing that you infer gender, but they are completely sexless: no self-contained method of reproduction. I would say, considering their antecedents, that they were made to serve a purpose, and that purpose is not their own survival and continuation of their genes, as with us; it is Dragon's purpose. They are an alien form of the Golem Series - or any other android for that matter.'

'And what might their purpose be?'

'I have no idea. All I know is that this Dragon built well.'

'There's more?'

'Endless. I could make a lifetime of study out of them.

Their bones are solid; calcium laminated with something similar to tooth enamel, and about twice the size and density of ours. They've got a digestive system which could extract nutrition from a stone.' She turned to him again. 'But, as we know, they take the easy option.' She turned back. 'And their musculature is as dense as old oak. We are lucky Uiey felt no inclination to leave this isolation chamber when we first put them inside. The door would not have stopped them.'

'Perhaps they're different from the one I saw before.'

Cormac remembered his fight in the shadow of Dragon. He had defeated that dracoman quite easily, but perhaps that was what Dragon had wanted. 'Theatrics' are how he had described Dragon's actions to Chaline. It occurred to him that the whole performance had been a cover for other actions; to leave humankind believing Dragon had destroyed itself. Had it been scared, or just a lover of subterfuge?

'Quite likely'

'What… sorry?'

'These are probably different from the one you saw on Aster Colora. Dragon probably makes them to suit its current requirements,' said Mika.

Cormac cogitated for a moment. 'How did they survive the cold?' he asked.

'Now, that is where things get really interesting. They use protein replication, but I have yet to find any kind of template. Their physiognomy will take years to unravel. But… their brain structure is completely different from ours. My theory is that the template is a mental one and that they can alter it at will, within limits. When Thorn said they must have antifreeze for blood, he was probably not far wrong. It would also be interesting to have another look at where they were sheltering.'

'Why? Some evidence there?'

'Just to see how much they ate over the last fifteen months. I bet they ate a phenomenal amount to maintain their body temperatures, and that those corpses we saw were perhaps just a couple of days' supply.'

'Is there anything about them that might indicate their purpose?'

'Nothing really, except maybe their strength. Perhaps they were made to tolerate heavy G… But such strength could pertain to anything.'

'You said the door would not stop them. Just how strong are they?'

'Have you been to the Sparkind quarters?'

Cormac shook his head.

'Well, you remember Gant telling you they had Golem Thirties? Do you know what they are?'

'Cybercorp combat androids. The best.'

Mika pointed at the dracomen. 'These two would be a match even for them.'

'Bloody hell! We should move them to a security section.'

Mika smiled. 'I doubt the security section would hold them either. Anyway, the cell has been armoured since they were first moved in, and there's shutters to come down over this window. Half a second and they end up in a box of ten-centimetre-thick case-hardened ceramal.'

'Will that be enough to—' began Cormac, but was interrupted by Hubris's voice.

'Notification: there will be a slight adulteration of the air supply. This is not a cause for alarm. Counteragents are being spread through all systems. I repeat, there is no cause for alarm.'

Cormac felt something loosen its hold on the inside of his chest; until then he had not quite realized how worried he had been about the nanomycelium. He looked back to the dracomen and saw that Smiler was standing. For a moment he thought food was being delivered. Then he saw that the dracoman was sniffing at the air. He watched, and while he watched he became aware of a bitter metallic taste in his mouth and a pungency to the air that reminded him of the smell from a cold-forge.

The counteragents.

'Chaline works quickly,' he said to Mika, and wondered at the precise meaning of his words.

'Yes,' said Mika, something in her voice. Cormac studied her suspiciously, but she was watching the dracoman.

Cormac felt uncomfortable for more than one reason. It was disconcerting to think that the air was filling with little mycelium-killing machines, and that they were on his tongue and in his nostrils. The dracoman seemed to find the whole thing amusing. It grinned, then walked to the viewing window and stared directly at Cormac, which was disconcerting as well, as the window was set for one-way viewing. He had nearly convinced himself the dracoman could not see him, when it pointed up at the intercom speaker.

'They do have vocal cords. They should be able to speak,' said Mika.

Cormac reached across and switched on the inter- com. 'Have you something to say, my friend?' he asked, trying to appear unruffled. This could be what he needed. At last he might begin to unravel this mystery.

'Dragon coming,' said the dracoman, and turned away.

'Wait!'

The dracoman returned to the middle of the floor and sat down, and from there it just grinned at him.

'I don't think you're going to get any more than it wants to tell you. Remember, its motivations are not the same as ours.'

Cormac contained his anger. 'Yes,' he said.

But Dragon was coming, and had never been shy of communication, even in its Delphic and sometimes explosive fashion.

Many lifeforms have hitched a ride with us and been part of our successful spread into the galaxy. From the beginning it was decided that quarantine strictures were an exercise rendered pointless by the huge advances being made in bioscience. If you have a creature's DNA or whatever other template it might use, what matter if it is wiped out? You can re-create it if you want. Also, it is a fact that this is the way life works: species have been wiped out for millennia by more successful contenders. Some have bemoaned the loss of variety, but this is a specious argument at best. Genetic adaptation and straight biotechnological creation have brought newer and more interesting forms. Sorry, people, but we are improving on nature all the time. My only complaint in this matter is that some of the older and more unpleasant forms are as successful as those we adapt and create. Why is it that on worlds that are wet I so often end up tripping over ground skate? Why hasn't someone come up with a competitor less lethal to us than the blade beetle? And who the hell decided it was OK to let mosquitoes colonize just about every damned world?

From How It Is by Gordon

The rain was necked with black dirt blown up from the burn zones on the edge of the equatorial deserts and though it slid from the repelling charge on the screen of the old Ford Macrojet, a line of sludge was gathering at the join between screen and bonnet. Daven stared at the sludge for a moment, then across the expanse of streaming slabs of the AGC park to the entrance of the metrotel. It was all bright and warm beyond the glass panes and there was a party going on in the lower bar. Two hours earlier a load of aircabs had come in to land to belch the revellers. It seemed as if someone had taken out a marriage contract during the long day and was now celebrating that idiocy.

'They have contracts?' Pellen asked yet again.

'They have contracts,' Daven confirmed. 'They still have them in a lot of places, but more often out here beyond the Line. You must have seen it?'

'Never occurred to me,' Pellen said, shaking her head. Daven inspected her. She was an attractive woman and he wondered why she had felt the need to go catadapt. She was also, he felt, a bit naive for this sort of operation. People who had spent most of their formative years on an Outlink station tended to be that way. No doubt ECS had sent her out here as part of her training. Easy way in, trying to track down a few arms runners, especially with Jill, the Golem, to dig her out of any pit traps. The stakes had gone up though as soon as Jill had seen Arian Pelter coming out of Grendel's place. Now things might just get a little sticky.

'Two of them. Three o'clock,' said Pellen abrupdy.

Daven lifted his attention from the sludge below the screen and looked where directed. It was the slick mer- cenary with a rainfilm over his business suit, and the heavy who had met Pelter outside The Sharrow. They were sauntering towards the metrotel. Velet and Jill should be along behind them any time now. As he reached for the intensifier on the dash, Daven heard a low thump, then rain and warm damp air gusted into the AGC. Rear-door lock blown, shit! He had no time to get to his stomach holster. A hand closed in his hair and cold metal pressed into his throat.

'Now, that nasty little thin-gun you have down there you can carefully pull out and drop on the floor,' said Mennecken.

Daven saw that the other two mercenaries were now quickly coming in their direction. 'What do you want?' he asked, carefully moving his hand towards his gun. He glanced at Pellen, who was staring in horror at the both of them. If she did anything, he was dead. He gave a slight shake of his head and was rewarded with a touch of keen pain at his throat.

'The gun,' Mennecken repeated.

Daven slowly pulled the gun from its holster and let it drop. 'Just tell me what you want,' he said.

'I want you to be quiet,' said Mennecken. He shoved Daven's head forward and drew the razor-sharp ceramal blade back, and then he turned with a smile to Pellen. She stifled a scream as Daven fumbled at his throat trying to stem the blood gushing on the floor and all over his discarded weapon, then she reacted. Claws, which were not normally part of the cat adaptation, extruded from the ends of her fingers. She swiped Mennecken hard, opening deep slices on his face.

Mennecken reeled back and swore, and in that moment Pellen popped the door and was out of it.

'Bitch!'

Mennecken opened the door he had blown, rounded it and leapt onto the bonnet. He glanced aside at Corlackis and Stanton, who were now running towards the car, then he leapt down. His feet came down on something soft and went straight from under him. He went down flat on top of a ground skate and it bubbled at him and tried to drag itself on. He yelled with pure rage and drove his dagger into the creature. Its only reaction was to bubble some more and to keep attempting to move. Four deep stab wounds seemed to have no effect on it. It did not even bleed.

'Get after her!' yelled Corlackis as he came to the car.

Mennecken slid off the skate and stood. His clothing was covered with slime and he stank like something rotting in a tideline. 'Fucking thing!' he yelled and kicked the skate before turning and running into the alley along which Pellen had fled.

'We'll deal with the other one, then go after him,' said Stanton, slapping his hand on the bonnet. 'We've got about three minutes.'

Corlackis opened the passenger door and Daven slumped out of it. He raised an eyebrow. 'Did you have to cut so deep, brother mine?' he asked.

'He could have taken them both with a gun. What the hell's wrong with him?' Stanton asked, a bad taste in his mouth.

Corlackis hit a release inside the car and the boot popped. He got hold of the corpse and dragged it out, then round to the back. Stanton helped him tip the man inside.

'Mennecken can look after himself,' Corlackis replied.

Stanton shook his head as he slammed the boot shut. 'That wasn't what I meant and you know it.'

'Yes, I do.' ,

Stanton checked his watch, then looked behind. 'We haven't time for this,' he said.

Corlackis nodded to him, then moved back. He took off his rainfilm and fastidiously draped it over the passenger seat. Stanton moved round to the driver's side. As he got in he thought that this was the price you paid for using the most efficient killers; quite often they enjoyed it. He looked at Corlackis, who had yet to get in.

'Come on. He'll be here in a minute.'

Corlackis shrugged and climbed in. Stanton set the vehicle on low hover. The old grav motor had a hum with a slight edge to it that grated on the nerves. He turned off the charge on the screen and watched as dirty rain smeared it, before he set the vehicle drifting forwards.

'There,' he said, pointing, then looking at his watch. 'Right on time to the second.'

The man they'd had trailing them all over Port Lock had just appeared.

'Lucky it wasn't the Golem,' said Corlackis.

'Calculated,' Stanton replied. 'The Golem had to stay with Pelter and Mr Crane. It'll be the senior here, and the only one capable of dealing with Crane if things went wrong. As they will.'

The man halted out on the slabs and raised his hand.

No doubt he was expecting to be allowed into a nice dry car, his watching at an end for a while. Stanton drifted the car so the passenger side would come up to him. Corlackis touched a door control and the window slid down at an angle. He removed from his jacket pocket a fat little gun with a barrel wider than it was long.

'In the back seat,' said Stanton. 'We'll be needing the room left in the boot.'

'As you say, John,' said Corlackis.

They drew abreast of the man and he ducked down to peer in the window, a friendly grin on his face. Stanton felt sure he was about to say something about the weather. But he lost his grin when Corlackis shot him in the face.

'Shit, we wanted him alive,' said Stanton.

'Credit me with some intelligence, John. Short-acting neural poison in pellet form. He won't be pretty, but he'll be alive,' Corlackis replied.

'Right… right,' said Stanton. He checked his watch, then took a small comunit from his top pocket as the AGC settled. 'Svent, how is it?' he asked.

'He's heading for the cafe. We'll take him there.'

'Don't worry if we're a little late. Mennecken's gone walkabout after the catadapt,' said Stanton.

'That's OK,' said Svent. 'I wanted a coffee anyway. See you shortly.'

Stanton made an adjustment and spoke again. 'We got all four and are holding them,' he said.

Pelter's voice in reply was cold and correct. 'That was the easy part. Now we have this ECS machine to deal with,' he said.

'Where are you now?'

'I'm at the dump outside the spaceport.'

'The Golem still with you?'

'As far as we can ascertain. It is very good. Maybe it has chameleonware.'

'Need any help?'

'I have Mr Crane.'

Stanton shut off the unit. That was all Pelter had wanted him to say. He popped his door and walked round to Corlackis, who was searching the man he had stunned. Corlackis removed a thin-gun which he tossed in beside the one in the passenger foot-well. He then removed a small flat comunit which he studied closely.

'Chuck it,' said Stanton. 'Might have a tracer.' He looked around. Still no one in sight, but it was best to get this sort of thing done quickly. He opened the back door, which no longer closed properly anyway since Mennecken had blown the lock, then got hold of the man's shoulders and dragged him back to it. He then caught hold of his collar and belt and tossed him onto the back seat. Corlackis simply watched. He knew that with his boosted musculature Stanton was more than able for this task.

'Now let's find that brother of yours,' Stanton said.

They got back into the AGC and Stanton reversed it back to its original location.

'How long will he be out for?' he asked, stabbing a thumb to the back.

'Half an hour to an hour,' Corlackis replied.

Stanton watched him carefully. 'Right then. You stay here and keep an eye on him. I'll go and see what your brother is doing,' he said.

'I could do that,' said Corlackis, returning his look.

'Yes, but you're not. You'll stay here.'

'As you say.'

Stanton opened the door and got out. As he headed for the alley he noticed that the ground skate was now at the edge of the flooded gully and was there squeezing out a long and slimy white worm. Further down the gully more of these worms were wriggling in the torrent. From what he recollected of tüese creatures, this meant it was male. The worms were motile sperm packets on their way to find an egg-laden pool to burst in. The wounds Mennecken had made were superfluous. After this effort the creature would the anyway. Leaving it to do this, Stanton went to find more death.

Stepping into the darkness of the alley Stanton intensified his vision. He pulled his comunit and keyed it to pick up the signal from Mennecken's. A small arrow behind the transparent touch-console indicated Mennecken was ahead and to the right. The numbers below showed him to be eighty-five metres away and receding. Stanton set out at a jog, careful of his footing. Here there were more skate, and the ground had been slimed by their passage. This was a nightmare. He had water running down the back of his neck and soaking into his clothing despite the rainfilm. It occurred to him that, though Mennecken was an efficient killer, his enjoyment of the act was probably becoming a liability. Stanton now realized he should have refused when the man volunteered. He himself, or Corlackis, would simply have got into the back of the car and shot the two ECS watchers.

A yell cut the night and Stanton accelerated. A glance at his comunit showed him Mennecken was no longer moving away. Soon he came to a side branch to the alley, lined with walls made of welded-together slabs of plascrete. The swing of the arrow showed him this was where Mennecken had gone. Another yell and Stanton saw the mercenary grappling with the catadapt. Obviously, with them not being so far from the car, Mennecken had been playing a stalking game with her. Stanton supposed she must have been hiding behind the old hydrocar that was rusting here. As he approached, Mennecken back-handed the woman and laid her out on the filth-caked ground.

'Want to play, little pussy?' he asked.

Still moving in, Stanton drew his pulse-gun and let it hang at his side. Mennecken pinned the woman down and started to cut away her clothing. She shrieked as he started to work the point of the knife into the skin between her breasts. Stanton aimed and then hesitated. At the last he hardened himself and pulled the trigger. The woman jerked under Mennecken as most of the contents of her head sprayed out across plascrete. Mennecken leaped up and around, a snarl on his face and his dagger held ready. Stanton readjusted his aim. He reckoned Pelter's team was just about to be short by one member.

'Mennecken!' yelled Corlackis from behind Stanton.

Mennecken froze, staring at Stanton with open hate, then he became calm. He turned and wiped his dagger on the catadapt's clothing, then sheathed it, keeping his back to Stanton and Corlackis all the while. When he did turn, his expression was casual.

'I thought I told you to stay at the car,' said Stanton, glancing aside at Corlackis. Corlackis held up his own comunit. 'I could see he wasn't far. Thought I might help.'

Stanton nodded and holstered his pulse-gun. 'Mennecken, bring her to the car,' he said, then turned away. Corlackis fell in beside him as they returned to the AGC.

'He's becoming a liability,' Stanton said.

'He's not so bad,' Corlackis replied.

Stanton had to wonder just what precisely this mercenary's definition of 'bad' was. On reaching the AGC he waited in the pouring rain. He could have helped Mennecken to carry the corpse back, but felt no inclination in that direction. It was Mennecken's fault she was so far from the car anyway. He was just about to speak into his comunit when he saw a drunken trio swaying down the street towards him.

'Wild party,' said Corlackis.

From a distance it seemed as if the three of them were drunk. Closer inspection revealed that the one in the middle did not have his feet on the ground and any movement was imparted by the two on either side, those two being Svent and Dusache. Stanton reached inside the car and popped the boot.

'I thought you were going to wait,' he said as the two mercenaries drew close.

Svent nodded at their burden. The man had a trail of dark blood from one nostril and his head had more movement at the neck than was natural.

'Sonny here started to get anxious when we walked in. I walked over and gave him a friendly hug. Few people in there, and I got fed up with his lack of conversation.'

Stanton motioned to the boot of the car and looked around. Apart from a few revellers that had gone into the metrotel, there was no one about. It was a perfect night for murder. Svent's victim went into the boot too, shortly followed by the catadapt Mennecken dragged out of the alley.

'Phew! You stink, Mennecken,' said Svent as they all crammed into the car. He pointed to the unconscious ECS men on the back seat. 'Who's this?'

'Pelter wants a chat,' said Corlackis.

There was general laughter Stanton felt no inclination to join in with. He flung the AGC round and headed out for the wasteland.

Pelter pocketed his comunit and stopped. He stared blankly into the rain-curtained night. How would the Golem react? That it had overheard that conversation he had no doubt. He peered around at the rain dripping from the acacias, then at a nearby wrecked AGC and, further back in a tangle of growth, the corroding cargo section of a small carrier. It would have worked out what had happened and perhaps now be considering how it might rescue its companions. It wasn't to know about their little rehearsed conversation. He reached up and touched the scaled aug on the side of his head and from it, through the command module, he gave Mr Crane his instructions. So clear and precise was this aug, it almost made him see the world in a different light. Crane held out the briefcase for him and he took it. Crane then stepped to one side. Pelter watched through the android's night vision. Shortly, as expected, the Golem broke cover and walked towards him.

'What are your intentions, Pelter?' it asked.

So very much like a very beautiful woman, Pelter diought. It was almost a shame.

'I intend to kill a man,' he replied.

The Golem woman stopped and tilted her head to one side. She seemed puzzled. It annoyed Pelter that even in these circumstances she still went through the charade of human body language and reaction.

'I do not understand,' she reluctantly admitted. 'You have my three companions.'

'Yes, I do.'

'What are your intentions toward them?'

'You should, really, worry about my intentions towards you.'

'I should?' She tilted her head and shot a look of contempt at Mr Crane.

'You should. I lured you out here so my men could deal with your companions without interference. I also lured you out here because I knew that even though Mr Crane here will have no problem scrapping you, it will be a noisy affair.'

Again the look of contempt. 'I am a Golem Twenty. That creature is a metal-skin. He is somedüng manufactured Out-Polity from Cybercorp leftovers and sold for far too much to the likes of yourself.'

Pelter smiled his nasty smile. 'You couldn't be more wrong. Mr Crane was a Golem Twenty-five who used to work for ECS. His moral governors were broken by full sensorium downloads from the mind of a psychopath, and then he was reprogrammed for our purposes. The metal skin you see is case-hardened ceramal, netted with superconductor, over his usual ceramal skeleton. He runs from four different micropiles and all his joint motors are somewhat more than Cybercorp standard.'

'I am to believe this?' the Golem woman asked.

'Let me convince you.'

Pelter turned to Mr Crane to give his orders, not because it was necessary for him to give vocal orders, but because he wanted the Golem woman to hear.

'Mr Crane, tear this arrogant machine into pieces and scatter those pieces here amongst the rest of this scrap.'

Crane kicked up a huge clod of earth as he went from stillness to terrifying speed. The Golem had time only to turn before he hit her. The sound was like a slab of iron being dropped onto a car. Her feet were driven deep into the ground. She struck at Crane with blows too fast to see: each blow a gun shot, each blow without noticeable effect. He bowed, looped his right arm under her right, his left arm round her hips, and he bent and twisted her. Clothing ripped and artificial skin split. The flashes of shorts and system diodes blowing could be seen through her parting flesh. She started to make a high keening sound, for even androids do not like to die. The sound ceased when Crane finally tore her in half and methodically began to pound those halves to fragments.

'How far are you?' Pelter asked into his comunit.

'Be with you shortly,' Stanton replied. 'Everything OK there?'

'Yes, of course,' said Pelter, shutting off his com. He stared at Mr Crane now and, with the huge clarity he now had through his new aug, he could almost feel the android's longing.

Gridlinked

'No, Mr Crane,' he said, 'you cannot keep her head.'

Mr Crane reluctantly tossed his trophy into the bushes, then turned, at Pelter's instruction, towards the approaching AGC. Pelter turned his comunit back on.

'That you, John?'

'It is. Where's the android?'

'About, I think would be the best description,' Pelter replied.

The AGC halted and the five men got out. Stanton looked at some of the bits scattered around where Mr Crane stood, then turned to Pelter.

'What now?'

'You have them all, as instructed?' Pelter asked.

'More or less,' Stanton replied.

'And by that you mean?' Pelter asked.

'We got them all, and we've got your live one.'

Pelter stared at him for a long moment, then abruptly turned to Svent and Dusache. He pointed. 'In that old carrier over there. Strip him and tie him.'

The two dragged the still-stunned man out of the car and dragged him off towards the carrier.

'Mennecken,' Pelter said. 'Bury the bodies and lose the car. I want nothing found while we're here. John, Corlackis - with me.'

Mennecken got into the driver's seat and took the car away, while the three others moved over to the carrier. After a moment Crane jerked as if he had just woken, and he followed them. They entered the carrier through a rusting split in the thin wall. It was essentially a small room with alloy walls and a dirt floor thick with the black growths seen in the town. The two had stripped the man by the time they arrived, and were tying his wrists and ankles. His wrists they secured to stanchion along one wall. Dusache cracked a low-luminosity chemical light and jammed it into a rusting crevice.

'Now we see what he knows,' said Pelter.

Stanton studied the object Pelter pulled from his pocket. It was something the Separatist had acquired from that weird shit Grendel. Knowing what was about to ensue, Stanton wondered if it was entirely necessary.

'I knew you… from Cheyne III,' the man said as he fought to regain his breath.

'And?' said Pelter.

Stanton thought the Separatist was taking a bit of a risk sucking on the end of the inducer like it was a pen. You could never tell whether or not the things were on or off until you touched someone with them. Then that someone would certainly know. Mennecken would have wanted to carve the ECS agent up with a knife, but the simple fact was that an inducer hurt more, and the person you were torturing would stay alive longer because there would be no blood loss.

'That's it: I saw you and I told Jill. She was. setting us up to watch you so she could call for instructions and back-up.'

'You think I believe that?'

'It's true, why not? Oh, come on! I'm telling you the truth!'

The man's next scream lasted a long time as Pelter drew the blunt nose of the inducer up his inner thigh and touched it to his genitals. When the inducer was withdrawn he was hunched forwards and sobbing. Stanton pulled his pulse-gun from his coat and pointed it at the man's head. Pelter pushed the gun aside.

'I haven't finished yet,' he said.

Stanton turned and looked out through the gap in the rusting cargo shell at the light of the just-risen sun. Three hours they had been in here. He studied Svent and Dusache. Dusache supposedly didn't like this sort of thing, yet he seemed as avid as Svent and Pelter. Corlackis had, some time ago, suggested someone should keep watch and had gone to do so himself. Stanton looked back at Pelter.

'You've had all you can out of him. He's got nothing else to say.'

'I won't know that, John, until I've tortured him to death,' Pelter replied.

Stanton saw that the man had heard, and saw the look of terror in his face.

'He'll only start making it up if you carry on,' he said.

Pelter just stared at Stanton for a long moment. 'All right,' he eventually said, 'I'll kill him.' As he said this he held up the nerve-inducer and clicked the switch. He gave a dead smile, then stooped down and pressed the inducer against the man's stomach. He was still screaming by the time Stanton had walked out to join Corlackis.

'He's not giving him time to answer questions,' Corlackis said.

'He doesn't want answers. He's just killing him with the nerve-inducer.'

'That's just a bit sick,' said Corlackis.

Stanton moved away. He thought of Corlackis describing his homicidal brother as 'not so bad', and he thought of what Pelter was doing, and he wondered if just maybe he was getting a little sick himself.