Fallen Dragon

It surprised them, but they didn't object.

"I'm on for it," Karl said. "Fucking Z-B. If there's really any of that metal up there, I can walk away from the bastards."

"Sign me up," Odel said.

"Me too," Edmond agreed.

"You're not leaving me behind," Dennis said.

"Congratulations," Amersy said. "That makes it a full set."

Denise had managed to keep her emotions in check for so long now, she'd almost forgotten they were there, squatting at the back of her mind. She'd told herself her immunity from distraction was due to the d-writing she'd undergone; that objectivity and rationality had been installed along with all the other enhancements. The news about Josep had exposed that for the self-deception that it truly was. Ray had called her an hour after he was supposed to have left the spaceport, saying he hadn't reported in. Then his Prime started intercepting heavily encrypted messages flashing between the spaceport and the East Wing of the Eagle Manor, where Z-B's intelligence staff had set up office. Several of them referred to "the prisoner"; they covered requests for personnel and equipment, mainly from the medical department.

"They're getting ready to interrogate him," Ray said.

Denise fought hard to suppress the dismay that had risen from nowhere. "Do you mean torture?" she asked levelly.

"No, it'll be drugs and brain scans. That's why they want the medical people."

"Can you get him out?"

"I don't even know for sure where he's being kept, yet, but I'm pretty sure it's the spaceport. They disconnected it from the datapool fifteen minutes ago. Which gives us a problem in trying to track down his physical whereabouts inside. And even if I did, it would take time to retrieve him. He'll be under the heaviest guard they have. Denise... I don't think I'll be able to get him out and safeguard the mission as well."

"I see."

"He knew that. You and I both knew this was a possibility, too. We've always accepted this risk."

"Yes." Stick to the mission, she told herself. "So now what? Do you think you can get hold of a key?"

"I'll have to wait and see. I need to know where they caught him, and if they have any idea what he was doing at the spaceport. That's what I don't understand, Denise, how the hell did they catch him? We know their security, there was nothing left to chance when we planned this out."

"Another Dudley Tivon," she said. "A random event. Someone caught him red-handed."

"Then why wasn't there any kind of alert? If anyone does anything against Z-B's interests they send up a barrage of red rockets. This time, without Prime intercepting their communications I would never even know they'd taken anyone prisoner."

"So what do you think?"

"The way it was done, the fact he never managed to load a warning into the datapool, I'd say they were waiting for him."

"They can't have been, Ray! That would mean they know about us."

"Yeah. Not a nice thought, is it?'

"I don't believe it. There has to be another explanation. There has to."

"I don't want to believe it, either. But we can't afford to ignore it, not now."

"Ray, we have to get a key for one of the Xianti flights. Without that, we've failed."

"Not yet we haven't, not by a long way."

"If you can't get him out..."

"I know. He'll never let them discover what he's become, nor what he was doing. At least we have that option."

"Do you want me to come to Durrell?"

"No. If I can salvage this I need you to be ready where you are. I'm going to have to consider my next move very carefully. I think we underestimated Z-B from the start. If that's the case we may even have to abandon the mission altogether."

"No!"

"Face it, Denise. We're not looking good right now. In any case, Z-B will be back in another decade or so. We can try again then."

"All right."

"It's not over yet. I'll keep monitoring the situation here and review my options. I'm trying to establish a link to the spaceport. We should know within twenty-four hours."

Denise managed a sad little smile. "That's when we were supposed to be on our way."

"Yeah. I'll call you as soon as I have anything new."

After that, Denise didn't go to the school. She left a message for Mrs. Potchansky, claiming a stomach bug, then told the house's Prime-augmented AS to filter calls. She knew she wouldn't be able to face the dear old woman, not even over a visual link.

It was the first time the rented bungalow had felt truly empty without Ray and Josep. Her head slowly filled with strange notions as she wandered along the hall. That she should go back to Arnoon Province where she'd be safe. Or fly to Durrell anyway, and rescue Josep. That this whole mission had been a mistake.

None of these thoughts are relevant, she told herself crossly. That didn't stop them from breeding.

Denise looked at the door to Josep's room, not quite sure why she was standing outside it. He hadn't gone in for much in the way of personal decoration—a desk, a couple of dark green leather chairs, which she thought were pretty awful. The bed was a double. Naturally. He'd hung a big sheet screen over half of the opposite wall, so he could lounge around on the mattress and watch the shows. In its inactive mode the screen showed a picture of Mount Kenzi taken on a cloudless, sunny day, rugged snowcap shining bold against the pale turquoise sky. She turned the handle and went in. When he'd taken off for Durrell he'd left the room in a shambles—the quilt crumpled up at the bottom of the bed, sheet rucked; several pairs of swimming trunks were shoved under the bed. T-shirts that he'd worn when teaching his tourists were thrown into a heap on one of the chairs, still smelling of seawater. Towels had been dropped on the floor. A set of his gills were slung over the back of the desk chair.

Despite everything else Denise had to do over the weeks following the invasion, she'd tidied up both the boys' rooms. Clothes and towels were gradually put into the washing cabinet. The mess sorted out. She'd even found two pairs of panties and a bra under Josep's bed—they had also been washed. The quilt had been folded neatly on the foot of the bed. Their little domestic robot had vacuumed the carpet, dusted round and polished the broad window that looked out over the back garden.

Even spruced up like this, the room belonged to Josep. There were tears in her eyes, which she wiped away savagely with her knuckles. She sat down on the edge of the bed, a hand stroking the mattress. When she closed her eyes it was easy to see him. Memories of him as a stupid little boy up at Arnoon. Growing taller and more serious as the years wound on. Emerging from the d-writing, mature and confident, his dedication to the mission easily as strong as hers. Then down here in Memu Bay. Devilish and happy, growing into a decent, attractive young man. All those fabulous girls he'd brought back to the bungalow, ending up here on this bed.

She'd never slept with him or Ray. Instead they'd shared what amounted to a brother-sister relationship, caring and respectful, with plenty of teasing thrown in, housemate pranks.

Was I being stupid? Should I have just leaped at him? Stolen the precious time we had? Or were we both scared of how deep and serious it would become if we started?

Irrelevant now. Just an exercise in what if, and painful self-recrimination as the prospect of total failure dawned. She hated herself for thinking such things. But the memories wouldn't let her stop.

The message package from the underground cell arrived late in the morning. Prime programs installed in various data-pool nodes ensured it stayed below the horizon of Z-B's monitors. Not even dataflow logs recorded its routing.

Denise was curled up on Josep's bed when the bungalow's AS accepted the message and delivered it direct to her d-written neuron cells. The pillow was damp around her cheek. She'd been crying.

Misery became plain annoyance as she reviewed the message. It was from a cell group in Harkness, one of the smaller suburbs almost on the edge of Memu Bay's moat of terrestrial vegetation. They'd barely been active since the occupation. Scrawling a few slogans on walls. Storing equipment and crude weapons for the more active units in Memu Bay itself. But Harkness was stretched along the eastbound wing of the Great Loop Highway—a very strategic location given their mission. The main purpose in recruiting the cell was so that they could keep the road under observation. And they'd just fulfilled their principal function.

The package was a report that two Z-B jeeps had passed through town, heading down the Great Loop Highway out toward the hinterlands.

Denise felt a flash of resentful anger that the imbeciles in the cell had screwed up and bothered her. Especially right now. Another emotion surge she could do without.

There were no jeeps. The Prime she'd inserted into Z-B's headquarters network reviewed their deployment schedules. And something like a convoy of Skins on their way out to the hinterlands would have been tagged as immediate priority. She would have known within seconds of Ebrey Zhang's office posting the duty.

The Prime operating within the bungalow automatically correlated the new information. There was a patrol scheduled to travel round the hinterlands today.

Reflex muscle action made Denise sit up fast She queried the patrol assignment.

Prime confirmed it.

She loaded another query, asking why Prime hadn't warned her about the assignment.

For software as powerful as Prime, the answer was a long time coming. Several milliseconds. Her Prime hadn't been aware of the patrol before because the assignment hadn't come through Zhang's office. Something else had inserted it into the schedule, and done so in a way that shielded it from registering on any monitor routine. The Prime was sending out thousands of subtle trawlers through the surrounding architecture, trying to locate the origin. One of the probes encountered another Prime lurking inside Z-B's AS.

Within the electronic universe the two quasi-sentient software systems regarded each other passively. Attempts at infiltration and subversion were impossible. They were equals.

"Another Prime?" Denise squawked in shock.

It simply could not be.

Yet there it was.

She withdrew her own Prime.

There had been no alert issued in the Z-B network; nobody knew she'd been sniffing around. The other Prime hadn't informed them. She tried to think the situation through logically. There was only one place a Prime came from, and that was Arnoon. Somebody else from back home must be in Memu Bay. Somebody with a mission contrary to hers. Which again wasn't possible. No Prime would act against the dragon; it had written Prime specifically for them.

None of this made any sense. Then she finally paid attention to the platoon that had been assigned the patrol: 435NK9. Lawrence Newton!

"He can't know," she whispered. But he was heading down the Great Loop Highway on a patrol that Z-B had never authorized, and didn't know about.

Denise closed her eyes and considered her options. There weren't many. She had to know how a Prime was helping Newton. That was paramount: it might even reveal how Josep had been captured. The answer had to be in Arnoon. And Newton himself could not be allowed to reach the province.

Denise ran to her own room and began to change clothes. Jeans, a T-shirt, leather jacket, a small bag with the two weapons she kept in the bungalow. As she was putting them on she issued commands to various cells, requiring them to take direct action against the patrol. Her Prime also scoured the local traffic regulation AS to find a suitable vehicle for her. It gave her a list of possibilities, and she selected the one she wanted. A flurry of emergency route commands were shot into the vehicle's AS.

She pulled some heavy boots on and hurried out Lee Brack had been surprised when his bike AS suddenly flashed up emergency symbols on his optronic membranes and the bike immediately turned off down a side road. He always hated engaging the AS anyway. This bike was meant to be ridden properly, by humans, not goddamn software. The big green-and-gold Scarret had a three-core converter cell for power, with superconductor cabling and multi-ring direct axle motors with inbuilt turning angle compensators. Top speed of 250 kilometers per hour on a decent stretch of road. His wives referred to it as his midlife crisis machine. And here it was being remote-controlled into some damned housing estate. The alignment power coupling turned the front wheel again, taking him in to the curb as he slowed. Parking legs slid out.

Lee Brack took his helmet off and stared around in confusion. "What bloody emergency?" He was in the middle of Stereotype Street suburbia. On the other side of the road an old couple were walking their chocolate Labrador. In front of him an attractive girl was out jogging. Actually she was sprinting damn fast. She came to a halt beside the Scarret "Thanks," she said.

"For wh—"

Her hands grabbed the front of his one-piece bikesuit. Lee Brack was lifted off the Scarret's saddle as if he were made from lightweight foam rather than his actual weight of ninety-five kilos. He chased a short arc through the air to land badly on his left arm, with the shoulder taking most of the weight. Something amid his bones and tendons made a nasty crunch. Only then did he manage to yell.

The girl snatched up his helmet and straddled the Scarret. Lee's cry of pain turned to outrage as the dashboard display lit up. What about his fucking security codes? "You bitch!"

Denise's Prime simply erased the Scarret's AS and installed itself in the neurotronic pearls that governed the bike's systems. With her d-written neural structure integrating her directly into the software, it was as if she'd become part of the bike. Power burned into the axle motors, and she turned the handlebars in smooth unison with the alignment power coupling. The U-turn was sharp enough to scrape a parking leg on the tarmac. Sparks fantailed before it finished retracting. Denise accelerated hard, losing Lee Brack's barrage of obscenities within seconds.

The jeeps were approaching the edge of Memu Bay's original gamma soak. Strands of darker, bluish vegetation were mingling with the terrestrial grass on either side of the Great Loop Highway. Up ahead the jungle of native vegetation was steaming gently after the early morning rains. In the passenger seat of the first jeep, Lawrence had a good view of the wide strip of tarmac cutting straight across the land until it disappeared into the trees.

Finally they were leaving the villages behind. They were dotted every few kilometers along the highway, clusters of small buildings that lined the road, almost identical each time—a couple of general stores, always a bar, and some kind of low-tech industry. Truck garages were fairly common, with rows of corroding hulks parked out on the grass. Road maintenance robot stations, also with broken-down chassis strewn around. A semiautomated steel mill churning out I-beams. A reclamation furnace with tall twin stacks blowing out thick, greasy smoke into the clear air, a huge stinking pile of rubbish sprawled over the land behind. The houses that accompanied them were a lot cruder than the fine whitewashed apartment blocks in Memu Bay. These were little more than one-story shacks with walls of cinder block and a roof of composite sheeting and solar collectors. Adults sat outside, watching the road and its traffic. Kids ran about on the dirt paths, chasing after one another, playing soccer.

"None of this was here last time," Lawrence said as they drove through a little conglomeration calling itself Enstone. A big sign was stuck up on the side of the highway, advertising the boatyard that had spread over a couple of acres beyond the row of houses.

"We're twenty klicks from the sea," Lewis protested.

"Cheaper to build out here," Amersy said. "This is Memu Bay's secondary economy. It always starts to grow up around prosperous settlements that have been established for a while. The bigger the population the bigger the percentage of semiskilled and transient workers."

"You mean poor people," Dennis said.

"I certainly do."

The traffic on this stretch of the Great Loop Highway was also a lot heavier than Lawrence remembered from last time. Most of it was trucks or vans that were dropping in and out of the little factories and businesses, shuffling supplies and material between them. At this rate, he thought, it wouldn't be long before the villages merged into a single urban strip.

They were passing through the last highway village when Lawrence's Prime notified him that another Prime had queried the patrol assignment. Another Prime? he asked it. There was no margin of error.

It must be KillBoy, he thought. It was the only explanation. In fact it made perfect sense. He'd always known the resistance people had sophisticated subversion software available. Strange irony, though, that it should be Prime; in twenty years this was the only copy he'd ever encountered.

"I want sensors switched to search pattern A-five," Lawrence told everyone. "Have your AS review the input for localized data traffic and electronic activity. Someone's just taken an interest in us. There may be a few hostiles around here."

"How the hell do you know that?" Amersy asked.

"I have some smart software that can spot illegal askpings. And someone queried our patrol. Someone outside Z-B."

"Christ, Sarge," Karl said. "They should make you general."

"That's some software," Amersy said dryly.

"Yeah. Come on, people, look lively." He checked his telemetry grid to make sure they were activating their sensors. When everyone had upgraded he turned around and checked on Hal, who was riding in the back of the jeep. The kid was leaning on the door so he could look out across the countryside. Wind was thrashing his short hair about. He had a permanent lopsided grin as he watched the scenery flash past. Edmond was sitting beside him, feet resting on a box full of the medical supplies that Hal's modules used.

"Everything okay?" Lawrence asked.

Edmond waved casually. "Under control, Sarge."

They crossed the border between terrestrial and Thallspring vegetation. The only other vehicle left on the Great Loop Highway was a tractor unit pulling a flatbed trailer that was trundling in from the hinterlands. When they passed it, Lawrence saw the trailer was loaded with trimmed tree trunks. He wondered how legal that was. There were several plants in town that synthesized wood.

"Let's go," he said to Dennis, who was driving the lead jeep. "I want to reach Arnoon by nightfall."

Dennis lowered his foot down on the accelerator, and the jeep began to pick up speed.

Since the call came in, Newby had been operating on a permanent adrenaline high, and it felt glorious. This kind of action was what he'd envisaged when he joined the cell. But ever since the invaders landed, all he'd been asked was to keep some bulky sealed boxes in the back of his father's shop, hidden underneath the crates of empty bottles that were waiting to be collected. He did get a thrill from the strangers who would come in and give him the password, either collecting or delivering boxes. It made him feel part of something important. At twenty-three years of age, it was the first sense of belonging he'd ever known.

Now finally the cell had been put on active status, with a critical duty. He joined his fellow cell members Carole and Russell around the back of his father's store and climbed into the battered old pickup. Any thoughts of a quiet getaway were ruined by the gut-rattler roar of the truck's ancient combustion engine as it fired up. He winced and grated through the gears, racing away as his father came running out.

The instructions received and decrypted by his bracelet pearl were simple and accurate. He stopped to pick up another cell: three people he'd never seen before. Two pudgy pasty-skinned men in their late twenties that he suspected were brothers. The third man was slim and dignified, at least sixty years old, wearing pressed jeans and a denim shirt with a lace tie; his Stetson was also clean and expensive. He looked like money to Newby. But they all had the right password, and each of them carried two intriguingly heavy cases. They squashed into the back of the pickup, and all six of them headed east along the Great Loop Highway toward the Mitchell foothills, with Newby pushing the old engine hard.

They chose the ambush site deep in the jungle, where the road had already begun its climb up to the plateau. It was an area of exceptionally lush vegetation, with creepers and vines that grew at near-visible rates. The battle between the undergrowth and the highway maintenance robots was as fierce as ever. Constant pruning by energy blades meant that the wall of foliage on either side of the road was now almost solid. Overhead, where the robotic implements couldn't reach, the branches had knitted together over the tarmac wound, creating a somber arboreal tunnel. Ragged strings of creeper hung down from the apex, acting as conduits for the rain-soaked canopy above. They dripped sour water across the Great Loop Highway like botanical stalactites.

Newby had to use the pickup's headlights, it was so dismal under the trees. When they finally spotted a gap in the thick tangle of undergrowth along the side of the road, he turned off and slowly maneuvered the pickup through the trees until it was a hundred meters away from the tarmac and completely invisible. Aramande and Rufus, the brothers, immediately set about fixing explosive charges to trees beside the road. They handled the little charges efficiently. During the journey they'd explained that they took part in occasional unlicensed logging operations in the jungle, where a lot of trees needed to be felled quickly. Nolan, the old man, had opened up the remaining four cases. They contained the kind of weapons Newby always dreamed about using against the invaders. Nolan assembled a chunky gun with quick professional motions. He called it a thunderbolt. The short barrel was eight centimeters in diameter, with a loading mechanism that looked as if it had been put together out of components from a hardware store; there was no electronic augmentation. It fired rounds as big as a fist. Nolan slapped in a bulky magazine and handed it to a delighted Newby.

"You get this because these rounds are energized explosive," Nolan said. "In other words, it doesn't matter if you're not very accurate. Which I don't believe you are. We think a direct hit from one of these will kill a Skin suit. A close hit will almost certainly damage one. So when we stop the jeeps and I give you the okay, you fire this magazine at them as fast as you can. The idea is to destroy the jeeps and kick the shit out of the Skins. Then you put in the second magazine and aim for individuals." He handed another thunderbolt to Carole. "The five of you will be shooting these at them simultaneously, and you'll have the jungle to provide cover. In those circumstances, it will be difficult for them to shoot back, but not impossible. Their sensors are good and they're backed up by an AS. They will be able to spot you. Understand? That's why you must keep the barrage going."

"What are you going to be doing?" Carole asked.

Nolan opened the last case. There was a rifle inside that had a barrel nearly a meter and a half long. Even to Newby's untutored eye it looked deadly.

The old man took it out and patted it fondly. "I'll be going for the precision strike."

Newby found himself a tree with a decent solid trunk over two meters wide. It was twenty meters from the Great Loop Highway. If he crouched down between two big buttress roots he had a clear view of the crumpled ribbon of tarmac. A pair of interface glasses kept him in touch with the others. Nolan had brought them as well as the guns. They were all linked with fiberoptic cable, which he'd unspooled across the jungle floor.

"This way we can communicate without transmitting," he'd explained. "It'll help keep our exposure to a minimum."

So now Newby waited with his legs folded uncomfortably and the dreadful humidity soaking his shirt and giving him a serious itch all over. Tixmites had found him, and were eagerly exploring this new supply of nourishment. He was swatting the tiny insects every few seconds as they gave his skin another painful bite. Now that he had time to look around properly, he could see their glistening nest mounds swaddling the tree trunks all around him.

His earlier excitement had faded. Nerves were chewing at his confidence. Shrill birdcalls made him twitch. He wanted this to be over. Twinges of cramp began to shoot down his calf muscle.

"I hear something," Russell's voice whispered in his ear.

"What?" came a chorus of whispers from the others.

"Could be them."

"Very well," Nolan said. "Now remember. Stay calm. This will be short, noisy and brutish. Do not lose track of our objective among all that. We have to support each other. That's the only way this will work."

"I won't let you down. Not me." Newby was slightly abashed to realize he'd spoken it out loud.

"I know you won't, son," Nolan said gently.

"It's them," Aramande hissed. "I see them."

"Very well. Rufus, don't leave it too late."

"Hey, man, I know what I'm doing."

Newby shifted around slightly, lifting the thunderbolt up ready. He looked along the fat barrel toward the road. Sure enough, a jeep was approaching. Headlights glared amid the gloom and shadows. There was another one just behind it He could see the Skins sitting inside. The first jeep was almost level with him when Rufus blew the tree. It was a simple enough trap. One tree down in front, blocking the road, forcing the jeeps to stop. Then a second would be blown behind them, preventing any retreat. They'd be in a killing zone, with the thunderbolts ripping them to shreds.

The brothers really did know what they were doing. The charge in the trunk blew out a huge section of wood at the base, shaped just so. There wasn't much of a flash, or noise. The tree crashed down, tearing through the hundreds of vines that knitted it to the rest of the jungle. It landed almost at right angles across the tarmac, thirty meters ahead of the first jeep.

Newby jumped to his feet, bringing the thunderbolt to bear, finger squeezing the trigger. But the first jeep wasn't even slowing. He thought he saw a couple of bright-orange flashes somewhere among the seated Skins. Two explosions detonated in the middle of the fallen tree. They were terrifyingly powerful, pulverizing a vast section of the trunk. A shrapnel cloud of deadly dagger-sized splinters erupted out of the twin fireballs, shredding the surrounding vegetation. The two surviving sections of the tree on either side of the explosion were shunted apart violently, leaving the road clear.

"Shoot!" someone yelled in Newby's ear.

He was in the act of flinching as several dozen of the fatal wood splinters scythed through the air around him, but managed to pull the thunderbolt's trigger anyway. The recoil nearly wrenched his arm off. God alone knew where the shot was aimed. He recovered and tried to take aim on the first jeep as it sped past. Explosions burst through the forest on the other side of the road. One went off on his side, about thirty meters away. The blastwave was muted by the trees, but still managed to punch him into the trunk that he was using as cover. His interface glasses were flung off. He yelled wordlessly at the pain, unable to hear himself. His ears stung, but the world had fallen completely silent.

More explosions were pounding the jungle, bright orange-and-violet light strobing weirdly. There seemed to be two different kinds, one a lot fiercer.

With his knees barely supporting him, he managed to roll his body around against the trunk until he was facing the road. A jeep was driving past. He brought the thunderbolt up again, surprised by the runnels of blood he was seeing on his hands and sleeves. The weapon wobbled as he lined it up on the speeding jeep. He pulled the trigger. An emerald laser fan swept across him. All he could see was a dazzling green haze. Then something exploded in midair halfway between him and the jeep. He was flung backward as a dreadful torrent of heat scorched into him. He could feel the skin on his cheeks and forehead shriveling. His hair smoldered as he crashed down into the sharp, prickly undergrowth.

Newby laughed, or cried. He wasn't sure which. But his lungs were juddering as his throat convulsed. His whole body was numb as shock blanked out the pain. He could see very little, just simple silhouettes. He blinked a few times as he scrabbled around feebly in the mud and broken branches. It took effort to lever himself up onto his knees. The laserblast had left huge gray mists floating across his vision. He whimpered as the numbness quickly gave way to a terrible cold gnawing deep into his flesh. Then he was shaking uncontrollably. The jeeps had gone. Several fires were burning amid the shattered trees. Smoke braids coiled around the trunks as they drifted up toward the canopy.

A dark mote streaked past his head from the direction of the road, so fast he thought it was some phantom, part of the damage the laser had wreaked on his eyes. But there was a tiny rigid contrail in the air, marking its passage.

Newby turned to see where it had gone. The contrail was curving at incredible speed, weaving fluidly around the intervening trees as it chased through 180 degrees. His brain sent a flood of nerve impulses out to his lungs and vocal cords, preparing them for a scream. They weren't fast enough.

Lawrence didn't allow them to stop until the jeeps had climbed up onto the plateau itself, and they were free of the jungle. During the last section of the climb the Great Loop Highway had gradually eroded to little more than a path through the trees. The tarmac had crumbled away from a combination of heat, water and roots. This far from Memu Bay, the budget for highway maintenance robots no longer allowed for resurfacing. The best they could do was keep the original route clear. Vehicles that traveled out here had the kind of gearing and suspension to cope with a mud track.

The jeeps had certainly managed. They'd come through the attempted ambush with several dents from chunks of flying wood, and the paintwork was scarred and scorched. But the engines and wheels were intact.

Dennis braked to a sharp halt as soon as Lawrence told him he could, tires kicking up a cloud of sandy dust.

Lawrence turned around. The sniper's bullet had caught Edmond at the base of his neck, slicing clean through the Skin carapace. There was nothing the Skin's medical program could do for him. The bullet had spun inside him, hacking through muscle, blood vessels, nerves and even shattering two of his cervical vertebrae before punching out through the back of his shoulder. There was just too much damage.

Hal's arms were flung around his friend, as they had been for the last hour. Even with half of his facial muscles impaired, his anguished expression was terrible to see.

"Dead," Hal wailed. He sucked down some air and blew it out. "Dead. Dead." Another labored inhalation. "Sarge. He. Is. Dead."

"I know, Hal. I'm sorry."

Blood had foamed out through the hole in the Skin's carapace. It'd soaked into the front of Hal's white shirt, where it was clotting into a thick paste.

Amersy, Lewis, Karl and Odel walked over from their jeep.

"Shit," Lewis muttered on the general communication link. "Now what?"

"I didn't know this was going to happen," Odel said.

"Yes, you fucking did," Karl snapped. "The sarge warned us. And we saw those bastards lurking in the woods."

"He's dead!" Odel snapped.

"So are they." Karl's voice had a satisfied edge. "Smart missiles. You know they make sense."

"Dear heaven, this shouldn't have happened." Odel turned away from the jeep, standing with his hands on his hips.

"We have to bury him," Lawrence said.

"Sarge?" Dennis asked.

"Bury him. As far as Bryant and Zhang are concerned, he's another Jones. We can't take him back with us. We can't tell them what happened."

Hal was still embracing his friend. Dennis had to prize his arms away using a hefty fraction of his Skin's strength. Hal's cries were wretched as they carried Edmond away from the jeep. His hands flailed helplessly against the seat and door, rocking the whole vehicle.

By unspoken consent they walked several hundred meters away from the track. Amersy and Odel began to scrape at the sandy soil, digging quickly. They laid the body, still in its Skin, in the bottom of the grave and filled it in.

"Anybody got any words?" Lawrence asked.

"Good-bye, mate," Karl said. "I haven't finished with KillBoy's friends yet. I'll score up a few more for you before this is over. Promise."

Amersy sighed. "Those of us who knew you thank you for the time you shared with us. You lived a good life, and that will not be forgotten. We wish you bon voyage on your last journey. May God embrace your soul."

"Amen," Dennis mumbled.

"Amen," Lawrence repeated.

"So now what?" Lewis asked as they walked back to the jeeps.

"We should be able to reach Arnoon in another five hours," Lawrence said.

"You mean keep going?" Odel asked.

"I will," Lawrence said.

"But he's dead, Sergeant. They know we're here."

"Not anymore they don't," Karl said. "They're dead too. We've earned that money, man. It belongs to us."

"If you want to go back, you can," Lawrence said. "Nobody's going to stop you, or hold it against you. I said right from the start, this is your own choice. It was Edmond's, too."

"God damn that KillBoy," Odel said. "I hope he burns in hell."

"Okay, let's get started," Lawrence said. "Dennis, I want you to look after Hal. Get him cleaned up; I think we brought some fresh shirts for him. I'll drive. Odel, you're with us; I want you integrated with the smart missile rack."

"You think they'll try again?" Lewis asked.

"Only if they're really stupid," Amersy told him.

* * *

Denise managed to keep the Scarret's speed at around the 140-kph mark as she powered through the highway villages. Her body weight swayed fluidly from side to side in perfect concert with the alignment power coupling, slicing the bike round the lumbering trucks and decrepit old vans. The combination of the Scarret's laser radar, Prime and d-written neurons proved a formidable guidance mechanism, allowing her to push the bike right out to its limit. Ramshackle buildings flashed past, reduced to a peripheral slipstream of drab colors. Her attention was focused only on the road ahead, the obstacles that snapped up. Bicycles were a pain. People were dangerous, especially the kids, who ran out into the tarmac. She lost count of how many times she hurtled past one with only a few centimeters' separation distance, leaving the child screaming in terror.

The traffic began to thin out as she closed on the border. As the gaps between vehicles stretched, she increased the power flow to the axle motors. Hunched down behind the sculpted ellipsoid of the windshield she could feel the wind blast past on either side. Tarmac was a slick blur below the fat, soft tires. Once again, human emotion had engaged. The aggressive thrill of speed pursued over the edge of safety. A predator's satisfaction at closing on its prey. And coiled deeper in the psyche, the painful hunger for a revenge that was pure vengeance.

She thundered out of a low valley to see the countryside open up ahead. The Mitchell range slid up across the horizon, standing aloof above the jungle. One by one she named each of the peaks spiking up into the pale turquoise sky. It had been months since she'd seen them, the companions of her youth. The sight of them invoked a subtle reassurance. Despite the circumstances, she was coming home. The loneliness would soon be over.

Inevitably, once the Scarret entered the jungle, she had to slow again. The tarmac was cracked, pulped gray fruit was splattered across it, water pooled in the potholes and steamed off the flatter sections. Even this bike, with all its active stabilization and compensators, had to be careful over such a treacherous surface.

Her private wish was that she'd catch up with the jeeps before the ambush, maybe even charging past to help Newby, Nolan and the other cell members. Not anymore.

When the Great Loop Highway finally narrowed enough so that the trees merged above and cut off the sunlight, she switched the headlight on. It was a strange, spooky section of road. Rather than illuminate, all the blue-white beam seemed to do was deepen the twilight murk around her. The undergrowth that fenced the tarmac was peppered with mold and slime; the leaves, deprived of light, had grown long and distorted, bleached of their healthy color. Tixmites were the only form of life here, flourishing on the decay carpet that was the jungle's floor.

The bike hummed down the center of the disintegrating highway, its superb engineering still giving her a smooth ride over the erratic surface. She switched off the laser radar in case the Skins detected it. Every enhanced sense she possessed was straining to detect them.

In the end, it wasn't difficult. Gases from the explosives lingered a long time in the still, thick air that smothered the road. Denise smelled them a minute before she reached the ambush site. She came around a slight curve and saw thick columns of sunlight pouring down through the canopy where several trees were missing. Parking legs slid out of the Scar-ret and she got off. Explosions had torn huge rents through the jungle. Shattered stumps were still smoldering. There was a shallow crater in the road itself, with the ruins of a huge tree on either side. It didn't take much to work out what had happened. The fallen tree to stop the jeeps, putting them in the killing zone. Except the Skins had blasted it aside with their own weaponry.

She knew from her Prime's snooping through Z-B's AS that the platoons had brought heavy-caliber weapons to Thallspring. But it was the first time they'd ever used them. Newton must have withdrawn them from storage without anybody knowing—just as she had with the land mines.

The notion was extremely worrying. Unless it was some huge coincidence, it must be Newton who had the rogue Prime. Which meant that he must know of the dragon. How? Had somebody told him? The same person who had also given him a Prime?

And now he was taking his platoon up to the plateau on a freelance mission. There could really only be one reason.

Denise scouted around the immediate vicinity of the ambush, trying to find out what had happened to the cell members. She had a vague hope that they might be able to help fill in some details. Then she saw a toppled tree that was splashed in scarlet fluid. Tixmites were swarming over it. They were also falling off as fast as they arrived; hundreds were lying underneath, dead. She walked closer to investigate. Her foot slipped on a lump of something with the consistency of tough jelly. She looked down and winced.

The cell members wouldn't be able to tell her anything after all.

She hurried back to the bike. Her ring pearl used the domestic relay satellite to place a call to Arnoon. The call routing was guarded by Prime and heavily encrypted. Even so, there was a tiny risk of interception, but she had to take it "Denise!" Jacintha exclaimed. "Why the encryption? Have you heard something about Josep? We're all so worried."

"We've got a bigger problem than that, I'm afraid."

The Great Loop Highway was now just a rather feeble joke. The transponder posts were missing. The maintenance robots hadn't cleared the vegetation for years. The highway was nothing more than two uneven tire ruts in the ground, gouged out by the few trucks and pickups that still drove across the plateau. And they weren't even following the original path anymore. As puddles and holes grew bigger, the drivers had swerved around to avoid them. These curves would create new holes, and the next swerve would be wider.

Lawrence was constantly turning the wheel to follow the meandering track as it snaked around unseen obstacles. There were no puddles today; it hadn't rained on this part of the plateau for some time. His jeep was throwing up a smog of powdery dust as it bounced along the ruts. The stuff got everywhere. Hal had to wear one of the paper masks from the medical kit. Skin gills had to flush the gritty particles out of their filter membranes.

Lawrence was constantly referring to his inertial guidance display to confirm they were still heading roughly in the right direction. There was no other way of knowing. The map file of the plateau was the same as they'd had last time, without a single update. It still showed the Great Loop Highway running straight and true between the hinterland settlements.

When they approached Rhapsody Province he even thought the map was glitching. There was no sign of the bauxite-mining operation. It took him a while to realize that the conical hillocks ahead of them were actually the old slag heaps, a little bit taller now and covered in baby crown reeds and stringy weeds. The vegetation had a distinct lemon tinge, as if the plants were jaundiced.

"I wonder if they've shut the mine down altogether," he said.

"Can't see much happening here," Dennis said. "Maybe they've moved on."

"At least that explains why the road's in such a crappy state these days."

They drove on past the base of the first few slag piles, then turned in among them. Somewhere up ahead was Dixon. Lawrence didn't really want to go there, but that was where the road led. For all their ruggedness, the jeeps wouldn't be able to cross the raw terrain of the plateau.

"Somebody behind us, Sarge," Lewis announced. "Moving fast."

Lawrence expanded Lewis's telemetry grid and called up his visual sensor. Sure enough, a small plume of dust was racing across the plateau. It was too far away for the sensors to gain a clear picture of what it was. But it was certainly traveling a lot faster than the jeeps had managed along the same stretch of road.

"Keep tracking them," Lawrence said. "No active sensors. But I want to know when you can make them out properly."

"No problem, Sarge."

Dixon was still there. Most of it. The first thing Lawrence saw was that all but one of the huge maintenance sheds were gone. Its doors were open, showing a single excavator processor standing inside. Concrete oblongs marked where the other sheds had stood, gradually succumbing to the slow incursion of windswept soil. One of them was now a parking lot for a couple of articulated trucks. A further two were covered with small piles of aluminum ingots; there weren't enough to fill even one of the trucks.

The houses remained, though the majority had sheets of bleached plywood fixed over their windows. The grainy dust lay thick on every ridge. Lawrence noticed that all the air-conditioning cabinets had been removed, leaving empty metal brackets on the walls.

He looked over to the hexagonal building outside town that housed the fusion plant. The web of red power cables that used to radiate away from it had been taken down; now there was just a solitary line of pylons carrying a lone cable across the countryside. When he switched to infrared, the walls and roof glowed a light coral pink in comparison to the dull vermilion of the surrounding land.

"They have power," he said.

"Anybody home?" Dennis asked. He was too edgy to make it entirely jovial.

"There has to be somebody," Odel said. "They're still working here. The lights in the shed are on."

"They must have seen us coming," Karl said. "They'll be hiding out there somewhere."

"How did they know it was us?" Amersy said. "We didn't announce we were visiting."

Lawrence's jeep had reached the first houses. He nudged it forward along the main street, sensors sweeping for any sign of movement. "I don't care where they are as long as they're not in our way. Keep going."

"Sergeant!" Odel called. "Airborne. Incoming."

Odel's telemetry grid expanded across Lawrence's vision. Tracking data scrolled down. Three kilometers west, five hundred meters' altitude, holding level at four hundred kilometers per hour. One meter long. No known match found in the armory file.

"What the fuck is that?" he murmured. His own AS had acquired it: there was hardly any infrared signature, and no electromagnetic emission at all.

"It's a goddamn recon drone," Lewis said. "They're hunting us."

Who? Lawrence wondered. Somehow it didn't seem like the kind of thing that KillBoy would use. It must be Arnoon Province. They had the money and the technology to guard their territory. Despite the alarm at such a thing being deployed against them, he felt happy. I was right about them.

"More like a smart cruise," Dennis was saying.

"Amersy, double time," Lawrence said. "Let's get out of here. Odel, use a smart, shoot it down."

"Yes, sir!"

Lawrence accelerated: the main street was the best piece of road since before the ambush; the jeep made a hundred kilometers an hour along it without any trouble. He saw Amersy keeping up with him. A single pulse of bright-orange flame squirted out from the smart missile rack Odel was carrying. His sensors tracked the little missile as it flashed into the sky, arcing around to line up on the unidentified drone or whatever the hell it was.

He pushed the jeep harder, racing across the central square. His display grid flashed a huge silent warning. His Skin was being struck by an incredibly powerful em pulse. Even though all its electronics were ultrahardened, the brutal power of the energy wave had already overloaded several neurotronic pearls. Noncritical internal functions began to close down.

The jeep died on him. Every electrical system simply stopped working simultaneously. The dashboard display didn't even flicker before it blanked out. They were almost across the square, with the main street just to the right. He turned the wheel, but it was sluggish without the power steering. His foot kicked down on the brake. Tires skidded on the loose sandy soil.

Their right fender clipped the building on the corner of the main street. The hood smashed through the wall, shattering composite paneling into a shoal of fluttering fragments. Then the right front wheel struck one of the concrete foundation piers. Lawrence was slammed into the steering wheel, which broke instantly. His beleaguered Skin AS didn't harden the carapace fast enough. The steering wheel's blunt column stabbed straight through his Skin, puncturing his flesh just below the rib cage on his left side.

Odel was catapulted out of his seat and straight through the windshield. He plowed into the hulk of the building, his inertia breaking several more panel sections. Hal's safety straps held on to him as he was flung forward, then reeled him back into the seat. He flopped there limply, his eyelids flickering. Dots of blood began to stain his fresh shirt, seeping out from around the medical modules. Dennis was slung out sideways, his Skin locked solid as he whirled across the road.

Amersy saw what was happening to the jeep in front and yanked the steering wheel around hard. The brake seemed to have virtually no effect on their speed. He saw the other jeep crash into the building, its rear end lifting from the ground as it struck the pier. His steering wheel was already in full lock; he couldn't twist it any farther. They missed the other jeep by less than half a meter. By then they were almost at right angles to the street. Amersy tried to reverse the lock. He could feel the tires skidding. They hit something big in the middle of the road. Momentum rolled the jeep. There was a single bar to protect the occupants. It almost worked. From Amersy's point of view the horizon tilted fast, turning the ground into the sky. It descended onto his helmet. His Skin carapace hardened just in time to protect him from the lethal blow. Then the world rotated again. And again.

Lewis tumbled out of the rolling jeep when it was on its second spin. His Skin had turned rigid, holding him in a spread-eagle pose as he slithered across the dirt road to crash into a building's foundation pier. Despite the Skin's protection the impact stunned him. The Skin released him from its grip, and he collapsed back onto the ground. When he lifted his head he saw the jeep had finally halted, its wheels in the air. The roll-guard bar had buckled, trapping Amersy and Karl underneath. He clambered to his feet and staggered over.

Amersy's upper torso was protruding from the wrecked jeep. He was trying to crawl out, but the chassis had his legs pinned. Lewis gripped the side of the jeep, braced himself and lifted. The jeep creaked as it rose half a meter. Amersy wriggled free.

"Thanks," Amersy said.

"What the hell hit us?"

"I think it was some kind of e-bomb. It blew every circuit in the jeep. Even my Skin's electronics suffered."

"Shit. Where the hell did KillBoy get an e-bomb from?"

"God knows." Amersy looked back at the first jeep. "Sarge?"

"I'm here."

"You need help?"

"Don't think so. How are your guys?"

Amersy saw blood spreading out from underneath the back of the jeep. "Jesus! Karl? Karl, can you hear me?" He checked Karl's telemetry grid, which was almost blank. The Skin suit still had some functions, and there was a heartbeat. But that was about all he could tell.

Both of them dropped to their knees and peered into the gap. Karl's Skin had been split open by ragged twists of metal that had peeled back from the bodywork. Several of them were still impaling him.

Amersy used his speaker. "Hang on, Karl, we'll have you out of there right away."

"We'll have to turn it right over," Lewis said.

"Shouldn't be a problem." They took hold of the jeep. "Ready?" Amersy said. "Okay, lift." The jeep began to emit labored metallic screeches as they slowly tipped it up. One of Lewis's hands slipped, and the vehicle sagged back a few centimeters.

"Hell," Lewis grunted as he found another hold. "The tank's split, this thing is dripping in hihydrogen."

"Great."

They had almost got it on its side when Amersy's sensors detected the little projectile. An intense blue-white spark hit the jeep. The hihydrogen ignited immediately, enveloping the entire vehicle. Amersy and Lewis let go, sending it crashing back down.

"Down!" Amersy ordered. He was already flinging himself flat.

The fuel tank exploded.

Lawrence was unconscious for an unknown time. When the pain pulled him back he guessed it couldn't have been long. Dust was still swirling round the wreck. Amersy called him, and he said he was okay, though he was lying. The end of the steering column was still jutting into his side. The Skin's medical program was scrolling up information: the damaged tissue, chipped pelvic girdle, the suppressants it was pumping into his blood. He placed both hands flat on the dashboard and pushed. His body moved back, sliding off the steering column.

Even with the drugs, Lawrence wailed at the pain as it withdrew. Then his Skin muscles were realigning themselves, sealing up the wound. The suit's internal layer discharged antiseptic, anesthetic and clotting agents into the tear. The whole area turned blissfully cold.

He turned around to see what had happened to Hal. "Oh, sweet Fate." The kid was sitting against his safety straps, head hung forward. All of his medical modules had been burned out by the e-bomb. Lawrence's Skin AS couldn't get a response from any of them. Small patches of blood were staining the kid's shirt where the jolt of their impact had dislodged modules.

"Sergeant?" Odel limped out of the house. There was something wrong with the shape of one leg. "Are you okay?"

"Sure." He levered himself out of the driver's seat. "You?"

"Not a problem."

"Good, let's get Hal out."

"Where's Dennis?"

Lawrence looked around. There was a Skin suit lying in the middle of the street, badly mangled. The second jeep must have hit it full on. "Shit!" Dennis's telemetry grid was flatlined.

Don't grieve for the newly dead—they never thank you. Secure the platoon. Lawrence could hear Ntoko growling it out.

He released Hal's safety straps and lifted the kid out of the rear seat. "Bring the medical kit," he told Odel.

An explosion rocked the street. Lawrence saw a fireball burst out of the second jeep as the wreckage levitated off the ground.

"Amersy, get to cover. We've been ambushed. Seek and destroy."

"Roger that."

The two Skins lying flat on the ground beside the blazing jeep scrambled to their feet and sprinted for the nearby houses.

Lawrence wrapped one arm around Hal, lifting him gingerly, then reached down into the passenger seat for the smart missile rack. He stepped into the house through the demolished wall.

The room inside was empty. He kicked the door open and went through into a dark hallway. There were six identical doors and a stairway. He hurried down to the far end and kicked the last door open. It was another empty room. Tiny cracks of light leaked around the boarded-up window. He eased Hal down in a comer.

Odel put the medical kit down and snapped the top open. "Have we got anything that'll help?"

"I don't know." Lawrence picked out a diagnostic probe and switched it on. He was relieved when the small display pane lit up. The em pulse hadn't damaged electronics that were off at the time of the attack. Data began to flow into his AS.

There was the sound of a carbine firing in the distance. "Odel, go help them."

"You bet."

"Hey, be careful out there. These bastards look like they know what they're doing."

"So do I."

Amersy ran along an alleyway leading off the main street. There wasn't a lot of cover. The prefab houses were spaced a regulation twenty meters apart. The grid of streets almost allowed him to see from one side of town to the other. It also gave the ambushers the same field of vision. And he didn't know where they were.

Lewis had ducked away at the second house, heading off down a side street. Amersy raced on for a little while, then took a turning. He called up the Dixon map file, inertial guidance plotting his position. The Skin AS gave him a rough estimate of where the little projectile had come from. His link with Lewis gave him the other man's location, plotting that on the map as well.

"Lewis, we need to pincer them. You getting this tactical data?"

"It's online, Corp."

"Keep going straight on for a hundred and twenty meters. I'll be three streets to your left. They should be between us."

"Roger."

Lewis jogged along the route Amersy's AS had provided. His carbine slid out of its arm recess. When he got to the intersection he stopped and peered around the corner. There was a flash of motion two houses down. His AS replayed the image. It was a woman in her mid-twenties, dressed in jeans and a yellow T-shirt. She was carrying some kind of pearl-white cylinder in her left hand. The AS couldn't match it to any weapon in its catalogue file.

He switched carbine rounds to depleted-uranium and fired straight through the wall. The composite paneling in front of him disintegrated as the high-penetration rounds went straight through. Nothing in the houses was solid enough to stop one. His Skin AS gave him a spread pattern that had a high strike probability. He stopped firing and started to run to the corner where the woman had disappeared.

"Got a hostile, Corp. In pursuit."

"Roger that. Did you get them?"

Lewis reached the end of the street and jumped. It was a trajectory no hostile would be expecting. He flew past the end house, a meter and a half in the air. Carbine pointing down the street, sensors sweeping. There were puncture holes in the houses left by the depleted-uranium rounds, three foundation piers had shattered, but no body. His feet hit the ground and he was still running. He dashed behind a house and crouched beside a foundation pier.

"Shit, I missed, Corp."

"Okay. Let's close in, they're here somewhere."

Lewis got to his feet and turned down the street toward the corporal. He'd gone maybe ten paces when his neat display grid dissolved into a jazz of indigo lightning bolts. "What the hell...? Jesus, not now." His Skin's neurotronic pearls must have taken a bigger hit from the em pulse than he'd thought. He waited for the e-alpha fortress to reboot the crashed software. Instead the indigo swarm evaporated, leaving him without any data at all. "Son of a bitch."

He'd almost come to a halt when the woman stepped out from behind a house twenty meters ahead. She just stood there, watching him.

Lewis snarled, bringing the carbine up. Even without targeting graphics he could hit a pebble at this distance. The carbine didn't fire. He squeezed his trigger finger twice, three times, an impulse that was linked directly to the weapon. Nothing.

He started to run toward her. If she was counting on him not using brute force against a woman, she was about to find out the hard way just how big a mistake she'd made.

All of a sudden his legs weren't making any progress. It was as if he were wading through thigh-high mud. In dismay he realized his Skin muscles had stopped supporting him. His ordinary leg muscles were having to move the entire Skin suit.

"Corp!" he yelled, hoping his speaker was still functioning. "Corp, the fucking Skin's crashed. Corp!"

It became impossible to move. The Skin muscles had solidified, entombing him. He toppled over. For whatever reason, his visual sensors remained online. The side of his vision field showed him the woman walking toward him at a leisurely pace. She stopped beside him, the toes of her worn sneakers almost touching his shoulder.

Lewis was having to suck every scrap of air down into his lungs. The fail-safes! What had happened to the fail-safes? He wanted to shout up at the woman to help him, to open the Skin suit. But there was no air.

The woman leaned over slightly, as if she were studying him. Then she held a hand out above his helmet, fingers spread wide. She slowly closed the hand, fingers curling in to make a fist.

Lewis felt the Skin muscles flex. For an instant he believed the e-alpha was finally rebooting the entire suit. Then the Skin muscles began their contraction. He found enough air to scream as his ribs cracked. The last thing he saw was the hand above him squeezing tight.

Lawrence's AS had come up with very little to help Hal. What the kid needed was a whole new set of medical modules. Some of the ones he was using were so specialist that Lawrence wasn't even sure Memu Bay had replacements. All they had in the kit was field-aid systems and capsules of the drugs that the organ support modules used.

The diagnostic was showing abnormal blood chemistry. Lawrence's AS produced a list of drugs to combat the condition. But he didn't know if that blood chemistry was wrong given Hal's state. In the end he settled for injecting small doses.

Hal groaned, his head moving slowly from side to side.

Lewis dropped out of Lawrence's telemetry grid. "Amersy, what the hell's happening out there?"

"He's gone. I don't know what..."

Amersy's voice faded. His telemetry grid was breaking up. Then a warning Lawrence had never seen before flashed up. It took him a moment to recognize the symbols. His Prime was expanding into the Skin's neurotronic pearls, replacing the standard AS program.

"Amersy, Odel, listen to me. Your Skins are being infiltrated with a very powerful subversive software. Close down and reboot. Do not use the communications links again. They've been compromised. Repeat, don't use the communications links."

Odel's telemetry vanished.

"Oh, sweet Fate." He requested a status summary from Prime and read the indigo data as it scrolled. Prime had immediately blocked the attempt to infiltrate his own Skin. The ambushers had tried to use their own Prime to subvert his AS. In which case, he decided, the ambushers had to be from Arnoon Province. They must have bought their Prime when they were on Earth—not that it mattered now.

He could hear a carbine firing again. If they could intercept the Skin communications link, they'd have his position down to a millimeter. He snatched up the smart missile rack and plugged its data cable into a port on his Skin. Prime entered the missiles.

Lawrence stood up. Prime was displaying maps with tactical scenario overlays. Just as he turned to leave, Hal groaned again. Lawrence gritted his teeth.

Amersy did exactly as Lawrence ordered, shutting down his entire Skin immediately. For a wretched moment he was locked solid in airless dark. He hated how vulnerable he must be, a big figure standing motionless in the middle of the open street. Then the AS began its reboot. Sensors came back online.

This whole mission was going too wrong, too quickly. Whatever the Arnoon ambushers had, it was an easy match for Skin. Amersy knew Lawrence had seriously underestimated them. The remains of the platoon were never going to reach their pot of gold now; all those lazy dreams of coming down from the plateau with enough money to buy out were dead. Survival was all that mattered.

As soon as he got limb movement back he ran at the nearest house, shattering the door as he went straight through. When he was inside he ordered the Skin to open. He started instructing the AS as he wriggled out.

Denise was doing nearly a hundred kph when she charged past Dixon's outlying buildings.

"Amersy's stopped transmitting," Jacintha said. "Gangel, see if he's still active."

"I've got Odel's last position," Denise said. "I'll take him."

"Be careful," Jacintha said. "We know the Prime hadn't infiltrated his Skin. Damn, Newton's good."

"Don't we know it."

"Eren, help Denise out, please."

"I'm thirty seconds away," Eren assured them.

Denise slowed the Scarret and skirted the main square. Odel could be down any one of half a dozen side streets. Fortunately, a Skin was easy enough for her to spot: its heat signature left a trail in the sandy soil that was as strong as a neon sign. She sensed Eren walking down a street parallel to hers. Seventy meters ahead, hot footprints glowed on the ground. They led into one of the houses. Its front door swung loosely on its hinges.

"Got him," Denise said. She slowed the bike to walking pace and closed on the house.

Carbine fire echoed over the deserted town.

"Amersy is still with us," Jacintha said dryly. "Those were depleted-uranium rounds. Careful, everyone."

Denise halted ten meters from the house. Eren appeared from an intersection opposite. He gave her a small wave.

"Cover the other side," she told him. "A Skin can walk through these walls like they're paper."

"Right." Eren jogged away to the back of the house.

Denise took the electron cluster pistol from her bag. The little unit melded snugly into her palm, giving her an aim alignment that was pure instinct.

More carbine fire sounded as Jacintha and Gangel started a running firefight five streets away. Ragged holes were punched clean through a house twenty meters behind Denise. Jacintha and Gangel shot back with e-c barbs. Sheets of flame roared into the sky as composite walls ignited.

"Ready," Eren said.

Denise swung a leg over the bike and stood facing the front door as it swung about in the slight gusts. This is wrong, she thought, it's too easy. Odel is a properly trained soldier. He won't allow himself to be cornered like this. She looked up at the house's roof.

The solar collector panels were hot from the sun. Infrared was useless. Then she saw scuff marks in the patina of ocher dust.

Denise spun around, her e-c pistol coming up. She was firing as she turned. Tiny sparks of light spurted out of the nozzle, twinkling as they shot away into the sky. Then one of them struck the Skin lying prone on the roof. It punched the bulky suit a couple of meters across the smooth solar collectors, ripping off a segment of the carapace. Two more e-c pulses hit, tearing the Skin apart.

Eren came round the side of the building. "Denise? What happened?"

"He jumped to another house. It was an ambush."

"Hell. Well done."

Carbine fire sounded again. Depleted-uranium rounds tore into the house, shredding huge sections of the paneling. A foundation pier burst apart in a wicked shrapnel cloud of concrete chips. Denise and Eren hit the ground together.

"Crap, I hate those carbines," Eren shouted as he lifted his head.

Denise risked looking back to where Amersy had fired from. "They never used depleted-uranium down in Memu Bay."

Eren grunted. "I wonder why."

Another house ignited from a deluge of e-c barbs. Carbine fire crackled again; buildings shivered and rocked as the rounds chopped through.

"Gangel, he's on your left," Jacintha cried. "Denise, we could use some help."

"On our way."

Eren gave her a reluctant grimace and started running. Denise paced him as they closed on her sister's position.

"He's under a house," Gangel said. "Damn, moving again."

A stream of e-c barbs poured out of an intersection ahead of Denise. She flinched. Carbine fire answered. Denise hit the ground again. Twenty meters away, a solar collector roof ruptured; black, glittering fragments rained down on the street.

"What was he shooting at?" Jacintha asked.

"Who cares?" Gangel said. "He can't have much ammunition left, not at this rate."

More depleted-uranium hammered through five houses. The last one sagged and slowly collapsed inward as its piers disintegrated. Denise had been ready to run forward again. Instead she buried her head in the ground.

"Shit!" Jacintha exclaimed. "He's got us pinned down."

"This is seriously crap tactics," Eren said in alarm. "If Newton comes up behind us, we're dead."

"They can't communicate," Denise told him. She wished she had more confidence. The platoon had worked together for years, decades even. And they were trained soldiers. If anybody could manage without a direct link, it would be Newton and Amersy.

The carbine fired. Her link with the Scarret went dead. "Shit!" She was aware of Jacintha hurrying forward again. Gangel started sprinting from the opposite direction. They were pouring e-c barbs into the house where Amersy was hidden. Denise began to race forward, holding her e-c pistol ahead, sending out a constant barrage of barbs. The house was an inferno, huge, violent flames roaring almost horizontally out of the shattered windows. Its solar collector roof was twisting and flexing as the heat lashed at it. Then flames were stabbing victoriously through the gullies as it juddered and began to sink down.

Another burst of carbine fire came from inside. Even as she flinched down yet again, Denise marveled at how the corporal could keep so cool in this situation. Skin suits might be heat resistant, but to stand at the heart of an inferno surrounded by enemies and still maintain a devastating fire pattern was enviable.

One of the walls collapsed amid a huge fireball. A Skin tumbled through the gap. It was hit by e-c barbs from three directions, bursting apart.

Denise squinted against the glare and fierce heat. There was something badly wrong about the way the Skin had ruptured. Jacintha must have thought the same. She was approaching the remnants, cautious yet urgent, covering it with her pistol.

The solar collector roof finally fell to the floor, throwing out a cascade of sparks. Jacintha raised one hand to ward them off. She bent over the tattered Skin. "Shit!" She was looking around wildly.

"What?" Denise asked. She was closing in, along with Gangel and Eren.

"It's empty. The bastard wasn't in it!"

Denise was suddenly swinging round, her heart thudding in fright as she attempted to cover half the town with her pistol.

Amersy crouched behind a foundation pier, watching intently as the young woman and her companion started running toward the firefight. His Skin AS was firing the carbine in random bursts, maintaining a suppressing-fire pattern. The two ambushers flung themselves flat. He grinned as he scuttled over to the shiny Scarret. Damn dumb amateurs, weren't even checking their asses. He used a power blade to slice through the dashboard, then waited until another carbine burst sounded before jabbing the tip straight into the electronics. He cut through the neurotronic pearls and fiberoptics that were connected to the compensators and brakes. Without AS management (or whatever program was loaded in) the bike would be sluggish. But he could accelerate, brake and steer manually. It was enough to get him back to Memu Bay. That would have to do.

He slung a leg over the saddle and twisted the throttle.

Five houses were on fire around the empty Skin suit, their composite panels hissing and melting as flames licked around them, exposing the steel skeleton. Thick black smoke billowed high into the plateau's calm air.

Still watching the empty streets, Denise went over and hugged her big sister. "I missed you," she whispered.

"We're together now. Everything will be all right"

"I hope so. We're making a complete mess of this."

"He's naked and alone, he won't get far."

"On my bike, he'll get clean away." She couldn't believe she'd been so stupid.

"It doesn't make any difference. He's not a part of Z-B anymore. They won't be sending in the cavalry. Not on this one."

"Okay. That just leaves us with Newton to deal with."

"And the other one."

Denise gave her a surprised look. "What other one?"

"There were four of them in the lead jeep. One of them was in normal clothes."

"Did you see who it was? There's nobody in the platoon left."

"I don't know."

"It could be our traitor."

Jacintha stroked Denise's cheek. "I don't think there is one."

"There has to be! Newton has Prime."

"Our dragon isn't unique," Jacintha chided gently.

"But..."

"Come on, we need to finish this."

The four of them split into pairs to approach the crashed jeep, closing on it from opposite sides.

"Newton was in there when he detected our Prime infiltration," Gangel said. "And that diagnostic probe is still transmitting. Whoever the fourth man is, he's in a bad way."

"Do you think Newton is still in there?" Jacintha asked.

She and Denise were crouched at the corner of the next house along the main street. When Denise inched around the foundation pier she could see the battered rear end of the jeep sticking out of the house. Nothing moved. Heat traces around the jeep were confused and fading. "I doubt it But he can't have got far."

"Okay. Eren, any heat traces on your side?"

"Nothing."

"Stand by. We're going in."

"I'm going in," Denise said. "You cover me."

She scurried along the front of the house, keeping flat against the wall. Her breathing had quickened, the rasping loud in her ears. Heat was flooding out of the jeep, its axle motors gleaming crimson, power cells casting a vermilion glow underneath the chassis. The smashed-up wall was crisscrossed with hot ruby lines where the material had bent and cracked. Denise eased herself through the gap at the side of the jeep, her pistol sweeping across the room. There were thermal tracks all over the floor, leading to the door. Jacintha climbed up behind her and nodded.

Denise flipped around the open door, into the hallway. It was empty. The door at the far end was open a couple of centimeters. She didn't even need infrared. The dust showed two sets of Skin bootprints going straight to it. Only one came out.

Her bracelet pearl pinpointed the diagnostic card broadcasting from inside. The fourth man was definitely in there. Beads of perspiration were building up on her face. It was no good creeping along the hall: the Skin carbines could shoot through walls as if they were fog. She sucked down a breath and sprinted down the hall, bursting through the door. Shock froze her.

Jacintha followed her sister into the end room and nearly knocked into her. Denise was standing rigid in the middle of the room, pistol pointing at the figure slumped in the corner.

"You're dead," Denise croaked. She was aiming at Hal Grabowski's head. The same Hal Grabowski who had faced a firing squad and died. Now here he was again, all by himself in an abandoned house in Dixon. Her pistol arm shivered slightly.

"Who the hell's that?" Jacintha asked.

"Hal Grabowski."

"You mean the Hal Grabowski that you set up in Memu Bay? The one Z-B executed?"

"Yes," Denise snapped. She straightened her arm, ready to shoot. She couldn't do it, not an unconscious man. Then she noticed the writing on the wall beside him.

HELP HIM I WILL KNOW

The diagnostic probe was resting against Hal's abdomen, still transmitting. Denise looked from that to the big medical kit box.

Gangel and Eren slipped into the room.

"Where's Newton?" Eren asked. "And... hey, isn't that Grabowski?"

Denise flashed him an exasperated glance and finally lowered her pistol. Gangel went over to the window. The frame was open. When he pushed at the plywood sheet nailed up outside, it swung out. "Looks like Newton left."

"So what about him?" Eren asked, pointing at Grabowski.

"He's Newton's problem," Denise said.

An explosion went off somewhere in the town.

Gangel was squinting through the gap at the side of the plywood. "That was a smart missile. He just took out the general store building. What the hell did he do that for?"

Denise looked at Hal again. She understood the message now. "He's not asking."

"What?" Jacintha asked.

"Newton wouldn't abandon an injured comrade. He's not asking us pretty please to help Grabowski. He's telling us."

There was a huge explosion outside. The house on the other side of the main street blew apart, fragments of composite panels and solar collectors whirling through the air to rain down over a wide area. Dust and smoke surged up out of the crater, spreading out in a miniature mushroom cloud.

The blast shook the room. Denise ducked in reflex. The glass in the window frame cracked, and the plywood sheet whirled away, allowing sunlight to blaze in. She saw the diagnostic probe had fallen off Grabowski and scrambled over the floor to grab it. She slapped it down on Grabowski's stomach; the display pane began to register his vital signs again. "All right! We'll do it."

Jacintha stared at her. "Do what?"

"Newton's out there with a rack of smart missiles—which he's probably loaded with Prime. He'll keep firing them over Dixon until he runs out. If we go outside, the seeker head will spot us and... that's it. Even we can't deflect one of them. The only place we're safe, the only coordinate he'll never target, is here with Grabowski. And if we don't keep Grabowski alive, guess which house the next missile will take out."

"Sneaky bastard," Gangel said with bemused admiration.

"You said it," Denise grunted.

They all winced as another missile detonated. The flash was close to the maintenance shed. Smoke began to rise over the rooftops.

"He's not kidding, is he?" Jacintha said. She knelt beside Grabowski and lifted his shirt up. "We'd better get to work." She took a dragon-extruded analyzer unit out of her pocket, placing it over one of Hal's defunct medical organ modules. The little plastic rectangle softened and began to mold itself round the module.

"What range have those missiles got?" Eren asked.

"Three kilometers," Denise told him.

"That's not too far. We know he was injured. We can catch him."

"We won't know what direction he took. All he has to do is leave the rack two kilometers away and program it to keep launching at regular intervals. He could be ten or more kilometers away before this barrage stops."

"Shit!" Eren glared at Grabowski. "Once those missiles run out, so does your luck."

"Does it?" Denise gave Eren a quizzical look. "After we spend a couple of hours caring for him, you're just going to kill him, are you?"

Eren banged a fist into the door frame. "No. Guess not."

"We should call the village," Gangel said. "They can send a team out here. With enough support we can tackle Newton."

"No," Denise said. "That's too much exposure. Besides, I know which road Newton's on."

Lawrence was on the edge of town when he saw the bike charge along the Great Loop Highway, about five hundred meters away. Helmet sensors zoomed in. It was being ridden by a naked man whose skin was smeared in pale blue gel.

The bike stopped and the man looked at him. It was Amersy. He raised his fist and punched the air twice.

Lawrence laughed as he gave an answering punch. His rack fired another smart missile back into the town.

Amersy paused a moment, then turned the throttle, accelerating fast along the road.

Lawrence left the rack fifteen hundred meters outside Dixon. He was in the middle of the slag heaps, so he could push it down into the black grainy soil easily enough. Once he satisfied himself it was secure, he departed at a steady jog. The smart missiles would fire at random intervals. Each was targeted on a different house, with the seeker head programmed to watch for human bodies moving along the streets. If it located one, it would divert from the primary target and go after the body.

With the rack's data cable disconnected, he had only one telemetry grid left now: Hal's diagnostic readout. Judging by the way his vital signs had stabilized over the last ten minutes the Arnoon people had worked out their side of the deal. His only worry now was whether they'd keep treating the kid after the missiles ran out.

Sorry, Hal, but what else could I do?

Trying to carry Hal out of the ambush was impossible. They wouldn't have gotten ten meters before those strange weapons cut them down. He'd been puzzled by the little dazzling bullets of light that the ambushers were firing. Once again there was no match in his armaments catalogue file. And not just the model, either, the nature of them was a mystery, too. His one clue was the intense magnetic signature that his sensors had recorded as he'd slipped away. He hadn't stopped to try to get a second reading.

Lawrence increased his pace. There were enough missiles left to last seventy minutes, although that did leave some long gaps between a few launches. But it should allow him to put about twenty kilometers between himself and Dixon if he stuck to a reasonably straight line.

He called up the plateau map file as he ran. After Dixon, the Great Loop Highway carried on in a wide curve through the Mitchell peaks, passing through Arnoon Province almost at its apex. He began to plot out a direct course to the crater lake. There was one river cutting across his path, which he'd be able to cross easily enough in Skin. The only real problem was that taking this route put Mount Kenzi directly in the way. He expanded the foothills to try to find a passage around the side.

The slag heaps soon gave way to the plateau's wilderness of crown reeds and the occasional giant tree. He had to slow slightly to go around the crown reeds. Each mature clump varied from two to three meters high. The fat, succulent leaves with their serrated razor edges weren't able to cut his Skin, but he certainly couldn't push through them. The ground underfoot was a thin, brown soil threaded with a low scrub plant that had slim woody stems and tiny saffron flowers.

At twenty minutes he lost the signal from Hal's diagnostic. The little probe was never intended for long-range broadcasts. The last reading showed the kid was recovering well. Lawrence didn't know what the ambushers were doing, but they were making a lot better use of the aid kit than he had.

As he drew away from the slag heaps of Rhapsody Province the land began to grow more uneven. The slopes he crossed were long and gentle, each one a little higher than the last. His inertial guidance told him he was steadily gaining altitude. Crown reeds gradually shrank away to be replaced by small wiry bushes, their bark a dull russet color. Boulders lurked among them, half-buried lumps of hard, dusky rock.

After an hour he had to slow again. The wound left by the steering column had begun to ache despite the local anesthetics. It was similar to having a stitch, but just above his hip. The Prime reported he was bleeding. Clotting agents weren't able to cope with the constant stresses of running. When he looked down he could see blood dribbling out of the puncture hole in the carapace. He told the Prime to readjust the Skin muscles to reseal the wound. More clotting agents were discharged.

He gave it a minute for everything to take effect, then started off again. Mount Kenzi didn't seem any closer, just bigger. A raft of fat clouds obscured its pinnacle. Wind was bringing them in from the east. The sun was already lost behind them, shading the plateau in a dreary penumbra light.

Thin trailers of fog began to slide past him. The brittle bushes were glistening with moisture, even though it wasn't raining. Ahead of him the ground curved up until it met the clouds. Cataracts of mist flowed out of it, sluicing down along the narrow, stony gorges that wove chaotically across the land. He jogged on as the ridges steepened and the scraps of destitute vegetation became less populous. The external temperature was dropping considerably as the mist thickened. Lawrence was hot inside his Skin; he could feel himself sweating. He was taking constant sips on his water nipple; the inside of his mouth was parched.

The mist closed around him, reducing visibility to less than twenty meters. He kept going for another hour, then sat down on a frosted boulder. A chest pouch opened up and he took out one of the three spare bloodpaks he was carrying. Its nozzle clicked into the Skin's umbilical socket, and the internal reserve bladders sucked the fluid in.

Blood was oozing out of the wound again. His leg was slick with runnels of the sticky liquid. The Skin sealed itself once again and dosed him with antiseptic and clotting agent. His display showed him that the suit muscles around the puncture were starting to degrade. They were losing as much blood as the wound.

As he rested, his own muscles began a mild ache. He'd been on the go for four hours now. His side around the wound was numb, with the surrounding flesh tingling slightly from the drugs. He was sure he could feel blood trickling down the inside of his leg, which might be a problem later on. There was no way of draining it out short of removing the whole Skin. Without a medical kit to treat the wound immediately, he wasn't about to do that.

When he stood up, a rush of dizziness almost made his legs buckle. He swayed about for a moment until the Skin muscles tightened and held him upright. His head slowly cleared and he took a big suck on his water.

He started off walking, then slowly broke into a trot. In his mind he could hear his left leg squelching inside the Skin every time his foot hit the ground. The light was beginning to fade, hastened by the cloying mist. This region of the plateau was almost barren. It comprised long stretches of sloping land that ended in ridges that were almost as steep as cliffs. Every time, he would have to scramble and claw his way up through the boulders and scree falls. Stubby toe claws extended from the Skin to give him extra grip over the slippery dripping rock.

Night had fallen half an hour before he reached the ridge that would take him up onto the saddle plain. Mount Kenzi was on his left, with Mount Henkin to the right. He stopped at the base of the rock barrier and took out the second bloodpak. His Skin guzzled it down greedily. While he was waiting, the last fringes of the mist retreated down the slope. There were no stars visible. The sky above was cloaked in dark cloud, its turbulent underbelly swelling and surging as it was provoked by conflicting air currents surging off the mountains. But there was enough light for him to see the ridge. He'd negotiated the last one with laser radar as his only way of seeing what lay ahead. Here, there were broad stripes of white rock zigzagging down through the ridge, almost like a giant's steps. He studied them, trying to concentrate on finding an easy route up.

Indigo icons slipped over his vision. Medical symbology cautioned him on the state of the wound. He responded by ordering another infusion of drugs. The cold numbness was spreading up his ribs. Occasionally he would shiver, which the Skin would automatically mimic.

This time he clambered to his feet with slow, deliberate movements. Even so, when he was upright it felt as though his body were made from jelly, held in shape only by the hard mold of Skin around him. It was a stupid sensation, so he ordered a stimulant infusion. His mind cleared swiftly, and he looked hard at the ridge, finding himself a way up.

When he got to the top he could see the saddle plain stretching away in front of him. The heavy cloud formed an unbroken ceiling five hundred meters up. On either side, the two mountains were massive, curving walls of naked rock, riddled with slender crevices and deep folds. It was an enclosed universe that gave him no choices. According to his map file, it was ten kilometers to the far side. He started walking.

The saddle was classed as alpine desert. Lawrence thought it looked more like the surface of Mars. The exposed soil was a somber rust-red, strewn with small, flinty stones. There were no animals or insects living up here. Even the small crustaceous plants that peeked out from the stones looked desiccated. His Skin reported that the pressure was down to a third sea level. The gills were having to work hard to pull enough oxygen out of the freezing air.

He'd got a kilometer past the ridge when it began snowing. It wasn't big, soft flakes drifting out of the sky; these were small, hard pellets of ice that the wind drove straight at him. He could see them bouncing off the Skin carapace. Visibility was down to seven meters. Laser radar was useless. He didn't even bother with infrared or low-light. All he had was inertial guidance. It was enough for him.

Until the snowstorm engulfed him, all that had mattered was to keep going, to remain focused on the destination. Anything less would be betraying the platoon—which he could never do. Now, Lawrence began to contemplate what he was going to do when he actually reached the crater lake. He'd got a full magazine for the carbine. But against that the villagers had guns that fired weird stars, e-bombs, Prime and biotechnology from Santa Chico. He needed medicine and treatment for himself, and blood for his Skin. Then all he had to do was find out what the source of their wealth was and extort some of it out of them. Oh, and transport, too.

Blind, alone, cocooned by a faltering Skin against an environment that would kill him in minutes, Lawrence Newton started laughing. All this—insane desperation—so that he could buy himself back into Amethi. The home he'd run away from so he could explore the universe. It was hard to remember now, but in those days Lawrence Newton had thought the stars were full of excitement and wonder. What was it he'd told Roselyn that first day they'd met?

Nowhere you live can be exotic. That's only ever somewhere else.

Now he knew: it was always somewhere else. If he'd been given the chance, that young Lawrence Newton would have kept on flying and never come back.

Did I really hate myself that much back then?

He smiled happily as his thoughts of Roselyn brought her image to the front of his mind, the one icon that never deserted him. His hand patted the base of his throat, feeling the small lump of the pendant pressing against his skin.

It would be nice to see her one last time.

The clouds swept clear when he was still a couple of kilometers from the end of the saddle plain, taking the snow with them. Stars gleamed brightly in the thin, clear air. Two centimeters of ice pellets lay across the ground. His Skin crunched them down as he trudged onward.

He had to use the last bloodpak before he finished traversing the saddle plain. The Skin had used up a lot of energy keeping him warm in the snow. When he sucked at the water nipple, the tank was empty. His tongue was dry inside his hot mouth. Pain was a constant in his side now, a fierce pulse at the center of a permanently cold hip. The anesthetic made no difference. He wasn't even sure the clotting agent was having any effect. The Skin leg was coated in blood. Its muscles couldn't keep the carapace puncture hole fully sealed anymore.

And still, he had no choice.

The ground began to dip away, and Lawrence could look down across the forested vales of Arnoon Province. It was quiet and beautiful in the starlight, just as he remembered it.

This side of Mount Kenzi was a scree slope that swept down steeply for over two kilometers. Lawrence began his descent. The small stones slid and skittered beneath his feet, clattering away out of sight. As he became used to the subsidence he used it to slide his way down, taking long hops, deliberately landing hard on his heels so the scree would give way underneath him. Time after time he lost his balance or hit a big rock and fell, skidding and sliding down the slope at the head of a miniature avalanche. Without Skin he would have been cut to shreds on the sharp little stones. But the carapace maintained its integrity easily: this kind of treatment was well inside its tolerance limits.

The scree gave way to tough grass. He started to walk down to the treeline several hundred meters below. His left leg was stiff, even with Skin muscles moving it. Several scree stones were stuck in the open puncture. He stopped to pick them out, then continued. Their absence didn't make any difference to the limp. The display revealed that an alarming amount of Skin muscle in his left leg had degraded to a nonviable level. When he checked, blood was still leaking down the leg. It must be coming from the wound inside. There was no clotting agent left.

He stopped when he reached the trees and bent over, trying to throw up. Nothing came, apart from a vile acidic juice that burned his already arid throat. His gills adjusted their filter parameters, feeding him a higher oxygen level. It made breathing a little easier.

The trees thickened quickly once he was inside the forest. But their trunks were never so close as to form a barrier. Undergrowth was a shaggy fern that his Skin legs pushed through with hardly any extra effort. The visibility was as bad here as in the snowstorm. He had to rely on inertial guidance again, following the indigo trail across the slope, always heading down.

Warmth slowly drained out of him, seeping away through the puncture hole in the Skin. His fingers were icy, his feet blocks of ice. Nothing he could do would stop the shivering. The display wanted him to replenish the Skin's blood bladders. He sneered at it and told the Prime to clear the icons away. More medical warnings appeared, indicating the strain he was putting on his own organs now that his body was having to reoxygenate the blood.

The trees came to an end. Lawrence moved forward with small, laborious steps. He was hunched up in an effort to ease the pain throbbing along his ribs. One hand was clamped over the puncture hole in the carapace.

He arrived at the top of the curving cliff. A hundred and twenty meters below, the black waters of the crater lake rippled gently. Low-light sensors turned the gloomy night vista to a glowing blue-and-gray image. He saw the central island. The little stone temple was still sitting at the center.

"Meditation my ass," Lawrence grunted at it, and jumped.

The carapace hardened protectively long before he hit the water. It was a jolt that sent an excruciating pain flaming out from his wounded hip. He screamed inside the helmet. For a moment he though he was about to throw up again. All he was really worried about was the depth of water at the foot of the cliff. Whatever it was, his feet never touched the bottom of the lake.

Low-light sensors showed him faint gray bubbles swarming around him as he slowly floated to the surface. Then he was bobbing about, trying to see where the island was. Once he found it, he brought his legs up so he was floating on his back. His feet kicked slowly, aided by the occasional flap of his arms. He instructed the Prime to make the Skin muscles follow the motions he wanted. His own limbs weren't responding very well. The result wasn't a particularly fast stroke, but he made steady progress.

He was about seventy meters from the island when something brushed against him. The carapace tactile sensors stroked his skin in mimicry of the contact. Lawrence flinched and held still, waiting for it to happen again. When nothing happened, he began kicking again, perhaps a little more urgently now. The fish-creature prodded his left leg. Lawrence shoved at it with his hand. A narrow, pointed head broke surface for a moment, then dived with a small splash.

Something touched him on the other leg. Two of them! He concentrated on kicking, keeping his feet below the surface for maximum effect. One of the fish-creatures slithered over his chest. It was similar to an eel, but pale green, over a meter long, with three ridges running the length of its body. They were vibrating softly.

"Shit!" Lawrence punched at it in panic. But it was too fast.

Pointed jaws with needle teeth worried their way into the puncture hole like a hammer drill. Lawrence chopped at the thing with the edge of his hand. Two more were nuzzling the puncture. He twisted over and started swimming side-stroke, keeping the puncture out of the water. One of the creatures tangled itself round his legs. The puncture was forced below water. Teeth began to bite into the exposed Skin muscle.

The carbine slid out of its recess. Lawrence angled it away from his leg and fired. Bullets chewed the water around the creatures. There was an eruption of spray, and they were gone.

Lawrence started swimming hard, shouting to counter the pain coursing through his body at each hurried motion. Ripples wriggled across the water, arrowing toward him. Several of the creatures were suddenly writhing all over him. Lawrence thrashed about, going under for a moment. Their jaws were tearing at the Skin muscle in the puncture, severing chunks of it. He used the carbine underwater, hearing a dull roar as it fired.

When his head came up, he could see the island thirty meters away. A biohazard alert flashed in the middle of his display. Some kind of toxin was seeping into the Skin's circulatory network. Prime determined the infection point as the muscle cords around the puncture.

They're poisoning me!

Just then one of the fish-creatures began to coil and convulse a few meters away, flinging spray in all directions. Two more started similar berserk motions.

Lawrence kept swimming. Prime closed the valves connecting his major blood vessels with the Skin. Another creature jabbed its head into the puncture. He shot at it.

Dozens of the creatures were racing through the water around him. They slid over and around the Skin. Lawrence's foot touched a solid surface. He struggled for balance and waded out of the water. The creatures were charging around his legs, butting against the carapace. Prime was flashing up information on the toxin. It was spreading through the Skin's leg muscles. Secondary blood vessel valves were being closed, in an attempt to isolate it.

When his feet were finally out of the water, Lawrence managed two steps on the grass, and fell over. His legs wouldn't move, the weight of the inert Skin was too much.

Lawrence surveyed the status display. The toxin had contaminated over a third of the Skin's muscles. There was no blood reaching the rest. With a sob he gave the Prime his last order. The Skin split open smoothly along its chest seal. Lawrence whimpered as he pulled the helmet back off his head. Cool night air licked against his body. He pushed and wriggled, emerging slowly and painfully from the dead Skin like some glistening blue chrysalis. For a while it was all he could do to lie panting on the grass. Then his left hand felt its way along his side and probed at the wound. He grimaced, and slowly sat up.

The clotting agent had left a thin layer of white foam inside the wound, which was cracked and flaking. Blood was dribbling out, running down the slippery layer of dermalez gel. He pressed his hand against it, hoping the pressure would hold the bleeding until he could find something to use as a dressing.

Lawrence got to his feet and looked around. He could just make out the temple. Each step was forced, and he cried out more than once as he made his way over to the stone structure. When he got there, a section of the tiered seating had sunk away to reveal a staircase leading down. A weak light was shining at the bottom.

"I knew it," he mumbled.

He had to lean his shoulder on the wall for support as he stumbled down the stairs. Dermalez gel smeared an uneven trail along the stone as he went. Blood dripped continually through his fingers, splattering on the steps.

There was a small, empty room at the bottom, directly under the middle of the temple. A single metal door faced the stairs. It slid open as Lawrence hobbled toward it, revealing an elevator. He eased himself inside and found a control panel with just two buttons. The door slid shut when he jabbed the lower one.

There was a quiet whine as the elevator descended. The door opened to show a large hemispherical chamber with wall segments of dark copper-colored composite. Lawrence staggered out, not caring that he'd be seen. He just had to know what he'd been chasing. That was all. Nothing else mattered anymore.

In the middle of the chamber was a broad pedestal of milky glass, almost like an altar. A long ash-gray rock was resting on top, its surface pitted and blackened. The central section was draped in a gold mesh. The end pointing at the elevator had been cut and polished; clumps of small aquamarine crystal were sticking out of it, glowing lambently.

Lawrence squinted at the scene, not understanding any of it Two young women were standing in front of the pedestal. The older one gave him a sad smile, and said: "Welcome to the temple of the fallen dragon, Lawrence. Remember me?"

Lawrence grinned at her, and lost consciousness.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Josep's thoughts came together quickly as he woke. For a second he kept his eyes closed while he assessed his position. He was lying on some kind of plastic cushioning. No clothes; his skin was pressed against the fabric. Slight pressure round his hips. A pair of boxer shorts, then. Cold metallic bands around his wrists, which were being held in place fifteen centimeters apart. Manacles of some kind. His legs were free. Artificial light on his eyelids. The distant clatter and murmur of a busy building.

When his d-written neurons tried to locate either his bracelet pearl or a local datapool node, all he could sense was some disjointed background signals that were almost below his threshold. It was as if the electromagnetic spectrum had been muted somehow. He put the odd perception down to the gas that they'd used to knock him out. Some of it must still be in his system, affecting his neural cells.

He opened his eyes. The room was a cell, four meters by four, no window, just a conditioning grille. He was lying on a bench opposite a heavy metal door. A small camera on the ceiling was angled down to look at him.

Cells in the spaceport security division were very similar. They might not have moved him yet. In which case he stood a chance. He knew the entire spaceport layout.

That thought made him pause. He hadn't known about the elevator. And there must have been at least one alarm that wasn't on any file they'd accessed when they were planning the break-in. Most likely it was something that Z-B had discreetly installed after they took control of the administration block. Even so, his Prime should have caught it going off.

Making a show of being slow and confused, he sat up, rubbing at his hair. The manacles made the movement difficult, He frowned at them. "What the hell..."

Nobody came in to explain. He padded over to the door. The tile floor was cold under his bare feet. "Hey!" He banged on the door. "Hey, what's going on here?" There were grazes on his knuckles where he'd hit the elevator doors. That could have been a mistake. If they measured the dent he'd made they could work out the force behind the blow. That would make them very interested in him. Not that they wouldn't be anyway. But he couldn't allow them to examine his body too closely. The patternform sequencers must be protected at all costs.

He padded back to the bench and sat down. It was standard procedure to let prisoners sweat for a while after they'd been captured, allow them to build up some anxiety. Not that such crudities would affect him. But he had to decide what to do next. The d-written cells in his cheeks and jaw had held their shape while he was unconscious. He still had Sket Magersan's face. Z-B would have checked with the real pilot. They'd know this was a serious sabotage attempt by a resistance group.

Interrogation by Z-B would inevitably involve medical diagnostics, probably including a full brain scan. The d-writing modifications were subtle, but with that sort of scan there was a high risk of exposure. And he wasn't entirely certain he could hold out against the drugs. His d-written neurons were hardly omnipotent and Z-B had been dealing with resistance movements across decades and dozens of planets. By now, their techniques and technology for extracting information would be formidable.

The choice was simple. The longer he remained captive, the lower his chances would be of escaping. If he was going to get out it would have to be before they fully realized what he was physically capable of.

That brought him back full circle to how they'd caught him in the first place. He started to go over the break-in right from the start.

It was another two hours before the cell door opened. Josep still hadn't worked out what he'd done to set off an alarm. Two guards came in, their navy-blue uniforms sporting a small Z-B insignia on the collar. Both of them wore helmets with tinted visors; they held long truncheons with shock prongs on the end.

A simple white one-piece suit was slung at him.

"Put that on," one of the guards said.

Josep picked it up and let it unroll. He held his arms up, shaking the manacles at them. "You'll need to take these off."

"Nice try. Just put it on."

The suit sleeves had a seam down the sides, fastened with studs. He struggled into the lower part of the garment, and one of the guards fastened the studs for him.

They marched him out into a short, curving corridor. Josep checked the length and height, and knew exactly where he was: administration block, third floor. The security division had a long section all to itself in the five-sided building. Floor blueprints rushed through his mind. The only ways in or out of this section were two elevators and an emergency fire exit. He couldn't use the elevators, they were code-guarded—not forgetting what happened last time he used an elevator in this building. The fire exit was the obvious route, but there were strong safeguards there as well.

"Where are we going?" he asked.

"You'll see soon enough."

They were walking in the direction opposite the elevators. The only rooms ahead were the offices. They must have set up their interrogation equipment in one of them. He still couldn't sense a signal from a datapool node.

They turned a corner. The walls of this corridor were lined with doors. He named them silently as they went past: departmental management, briefing one, two, and three, investigator lieutenant, finance. Josep swayed slightly to shift his balance and kicked at the guard on his left. It was a perfect aim, heel smashing into the man's kneecap. He yelled in pain and went down. The second guard slammed his truncheon into Josep's back, and the shock prongs flared, pumping a charge into him. His d-written cells resisted the blast of electricity—just keeping his nerve channels open. He turned and wrenched the truncheon from the guard's grip. The man grunted in surprise at the force. Then Josep stabbed the truncheon into his stomach. The guard staggered backward, doubling up before finally keeling over.

Josep jabbed the truncheon into the first guard's neck as he was trying to rise. He collapsed back onto the carpet. At the other end of the corridor two men in Z-B uniforms were shouting as they ran toward him. A shrill alarm went off, terribly loud in the confined space. The security AS must have seen the whole thing through the surveillance cameras.

Josep threw the truncheon at the two running men, then charged at the door to the finance office. It wasn't even locked. As he expected, Z-B didn't have any use for financial staff; the office was empty, abandoned for the duration. There were three desks lined up down the middle of the floor, cluttered with old memory chips and piles of hard copy. Desktop pearls were inactive. The wall opposite the door was tinted glass from floor to ceiling, facing out across the spaceport hangars. He rushed over to the last desk and heaved it into the air, then flung it at the glass wall. The toughened glass shattered, sending a blizzard of shards swirling outward. More alarms started up. The desk crashed down on the edge of the hole it had created, half of it still in the office. It wobbled unsteadily. Josep kicked it, sending it sliding out over the edge to smash into the flowerbeds three floors below.

The office door burst open. Z-B staff rushed in. Josep jumped after the desk.

Three stories in Thallspring's standard gravity. The fall was enough to shatter most of a man's lower skeleton when he hit. Damage to the organs from the massive impact deceleration would probably be fatal. Josep thrust his manacled arms above his head, desperate to keep his balance. It was surprisingly quiet as the warm late-afternoon air rushed round him. He bent his legs fractionally as the flowerbeds hurtled up.

His feet crashed into the hard soil, and his knees bent, absorbing as much of the terrible impact as they could. Suddenly his shoulder was smacking into the ground, knocking the breath from him. His bones held, though his ankle and knee joints sent pulses of pure agony into his spine. He blinked away the tears of pain. Rosebushes had torn at his legs. A glass splinter was embedded in his foot. Astonished Z-B personnel were leaning out through the broken glass of the finance office, peering down at him.

Josep ordered his deadened limbs to move, rolling onto all fours, then standing. Shouts from above mingled with the persistent howl of the alarm. He took a few excruciating steps until he bumped into the base of the building's glass wall. After that he could use it for support as he moved along. Somewhere up ahead was a door used by the maintenance staff. On the other side of the glass, people were standing up at their desks, pointing at him as he slid past.

He reached the door, put his shoulder against it and shoved. It bowed slightly, but held. He took a step back and launched himself at it again. This time the lock broke, and he was through into a narrow concrete utility tunnel. He hurried along it to the first intersection. The walls of the wider central tunnel were thick with conduits and pipes. Lightcones on the ceiling threw out a raw purple-white radiance every five meters. He turned left and started to run, wincing every time the glass splinter hit the ground, jabbing deeper into his flesh. Blood dripped out of the cut, but he knew the flow would be worse if he took the glass out.

Another left turn. Then right, right again. A locker room. Nobody inside. He went over to the row of gray-blue metal lockers, grabbed the handle of the first and tugged. It jerked open, the metal bending around the bolt, then tearing. Dirty overalls hung inside, and a pair of boots. He went to the next locker and tore that open. The next. The fifth had what he was looking for, a tool belt with every loop full. He pulled a power blade out, switched it on, then put the handle in his mouth, biting down hard to hold it steady. The blade cut through the manacles with an appallingly loud shriek and a shower of sparks.

Josep held his breath. There were shouts reverberating along the concrete tunnel outside. He went back to the first locker and shoved his feet into the boots, then pulled out the overalls. D-written organelles began to sculpt his flesh, returning his facial characteristics to those of Andyl Pyne again. With the alteration under way he snatched up the tool belt and a bracelet pearl that he found on the locker's top shelf.

Fifty meters on from the locker room there was an inspection hatch that led into the wall cavity. A power screwdriver from the tool belt opened it, and he eased himself in. It was a narrow, confined world, completely black. Even his infrared vision was cloudy. The walls were 110 centimeters apart, forming an interstice that was filled with structural girders, conditioning ducts and plumbing. He could see as far down as he could up. His feet were resting on an I-beam barely ten centimeters across.

The Skins and guards hunting him would know he had switched clothes back in the locker room, but the boots were cold when he put them on. It would take a while for his body heat to soak through into the soles. In theory they wouldn't be able to track him to the hatchway. The cramped interstice made it difficult to move, but he slowly worked his prison one-piece off, always keeping one hand clamped on a girder. He dropped the bundle of fabric into the darkness and began to struggle into the overalls. Twice he had to stop as someone ran past the hatch. When he finished dressing, and with the tool belt fastened around his waist, he began to climb. As he ascended he tried to integrate his d-written neuron structure with the bracelet from the locker room. He still couldn't establish any kind of link. The knockout chemical must have done more damage than he first realized.

Once he was up level with the second floor he followed the phosphorescent coral line that was the hot-water pipe until he reached the toilets. The panels in the wall here were a lot smaller than the hatch back down in the utility tunnel, intended principally to provide access to the tanks and pipes that served the cubicles and basins. He found the largest and put his ear against it, listening to the movements inside. Two people were using the urinals—at least it was the men's room, he thought. One paused to wash his hands, the other left straightaway.

Josep used the power blade to saw around the rim of the panel. He squeezed and wriggled his way into the cubicle, frantic at the noise he was making. Then when he was most of the way through, he had to push his body into a gymnast's contortion that even his d-written limbs had trouble achieving, all to make sure he didn't stick his head out past the partly open door. Every toilet had a security camera, and the security AS would be devoting a large percentage of its processing capacity to spotting visual abnormalities inside the administration building.

"Resourceful," Simon observed.

"I think we were too slack on the chase," Adul said. "We should have given him more grief in the utility tunnels."

"We've reinforced his feeling of superiority. Look at his deep thalamus activity. He's confident."

"As long as his easy ride doesn't make him suspicious."

"I'd hardly call that jump easy. I thought he was suiciding until I remembered his bone structure composition," Simon said. "Give him a reasonable body match," he instructed the AS.

* * *

The toilet door opened. Josep tensed, waiting to see what the man would do. Footsteps made their way to the first cubicle. Josep tapped his knuckles on the partition. There was a slight hesitation in the footsteps.

"Hey," Josep hissed.

"Some kind of problem, there?"

"Yes."

The man peered around the cubicle door to find Josep sitting on the toilet bowel, head bowed. "What's up?" He moved a little closer.

Josep's left arm shot out and grabbed the front of the man's suit jacket, tugging him hard into the cubicle. At the same time his right hand chopped across the man's neck. He closed the cubicle door. If he'd got it right, the security camera should have seen the man pause by the first cubicle, then choose the second.

According to the man's identity card he was Davis Fenaroli-Reece. Josep began to strip him out of his suit. Changing clothes in the cubicle was almost as bad as putting on the overalls in the wall interstice. Once Josep had the suit on he propped Davis Fenaroli-Reece's body on the toilet bowl and studied his face hard. His own features began to shift again. Without a mirror he wouldn't be able to get the likeness as accurate as he wanted, but his real worry was the hair. Davis Fenaroli-Reece had very dark hair, whereas Andyl Pyne and Sket Magersan were both fair. In the end he settled for splashing water from the toilet bowl over his head and slicking his hair back, hoping that would darken it enough to fool the AS. He was content the camera didn't have sufficient resolution to spot the change in texture.

Another minute was spent with the tools, fixing the cubicle lock. When he closed the door behind him the bolt clicked into the latch and read engaged. Josep washed his hands and left.

He started walking around the corridor to the main stairwell. The second floor was a mix of Z-B personnel and local spaceport staff. Most of them were standing pressed up against the window wall, looking down at the Skins circling the building.

It was growing dark outside, with the sun already hidden behind the high ground of the horizon. That meant he couldn't have been unconscious for more than forty or fifty minutes. He felt hungry, though, as if he hadn't eaten for a day.

The stairwell took him up to the fourth floor, where there was a bridge leading directly into the main terminal building. A couple of Skins were standing at the far end, checking everybody coming out of the administration block, as if the AS wouldn't be able to spot Sket Magersan walking away. They never moved as he passed them.

Forty minutes later he was out in parking lot 4B, walking casually along the rows of vehicles. A group of staff that had come out of the terminal building said good night to each other and split up. Josep followed one of them as he went to his car.

"Excuse me?"

The man stopped just as he'd gotten the door open. "Yeah?"

"My car's dead. Axle motor cable, I think. Are you going into Durrell?"

"Sure." The man nodded. "I can take you."

"Thanks."

There were Skins standing around the exit barrier.

"Big flap on," the man remarked as he slowed the car level with the twin security posts.

"Wonder what it's about," Josep said as he swiped Davis Fenaroli-Reece's card over the scanner on the car's passenger side and looked at the camera.

The barrier pole swung up.

"Someone tried to steal some bullion out of the vault this afternoon," the man said. "He got away."

"God, I hope they don't use one of the collateral necklaces."

"For that? I doubt it."

The man drove him into Durrell as promised. Josep thanked him as he was dropped off at a commercial center in one of the outlying districts. Fortunately, Davis Fenaroli-Reece carried just enough cash to pay for a bus ticket into the city center. It was a ten-minute walk from there to the university campus. When he reached Michelle's residence building, he paused in the lobby while his face finally reverted to his own features.

"Ah, I wondered what he actually looked like. Let's see if we have any records of that face."

Josep tapped the code into her door lock and walked in. The room was a mess as always. Barely large enough for one student, it had turned into a flea market of clothes, fast-food wrappers, hard copy and unwashed crockery since he moved in with her. Michelle was sitting on the small bed, watching the pane on the desktop pearl that was resting on the pillow. Her head came up, shock registering on her face. The gash in Josep's foot left by the glass shard suddenly jabbed a hot pain up his leg. He winced.

Michelle looked up in surprise as the door opened. It had to be Josep. She'd been so worried that he'd been caught doing something for the resistance cell. Relief turned to shock as she saw the thing coming through the door. It was a parody of a Skin suit, thin and spindly, with a simple metallic sphere as its head. The twin black lenses that were its eyes stared at her. She screamed as it walked into the middle of the room.

Two genuine Skins hurried in behind it. Michelle kept on screaming as one of them lunged at her. Thick fingers clamped around her arm. She grabbed at the headboard, but the Skin was immensely strong. She was dragged off the bed, her shoulder blade thudding down painfully on the floor.

"Help me!" she wailed. "Somebody, help."

"Shut the fuck up, bitch." The Skin picked her up and slung her over his shoulder. Michelle tried kicking, but the viciously tight grip on her legs prevented the slightest movement. Her head was hanging halfway down the Skin's back. She tilted her neck back to see the slender humanoid thing moving slowly around the room, its fingers stroking objects. Then she was out on the landing, where several more Skins were waiting. Students stood in their doorways, watching her being carried past, too scared to move or say anything.

Tears rolled down her cheeks. It was all over. Z-B had discovered their little resistance cell. They'd interrogate her and kill her. She whimpered pitifully as the Skin walked into the elevator with her. Three men were crammed inside waiting for them. They began to attach instruments and medical-style modules to her skin.

Michelle started screaming again as the doors slid shut.

For a moment the room was out of focus.

"Are you all right?" Michelle asked. She'd got up to stand beside the bed, looking concerned.

Josep lifted his foot, taking the pressure off the wound. The pain eased immediately. "I'm fine."

She gave him a tentative smile. Josep waited. But for once she didn't rush over and embrace him. He wondered what was wrong with her. Did she think he was seeing another girl? Please, not that, not now, he prayed.

He gave her a quick kiss. There wasn't much of a response. "There's a problem," he told her. "I have to talk to Ray. Get the stuff, will you? I'm going to move it out of here."

"Why? What's happened?"

"Nothing to worry about." He sat down on the bed and pulled the desktop pearl toward him. There was still nothing from his d-written neurons, just that faint background buzz. That made him pause. What the hell could knock them out of kilter for so long? Every other enhancement d-written into his body seemed to be working fine.

"What is it?" Michelle insisted.

"Okay, look, the controller called me. Z-B has been sending askpings into the university network, checking up on student files. I'm sure it's nothing to worry about, but we have to be careful. I'm going to move out for a few days."

"I don't like it."

"Neither do I. I'm sorry, but we have to be safe. You'll be fine. Now just get the stuff, please." He requested his Prime from the desktop pearl's memory blocks. The pane flashed up an invalid request icon.

The remote spoke the command with its associated code, but the desktop pearl didn't respond. An invalid request icon appeared in the pane.

Josep stared at it, not understanding. "Damn it!" Where had the Prime gone? If he could just interface directly ... He wondered if he should call Raymond without using Prime protection. Michelle was still standing behind him, watching.

"Are you going to get the stuff or not?" he asked.

"I don't want you to go."

"Damn it." He told the desktop to call Raymond.

* * *

Simon's DNI was giving him a comprehensive display of the Durrell datapool architecture, the graphics generator riding on the AS's monitor program. He saw the placement ping flash across the entire datapool. Josep's call was to a personal portable address. Wherever the individual was, the nearest datapool node would route the call straight to them. A node in the Silchester District started to establish the link. The entire Silchester datapool crashed.

"What happened?" Simon asked.

The AS reported that its monitor program had been discovered and identified by an unknown program. The Silchester District had crashed immediately.

Simon was impressed. All the gadgets they'd taken from Josep had self-destructed as soon as Z-B's technicians had started to examine them, vaporizing evenly from the surface inward. An analysis of the gas residue had revealed some extremely unusual and complex molecules. It would seem their software was equally sophisticated.

The desktop flashed up a receiver-not-found icon. Josep regarded it with growing concern. Even if the datapool couldn't make the link, Ray's Prime would have intercepted the call placement ping and responded.

"That shouldn't happen."

"Perhaps he's switched off his bracelet," Michelle said.

"Maybe." Josep looked round the room, deeply uneasy. Something was wrong. Why couldn't he get any kind of interface with a Prime?

"Did Ray call?"

"No."

That wasn't right, either. Ray would have known within an hour at most that the break-in had gone wrong. One of the first things he'd do was call Michelle.

He stood up and faced her. She returned his gaze levelly.

Michelle would never do that. She'd either blush or grin happily, lovingly.

"You still haven't got the stuff," he said lightly.

"I told you, I don't want you to go."

"Oh hell," Adul said. "He's suspicious."

"It was always going to happen," Simon said. "Just a question of when." He looked over at Josep. They'd suspended him in a total reality immersion suit, not too dissimilar to Skin: a tactile emitter layer surrounded by artificial muscle to stimulate all levels of physical contact from the water splashed on his hair to the feel of the shirt fabric. It hung from the center of a gimbaled circular frame, allowing them to orientate him to match his personal inclination within the world created by the AS—though the jump had taken it right up to the limit of its replicant ability. Fiber-optics had been inserted through his corneas and pupils to shine directly on the retinas. The projection had zero-zero resolution: perfect.

The big pane on the wall in front of Simon showed the simulation that the AS had fabricated. So far the illusion had been flawless. Josep had believed completely in the spaceport administration block and the journey through Durrell. Even Michelle's room was exact, thanks to the data from the hominoid remote; not just the colors and proportions, but the texture and temperature of the bed and desktop pearl as well. Duplication of inanimates was always easy.

It was where the subject interacted with other people, especially unknowns, where problems and errors began to creep in. If it was someone the AS had no background profile for, their behavior and responses had to be estimated from context. Once a mistake was made, the effect would rapidly multiply until the entire environment simply became unsustainable. And in this case the AS had to try to realize both Michelle and the strange software in a believable fashion from the absolute minimum of data.

Nonetheless, Simon was content with the procedure. After witnessing for himself how extraordinary the intruder was, he had been convinced that a standard interrogation would prove useless—a decision that was endorsed by the subsequent cellular-level scan of their unconscious prisoner. Doctors and biotechnicians had been fascinated by the profound changes made to his body and were completely unable to explain how any of them had been performed. The number and nature of exotic microparticles was astonishing. Some of the experts were still debating whether he was a human who had been improved, or an alien that had been modeled into human form.

For all the prisoner's physical prowess, Simon had glimpsed enough of his mind to see the human emotions within. It was enough for him to launch the attempt at virtual chicanery.

As far as he was concerned, it had now paid off handsomely. They had garnered several vital leads, especially the girl, who was definitely an ordinary human.

"Where is the stuff?" Josep asked softly. "In fact, what stuff?"

"Don't," Michelle said. "Please."

"Who?"

"What?"

"Who? Who am I?'

Her expression crinkled up into misery. "What are you doing?"

"What's my name, Michelle?"

"Just stop this. It's not nice."

"Uh-huh? You know, for someone who's only been away for an afternoon, I'm very hungry." He bent down and picked up an old pizza delivery box. There was still a sliver left inside. He put it in his mouth and started to chew.

Simon's magnetic sense caught the emotional content washing through the prisoner's brain. It was changing rapidly, confusion giving way to a tide of bitter resentment.

"He knows," Simon declared ruefully. "Well, the scenario had almost played out. We have enough to investigate his background."

"But we still don't know what they wanted to hijack a Xianti for."

"One step at a time." Simon's smile faded as another change swept through the prisoner. He hadn't seen the emotion too often before. And never this profound.

"No taste," Josep said. "None at all. Why is that, Michelle?"

"Please, you're scaring me."

"Fatalism," Simon said, startled by the intensity. The prisoner's bright glowing aura began to swirl.

"I didn't know software could be scared."

"Out!" Simon bellowed He charged at the door. Behind him the aura was in a frenzy of turbulence. Then it shrank to nothing.

Simon reached the door. Opened it.

The prisoner exploded.

* * *

Lawrence found the darkness reassuring. He was warm, his body was perfectly comfortable and at ease. There was no pain. It was a womb darkness, he thought, secure and nurturing. A heartbeat he assumed was his own drummed out a steady rhythm in his ears. Breath flowed easily into his lungs. He supposed he could move his limbs if he wanted to. He didn't; the coziness of allowing himself to drift was too appealing. Only his eyes were ineffectual in this pleasant environment, showing him nothing.

Without sight, he began to see.

Events from his life slipped in and out of his consciousness, without order, as all memories were. He visited his parents. Played with his brothers and sisters again. Roselyn emerged into his life, all smiles and adoration. He walked on alien worlds, and kept on walking, over the plateau and into the white, cold isolation of the snowstorm. The crater lake lay below him; he spread his arms wide and dived cleanly into its deep, cleansing waters.

There was the feeling of a smile, a slight mockery. His recollections weren't the only ones he was aware of. Another's distant dreams shared this universe.

"Hello?"

"Hello, Lawrence."

"Who are you?"

"The humans of Arnoon call me the dragon."

"Is that where we are, Arnoon?"

"Yes."

"What's happening?"

"I am repairing your body."

"Are you a doctor?"

"No."

"What then?"

"You wish to know me? Come."

The dragon's dreams grew stronger. And the universe was no longer a place of darkness.

* * *

It was half-past-three in the morning Durrell time when Simon's spaceplane touched down. They taxied over to the parking apron, and a set of airstairs were wheeled out. When the outer lock opened, he took a moment to breathe in the air. It was a lot better than the recycled molecules of the Norvelle, but other than that there was no distinguishing scent, nothing to mark it down as alien. Every time he stepped out on a new world he expected to find something special, divergent. Every time he was disappointed.

Braddock Raines was waiting at the bottom of the stairs, his face grim. "Welcome to Thallspring, sir." The five-strong escort of Skins closed in to form a protective cordon as they walked over to the limousine.

"Thank you." Simon paused to look at the fire engines parked around the administration block. Dozens of scarlet-and-amber strobes were flashing across the field, acting like an advertisement for the disaster. Despite the time, a large number of spectators were still clustered behind the temporary barriers.

Floodlights had been set up around the administration block, illuminating a large section of the top two floors, which had been blown out. The three floors underneath it had sagged, smashing most of the surrounding glass wall. Dunes of glass fragments were strewn over the ground below. Paramedics, engineers, firemen, Skins and robots were picking their way through the wreckage, searching for survivors and bodies. Long crane gantries from the fire engines stood sentry duty, spraying water over the already soaking debris.

"Quite a mess," Simon murmured.

"Yes, sir," Braddock agreed. "The datapool is saturated with it. President Edgar Strauss is requesting an urgent clarification of the incident from General Kolbe. He wants to know who was to blame."

"Ah, the good president I only dealt with him once, myself. How is her'

An awkward smile flickered over Braddock's face. Even though he had a top-level Z-B security clearance, he was always edgy when reminded how many Simon Rodericks there were. "Worried that we'll use collateral."

"Understandable. Given the circumstances I can hardly hold Thallspring's citizens to blame. But there's no need for Strauss to know that. Have the general tell him the investigation into the cause is continuing. That should keep people on their toes."

The spaceport hospital was tucked away in a small wing of the terminal building. Braddock had thrown a tight security cordon around the whole area when the badly injured Simon Roderick was rushed in. Only Z-B's own medical staff was allowed into the surgical theater to operate on him. Subsequently it had become an intensive-care unit. Security engineers and programmers had to examine and clear every piece of equipment brought in to treat him. The theater's electronics and nodes had been physically cut from the spaceport network, which itself was isolated from the datapool. Software subversion against any of the equipment was now impossible.

"Very thorough," Simon said approvingly as they walked through the hospital. "What about Adul?"

"Dead, sir," Braddock said.

"Damn. He was a good man."

Three Skins were standing guard in the corridor outside the theater. One of them held the door open for Simon. A viral technician and a doctor were in the theater monitoring the life support equipment that encrusted the figure on the bed.

"I'd like a moment alone," Simon told them.

Roderick beckoned before the doctor could protest. The startled viral technician gave Simon a long, scrutinizing glance as he walked past.

Simon went over to the bed. Two of the ten lights in the big mobile array overhead were shining across the machinery. The SK2 had 73 percent burns, which had been sealed under a thick oyster membrane that had its own plexus of fluid capillaries to treat the ruined tissue. His head had been completely covered, leaving just two small slits, one for his mouth and one for the eye that had been saved. An oxygen tube passed straight through the membrane to the remnants of his nose. His left hand had been amputated, as had both legs below the knees.

"Can you hear me?" Simon asked.

The SK2's eye opened. Air hissed out past his teeth. "That alien motherfucker!"

"If it's any comfort, he's in a worse state than you. They're still scraping bits of him off the ceiling."

"What ceiling? There isn't even a building left. Hell, I was stupid. I should have realized what it was capable of."

"Yes, well, as a suicide method it certainly beats a tooth full of cyanide. I didn't realize the human body contained quite so much chemical energy."

"Not human. Alien."

"No. I've reviewed the data on my way down. Our own dear experts have made some headway. His DNA is confirmed as human. It wasn't even modified. The microparticles were foreign to his body. Not that we have many of them to study from those samples you took, a few hundred thousand, but it would seem they rebuild the molecular structure of the cell that they occupy. The modifications are not genetically sequenced. You know what that means."

"Alien."

"The technology certainly is. We've ruled out a Santa Chico connection. This is way beyond anything they have. It's a working nanonic system that can engineer molecular biology."

The SK2's breath hissed loudly again. "Find it." He groaned. Several monitor lights turned red. "Godfuck, it hurts."

"They're just stabilizing you. It'll take another two days before you're ready for regeneration viral therapy."

"Are my balls still there?"

"Apparently so, yes."

"Thank fuck for that. They told me about the rest."

"I know."

"Both goddamn legs."

"They'll be replaced as soon as we get home, along with everything else."

"Hoo-fucking-rah."

"Would you like me to have you placed in hibernation sleep?"

"No. I'm going to see this through."

"As you wish."

"Of course I fucking wish. You know what this means, don't you?"

"The potential for a working nanonic is quite phenomenal, yes."

"Phenomenal, my ass," the SK2 rasped. "It's total. We can elevate the whole human race. And in real-time, too. No more waiting for backward regions to benefit from our investment, no more germline v-writing health policy. My God, we've won. Everything we wanted to achieve can be implemented. There'll be no more moron barbarians holding us back. Society can shift to an entirely active-creative economy."

"Let's hope so," Simon said cautiously.

"Hope be damned!"

Simon didn't enjoy seeing his clone sibling in so much pain. It was far too easy to visualize himself lying on the theater bed with little machines leeched to him. The SK2 was fixating on the prospect of finding nanonics as a way of justifying his own suffering, making the sacrifice and pain worthwhile, which it would be, Simon conceded. But the alien was deploying its nanonics in a very strange and definitely hostile way. "We're still not certain about this nanonic system's capabilities. So far we have a lot of conjecture from overexcited technical staff, nothing concrete."

"I saw him, what he became. We can rebuild every human in the universe to make them sane and intelligent."

"As sane and intelligent as we are." Simon thought he kept the tone irony-free.

"That's what we exist for."

"Quite, although we never envisaged achieving it in one big bang." Simon almost asked What if people don't want to be altered by us? But he already knew the SK2's answer to that. The discovery of this nanonic technology would cause an unprecedented split in the Board; some batches would demand immediate implementation, while others, like his own, would want to move more cautiously.

Although that would be completely hypothetical unless he did actually find the alien and obtain the entire technology. Simon gave the SK2 a thoughtful look. Was that why he'd refused hibernation? To make sure the acquisition was completed? The very fact that he could think that of a clone sibling made him uneasy.

"Well, now we can modify our original objective to take that into account, can't we?" the SK2 said.

"That's some modification you're asking for."

"But possible. And extremely desirable."

"Absolutely."

"Interrogate the girl, first—Michelle Rake, she's a very weak link in their security."

"Of course. Any thoughts on why the alien is using its technology against us?"

"No. We don't have enough information yet. You'll have to determine that as well."

* * *

The dragon's dreams were everything Lawrence had ever dreamed of. He embraced the irony with a kind of bitter humor as he learned of the Ring Empire. Once again, the universe had shifted around him, taking away the life he thought was real. Colorful, elegant facts slowly coalesced, merging with his own thoughts until they became revelation. Within this strange state of enlightenment he floated serenely after Mozark as the prince flitted from planet to planet. There were, Lawrence realized, huge segments missing from the story.

"Most of my memories are lost," the dragon said regretfully.

"This is real, then?" Lawrence asked as he gazed across The City, marveling at the silver-and-crystal palaces emerging in the rosy dawn light.

"This is history."

"How long ago?"

"Tens of millions of years, if not longer. Again, that information no longer exists within me."

If his eyes had been open, Lawrence was sure he would have wept. The dragon's knowledge was stupendous, its physical science tremendous. The potential was here to achieve ... anything. Lawrence wasn't just awed, he was humbled. His own goals seemed utterly inconsequential and petty compared to all this. Yet the dragon didn't judge him, which made his guilt all the greater.

"I hoped I would find wealth here," Lawrence said. "But I never expected to be this rich."

"The villagers never considered themselves rich."

"They are. Believe me. There could be no greater gift than knowing you. You are the kind of hope I had long since stopped believing in."

"Thank you. Though it is humans who must take the credit for resurrecting me this far. I would not exist if it were not for your endeavors."

"I would know one thing," Lawrence said, even though he felt ashamed at asking. "Are you sure about Mozark? Did those places and species he encountered on his voyage genuinely exist?"

"The memories are all I have. They are what I am. Does your past exist, Lawrence?"

"There are times when I wish it didn't"

* * *

Denise had risen soon after dawn, content to be in her own bed for what she sincerely hoped was going to be the last time. With the light growing outside she went onto the balcony of her parents' A-frame home. For once the sun was visible as a splendid copper crescent rising in the cleft between Mount Arnao and Mount Nallan. Denise took that as a good omen. It was rare for the cleft to be free of fog and cloud so early in the morning. Now she could lean on the carved wooden rail to look out across the marvelous crumpled valleys and craggy rock faces that composed Arnoon. A shallow layer of mist hung over the meandering slopes spread out around her, with only the tallest treetops poking out above its frayed surface. The sun's radiance fluoresced it a delicate rose-gold as it gently slid and slithered its way out of the foothills toward the plain below.

After a light breakfast with her parents she walked across the village to the big snowbark pavilion. The air up on the plateau was a lot cooler than the humid coastal climate that she'd grown accustomed to down at Memu Bay. She put on a willow wool sweater before leaving the house: a present from Jacintha, whose husband Lycor had designed it, as always incorporating bright colors without making them garish. This one was midnight-black with curling flecks of sapphire, topaz and magenta looking as if they were being blown across the weave; its sleeves were flared at the wrists, with a small V-gap allowing her to roll them up. It kept her beautifully warm as the cold morning gusts drifted down from Mount Kenzi.

As she walked, friends she hadn't seen in an age came over to greet her and exchange pleasantries and words of encouragement. They all expressed their sorrow over Josep, as if she somehow suffered his loss more than they. It was wrong, she felt; they were treating her as if she'd achieved something, instead of nearly bringing ruination to them all. But to say so to their faces would be selfish. And there was still hope. Not that she could ever have imagined it would present itself in such a strange form.

Before the children arrived she walked around the inside of the pavilion, trailing her hand over the bark of each of the ten trees, reacquainting herself with them. So many hours of a pleasant childhood had been spent in or around the pavilion with her friends, playing games and listening to the adults tell their fantastical stories. It was fitting that she, the one who'd been chosen to seed their way of life on a new world, should be given a last opportunity to tell the new generation of their heritage.

The children began to arrive, little groups of them bounding over the central meadow, chattering and laughing. Denise smiled in reflex: something about happy children was just infectious, their smiles made the world a less painful place. Parents were bringing smaller children. She saw Jacintha and Lycor with little Elsebeth holding their hands as she toddled along between them.

Eventually, after some coaxing, the children were settled in a big semicircle around Denise.

"Have you all heard the stories of Mozark and Endoliyn?" she asked them.

"Yes!" they cried back.

"Well, today I'm going to tell you the last story of the Ring Empire. This is set long after the time of Mozark and Endoliyn. It's sort of a sad time, because the Ring Empire was starting to decay. Some of the inhabitants blamed the machines for this, because they were now so smart that they took care of people from the moment they were born until they died. This machine-pampered generation had nothing to do except live their lives chasing personal pleasure and satisfaction. They had become decadent, and not a little bit cruel. Now this generation, the final generation, had enormous resources at their disposal; their machines could dismantle the very planets and reshape their atoms to build whatever these people wanted. With that kind of ability you'd think they'd be totally content. But no. Even the number of planets is finite. They began to argue with each other about how many resources any one person should have and how these resources should be divided and supervised. At first it was just arguments. Then it grew into theft and hoarding. Eventually, fighting began and grew into what was known as the Decadence War. The individual kingdoms that had been so closely knit turned against each other. Battle machines were constructed, the most terrifying things ever built, equipped with weapons that could tear a planet to pieces and even extinguish stars. These battle machines fought each other over the division of entire solar systems. And it took an enormous amount of resources just to build them. That meant that any solar systems that the battle machines conquered were soon turned into more battle machines. The last generation was deprived of the one thing they had launched the war for. Without the resources they craved they soon dwindled into extinction amid the conflict. The battle machines continued fighting for thousands of years, wreaking havoc among the stars, until they had finished eliminating each other along with entire races.

"But the decadents and their battle machines weren't the only reason the Ring Empire fell—although they must take most of the blame. They represented only the physical aspect of its decline. Many societies had followed the Wilfrien, slowly regressing, even rejecting their technological society, seeking a more primitive existence in search of peace, withdrawing their participation and support from the Ring Empire. Then there were others, like the Outbounds and the Last Church, who had actually been quite successful in reaching their goals. They had attracted the most dynamic people, the brightest, the restless who relished challenge; all of these had found their cause and given themselves to it. In doing so, over the millennia, they had drained the Ring Empire of vitality, the very people who could have regenerated it "Among the factions and wars was one group who had predicted the fall. The Eternals, who were more academics than anything else, had studied civilizations from across the Ring Empire. They found one thing that remained constant among all biological species: the cycles of growth and decay. It might take only a century. It might take a million years. But life always follows that pattern. As the Decadence War raged and the Ring Empire fell apart around them they decided to save themselves. Many groups were desperately trying to do the same thing, with colonies and secret enclaves to keep their original ideals alive so that one day they could expand again, rekindling their former glory. In some instances entire kingdoms isolated themselves behind fortified borders so that they wouldn't be contaminated with the decay infecting their neighbors. All of them were attempting to resist that which the Eternals were convinced was inevitable. By doing so they would surely be doomed to failure, the Eternals thought. And they were right, for today there is no Ring Empire, only whispers and legends of the glory that was. But the Eternals are still here.

"Instead of making some futile stand against the decline, the Eternals embraced the cycle of life. They transformed themselves and their society so that it would live in harmony with galactic nature. Biological life and Ring Empire machine were fused at a molecular level. The Eternals became giant spaceborne creatures. Unlike starships, they didn't need artificial power and great industrial stations to maintain them. In many respects these creatures were profoundly simple. It is that simplicity that has allowed them to survive and spread across the galaxy.

"They live today in orbit above the galaxy's red giant stars, powered by the heat and grazing on the solar wind. They have enormous solid bodies like streamlined asteroids that sprout solar wings whose span is measured in kilometers. Because of their shape, and the fiery environment in which they thrive, we call them dragons. They are even hatched from eggs. Every solar system has them, dark cold globes circling among the outer cometry halo as they wait for the star's main sequence to come to an end. That's the cycle again. Stars grow old and die, swelling out to absorb their planets, and eventually expanding into red giants. That's when their warmth reaches the eggs, energizing them. They grow slowly, absorbing the heat and the thin gusts of ions, until they're fully fledged dragons. And then they listen to the universe. Their wings are threaded with elements that can pick up radio waves from the other side of the galaxy, and even far beyond that, allowing them to listen to planetary civilizations as they rise and fall. They listen to the cosmos itself, the death and birth of stars, the shriek of matter as it falls into black holes, quasars and pulsars crying out from the empty void. All this knowledge they spread among themselves, and think about it, and remember it. On rare occasions they even use it, for they can modify themselves at a molecular level. That is their physical nature, the legacy of the Ring Empire.

"Eventually, as the star shrinks back to a white dwarf before its final extinction, they are left abandoned in the dark and cease to be. In accepting their mortality they live with the cycle, with what's natural. They have served their purpose and advanced their species. Like any civilization, they acquire knowledge, they organize it and bestow it on their descendants. As they circle above their stupendous star they send their own eggs out into the universe, each one containing the memory of everything they consider important and relevant. These eggs fall through the darkness of interstellar space until the gravity of some bright new star pulls them in to a long distant orbit so the cycle can be started over."

"Except one of them fell to earth, or rather Thallspring," Lawrence said.

The children gasped and turned. Lawrence was leaning casually against the trunk of a snowbark, arms folded across his chest His grin was lopsided as he stared at Denise.

The children started whispering excitedly.

"That was over two thousand years ago," Lawrence continued. He grinned down at the expectant, slightly awed faces. "The dragon's egg streaked out of the sky like a splinter of sunlight and struck the plateau near the base of Mount Kenzi. The force of the blow was so powerful it gouged a crater out of the bare rock. Every tree for fifty kilometers was ripped out of the ground and smashed apart by the blastwave. Then the timber burned for days, filling the air with thick, black smoke. But the dust from the vaporized rock billowed up into the stratosphere and blotted out the sun for weeks. It brought the coldest winter the plateau has ever known, covering it in snow. Then, when the snow began to melt a few years later, it filled the crater with water. The trees started to grow again. And a hundred years later everything looked just the same, except now there was a new lake.

"Then people arrived and called this place Arnoon. They built themselves a village and began harvesting the willow webs. And one day—"

"One day," Denise said, "my grandfather was out prospecting when his survey sensors found a strange magnetic pattern in the rock under the lake. So he started to dig. It took months for his little robot to excavate a shaft down to the base of the island. But when it got there, my grandfather found fragments of the egg. He didn't know what they were, only that they were artificial solid-state matrices of some kind, unlike anything humans had ever built He began to excavate further, and eventually found the largest fragment of all, the one we call the dragon."

"By then," Lawrence said, "he'd discovered that the molecular structure of the small fragments was storing data. After a lot of experiments he finally managed to access some of it. Once he knew how to do that, he started to mine the huge reservoir of information stored within the dragon."

"The dragon was still sleeping," Denise said. "It possessed nothing but disconnected memories. My grandfather wrote programs that linked them together. The dragon slowly began to wake. It learned how to think."

He looked straight at her, heedless of their audience. "And you found that it was actually a cohesive nanonic system capable of molecular engineering. You used it to adapt native plants to grow terrestrial food. You used it to make yourselves resistant to disease. You made it synthesize bits of technology that are orders of magnitude more advanced than anything humans can make. And you kept it all for yourselves."

"Because it can only change itself into what we ask for. It can't build anything new. It doesn't know how. That data was lost in the destruction of the impact. Every patternform sequencer particle in my body was a part of the dragon. It diminished itself to enhance me. It diminished itself further to heal you."

"Yeah," Lawrence said. His belligerence faded. "Makes righteous life kind of awkward, doesn't it?"

Denise turned back to the children. "So now you know why things are a little different here than on the rest of Thallspring. A very noble creature has sacrificed part of itself to make our lives easier. Our debt to the dragon is enormous. We must never forget what we owe. And we must pray that one day we can repay it."

The children filtered out past the snowbark trunks. Many of them crept up close to Lawrence, then dashed away giggling. Approaching the big bad Skinman was a seriously scary dare. He found it rather funny.

Jacintha came up to him, little Elsebeth cradled on her arm. The girl was shy, burying her face in her mother's neck.

"I do remember you now," Lawrence said.

She nodded a fraction reluctantly. "I'm sorry we became enemies again."

"Love and war. I guess that's part of the human cycle."

"We hope to break that. With the dragon's help."

"I know. It told me."

Jacintha glanced over at her sister, who was waiting for them, a disapproving expression on her elegant young face. "Try not to give her too hard a time. She has to do this."

"Don't worry. I know what I have to do, as well."

Jacintha gave him a mildly suspicious look, then walked away back to Lycor. Elsebeth gave him a little wave from the crook of her mother's arm. He shook his own fingers at the young girl, smiling.

"We have Grabowski," Denise said briskly. "I'm willing to offer you a deal. You can't go back to Zantiu-Braun, so if you cooperate with us the patternform sequencer particles will repair all Grabowski's damage, including his brain, and he can begin a new life here in the village."

Lawrence widened his smile until it became suitably irritating. "I don't need a deal. I'm going to help you anyway."

"What do you mean?" she asked slowly.

"You want to take the dragon fragment to Aldebaran, right? The closest red giant, where all the real dragons are."

"Yes." She said it as if admitting a fatal weakness. "They can make it whole again. If it stays here, then your kind will discover it one day. They'll take it from us and break it apart in their corporate labs to discover how patternform-sequencing systems work. I can't let that happen. It's a living entity that has given us so much, and we've never done anything for it. This is our only chance to return it where it belongs."

"My kind, huh?"

"Zantiu-Braun, or Thallspring's government. People who don't live out here like this. People who don't live real lives, who'll never care about anything but themselves."

"You know, there's more of your kind than you think. Everywhere I go, I keep bumping into idealists."

"A shame none of it rubs off on you."

"I'm helping you, aren't I?"

"Why? Why would you agree to help?"

"Raw altruism not good enough for you?" He wasn't about to tell her the shock he'd experienced on hearing about the Mordiff, nor its accompanying revelation.

"I don't believe it, not from you. You came here to steal the dragon. You wouldn't switch sides and morality this quickly."

"I didn't know the dragon existed before I arrived. I thought you'd got a big stash of gold or diamonds hidden away up here."

"But..." She gave him a troubled look. "Where did you get your Prime from?"

"A boy I knew once back on Amethi. A good kid. Little bit misguided and confused; but then, isn't everyone at that age?"

"So Earth has found a dragon."

"No. That's why I'll help you."

* * *

Michelle didn't know where she was, nor what time it was. She wasn't entirely sure what day it was.

After the Skins had dragged her from her room she'd been driven somewhere in a blacked-out van. The medical orderlies from the elevator went with her. They tore her T-shirt off so their probes could inspect and scratch her skin. Needles were inserted into her flesh along her limbs and belly, leaving small beads of blood welling up when they were extracted. She'd screamed and pleaded and struggled. It was all futile. A Skin pinned her down until their examination ended.

Her ruined T-shirt was thrown back at her, and she tried to wrap it round her breasts. Now that they'd finished, the men showed no more interest in her as she lay on the floor of the van, weeping pitifully. She half expected them to rape her, but that didn't happen either.

The trip lasted fifteen minutes. When she was hustled out of the van, it'd been parked in some anonymous underground garage. She was marched directly to a small cell and pushed inside. The door slammed shut.

After the first hour she thought they'd forgotten about her. She banged on the door. But nobody came. She started weeping again, hating herself for being so weak. She was just so frightened. Zantiu-Braun could do whatever they wanted to her. Anything. Nobody would know. If she could just see Josep... This horror could be endured if he was with her. Slowly she shrank into a fetal position on the cot, hugging her legs tight to her chest. Little bursts of sobbing came and went. Why didn't they just take her out and start their interrogation? Just get this over with. At some time she must have drifted into sleep.

The door thudding open woke her with a start. A Skin walked in. Michelle clutched the ragged T-shirt to her chest, staring fearfully at the dark, bulky figure. Suddenly she wasn't so keen for the interrogation to start after all.

"You. With me. Now." The Skin beckoned.

Michelle was led along cheerless basement corridors to an elevator. It brought her up to the main levels of the building. She thought it looked like an extremely high-class hotel, with luxurious gold carpeting and gloss-polished wood doors. Large, elaborate oil paintings hung on the walls. Delicate antique tables supported china vases full of big flower arrangements. Lighting cones were gilded in silver and cut crystal.

It wasn't a hotel. Open doors gave her glimpses into offices. The men inside, and hurrying along the corridor, all shared a tense, preoccupied air. Few of them even spared her a second look.

The Skin finally opened the door into an office with a single desk. A man was waiting for them, dressed in a smart gray-and-purple suit, styled differently from anything she'd seen on Thallspring. "I'll take her from here," he told the Skin.

Michelle barely heard. She was looking out of the window. The view showed her a swath of formal grounds sweeping away to a broad circular highway. Beyond that were the familiar sturdy public buildings that populated the center of Durrell. But to be seeing them from this angle, she'd have to be inside the Eagle Manor.

"I'm Braddock Raines," the man was saying. "Please." He took his jacket off and proffered it to her. "Sorry about the way you've been treated. The frontline boys tend to become slightly overenthusiastic, especially on an operation with such a high priority."

"Operation?" she asked blankly. She was still having trouble with what was happening.

"All in good time." He smiled reassuringly and gestured at a tall double door. "My chief would like a word."

There was a larger office through the doors. The man sitting behind its broad desk gave Michelle a pleasant nod as she was shown in, then returned his attention to a pane in front of him. It was difficult to tell how old he was. Mid-forties, she thought, though he had the kind of assured authority that was normally found in men a lot older.

Braddock steered her to a settee and indicated she should sit. She pulled the jacket around her as if it were a shield.

"My name is Simon Roderick," said the man behind the desk. "I'm in charge of Zantiu-Braun security on Thallspring. And you, Michelle, have been a very stupid young lady."

She dropped her gaze, praying she wouldn't start sniveling.

"One thing in your favor right now is that we know you're actually human."

"Excuse me?" she stammered.

"You're a human, unlike this gentleman." The sheet screen on the wall flashed up a picture of Josep's face. "Ah, you do recognize him."

"Yes."

"Thank you, Michelle. At least you have some understanding of how much trouble you're in."

"One day you'll be defeated," she said, amazing herself at such defiance.

"It's not only Zantiu-Braun that will be defeated by aliens that powerful. The entire human race could well be facing a terminal threat."

"What do you mean, aliens?"

"You didn't know, did you? Your comrade in arms was not entirely human."

"That's ridiculous." Nobody was more human than Josep. Only a human could bring another human so much pleasure and contentment.

"Is it?" Josep's image was replaced by a cluster of multicolored spheres. "Do you know what that is, Michelle?"

"No."

"That doesn't surprise me. We're not absolutely sure ourselves. It's a nanomachine that appears to have molecular-engineering capabilities. It was extracted from your friend's blood."

"What have you done to Josep!" Tears threatened to burst down her face, but it was anger that pushed them this time, not fear.

"Josep?" Simon smiled. "Finally, a name."

Michelle's shoulders slumped. The anger burned out as quickly as it had flared. How stupid to be caught out like that. "You can do what you like to me," she said sullenly. "I won't help you."

Simon walked around the desk and sat on the settee next to Michelle. She tried not to shrink from him. He poured some tea from the silver pot on the low table.

"Do you know what we can do to you?" he asked. "Did Josep ever tell you?"

"You'll use drugs, I know that. And you'll probably rape me before you kill me."

"Good grief, what a repellent idea. We're not savages. My dear girl, you really must learn to distinguish between facts and your own side's somewhat lurid propaganda. Yes, we can use drugs, along with various hypnosis and deep-stimulus techniques, none of which are particularly pleasant. There is nothing you will be able to keep from us; you will confess your deepest secrets. Do you know why we're not doing that to you right now?"

"So you can trick me into giving you names," she said hotly.

"No. I want to appeal to you to give us the information voluntarily. Time, I'm afraid, is rather short. I really am not joking when I say Josep is an alien."

"What have you done with him?"

"Nothing. I wish we could. He escaped shortly after we captured him."

"Good. You'll never catch him again."

"Not without your help, no."

"I won't. You'll have to interrogate me properly." She was shaking at the prospect of submitting to their interrogation, but every minute in here was another minute Josep could use to flee.

"Aren't you going to ask where we caught him? Or do you already know, did you help plan the attack?'

"I don't know what you're talking about," she said, though there was a horrible suspicion bubbling through her mind. Those nights he never came home. Courier duty, he said, like the rest of the cell were given. Except she'd never been asked to run anything at night.

Simon picked up his cup of tea and settled back into the settee. The sheet screen began showing a datapool news report of the spaceport. Bodybags were being carried out of the wrecked administration block.

"Oh, God," she whispered.

"Eight people dead," Simon said. "Including Mr. Raines's colleague."

Braddock Raines was standing at the end of the settee, his face impassive. Michelle flashed him a hugely guilty glance.

"Seventeen injured, three critically. Our cargo-lifting operation delayed by several days. And the whole of Durrell terrified about what retaliatory measures Z-B will employ. After all, we promised to use our collateral necklaces to prevent any interruption to our asset realization. What do you think, Michelle, how many Thallspring citizens should Z-B kill so that your resistance movement doesn't do this again? Ten?"

"Stop it."

"Fifty?"

"None!" she shouted. "None at all. He didn't do this. We didn't do this. All we do is sabotage your transport and stolen factories. This isn't what we want, not killing people."

"That's not what you want, Michelle. There's a difference in your understandable, if pathetic, yearning to fight the invasion, and the goals of your alien allies."

"Josep is not an alien!"

"Dear me, what an irony I have here. We can extract the entire truth from you should we so wish, yet we cannot install the truth. But the truth is what I am dealing in. Josep's body was altered, enhanced, by alien technology. He was using you."

"He was not. We were in love."

"Ah." Simon sighed happily. "Was this your first love, Michelle?"

"I... it..."

"So it was. How delightful."

"No, it wasn't." Even as she denied it, she knew Roderick knew, really knew, and blushed heavily.

"There is a standard ploy that intelligence agencies use for infiltrating their enemies, Michelle. It's very common and has been in use for centuries. You find some lonely, sad little soul working in the place you need to be, a woman maybe approaching middle age and unmarried, or maybe not as pretty as her contemporaries. Perhaps it's simply someone who doesn't fit into her new environment very easily, who finds it all new and strange and frightening. Either way, you send in a wolf. They meet, as if by chance. She finds herself courted by this most handsome man, impossibly talented in bed, devoted to her and her alone. Her heart belongs to him. And with her heart comes her complete and absolute trust. Does any of this sound familiar, Michelle?"

"Don't," she said weakly.

"Did he come into your life around the time we arrived on your planet, Michelle? This is your first year at university, the first time you've ever really been away from home. Your grades weren't very good. You were lonely. Did you meet him on campus? No. Before then? Ah, of course, the real first time you left home. Your mother and father paid for a vacation at Memu Bay, a reward for passing your exams. That's it, isn't it? That's where you met him. It was a classic, perfect holiday romance."

Michelle was sobbing helplessly. The pain the words inflicted was worse than any torture. "He loves me. He does!"

"Then we invaded. He appeared back into your life as if by magic. Yes. He lived with you, unofficially of course; there's no record of him in the university files. In fact, there's no record of him anywhere on Thallspring. Digitally, he simply doesn't exist. Do you know how impossible that is, Michelle? The most powerful askpings ever written cannot find a single trace of him in the global datapool."

"He's human!" Michelle implored. "Please." She turned to Raines, who shook his head sorrowfully.

"Did Josep tell you if he had special software?" Simon continued relentlessly. "Really clever, super-secret software that could help the cause?"

Michelle was starting to curl up back into a fetal position. The brutal voice just went on and on, tearing her world apart.

"Software that was better than any AS on Earth could ever produce. What did he say, that it was written by a few teenage geeks in their bedrooms, who also just happen to be loyal to the Thallspring cause?" Simon put his index finger under the girl's chin and tilted her face back. Her cheeks were sticky with tears. His electromagnetic sense observed the tidal waves of distress tormenting her thoughts. "I'm so sorry," he said tenderly. "I really am. This is all as frightening to me as it is you."

"Prime," Michelle stammered. "The software was called Prime."

* * *

It was quite an operation, lifting the dragon out of its underground lair. The route had been prepared years ago, of course. Denise's family had sunk a second shaft down to the chamber, a bigger shaft than the elevator, which emerged to the side of the small stone temple.

Lawrence sat on the curving stone bench, watching as its concealed hood rose up on magnetic pistons, bringing a meter of soil with it. The dragon slowly emerged underneath, still sitting on its white-glass pedestal. Its golden power-induction mesh was wrapped tightly around its midsection. Sunlight glinted off individual strands. Electrohydraulic motors whined loudly in the placid air.

"Welcome to the world," Lawrence said. "I don't suppose you can sense visible light?"

"Not directly," the dragon replied. "However, I receive the images from yourself and other humans. I know what Arnoon looks like. It is very beautiful."

Repairing Lawrence's leg and hip wasn't all the pattern-form sequencer particles had done. They'd also modified a cluster of his neuron cells, giving them an ability similar to a DNI implant. D-writing, Denise called it, the particles engineering cellular structures in a direct fashion that human v-writing could never achieve—outside of germline treatments. Vectoring in new DNA was a scattergun approach deployed against entire organs or muscles; this was far more selective and precise.

"But you haven't given this communication cluster to everyone here?" he'd asked her.

The two of them had sat together in the snowbark pavilion for most of the morning, discussing how to get the dragon up to a starship. They were being polite to each other, nothing more. There was too much history for friendship.

"No," she said. "Only people like me and Raymond and Jacintha need it. We didn't want to create some kind of superwarrior breed. The enhancements given to the children are more benign and beneficial."

"Similar to germline v-writing?"

"Yes. The patternform sequencers can alter DNA quite easily. We gave everybody cancer resistance, and stronger immune systems, and refined organs, much greater life expectancy, a higher IQ. Their changes will be permanent, and the traits will carry down the generations. Arnoon won't have to depend on the dragon anymore."

"And the food," he said. There was a carved wooden bowl on the table in front of him. It was piled up with various fruits. He rested his finger on the rim, pressing it down so the bowl swung from side to side.

"The plants are also genetic adaptations," Denise said, enjoying his discomfort. "They'll breed true. In a hundred years, this forest will be an orchard that can feed a city. Nobody will need protein cell refineries anymore. Another economic necessity will be consigned to history."

"An economic necessity that liberated seventy percent of the human race from perpetual starvation. Growing things for food is a terribly inefficient use of energy."

"That depends on the nature of the culture you have to feed," she said. "Massive industrialized nations had to use industrial farming to feed their urban populations. If you replace them with scattered self-sufficient villages like Arnoon, then the requirements become very different."

"A world of physically separate communities linked by the datapool. The true global village. Knowledge belongs to everybody, and everybody goes their separate ways. You need microscale manufacturing to back that up, you know."

"I know. We've been studying the dragon as best we can, and we've copied every memory it has. If we give that to the rest of the world, then we hope something similar to the patternform sequencer can be built. It'll take decades, but we never wanted to force change overnight. This is going to be an organic revolution, generated from internal knowledge. It must succeed, if not here, then on a fresh world. Today's culture can't be the only way a technological society develops. It can't."

His eyes flashed with mischief. "Plenty of prejudices to overcome."

"There certainly are." She picked a peach from the top of the bowl and held it up in front of him.

"You sure? Last time a girl did this to me I threw up all over her."

"You're just a born romantic, aren't you?"

He took the peach and bit into it. The fruit was sweet and succulent. Quite pleasant, really.

"It's not just fruit we get from our trees," Denise said innocently. "Some of them grow meat, too."

Lawrence had trouble swallowing.

He saw Hal before he left. The kid was in one of the A-frames, sleeping peacefully. His medical modules had all been repaired and were now industriously cycling chemicals through various organs once more. And his skin was a much healthier color.

"The major internal damage has almost been repaired," the doctor said. "We'll start removing these modules in a day or two. I'm a little concerned about his biomech heart."

"What's wrong with it?" Lawrence asked.

"It's somewhat crude. I believe it was only intended as a temporary replacement I'm not sure how long it will last, and with the dragon leaving we don't have enough pattern-form sequencer particles to rebuild it. He'll probably need another transplant in twenty years."

Lawrence chuckled. "I wonder what kind of heart that'll be."

"Who knows?"

"What about his brain?"

"That will take more time to repair. He lost a lot of neurons from oxygen starvation. The patternform particles are rebuilding as fast as they can, but it will be weeks before full intellectual function is returned."

A concept that, applied to Hal, made Lawrence grin. "Will his full memories come back?"

"No. Not even the dragon's systems can recover them. There will be large gaps in his life."

Lawrence stroked Hal's forehead. "I think that's probably a good thing if he's to make a fresh start here."

"Yes."

"Do me a favor. Take those valves out. That'll give him a real fresh start."

"Of course. Is there a message when he recovers?"

"Just... I don't know. Good luck, I guess."

It was pretty lame, he had to admit. But, really, what else was there to say? The kid had a chance at a new life here, why tie him to the past?

"Perhaps you could record a message," the dragon suggested.

"No. Cutting him loose is the best thing I can do for him. Besides, the last thing he needs is advice from me. Look what a screwup I made of everything."

"I believe that's what you call sweet Fate."

Lawrence touched two fingers to his forehead, saluting the dragon as a heavylift robot eased it off the pedestal. "You got me there."

Jacintha came into the temple and sat beside him. A small cargo robot rolled up behind her. The island's shoreline was nearly invisible under all the boats that had brought people and equipment over from the village. Lawrence hoped to hell Z-B's spy satellites didn't notice all the unusual activity. The villagers claimed they'd tracked everything the starships had launched into low orbit around Thallspring. If they were right, they had a clear sky above them right now.

"Your Skin's ready," Jacintha said, indicating the fat plastic case that the robot was carrying.

"Thanks. I thought that was dead."

"We had an antidote to sharkpike venom long before we ever found the dragon. As long as it's applied quickly, you're okay. The Skin's muscle cords were receptive once we'd flushed the contaminated blood out."

"Thanks. Those damn things scared me shitless."

"Every rose has its thorns. The rivers around here are full of sharkpikes. I've been bitten a couple of times myself."

"Can't you introduce some kind of virus? Wipe them out"

Jacintha's expression darkened. "Is my little sister really going to be able to trust you?"

"Yeah, she can trust me."

"She's the closest thing to a genuine KillBoy there is. I was part of the team that wiped out your platoon. And now that's all in the past? This from a man who would genocide a species because it has sharp teeth."

"The platoon followed me," Lawrence said slowly. "I brought them up here. You might have pulled the trigger, but it was me who put them in front of you."

"And there I was thinking you were going to say they knew the risks."

"That too. We don't expect a population to fight back, and we certainly don't expect it in the hinterlands of Thallspring. But each time we land we know it's a possibility. Denise might have had a few zippy gadgets, but her real advantage over us was how willing people were to sign up to her bogus resistance movement. If the local inhabitants ever get properly organized, or call Z-B's bluff, we automatically lose. Do you really think a starship captain, a flesh-and-blood human who has family of his own, is ever ever going to give an order for a gamma pulse that will slaughter half a million people? It won't happen. So we know we're on our own down here, that there's no fallback, no help from above. The fact that Denise eliminated so many of us in Memu Bay proves what I've known for a long time now: that Z-B is in decline. Probably a terminal one. Skin suits are superb technology, even up against your dragon's knowledge. But without the organization, the initiative and the determination to face down threats, that means nothing. And we had none of those qualities down in Memu Bay. Santa Chico should have told the Board that asset realization was over, finished for good. Instead they just kept on, trying to find weaker targets."

"You agree with the Eternals, then? Life is in a permanent cycle."

Lawrence let out a long breath, exhausted with holding back his anger and despair. "Could be. You know what? I really don't care. I don't care that you killed my friends. I don't care that I killed your ambush party. I don't care if that makes us quits or not. I don't care that Z-B is quietly collapsing. I don't care that you want to build some noble civilization based on total bullshit about people being perpetually nice to each other. I don't care that your deranged sister is willing to sacrifice herself and everyone she knows to save some piece of talking rock. I don't damn well care that the universe is doomed and the galaxy is falling into a black hole. I have spent the last twenty years caring. I cared for my platoon. I cared about what the human race was doing and where it was going. I cared that we didn't have frontiers anymore. I cared about my career. I even cared about what I was doing with my life. And look where I am because of that. Helping a bunch of cosmic hippies hijack a starship. Sweet fucking Fate!"

"You mean we can't trust you?"

"You got it, girl. Denise cannot trust me, not now, not ever. I do not like her. I will never like her. I will, however, respect her abilities. And I expect a similar respect in return. What you can have from me is reliability. I am dependable in this in a way none of you are. I will hijack that starship, and it will fly to Aldebaran. Of that you can be certain."

"I'm not sure I can be, Lawrence."

"This is for me, now. Not you and your ideals. That's why you can be certain. I finally, finally, have a chance to put my life back together and live it the way I was born to live it. To cancel out the last twenty miserable years. After Aldebaran I'm going home. That's all: home. And nothing and nobody can stop that from happening."

The sound of the hovercraft approaching made both of them turn and look out across the crater lake. Lawrence couldn't help a derisory laugh at the absurdity of the vehicle. It was made from wood, Arnoon's lightest, hardest timber, crafted into a simple oval platform with a cabin grafted onto the prow. Two big steerable propellers stood high on smooth, tall fins at the rear. The skirt was willow wool, a fine tight weave easily holding in the cushion of air on which it rode. Electric motors powered the propellers and impellers, salvaged from an assortment of heavy machinery across the plateau.

It swept lightly across the water, with a thin haze of spray escaping from underneath its skirt, and a creamy V-shaped wake spreading wide. When it reached the island it rocked slightly as the front skirt rode up the shingle and onto the scanty grassmoss. The propellers reversed pitch, bringing it to a halt. It sank down with a prolonged wheeze of escaping air.

The heavylift robot carrying the dragon trundled over to it. A ramp was deployed in front of the propeller fins, enabling it to climb up onto the deck.

"We're ready," Denise said. She gave Lawrence and her sister an anxious glance, aware that they'd been quarreling.

"Sure," Lawrence said brightly. "Is that thing really going to work?"

"Certainly." Denise sounded offended. "We've practiced the route a dozen times. The river is the easiest way out of Arnoon. The hovercraft will take us straight to Rhapsody Province. One of the articulated trucks from Dixon is already at the rendezvous point. It'll take the dragon all the way down to Memu Bay's airport. We'll be there in fifteen hours. After that, it's all up to you."

"Don't worry, my contact has sent a plane to collect us. Where's the cargo pod? We can hardly load the dragon into a Xianti as it is."

"The cargo pod is with the truck. An RL-thirty-three, industry standard sixty-ton capacity. We'll put the dragon inside it when we get there."

"Okay. Let's go."

* * *

Simon was appalled to discover that there was no supersonic transport on Thallspring. He wound up commandeering the presidential jet, which could barely reach Mach 9. It was a converted fifty-seat medium-range commuter jet that had a flight time of four hours to Memu Bay.

He spent the time working with his personal AS, dropping hundreds of askpings into Memu Bay's datapool. The leisure company that Michelle had signed up with to go diving among the atolls had no file on any employee called Josep, nor on Raymond, who was supposed to be his friend. The AS trawl couldn't find any abnormalities in the company's memory blocks. No substituted files, no gaps in the daily boat trip logs for a month either side of Michelle's visit; even the financial accounts were in order.

"Arrest them," Simon ordered Ebrey Zhang.

"Who, exactly?" Memu Bay's governor asked.

"The company's senior management. Their diving gill instructors. Boat crews. Bring them all in for questioning. I want them in custody by the time I arrive."

"Yes, sir."

The governor's noticeable reluctance made Simon review the current situation report for Memu Bay. "For God's sake," he muttered as the indigo script scrolled down. And to think, he'd warned the SK2 to keep an eye on the place.

Memu Bay had gone into meltdown over the last week. Asset realization was down to 50 percent of estimated targets. Two-thirds of the settlement's factories had some kind of strike action going on. The entire mayor's office had walked out and refused to work with Ebrey Zhang following the Grabowski rape case. The rest of the civil sector was reduced to emergency services only. Platoon morale was rock bottom, with charges accumulating against 30 percent of Z-B's personnel. TB cases were still being reported; immunization implementation was slow. Sabotage against utilities was a daily occurrence. Several districts had become no-go zones—and that included for Skin platoons. Collateral no longer worked. There were reprisals every time. Zhang was afraid to use any more necklaces for fear of making the situation even worse.

The more Simon studied the breakdown and its history, the more interested he became. Essentially, Z-B had lost control of the settlement. The resistance group led by KillBoy had waged a beautifully orchestrated campaign against the invasion, building to this climax of near anarchy.

"Why, though?" Simon asked a dismayed Braddock Raines. "How does this help our alien? Wiping out Zhang's little command is hardly going to cripple Zantiu-Braun."

"I'm not sure they could even do that," Braddock commented. "Physically eliminating every Skin stationed in Memu Bay would be difficult even for them. They can force the platoons off the streets and back into their barracks, maybe even make them fall back all the way to the airport. But if you hit those lads too hard, they'll hit you back. Part of the problem is Zhang holding back."

"You might be on to something there," Simon said. "With the platoons off the streets, the alien is free to do what it wants in Memu Bay without us noticing. But we still don't know what that is."

The presidential jet landed without incident. There was very little activity at the airport. Half of its buildings were operating on reserve power supplies, thanks to the resistance group severing a set of superconductor cables two nights earlier. Skins patrolled the perimeter.

A helicopter was waiting for Simon. He climbed in as a big Pan-Skyways cargo jet took off, heading for Durrell with a hold full of assets.

Skins had to clear the square in front of the Town Hall so the helicopter could land. The displaced protesters jeered and threw stones over the barricades. Simon's Skin escort closed in around him. He never normally noticed them, but today he was grateful for their presence. He didn't often get this close to physical danger. The clamorous hostility of the crowd made him distinctly uncomfortable.