2

As the technology for transporting people and objects through space evolved, it went through many transformations, and the carrier shell is now a relic of a previous military form. When U-space drives were first developed, they were too big for the kind of ships made to manoeuvre in atmosphere or in crowded solar environments. Two methods were adopted to solve this: the mother ship and the carrier shell. The mother ship, a large vessel containing the drive itself, would transport a whole host of smaller ships. The problem with this of course, in a battle, was that if the mother ship was hit, then all the smaller ships would immediately be stranded. Carrier shells were therefore developed to counter this. They comprised a U-space drive, usually toroidal, into which one of the smaller ships could insert itself. With these devices, smaller ships could be deployed at many locations, and the carrier shells, being relatively small, were easily concealed. And should shells and ships be destroyed during a battle, it was statistically likely that most of the remaining ships could get away, even if not in the same carrier shells they arrived in.

– From THE WEAPONS DIRECTORY

‘There’s a drone watching us,’ says Drooble.

Orbus glances up and locates something that looks like a polished chrome catfish floating some twenty feet above their heads, just below the glass ceiling above which there seems to exist some sort of garden, for the area is packed with plant life.

‘Not a problem,’ he says, lowering his gaze to the concourse lying directly ahead. He finds it odd to see so many people gathered in one place, none of whom he recognizes. For centuries, whenever he attended any gathering on Spatterjay, which was rarely, there was always someone trying to warily avoid him or else issuing some politely trite greeting – or, in the case of another Old Captain, swearing at him. Though here one or two of the surrounding crowd are surreptitiously studying him and Drooble, probably because they recognize the mottled blue scarring on their skins – a sure sign of what they are and where they come from – most of those present just ignore him,

‘Come on.’ Orbus leads the way into the crowds, peering about at his surroundings. At ground level, on either side of the concourse, lie entrances to shops, bars, restaurants, and other establishments whose purpose he cannot even guess. Here and there, transparent tubular drop-shafts waft people to upper levels or bring them floating down. What look like private homes, or maybe hotels, rise above the shops and below the ceiling, and tiered all the way along, up there, are chainglass bubble windows and balconies.

The concourse itself is divided in two by long pools studded with fountains whose spray is twisted into curious shapes by some artistic use of field technology. Little bridges span these pools where, below rainbow weeds, dart shoals of small blue flatfish, while below these can be seen brightly-coloured crustaceans bumbling along the bottom.

‘Well, excuse me!’

Orbus immediately halts, having just inadvertently walked into another man and caused him to drop a bag that spills various pieces of computer hardware and optic cables across the floor. Orbus has tried to be careful, but these people just keep getting in his way. It is very irritating indeed. He steps over the strewn hardware and starts to move on.

‘Oh, never fucking mind, will you,’ grumbles the individual, stooping to pick up the scattered mess and scoop it back into his bag.

The Captain halts again, a shiver of indignation running down his spine, his hands clenching and unclenching and a sudden rage coiling in his belly. No one ever steps in his path back home – because no one there is that stupid. But, of course, they do not know him here. This little man with his twinned augs, cropped red hair and loud shirt does not know that Orbus is capable of pinching off his head just using a thumb and forefinger. He glances aside and notes Drooble watching him curiously, then he glances up and notes that the drone has descended some ten feet, and meanwhile opened a wide black port in its belly. With utterly rigid self-control, Orbus turns back and squats down.

‘My apologies, that is rude of me,’ he says, reaching out to help the man scoop his bits and pieces back into the bag.

The fellow slaps his hand away irritably. ‘Oh go away.’ Then he pauses to stare at the hand he is dismissing, then after a moment raises his gaze to take in Orbus fully. Perhaps it was he, whilst using his augs, who had been the one unaware of his surroundings. Perhaps the fault is his and it was he who had blundered into Orbus. But now he is focused, intently, on the huge figure now squatting before him.

‘That’s . . . that there . . .’ He points a finger at the mass of ring-shaped blue scars mottling the back of Orbus’s hand.

‘It’s caused by the plug-cutting bite of the Spatterjay leech,’ explains Drooble, standing behind Orbus with a vulture-like patience.

The Old Captain realizes in that instant that Iannus Drooble is just waiting for him to fail; for him to return once again to the comfort of mindless violence; to become again what he was.

‘Once again, my apologies.’ Orbus stands and turns, moving away, glimpsing the brief flash of disappointment in Drooble’s expression.

‘He just doesn’t know how close he came to a Davy box,’ Drooble remarks.

‘He is nowhere near one at all,’ says Orbus, but with very much more apparent certainty than he feels.

At the end of the concourse lie the drop-shafts Orbus had been directed to. He sees a woman watching him from beside them and guesses, as she now approaches, that she is Charles Cymbeline’s representative. He studies her and observes that like most females here, she is devoid of the familiar blue scarring and increased muscle bulk characteristic of Hooper women. Her hair is an unnatural green-black, whether through dye or some genetic tweak, he cannot guess. She is pretty and uniformly professional-looking in white businesswear skirt, white jacket, red blouse and spring heels, wears a discreet white aug behind one of her mildly elf-sculpt ears, silver earrings in the shape of fishes, and an inset sensory ruby adorns her forehead. Compared with some of the others he has already seen about here, she is positively prosaic.

‘Captain Orbus,’ she says, holding out one delicate hand.

Orbus stares at the hand for a long moment, then carefully takes and shakes it, all too aware that with the slightest miscalculation he might turn it to pulp. As he releases her hand, he feels his estimation of this woman rise. Certainly she must be aware of the danger.

‘And you are?’ he enquires.

‘Jan,’ she replies. ‘Jan Crosby. I’m here to take you to Charles.’ She gestures with one hand to the drop-shafts, and is about to set out towards them when she notices Orbus’s wary expression. She abruptly changes course and heads towards some side stairs.

‘I guess she could have matched your grip,’ says Drooble, as they mount the stairs behind the woman.

‘What?’ Orbus glances at his crewman.

‘Golem.’ Drooble nods up towards the woman preceding them, who glances round with a smile.

Orbus feels slightly lost. He just did not recognize this fact for himself, yet it is a general trait with Hoopers that they can tell the difference between real and ersatz humans. It seems his voyage of discovery into his new life has well and truly begun. Charles Cymbeline is another odd stopping-off point on that same journey, but Orbus has at least seen his kind before on the massive Spatterjay ship named the Sable Keech.

Charles Cymbeline, co-owner of the Gurnard, occupies an office overlooking the gardens above the First Port Concourse. Glancing through the wide-span bubble window, Orbus can see a fringe of jungle growth on either side of the glass roof covering the concourse itself, and numerous gardens suspended over that, all interlinked by equally suspended walkways.

‘It’s a premium view,’ says Cymbeline. He waves in dismissal towards the Golem woman, who departs with a smile, before he takes a puff on an unfiltered cigarette.

Cymbeline is seated behind a wide marble-topped desk cluttered with com equipment, stacks of reusable paper and one or two models of spaceships – one of them the Gurnard itself. After gazing out at the gardens for a further moment, Orbus takes the visitor’s chair placed before the desk, which is obviously intended for him, for it is unusually big and made out of ceramal. Drooble drops into the more prosaic chair beside it.

‘Why do you smoke?’ Drooble asks.

Cymbeline stares at him for a moment with glass eyes, then snorts some smoke out of his nostrils, a further little wisp of it departing via his ear. ‘Iannus Drooble, no less – recruited to the population of Spatterjay three centuries ago, following a career that spanned the disciplines of fusion-drive tech, runcible tech, U-space geometry and also a slight digression into spear-fishing for Klader sea dragons, before, at that particular time of your life, you decided you’d like to try your luck on an even more dangerous ocean.’

Orbus glances at Drooble. The Captain is sure that at some time in the past he has heard all this, but it is a surprise to hear it fully recited again.

Though looking somewhat nonplussed, Drooble persists. ‘But why do you smoke?’

‘Did you know, Iannus, that your wife is still alive?’

This firmly shut the crewman up.

‘I, too, would like to know why you smoke,’ says Orbus.

‘I smoke because I enjoy it, and it’s a difficult habit to break.’ He thereupon takes another drag, and this time a little wisp of smoke rises up out of the tightly buttoned jacket of his rather expensive-looking suit.

‘I would have thought death might have broken the habit,’ Orbus notes.

Charles Cymbeline is blond, thin, wears an expensive suit that probably requires special cleaning, and is very very dead. He is a reification – a corpse with preservative chemicals running through its veins. His skin is like old leather, that is worn through in places, for his knuckle bones are showing through, along with the metal of some of the cybermechanisms that keep him mobile. Like the reifications who boarded the Sable Keech on her disastrous maiden voyage, his mind has been stored to a crystal contained inside the mulch that was once his brain.

‘I chose to not let it do so,’ he explains. Then, leaning forward, he continues, ‘Jericho Lamal Orbus . . .’ Cymbeline pauses to glance at Drooble, when the smaller man sniggers. ‘You once flew shuttles and insystem ships, and I believe studied force-field dynamics as a hobby, but that was seven hundred years ago. One would think I might worry about you taking charge of the Gurnard, but I learned a lot from Captain Ron about you Old Captains. The ones that survive are those whose brains are not too petrified by the viral fibres, and who, despite lack of any effort, have just kept on acquiring new knowledge throughout their lengthy lifespans.’

Orbus shrugs, not quite sure what this man is getting at, and very much disliking his own subordinate role here.

Cymbeline continues, ‘Since the Polity police action on Spatterjay just after the war ended, you’ve all had limitless access to information and I know that, throughout those long sea voyages, you’ve had opportunity to read and study a great deal. Some of that information might not have stuck, but we’re talking about entire centuries of reading, learning, potentially becoming wise.’

Orbus shrugs again: yes, it wasn’t all just keel haulings and floggings during those lengthy voyages, and he has indeed read a bit, learnt a few things, though not so much in latter years.

‘Tell me, Captain, for I’m curious to know: what procedure do you prefer to follow when removing a Singlosic thermister junction from a Deplan steering thruster.’

Orbus explains the entire procedure, not entirely sure why the reif wants to know. It is usually the kind of thing you get a qualified engineer to sort out. Cymbeline smiles – not a pleasant sight, since the movement of the cybermotors in his face expose a grey slit along his jawbone – and he studies the end of his cigarette. ‘Now let’s get down to business. You are now the Captain of the Gurnard, you are a Hooper like Captain Ron before you, and you also have a certain reputation.’

Orbus holds up a hand. He wants to retain control of his own responses, and now feels this is going too fast for him. ‘I’m not sure I want to continue as Captain of that ship.’ Doubts haunt Orbus, and he doesn’t like the way this reif said ‘certain reputation’. Orbus needs to slow this down a bit.

‘That would indeed be a shame,’ says Cymbeline, ‘because you are perfectly suited to what I have in mind.’

Orbus raises a questioning finger. ‘Which will be hauling cargo, of course.’

‘Oh yes.’ The reif nods, causing puffs of smoke to issue from a hole in one side of his neck. ‘In the Graveyard.’

Orbus shivers, hears something creak, then glances down at his hand gripping the chair arm. He carefully relaxes his hold, noting some hairline cracks have appeared in the tough metal. Imbretus Space Station had been there, located in that place the reif has so casually mentioned. And it is very close, close to them – those fucking vicious crab things.

The Prador/Human war did not end in real victory for either side. The Polity was just beginning to push the aliens back, and to reclaim lost worlds, when the then King of the so-called ‘Prador Second Kingdom’ was usurped – rather messily it was rumoured, being skimmed out across the homeworld sea with diatomic acid eating away at him from the inside. Throughout this usurpation many Prador ships withdrew, and as the ‘Prador Third Kingdom’ then arose, it became evident that the new King understood he could not win. He therefore withdrew the rest of his forces to where the original border had lain, and there established a series of defensive space stations. The Polity proceeded to establish similar stations, but not without leaving a large buffer zone between them and the Prador. Later agreements officially designated this an area where neither Prador nor Human warships should venture. This area was subsequently called No Man’s Land, or the Wasteland, but the final name settled on was the Graveyard, simply because that’s what it was. Billions had died there, living worlds had been killed, massive wrecks still drifted through the dark. It is like an interstellar version of the dead and cratered ruination found between planetary battlefronts, and only rats live there.

‘The Graveyard,’ echoed Drooble, the very mention of it seeming to perk him up.

‘What interests do you have there?’ Orbus asks tightly.

‘They are numerous and varied,’ says Cymbeline. ‘As you yourself must be aware, considering where you come from, there is currently a great interest in wartime artefacts. Within the Graveyard, numerous teams of . . . prospectors are collecting items of interest to sell in the Polity. Presently I have agents at various locations there, buying up such desirable items so as to put together one large cargo to ship back into the Polity. But, as you must also be aware, the Graveyard is a dangerous place, and I would prefer that the Captain who takes the Gurnard there is capable of dealing with the difficulties he is, unfortunately, certain to encounter.’

Orbus just grunts at that. On the one hand he wants to escape his sadistic past, but on the other . . . the prospect of action and some difficulties offers a horrible attraction. Perhaps, nevertheless, he should avoid such things for a while? Perhaps he should just get out?

He leans forward. ‘Well, perhaps we should now discuss my pay, and some sort of profit-sharing scheme?’

Cymbeline’s grotesque grin reappears.

Even with all the wall panel’s rivets removed, it still hangs stubbornly in place, so Vrell takes up from the toolbox that essential piece of Prador metals technology, a huge lump hammer, and begins crashing it against the panel to help loosen the metal from the underlying foamed porcelain. After a moment he spots two further rivets he has not yet removed. They must be a later addition, for they are nowhere on the schematics he has carefully memorized. He places the extractor over each in turn, winds them out, then takes up another tool, a crowbar, jams it behind the panel and levers. The panel comes out with a crack, totters in place for a moment, then slams down on the grav floor, spattering ichorous flesh from the third-child corpse it crushes underneath it.

Vrell emits a bubbling sigh and now reaches into the toolbox for a device like a large handgun devised to fit a Human hand. This trails a superconducting cable into the toolbox itself, where it plugs into the box’s power supply. Holding this device in one of his underhands, Vrell directs it at the wall of green foamed porcelain before him, and presses the trigger. The vibro-debonder makes not a sound, but the porcelain retreats before it like expanded plastic before a blowtorch, as the precise frequency now emitted turns it to dust. Vrell pulls his mask back on, making use of his harness air supply while he works, for soon he is surrounded by a white haze. Within minutes he cuts open a space into which he can easily fit, first dropping the toolbox inside, then climbing in himself. Reaching back out with one claw, he hauls the wall panel back up into place, bonds it there with a squirt of epoxy from the toolbox’s ample supply, then begins to slice downwards through the foam.

As he works his way downwards Vrell checks, via his CPU, the current situation with his fighting suits of armour. Obviously the King’s Guard must understand that most of the suits will be empty but, because of the variance to the standard fighting programs, they will believe that Vrell occupies one of them and is exerting some control over the rest. Thus far they have destroyed nine of them, with only minor injuries to their own side. This is perfectly to be expected, but now three separate suits have nearly reached three crucial areas of the ship, and Vrell realizes he needs to move faster to get his timings right.

At about every twenty-foot interval in his progress downwards Vrell cuts a cavity to one side and scoops all the accumulated powder into it. This isn’t entirely necessary since the stuff does not greatly restrict movement, and he is anyway using his harness air supply. After a while he does not bother scooping away the powder, and fifty feet down is soon submerged in the stuff, but continuing to work. Then he discovers a good reason for shifting the powder, since it blunts the effectiveness of the vibro-debonder. Again he opens a large cavity to one side and, using all his underhands, scoops the mass of accumulated powder into it.

But still he is not progressing fast enough. His armoured suits are now fighting at two of the locations required, and others will reach the third location within minutes, and yet he has at least fifty feet to go. It is time to take a risk.

This internal shock wall contains no security measures. It is basically a blindspot – it having been considered as much a waste of resources to place security measures here as it would be to place them inside a structural beam. However, because of its function, it does contain sensors that relate to the integrity and structural strength of the ship as a whole. Vrell now unclips from his harness a weapon consisting of a heavy polished tube, the rear section equipped with heat-dispersing fins and claw grip, an s-con cable trailing from it to the harness power supply. This particle cannon can easily cut down through the foamed porcelain, but he did not use it at first because of those sensors. If the beam cuts close enough to them to defeat the insulating properties of the foam, they will instantly detect the heat, so he needs to be extremely accurate with his shooting.

Vrell now begins assessing precisely where he is within the wall. Because he is no longer connected into the ship’s computer system, he cannot use it to locate his exact position, so he instead begins triangulating from the shifting positions of the other CPUs in his own little network of mobile armour, whilst also relying on his memory of the ship’s schematics. This should be an impossible task for anything less than a Polity AI, or else one of the surgically removed and enhanced first-child minds the Prador use to control their own spaceships, but Vrell is confident in his own abilities. He aims the cannon downwards, checking the angle of its barrel on his mask display and also its distance from the centre-point of his own CPU, aiming directly between sensors he can see only in his own mind, and triggers it.

The beam flashes ragged purple for half a second, then turns a hot green as it heats up the floating porcelain dust, then punches downwards through the hard foam. Hot gas and dust blast up at him as, from the initial point of aim, he slowly spirals the beam outwards, carefully counting away the seconds. The cavity he occupies rapidly rises in temperature and he folds in his underhands as they begin to sear. The sharp tips of his legs soon begin to hurt too. He knows he will sustain some physical damage, but retains much faith in the recently discovered regenerative properties of his virally transformed body. Then finally he shuts off the beam.

A glowing cave spears down into murk till lost to sight. With his spare claw Vrell takes up the toolbox, then releasing his hold on the wall, he drops. Just a little under fifty feet, he hits bottom, sharp feet stabbing into red-hot foamed porcelain. Before the pain grows too intense, he swings round the vibro-debonder in one of his manipulatory hands and begins turning the remaining porcelain into dust. A hole punches through, furnace-hot gas and dust blowing down into it under pressure. Soon he exposes a cavity below, between two walls braced apart by piston shock absorbers. Movement sensors within these measure the changes of stress and strain inside the ship. And beyond one braced wall lies very heavy security. Now it is time to do something about that.

The last target location within the ship is finally covered by the mobile suits of armour, and his whole plan now teeters on the edge of disaster. Because at one of the other locations only one suit survives and, currently under fire from eight members of the King’s Guard, it will not survive for much longer. However, in a way this is a little piece of luck in view of what Vrell next intends, for maybe Vrost will think that his rival himself occupies that last suit and has decided to take out as many of the enemy as possible before being struck down. Vrell sends the detonation signal to the fusion tactical of that one suit, which is fortunately the first one that needs to be destroyed.

The armour detonates, excavating a massive burning hole within the ship and not even the smallest fragment of itself escaping obliteration. A seemingly unintended consequence of this explosion is huge damage to the casing of a nearby combined fusion and fission reactor, which now begins spewing radiation into the surrounding area. Automatic safety protocols shut down certain power feeds there, and divert others. Vrell now sends similar detonation signals to the other remaining suits, but those exploding in two particular locations are the most important. One detonation sends an inductive surge of power along a nearby s-con conduit and burns out part of the ship’s distributed computer network, while the other actually shears through some main power conduits. The final result of this is a cut to all power in a particular section of the ship – the portion directly below Vrell.

He sweeps the beam of the particle cannon across, severing numerous shock absorbers, then drops down into the space below him. The rivet extractor already in one hand, he applies it rapidly to the sheet of hull metal facing him, the loosened rivets clattering away into the darkness below. Shortly, the sheet of metal falls after them, jamming with a crash between shock absorbers below. Vrell throws himself into the space beyond and, with a satisfied sigh, eyes the mass of hardware, optics and s-con cables packed in the spaces all about him. This place was last entered many centuries ago, when the ship was first built, and then closed up. Here are all the main feeds and computer connections to what lies directly below him: the Captain’s Sanctum.

Ensconced in his chair on the ship’s bridge, Orbus gazes at a distant cloud-swathed world. Like so many once-inhabited worlds in the Graveyard, a glittering ring of debris now encircles it, though in this case the ring is neat and precise, having been shepherded by a sulphurous moon. The planet is called Paris and long ago was a thriving Polity world with a Human population surpassing a billion. Great satellite space stations orbited here, and huge high-tech industries occupied the equatorial deserts down below. This place was rich in every resource – surrounding space also swarming with asteroids heavy in rare metals. It took the Prador less than a day to turn those satellites into that ring of debris, before going on to depopulate the planet itself and turn it into a hell which only now, after seven hundred years, is cool enough for a few bases to be established down on the surface.

‘Got it sorted yet?’ he enquires.

‘Jeesh, Captain, you should see this thing,’ Drooble replies from the little-used shuttlebay of the Gurnard. ‘It’s probably older than you are!’

‘The shuttle,’ Gurnard informs them both coldly, ‘is perfectly serviceable, and will probably continue to be perfectly serviceable long after you have both found your own graveyards.’

Orbus clenches his hands into fists. He really does not like the way Gurnard sometimes phrases things, for the ship AI seems to alternate between plain spooky and threatening. It is also frustrating that it remains so disembodied and beyond his grasp . . . not that he wants to do anything harmful to it. Certainly not, for he is a reformed character.

‘Don’t see why we gotta use the bugger at all,’ Drooble complains.

‘It’s the law here,’ says Orbus. ‘Or maybe more of a tradition now.’

The Gurnard changes course, and Orbus eyes their destination as it slides into better view on the forward screen. The ‘Free Republic of Montmartre’ is a massive space station built up over a long period of time from salvage collected within the Graveyard. However, there is no denying that some of that salvage is well utilized. Orbus recognizes the brassy glint of Prador exotic metal used in exterior construction, numerous gun turrets and the throats of big rail-guns. The rule that no ships larger than a certain size can approach the station dates back to the time when this place was just a conglomeration of bubble units, and therefore easily damaged or destroyed. Back then even ship shuttles had to be transported in by a station grabship, though this rule has been dropped over the last few centuries. Now Orbus glances down as a subscreen flicks into life in the bottom corner of the main screen.

‘I have transmitted docking coordinates and an entry course to your AI,’ A bored-looking ophidapt, with slightly protruding fangs, peers at Orbus. ‘If you deviate from that course, you could be subject to a fine not less than one thousand New Carth shillings.’

Orbus nods acceptance. ‘There’ll be no problem.’

The subscreen flickers off, and he stands up, grabbing a small heirodont-hide carry-all, and heads for the shuttle bay. Having thoroughly checked out the history of this place, he knows that five centuries ago any deviation from approach rules would have resulted in the offender getting smeared by one of those big rail-guns out there. Things have moved on, however, and civilization is even infiltrating places like this. Then again, it seems that civilization here has penetrated only as deep as this station’s skin, for inside this place is one of those difficulties Cymbeline mentioned.

The shuttle bay is a plain cylinder with a suiting room to the rear and space doors at the other end, opening through the hull. Crammed into it is one craft that must be the Gurnard’s original shuttle, for it appears to be a product of the same designer. It looks like a short lamprey, but one with a miniature pattern on its hull of the same curved scales as adorn the Gurnard itself. In its side, a long door follows the curve of its hull and divides horizontally so that its bottom half, with inset steps, can fold down to create a stair. At the moment it stands open, and light of a more yellowish tint than the surrounding bay lights illuminates the interior, whence can be heard the sounds of Drooble moving about, and occasionally swearing.

Orbus clumps up the steps and ducks inside to peer around. Much as he expected, the interior of the shuttle is also faux-Victorian. The main controls, set below two slanting screens, are all brass and wooden levers and wheels rising out of a glass console below which turn numerous interlocking brass cogs and gears like those of a Babbage difference engine. The two chairs positioned before this are of wood, but with leather upholstery secured by big round-headed brass tacks. Studying his crewman’s sour expression, Orbus feels something quite strange boil up inside him, something it takes him a moment to identify as amusement. But then that dies away as he understands the reason for his initial inability to identify this feeling: it is because he has not really been amused by anything for centuries. So when, in fact, was the last time he laughed? Yes, he’d done that of course, usually while flogging the skin off someone’s back or keel-hauling them or breaking their bones with a wooden club, but that can hardly be described as arising from anything as healthy as the simple amusement he has just experienced.

‘Memories of your high-tech qualifications coming back to haunt you, Iannus?’ he asks, resting a hand momentarily on Drooble’s shoulder.

Drooble gazes at him for a moment, his expression suddenly confused, then shivers as if icy water has just run down his spine. ‘Why dress it up old like this?’

‘Why not?’ the Captain replies, as he plumps himself down in the chair before the small column-mounted helm, and tries to figure out how he is going to fly this thing. After a moment he realizes it won’t be particularly difficult since white enamel labels, imprinted with a flowing Cyrillic script, clearly identify every control arrayed before him.

‘Take a seat, Iannus,’ he orders. ‘Let’s go for a little ride.’ Reaching over he pulls back an ivory-handled lever, and actually feels some feedback through the handle itself as the shuttle’s door groans shut. The lever just next to it is for controlling the space doors, and once he pulls that back, a ship’s bell begins ringing. He wonders, just for a moment, if all this stuff was designed precisely with Old Captains in mind, then dismisses the idea. This might all be ersatz ancient, but it is definitely old and part of the original overall design of the Gurnard – a ship certainly built well before Cymbeline decided to start hiring Orbus or his kind.

Taking hold of the helm, he is momentarily at a loss, until he spots that the helm column itself can move up and down as well as backwards and forwards, and that a series of foot pedals runs along the floor against the lower half of the console.

‘This should be interesting,’ he says as Drooble finally drops into the seat beside him.

Ahead, the space doors slide open, revealing their join to consist of interlocking crenellations. When they reach nearly all the way apart, a red light on the console flicks out to be replaced by amber, then green. He eases the helm forward on its column, and with a low rumble the shuttle slides out into space. Now, easing back on the helm again, he brings the shuttle to a halt relative to the Gurnard, then spends some time manoeuvring it around the larger ship to thoroughly familiarize himself with the controls, aware that any thousand-shilling fine would probably be deducted from the profit-sharing bonus he has agreed with Cymbeline.

‘So,’ says Drooble, ‘this Smith character is being a little difficult?’

‘He rents the warehouse in which is stored the entire carapace of a Prador adult that Cymbeline’s agent retrieved from the wreckage of a dreadnought destroyed somewhere out this way,’ Orbus explains. ‘The price was agreed beforehand, but now there’s an additional handling charge being demanded which has trebled the initial cost. Apparently such a delicate and expensive item might be badly damaged if it is not moved by an expert team.’

‘Protection racket,’ observes Drooble.

Orbus glances at him and notes he is smiling, then returns his attention to Montmartre. Yes, it might be simply about shoving up the price, but the situation has other slightly more worrying aspects. It seems Cymbeline’s agent and his crew, and his survey ship, dropped out of contact shortly after delivering the carapace here.

They now approach the docking coordinates, and Orbus sees that the facilities here consist of a series of three old carrier shells: large structures in the shape of hexagonal-threaded nuts, once running the big engines for shifting over large distances the smaller vessels that slotted into their central holes. In one of these shells a shuttle is currently docked, but the next one along is empty and it is to this one Orbus is directed. He reduces speed as the station structure looms all about them, the shuttle sliding into shadow glinting with navigation lights. A few deft alterations with steering thrusters set the shuttle drifting into the central hollow of the carrier shell, then Orbus brings it to a full stop, aligning not the side doors but a rear airlock.

‘OK, we pay the agreed cost and collect the carapace,’ Orbus states. ‘I’m sure this can all be resolved without any unpleasantness.’

With a double thump against the hull, gecko-pad docking clamps engage. Orbus reaches over and and clicks down a brass-toggle electric switch and, below the main forward screens, concertinaed wooden shutters open to expose a series of smaller viewing screens. These last are slightly bulbous, almost like ancient cathode-ray televisions. Here he observes a view of the clamps – just two hydraulic cylinders terminating in wide circular pads presently stuck to the hull on either side of the airlock. Between these, the steel tube of a docking tunnel – terminating in a univeral lock that can adjust to encompass just about any size of airlock – is being extruded from the carrier shell. He watches the lock slowly expand and then affix itself to the hull, using the same technology as the gecko clamps. A particular red light turns to amber then green, and inside the glass console a wheel revolves into view an enamel plaque informing them that the tunnel is properly engaged and therefore ready to use.

‘Let’s go.’ Orbus stands, picks up his bag and heads to the rear, Drooble quickly on his heels. Both of them cram into the shuttle’s airlock, then through the tunnel towards the station lock.

The interior of the carrier shell is cramped, zero-gravity and very old. Although visitors can propel themselves through here while hardly touching the interior, the metal walls are in places worn down to an underlying layer of insulation, and in many other places patches have been welded in place. Oddly, there is also a vine growing across these walls, its gnarled trunk as thick as a man’s leg in places and spined with twiggy growth putting out green and red buds. The two pause in here, holding on to vine wood polished by the touch of many hands, whilst a hatch opens to extrude a saucer-shaped security drone. This buzzes to itself for a moment, blue lights flickering around its rim, then shoots out of sight again, the same hatch slamming shut. Orbus focuses his attention on the station door, but it remains resolutely closed.

‘I believe you are already aware of the rules governing entry to the Free Republic of Montmartre?’ enquires the snooty voice of the ophidapt station official.

‘No weapons likely to damage the station structure and no dangerous biologicals,’ replies Orbus, turning a suspicious eye on Drooble.

Drooble shakes his head. ‘I ain’t got nothin’, Cap’n.’

‘What’s the problem?’ Orbus asks, wondering just when, in situations like this, the urge to start smashing things up will cease to torment him.

‘The scanning drone has detected a large quantity of an as yet unidentified alien viral form,’ the ophidapt informs them. ‘Until it is identified and proven safe, I cannot allow you into the station.’

Through clenched teech Orbus asks, ‘Have you got some sort of fault in your bio files?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘We’re Hoopers.’

After a short pause the drone once again pops out and scans them, this time for a lengthier period.

In a flat voice the ophidapt announces, ‘You may enter, but please be aware that the station owners classify any physical augmentation as a weapon. You will face severe penalties if you damage station structure, and you will also be ejected should you attack registered station personnel.’

A lock clonks in the station door and Orbus pushes himself over, pulls it open, and enters the grav-plated vestibule beyond. Here a payment console awaits, and he makes a money transfer from his ship’s slab to get them through the next door into the station proper. He has no intention of attacking registered personnel. The owners of the station, the Layden-Smiths, and the ‘free citizens’ who keep it maintained, collect a nice tithe from their tenants but do not concern themselves with how those tenants run their businesses. The rule about weapons and damage to the station structure is an old one, for it dates from times when the firing of any weapon might have caused an atmosphere breach. As he understands it, the rule now only concerns damage to the main heavy superstructure, airlocks, floors and ceilings, and all the service networks, but most of everything else within here is the property of those same tenants. Orbus decides he will just have to choose carefully if it becomes necessary for him to shove someone’s head through a door or a wall.

The female lies slumped against the blank white wall, and ship-lice begin to edge closer, detecting death well before the onset of decay. The Human woman, Sadurian, holds up one hand, and the two Prador third-children, clad in close-fitting chrome armour, halt immediately, placing their equipment on the polished metal floor and themselves settling down onto their stomachs. Behind them the droge – a big upright cylinder with compartments all about its outer surface, containing further equipment – subsides with a hiss of compressed air. Sadurian herself squats on her haunches, the motors in her exoskeleton balancing her perfectly, and tries to recapture some of her original feelings of awe and privilege.

When the Brodis made his approach on Cheyne III, offering Sadurian a job and any salary she cared to name, she was somewhat doubtful. She had been approached like this before and, since the expertise and extensive knowledge she had acquired over a century of research had made her independently wealthy, she knew that only ECS or one of the stellar corporations could possibly afford her. And, even then, more than money was required, for she only wanted work that interested her – and back then very little but her own heavily esoteric pursuits did that. Blank-faced, she suggested a truly huge sum.

‘First payment will be by electronic transfer, thereafter in Prador diamond slate and etched sapphires,’ Brodis replied, taking out a palm console. ‘If you could send me your account details, I will immediately transfer one month’s salary, which you may keep even should you reject the commission I am about to offer you.’

Somewhat more curious by then, Sadurian took up her own palm console from one of her laboratory counters, keyed it to the signal from the other console, and sent her bank account details. Brodis carried out the transfer at once, and Sadurian blinked at the phone-number figure that appeared on her screen.

‘Are you ECS?’ she enquired.

‘No.’

‘Which corporation?’

‘My master is not based within the Polity.’

‘Your master?’

‘My master and possibly your employer is neither Human nor artificial intelligence.’

That doesn’t leave much else. ‘A high-ranking Prador.’

‘The highest.’

The journey into the Prador Third Kingdom took many months, skirting the Graveyard as it did and involving many transfers between ships. As Sadurian penetrated deeper into that shadowy realm where the two races traded, she found Humans increasingly strange as they adapted themselves to those they did business with. There were people with additional cybernetic limbs, so that as well as their own natural hands they might sport claws, and there were those whose vicious pursuits were entirely in keeping with Prador tastes, but remained capital crimes within the Polity. The first Prador she met she realized must be as different from the Prador norm as these Humans were from the Human standard, so she decided not to base any assessments of their kind upon it.

Penetrating deeper into the Kingdom, she found vicious individualists whose base instincts were utterly focused on the destruction, usually in the most messy and painful way imaginable, of their competitors. To begin with she could not understand how creatures like this ever managed to run a stellar kingdom. But when she first encountered the King’s Guard, she realized that here was a different kind of Prador who, along with their King, were the glue that held it all together. And when she finally came before her employer, King Oberon, she found something utterly different again, something in a constant state of change, even then, which was a hundred years ago.

Sadurian continues gazing at the dead female. Polity AIs, while making genetic assays of Prador males, just about got the physiology of the females right and were correct in their assumptions about their social position, though way off in their estimates of Prador female intelligence and what form it took. But she is the first free Polity citizen to actually see one of their kind, for her involvement with them is all part of the job she was offered. She soon learnt that Oberon and his original children, mutated by the Spatterjay virus, were locked into a kind of stasis. The virus prevented Prador children from growing up – more effectively even than the hormonal controls Prador generally use – and it also rendered the King infertile. Gradually, through the slow attrition of accident and murder, the number of Oberon’s children was dropping, and if their number dropped below a certain level, Oberon would not be able to hang on to the reins of power. Sadurian’s job, as arguably the most able xenogeneticist the Polity had ever seen, was to change this state of affairs. And she did.

The female is twenty feet wide and resembles, if anything, the horseshoe crab of planet Earth. Unlike the male her shell is more helmet-shaped, with a wide skirt underneath which her legs and underhands can be folded out of sight. Saurian ridges extend from the facial end of the carapace to the ovipositor tail. The visage itself consists of two large forward-facing eyes between which rise two clublike eye-stalks, each sporting one short-range pupil and one other fibrous sensor whose spectrum does not venture out of the infrared. Her mandibles are long and heavy and almost serve as limbs themselves, in that they once could rapidly extend to snatch up prey. Her claws, though short and broad, possess a clamping pressure that could crack ceramal. This particular female’s claws are both crushed, and her mandibles have been shattered, though her lethal ovipositor remains undamaged. She is lying on her side, tilted up against the wall, her underside split and viscera bulging out. Such are the consequences of a mating with the King.

‘Okay, let’s see what we’ve got here,’ says Sadurian, easing herself to her feet.

The two armoured third-children hoist up their equipment and advance on the corpse, the droge rising again to dog their footsteps. First they use long electric probes to ensure that she is actually dead, then they open compartments in the droge to take out further tools required for the task. With hydraulic cutters they snip away her underarms to expose more of her underside, then they wield carapace saws, vibroblades and their own motor-assisted claws to pull all this covering away, and with careful cutting expose her internal egg sacs.

This operation has become all but routine over the last eighty years, and though there is much other work to do involving viral mutation and the raising of tank-grown Prador young, Sadurian now finds plenty of time to speculate about the Prador Third Kingdom.

Oberon’s usurpation of the Second King’s rule brought the Prador/Human war to an end, and certainly Oberon and his children are the glue that holds this insane species together within the new kingdom, but what about before} Oberon received his viral infection from the planet Spatterjay, a place unknown to the Second King until the war with the Humans actually began, which meant that previous monarch seemed likely to have been a normal Prador. So what was the particular glue that held the Second Kingdom together, and the First Kingdom before it? What enabled such vicious and destructive creatures to build both a civilization and a technology to take them to the stars?

The whole thing remained a mystery to her until her fiftieth year within the Prador Kingdom. Then she learnt how simple historical circumstances had resulted in the First King, but then the Second King rose to power because of the machinations of a legendary being called The Golgoloth, which is a name still used to terrify Prador children.