The Gabble

Garp and Geronamid

The grey-bearded park labourer reminded Salind of Earth and autumn, though the man was not raking up leaves. It was treelfall on Banjer — a season with no real Terran equivalent — and the snakish creatures squirming from the pox of holes in the banoaks were dying. Having raked the fallen into slightly shifting drifts, the man began forking the spaghetti tangle into his wheelbarrow.

‘I’ll be damned,’ said Salind, initiating the ‘save’ facility in Argus.

He watched the man for a while longer, then hoisted his rucksack more securely onto his shoulders before moving on. Shortly he came to where a black and twisted banoak had spilled from its hollow branches a thick crop of treels across the path. The banoak itself reminded him of a baobab, though he vaguely recollected it was not in fact a tree, being more akin to a tube worm. The parasitic treels were black and grey, and on average half a metre long. With their narrow heads and discshaped feeding mouths, they appeared more like lampreys than the eels after which they were named. Salind subvocalized a question and Argus, his internal augmentation, replied in its lecturing tone:

Because its life cycle is utterly confined to the soft tissues and hollow branches of the banoak, it will attempt to feed on any soft tissue with which it comes into contact. Avoidance is recommended.

Salind looked askance at the writhing mass as he stepped off the path and onto the spherule grass to bypass it.

‘Why do they die?’ he asked.

There came a pause from Argus as it accessed the relevant files.

A poison from the aforementioned soft tissues accumulates in the creatures and kills them off in their fifth year. Shall I continue?

‘Might as well,’ said Salind. ‘I don’t suppose Garp’s there yet.’

As I mentioned, the treel’s entire life cycle is confined to the interior of the banoak. There it feeds on the soft tissues of the polychaete body, mates and lays its eggs. By their fifth year the treels die from a cumulative poison in the polychaete’s flesh. It was first thought the poison served no other purpose than to rid the banoak creature of this parasite. It is now known that the treel’s relationship with its host is mutualistic rather than parasitic. The treels, as well as feeding on the banoak, protect it from predation. Creatures that feed on the banoak inevitably ingest treels and can sicken and die from the poison concentrated inside them.

‘They harvest them, don’t they?’ said Salind, his attention drawn to the large tanker parked under some distant banoaks. He could hear the cavitating roar of a vacuum pump and see another park labourer sucking up the creatures with a wide-ribbed hose.

The poison accumulates in their skin. For humans that substance works as a narcotic and mild hallucinogen. The treels are mulched, pressed and dried and what remains is mostly skin.

They make a tea from it here.

‘I guess I’ll have to give that a try then,’ said Salind, though he did not particularly relish the prospect.

The tea is as addictive as nicotine. Most people here drink it.

‘Then I’ll take a detoxicant course afterwards. My audience will want to know what it’s like.’

At the centre of the park stood a monolithic quartz crystal into whose lattices had been recorded the names and personal histories of the thousands who had died during the civil war here a century earlier. The deeply translucent crystal ran in its depths holograms taken randomly from those personal histories. Positioned all around it were seats for spectators, though they were unoccupied today and, studying the figure standing with his back to the crystal, Salind could understand why.

This man’s clothing resembled an antique acceleration suit with its webwork of veins sandwiched in metallic fabric. Pipes were also visible at his joints and curved up from the neck ring, and fluid vessels were affixed here and there on the suit’s surface. This clothing was not of great note though. Others dressed more exotically and few would so much as blink an eye at them. However, this man seemed ill: his face greyish and his eyes containing a sickly yellow tint.

When he turned to gaze up at the crystal, it became evident that the tubes from the neck ring entered the base of his skull. As Salind drew closer he noted fingertips frayed down to the bone, eye irrigators at the man’s temples, skull exposed through holes in shaven scalp. Closer still and he caught the first whiff of putrefaction. For what Garp suffered there was no cure — him being dead.

As soon as the Tarjen Network picked up on the story, Salind knew that it had to be his. It was a perfect footnote to the big story on Banjer at the moment: the imminent arrival of the Arbiter of Transition, the awesome AI Geronamid, and subsumption of this world into the Polity.

Since the civil war, during which a theocracy had been bloodily usurped then replaced by more conventional government, there had been plenty of murders solved, or not, by the usual methods. However, there had not been a reification of a murder victim in a hundred years.

When the strange cult of Anubis Arisen governed Banjer, every viable murder victim had been reified and sent after his murderer. The victim’s dead brain was decoded and the essential mind and memory downloaded into an augmentation. Cybermotors at the joints moved the body, which was partially preserved by chemicals. Obviously more complex than this, the system utilized, in some reifs, surviving brain tissue, and historians argued that such were still alive.

Others argued that reifs possessed self-determination and even whilst running fully on the augmentation were AI. For a century the whole argument had been moot, that is, until Garp came on the scene.

Salind had scanned the files at stopovers while en route to Banjer. Garp had been an inspector in the Banjer police force. The last five years of his life had been spent trying to convict a woman by the name of Deleen Soper, who had allegedly made a fortune manufacturing a drug called praist, somewhere on this world. During those five years he had made enough headway to become an annoyance to the Tronad — a criminal organization reputed to be close to seizing power on Banjer and of which Soper was, again allegedly, the head. Several ensuing attempts on his life impelled him to make a will specifying that should he die within a certain period he wanted to be reified, and for this purpose transferred funds to what was left of the Church of Anubis Arisen. Shortly after doing so, he revealed himself to be a praist addict going into terminal psychosis, turned up at the Church’s headquarters, and after presenting the relevant documentation, shot himself through the heart.

‘Hello, I’m Salind. I’m glad you agreed to speak to me.’ Salind held out his hand.

Garp stared at this member for a moment, but made no move to take it. After a clicking gulp deep in his throat he said, ‘I won’t shake your hand. I don’t yet know the strength of the cybermotors in my finger joints, also I shouldn’t think it very pleasant shaking hands with a corpse.’

Salind forced a grin and dropped his arm to his side.

‘Are you recording now?’ Garp asked.

‘I am, and obviously I have a lot of questions to ask you. .’

Garp held up one hideous palm. ‘One moment.’

At his throat he made an adjustment to a recessed control plate. There came a faint hissing sound. When he spoke next his voice was smoother. ‘That’s better. My vocal chords are decaying despite the vascular balm. Airborne bacteria.’

‘An unusual experience, I’d imagine,’ said Salind, feeling foolish.

Garp said nothing for a moment. Salind wondered if he was being given an annoyed look.

Perhaps he was, only Garp’s mummified features revealed nothing.

‘I’m a reif,’ was all he said. And with that he took a handgun from his belt and held it up for Salind to see.

‘Ah.’ Salind held off from putting a call for help through Argus. Banjer being out-Polity for the present, Polity monitors could do nothing, and it would take at least ten minutes for the Tarjen staffers to get to him. Anyway, episodes like this made a story. The weapon — an old station-developed rail-gun — was the sort of thing that carried a twenty-round box and had a range measured in metres rather than kilometres. Salind thought it better suited to a museum.

‘What exactly is that for?’ he asked, keeping his voice level.

‘I’m attached to it. You know that a reif’s only protection under Banjer law is as part of the estate of the deceased? Only property laws apply.’

‘Yes, I knew that. Tell me, why did you choose to be reified?’

‘Because I needed more time than what remained to me to get her.’

‘Ah, I see. You refer to Deleen Soper. Why were you so determined to prosecute her?’

‘Because I was a detective,’ said Garp.

‘I note you use the past tense. You no longer work for the Banjer police?’

‘I do not. I no longer have to get a court order for searches and I no longer have to present cases to a corrupt judiciary. The interesting thing is that I cannot commit a crime either.

You have to be a person to commit a crime.’

Salind watched as Garp hooked the rail-gun back on his utility belt.

‘There’ve been rumours of corruption but none have yet been proven,’ he said. The presence of the gun was making him nervous and undermining his usual smooth technique. Garp pointed towards one of the far entrances of the park and began to stroll in that direction. Salind fell in beside him.

‘Soper has been indicted for drug trafficking four times and for murder three times. Every time the case was brought before the same judge and then thrown out. In any Polity court the evidence would have been sufficient to have her mind-wiped or executed. I checked. She has, to my knowledge, three of the five city judges and most of the Council in her pocket, and that’s only in this city.’

‘Those are serious accusations. What proof do you have?’

‘I had full sensorium recordings of conversations and bribes, documentation, and eighteen witnesses. When I. . died, my files were dumped. Of the witnesses, four went offworld, and seven suffered fatal accidents while I was alive. Two more made official withdrawals of their statements, and the remaining five were hit while I was being reified.’

‘Is Soper implicated in all this?’

Garp looked at Salind. ‘What do you think? There’s no admissible evidence and the judiciary is refusing the investigators permission to investigate.’

‘What then are your intentions?’

Garp remained silent for a moment. He halted at a spill of treels before speaking. ‘I saw the look you gave this gun. It’s not what you think. It’s the only piece of hard evidence I possess.’

He turned and gazed directly at Salind, his eye irrigators hazing the air around his face with spray. ‘You know, they wiped me out. All my files, even my personal files, were dumped from the system. It was an accident they said. I might well have not existed.’ Garp walked on, crunching treels underfoot.

‘This hard evidence …?’ Salind said, moving round the treel spill.

‘Useless now of course. This weapon had her fingerprints and DNA traces on the handle.

It was found by the body of Aaron Dane. She’d blown off both his legs at the knee before beating him to death with the barrel. And so confident was she in her control of the judiciary, and certain police officials, she didn’t bother to get rid of the evidence. I had it all on record. .’

‘Well, it’ll all change with the arrival of Geronamid. Corruption tends to wither under AI governance.’

Garp made a rough hacking sound. It took a moment for Salind to realize it was a laugh.

Garp glanced sidewise at him. ‘I do not possess your faith in AI governance. Either the vote will be fixed to keep us out of the Polity or if we go in Soper will refocus her business interests. She’s wealthy enough now to play the upright citizen.’

‘Wouldn’t you say that what such people do is more about power than wealth?’

As they reached the gateway to the park, Garp did not immediately reply. They walked out onto the pavement alongside a street crammed with hydrocars. The air was humid with their exhausts.

‘Maybe, but Soper is not stupid enough to go up against the Polity. She’ll be a good citizen and her past will be dumped just as absolutely as mine. The amnesty will see to that.

Soper is sitting back in a no-lose position. If the Tronad prevents the Polity takeover they’re okay.

If they don’t, they get amnesty; the slate wiped clean, a new beginning.’

‘I can see how that would upset you.’

‘Masterly understatement.’

‘Perhaps we should begin at the beginning.’ Salind pointed to a roadside cafe. ‘Present your case to me and through me to the citizens of the Polity.’

Garp stopped at a crossing and before stepping out said, ‘We’ll need a private booth. My presence tends to put people off their lunch.’

Two five-metre-tall nacreous bull’s horns framed a shimmering meniscus eight metres across.

The shimmer broke, and somersaulting through it onto the black glass dais came a young man clad in a white slicksuit. His hair was blue, face painted.

‘Well, I’m sure we could call it something like: “He fought what he has become -

corruption”.’ said Salind.

Geoff, the staffer from the Tarjen offices, nodded, then made adjustments on the fullsense recorder he was holding — a device that could record with greater clarity than the hardware inside Salind’s skull. A tall woman with an external aug almost covering her head gave them both a dirty look from amid the crowd of reporters.

‘A rather flip way of treating his story. Garp was and is a good man,’ said Geoff.

Salind studied him for a moment. Tarjen employed its staffers from the local population.

It might be worth doing a few interviews.

‘I’m sure that’s true,’ said Salind. ‘But, though a good story, it’s a footnote to the main event. This.’ Salind gestured to the runcible portal as two Golem androids, without artificial skin, stepped through and aside as guards. He wondered what that was about. Their metal skeletons were grey, almost corroded in appearance — a highly unusual occurrence.

‘If this is what you’re here for, then shaddup and watch,’ said the woman.

‘Get your bloody great metal head out of the way, Merril,’ said the man behind her.

‘Is it my problem you’re a short-arse?’ she snapped back.

‘It’s certainly my problem that your pea-brain needs such a large augmentation.’

The bickering continued as next through the portal came four Earth monitors in full battledress. They were armoured and carried gas-system pulse assault rifles. They moved out on either side to stand by the Golem androids.

‘Bit OTT,’ said the man trying to see past Merril’s aug-shrouded head.

‘All show,’ said Merril. ‘The effective forces are already here.’

‘You what?’ said the man.

‘She means,’ said Salind, ‘that Geronamid’s agents have probably been arriving here and establishing themselves over the last few months if not years.’

Geoff gave him a look then returned his attention to his recorder.

‘I don’t need some kidrep from that Tarjen rag to explain my words,’ said Merril, without looking round. Salind ignored her and nodded to the waiting crowd of dignitaries.

‘Probably knows every one of their dirty little secrets. . Bloody hell, that’s a bit extravagant even for Geronamid.’

Those who had been watching the dignitaries, or subvocalizing commentaries, paused.

There came an intake of breath. Through the portal had come two voluptuous women clad as fantasy barbarians. This was not what drew the attention though. That they each held silver chain leashes connecting to the collar of a huge allosaur did cause a little consternation.

‘Someone tell me that’s an automaton and not from the fossil gene project,’ said the man behind Merril.

‘That’s an automaton and not from the fossil gene project,’ said Salind.

‘Thanks for that.’

Next came jugglers and street musicians, followed by a crowd who seemed to have just come from a party. The arrival lounge rapidly filled with a cacophony of sound and movement.

‘Well where the hell is Geronamid?’ asked Geoff, as he swept the area with the sensor heads of his recorder. Salind pointed to the lone acrobat who had come through first and was now doing back-flips in front of the increasingly irritated-looking allosaur.

‘Him usually,’ he said. ‘Though it’s difficult to tell. On Tarus Five Geronamid came through dispersed — memory units implanted in each of twelve circus clowns.’

The group of dignitaries began to make their way across the lounge, heading towards the acrobat.

‘Looks like I was right,’ said Salind. ‘They’ll have been told who to greet.’

The dignitaries had nearly reached the acrobat, who ceased his display and stood with his arms held out in greeting. There came a stuttering thud as of the sound of a lump of meat being thrown into a fan. The smile on the acrobat’s face disappeared along with his head. Brains and pieces of bone sprayed over the allosaur.

After a shocked pause someone started screaming.

‘Rail-gun,’ commented Merril and chaos broke loose. Police and security agents were running around shouting into personal com units. Salind saw one of these men lose his leg then fall to the ground, his expression puzzled. Salind was still watching and recording when Geoff grabbed him and dragged him to the floor.

‘Let me up! Let me the fuck up!’ Salind yelled. Eventually Geoff rolled away and Salind scrambled to his feet. He scanned quickly and saw where Merril and the rest of the vultures were heading. The two skinless androids had pinned someone to the floor. The Earth monitors kept the crowd from gathering around this individual, and the Banjer police encircled the acrobat’s remains.

‘Let me through! Let me through!’ yelled Salind, using his trusted elbows-and-knees technique to get to the forefront of the first crowd. When arrived there he recognized a slightly putrid smell, and seeing the pinned figure he felt a moment’s horrible glee.

‘Shit we’ve got a story,’ he said, then paused. He felt the crowd clearing from behind him.

A hot breath raised the hairs on the back of his neck. Turning, he looked straight into the tooth-filled mouth of the blood-spattered allosaur. It glanced aside at the dead acrobat then down at the prisoner. Salind quickly stepped aside.

‘Murderer,’ came the guttural accusation of the allosaur.

Garp glared up from the floor, his eye-irrigators working overtime. His eyes were blank white spheres overlaid with narrow gridlines.

The room was clean, aseptic and not a very nice place to be. Formchairs positioned against white tile were all in perfect condition, no graffiti marred the walls, and not a speck of dust r rubbish littered the banoak coral floor. Yet the room smelt of vomit and fear. Salind tried to ignore that, since it didn’t apply to him, a Polity citizen.

‘The AI Geronamid arrived on Banjer in the skull of a living allosaur, reputedly resurrected by the fossil gene project at the University of Earth on Midlantis Island. In this “acting of parable” he demonstrated the coexistence of the old and the new. The attempted assassination of Geronamid by another resurrectee, one Abel Garp, a reified officer of the Banjer police force, has undermined the. . Yes?’ asked Salind.

The Banjer cop said nothing, but gestured to the door with his thumb. Salind considered walking out right then, since he didn’t have to help them. But then, there’d be more here for his story. Even though he was way ahead of all the other agencies, he went.

The cop led him down a perfectly clean corridor and opened another door for him. Salind entered and felt suddenly as if he had stepped back five hundred years.

‘An interrogation cell. How quaint,’ he commented.

‘Sit down,’ instructed the man behind the desk.

Salind glanced up at the camera set up in the corner of the room. A meaty hand on his back propelled him gently but firmly to the stool on the other side of the desk. He sat, and just to show his confidence he crossed his legs and casually scanned his surroundings.

‘You are Mr Gem Salind?’

‘Just call me Salind, everyone does.’

The man opposite did not look up. ‘I am Superintendent Callus — by name and nature some say. You are aware that when you came to Banjer you stepped out of Polity jurisdiction?’

Callus looked up and, placing his elbows on the desk, interlaced his fingers before his mouth.

‘I was aware. I am also aware that I have broken no laws, be they of the Polity or Banjer,’

Salind replied.

Callus nodded. ‘Having knowledge of a serious crime and not reporting it to the authorities is a crime in itself.’

‘So I understand, and if I’d knowledge of such I would, of course, report it to you immediately.’

‘You knew what Garp intended.’

‘No, if you’d listened to my statement at the time. .’

‘You saw the rail-gun.’

‘Oh get real. It’s all a matter of public record. If he threatened anyone it was Deleen Soper, and that’s debatable.’

A hard hand clouted him on the back of his head.

‘What the fuck!’

He half turned, but the thug behind him grabbed his hair and yanked his head back. He was forced to continue looking forwards.

‘Around here we respect the law.’ As Callus said this, the thug behind drove a fist into Salind’s kidneys.

‘You fucking-’

Another blow curtailed speech, and more blows followed.

I’m being assaulted in the Siroc police headquarters!

Message relayed.

Finally released, Salind fell from the chair onto his hands and knees and retched up his breakfast.

‘Are you in pain? Would you like me to get a doctor?’ Callus enquired.

Salind could not reply, so leaning over to peer down at him, Callus continued, ‘I understand that you can record everything you see, hear and smell. Perhaps you’d like to edit that mess out.’ He nodded towards the pool of vomit. ‘Perhaps it would also be well for you to remember that you cannot see everything and not everything is said. In future I suggest you report to us before you release unsubstantiated stories about our citizens.’

Message reply: Geoff is on his way over and the Tarjen legal department has been informed. Geoff also sends a personal message: They will only rough you up a little. If anything more was intended you would not have been taken to the police station. You would have been taken to the Groves.

Finally managing to get his breath, Salind struggled to his feet and turned towards his attacker. The cop had stepped back and now stood with his hands behind his back — the perfect image of the disinterested observer. It had all been done very well.

‘You won’t get away. . with this,’ Salind managed, then could have kicked himself for such naivete.

‘Get away with what, exactly?’ said Callus. ‘Now, Mr Salind, if you could bear my words in mind we would be grateful for your cooperation.’

Callus stood up and reached across the desk to shake Salind’s hand.

‘Fuck off.’ Salind moved to the door, keeping the both of them in view. No one followed him out. He staggered to the waiting room, then to the security barrier leading out onto the street. Fifty metres down the pavement, his breathing had become little easier when a hydrocar pulled up and its door popped open. He clambered in.

‘You okay?’ asked Geoff.

‘I think they were acting as Deleen Soper’s message delivery service.’ Salind probed his bruised kidneys.

‘Quite likely. What now?’

‘Pull the legals off. I don’t want anything getting in the way. Then I want to find out what’s happening with Garp. Geronamid’s people grabbed him didn’t they?’

‘Yes, then what?’

‘Then I interview Deleen Soper.’

Geoff looked askance at him then pulled the hydrocar out into the traffic.

‘Already been done,’ he said.

‘What, Merril’s hack-and-slash job?’

‘Yes, and Merril better keep her head down or she’ll get a hack-and-slash job in return.’

‘Really?’

‘Really.’

The new Polity Embassy sprawled across twenty hectares of reclaimed marshland on the south side of Siroc, which was the capital city of the planet’s main continent. At the centre of the complex rested a replica of the Millennium Dome of old London on Earth — an ironical architectural statement if ever there was one. The monitor driving one of the first antigravity cars to be used here remained reticent on the subjects of Garp and Geronamid. Salind became insistent.

‘You know that criminal actions here are out of your jurisdiction for the moment. I had a nice police officer explaining that sort of thing to me only a few hours ago. So why did you people grab him?’ he asked.

‘As I have already told you, Mr Salind, I do not possess that information,’ she replied.

Salind sat back as the car began to spiral down into the complex. ‘Perhaps you can tell me who Garp killed?’

‘An acrobat, I believe.’ As she said this she touched her finger just below her ear — an unconscious action of someone listening to a comlink. She continued, ‘Geronamid will see you.

Perhaps he will explain.’

Salind grinned. There were thousands of reporters on Banjer who would have killed for this opportunity.

The monitor landed the car on a plascrete parking area and, after they disembarked, led the way toward a nearby building bearing the appearance of a Turkish mosque. One of the grey metal Golem came out to meet them.

‘This Golem will take you to the Arbiter.’ The monitor hurried off with her finger pressed below her ear. Salind studied the Golem. It had not been referred to by name, which probably meant it was a blank Golem being run by one of Geronamid’s sub-programs. And close to it now, he realized it did appear corroded. Ceramal did not oxidize in air, so this must have been caused by a powerful acid or some kind of energy burst. He wondered it this was just for the look or the result of some ambassadorial cock-up. Salind queried Argus and received an immediate reply, but he put that on hold.

‘This way,’ said the Golem.

‘Why the appearance?’ Salind asked, as they entered the building.

‘All part of Geronamid’s implicit message,’ it said.

‘Which part?’

The Golem paused before replying. ‘Membership of the Polity comes with all its advantages and drawbacks. All its AIs in every form. He would not want people to protest that the Polity had been mis-sold.’

‘Wouldn’t a less threatening appearance have been better?’

‘Exactly the point,’ said the Golem.

Salind listened to the message from Argus:

The two Golem androids that accompany Geronamid when the AI is on Arbitration duty owe their appearance to a Separatist attack on the world Cheyne III. An assassin attempted to kill Geronamid who, at that time, travelled inside an Egyptian sarcophagus. When the attack failed the assassin keyed her weapon to self-destruct. The two Golem were caught in the backflash.

After entering the mosque through an open arch, they traversed a marble hall to reach a wooden door the Golem opened by hand. In the antechamber beyond, an armoured ship droid hovered a couple of metres above the floor. Salind felt a tingling sensation run from the top of his head to his feet. There came a discordant buzzing from Argus.

‘Clear,’ spat the droid, and moved aside.

What was that?

Weapons scan.

‘You will note,’ said the Golem, ‘very in-your-face.’

A second door admitted them to the repro interior of a mosque. Garp was sitting on a wooden chair with his arms crossed, a cable trailing across the floor from the sockets in his head. His eyes were the same as they had appeared in the arrivals lounge, but Salind had no idea what that meant. Geronamid stood off to one side finishing his lunch, which looked like half a wildebeest. Salind started to sweat as the Golem closed the door behind him, not because of the crunching gobbling sounds, but because he had just discovered his aug’s external link was being blocked.

‘Why aren’t you allowing me a direct link to Tarjen?’ he asked.

Geronamid gulped down a large dripping lump of flesh. A disembodied voice replied, ‘You may record, and you will be allowed to transmit that recording once you leave here, should that be what you wish to do.’

Salind tried to locate the source of the voice then quickly gave up. Geronamid was speaking and he needed to know no more than that.

‘Okay. .’ He nodded towards Garp. ‘What are you doing to him?’

‘Downloading information to my evidential submind,’ Geronamid replied.

‘Inadmissible evidence in a Banjer court and irrelevant after the Polity amnesty comes into effect, so why are you doing it?’

‘Curiosity. In my position wouldn’t you want to know?’

‘Yes. . What do you intend to do to Garp? Your seizure of him was illegal you know.’

‘I will do nothing to him, and my seizure was not illegal.’

‘He committed a crime here. He killed that acrobat. Surely he’s the province of the Banjer police.’

The allosaur jerked its head up from the remains of its meal and abruptly paced toward Salind. He had to suppress the urge to turn and run. Now, the voice issued from its bloody mouth.

‘The acrobat was called Houdini Friend. My friend.’

‘Okay,’ said Salind, swallowing drily. ‘But that still doesn’t change-’

Geronamid interrupted. ‘The reif committed no crime as it is just an artefact which, since the recent seizure of Garp’s remaining estate, has become the property of the Banjer government. The reif is under a destruction order and will duly be handed over for incineration.’

‘I note you refer only to “the reif” and not to Garp. What about him? You accused him of murder yourself.’

‘The murderer is whoever loaded the subversion program into him. He had no knowledge of what he was doing,’ Geronamid replied.

‘Surely that is evidence you could pass on to the police?’

‘Why?’

‘So the real murderer can be caught,’ Salind suggested.

‘You have been here for two weeks, and have learned nothing in that time?’

‘I have not unlearned the necessity of due process, of. .’ Salind trailed off as the allosaur turned away, apparently losing interest in him. It looked at Garp.

‘Ah, praist,’ said the AI.

‘Why am I here?’ Salind asked, feeling at once foolish and angry.

‘Worlds must join the Polity of their own free will. There must be no hint of coercion.

Eighty per cent of the population must vote for entry. That’s eighty per cent of the entire population.’

‘Yes, I am aware of the charter.’ Salind struggled to keep his face straight.

‘Voting on most worlds is through net encryption — absolute anonymity, your vote registered by the click of a button.’

‘Polling stations,’ said Salind, getting some hint of where Geronamid was leading.

‘Yes: polling stations. The government of Banjer managed to foist polling stations on us.

Their argument being that five per cent of the population is without net access. We estimate that probably forty per cent of the population will be too frightened to vote.’

‘So there’ll be a void result. Why then are you here?’

‘In some cases Polity intervention is allowed: humanitarian disaster, cases when widespread corruption in the governing authorities can be proven, and when widespread coercion is being used.’

Salind felt his scalp crawling. ‘Are you saying that the Polity intends to intervene here?’

‘That can be hugely damaging unless sufficiently justified. Such tactics can lead to rebellion against the “AI Autocrat of Earth” and not necessarily on the world on which we have intervened.’

Salind stared at the allosaur for a long moment as he chewed over that euphemistic word

‘intervention’, then shook his head in annoyance — he’d been trying to read the creature’s expression.

‘What do you intend, then?’

‘My overall intentions I will make available to the free press when I am ready.’

‘Then why the hell am I here?’

‘You are here because you were first onto the story of Garp and because he wants you to know the rest of it.’ The allosaur swung towards the reif. ‘You see, there is no evidence that Soper was responsible for loading the subversion program into his aug, but there is plenty of proof available of her other crimes. Should you choose not to broadcast this conversation and so alert her, you can go with him to obtain this proof. Conveniently, Soper will be visiting one of her praist factories in a few days’ time — one of eight hundred such places run by the Tronad.’

There it was: justification. Geronamid had not admitted the Polity intended intervention here, but the hint stood as wide as a barn door.

The allosaur swung back to Salind. ‘It is well to remember that if not Soper, then certainly someone in the Tronad ordered the assassination attempt on me. Not because they thought it might succeed, but because the attempt in itself would bring home to the ruling council here on Banjer just how vulnerable they are and so stiffen their resolve to keep the Polity out.’

The Tronad was the main power here, not the Council?

Salind said, ‘But you are sending Garp for destruction.’

Geronamid paced away and swung round with his snout poised over the reif. ‘Garp is not there,’ he said, then swung his snout towards the blank Golem. ‘Garp is there.’

Salind turned to study the Golem. While behind him it had plugged a thick optic cable into a socket in the side of its chest. Now its stance was different. It held out its skeletal grey hands to stare at them, then it gazed across at Geronamid.

‘Garp was running fully in his augmentation because viable brain tissue was being destroyed by his praist addiction. He is now a hundred per cent uploaded to this Golem,’ said Geronamid.

Salind could feel his stomach turning over and over. His fortune was made. What a story!

He had enough already to get his contract picked up by one of the Earth networks. Hell, he could even get investment for his own network. He watched as Geronamid swung its head back towards the reif.

‘The reif will go for incineration as per the Council’s request,’ the AI said.

‘About time,’ said Garp the Golem.

‘Thank you for agreeing to see me. Obviously I was wrong about this Garp character and his relationship to you. I’m not afraid of admitting to error. You’ll have heard that my story has been withdrawn from the net?’ Salind kept smiling as he studied the apartment. Soper was obviously a woman of baroque tastes. The place was full of preruncible furnishings and frankly strange decorations. He brought his attention finally back to the woman herself.

Deleen Soper bore the appearance of a sixteen-year-old girl — a sure sign she’d been using some of the less sophisticated rejuvenation treatments. She sported short-cropped blonde hair over elfin features and wore jeans and a check shirt. Her whole persona seemed that of a pretty farmgirl from some half-forgotten age. Salind knew her to be a hundred and forty-three years old, and responsible for the deaths of hundreds directly, and tens of thousands indirectly through the drug praist. He kept on smiling.

‘Leave us, Turk,’ she said, and gave an airy wave of her hand.

The butler character who had accompanied Salind from the front door all the way up the spiralling stairs of the building gave a wooden nod and departed. Salind guessed that the man’s duties probably included more than butlering — he looked as if he could crush rocks in his armpits.

‘Please, take a seat Mr Salind,’ she said.

‘My pleasure.’

Salind sat and watched her walk to an antique drinks cabinet and fill two small cups from a silver teapot.

‘Tea?’

He nodded. Now was as good a time as any to try the stuff. She placed the drinks on an occasional table and sat in the armchair opposite.

‘Please, conduct your interview,’ she said.

Salind picked up the warm cup and sipped the drink. It tasted bitter and salty, then left an aftertaste of avocados. Like most of the preferred drinks of humankind it was an acquired taste.

‘What was your relationship with Inspector Garp?’ he asked as he placed his cup back down on the table. ‘I’d like to hear your side of things.’

‘It is a shame you did not think of that before you released your first story.’

Her expression, for a moment, had gone flat and characterless.

‘Again, I apologize. .’

Soper switched on a smile and began to talk. ‘We had, for a brief time, a liaison. I finished it because it became evident he expected more from the relationship than I was prepared to give.’

‘Like what exactly?’

Soper waved her hand at her surroundings. ‘I am a wealthy woman. My family has made a fortune from our bangroves. Garp wanted some of that and I was not prepared to give. I do not like fortune hunters. When he realized my position he then started to make accusations.’

‘He accused you of dealing in praist and being connected to the Tronad.’

Soper leant forward. ‘Ridiculous of course. Why should I deal in praist? I have no need of the money.’

‘His contention was that your family has always dealt in praist, that you made a fortune from it which you are now investing in legitimate businesses.’

‘I thought you were here to listen to my side?’

That flat and dead look again.

‘I’m sorry. Do go on.’

‘My family have owned bangroves for centuries and our fortune grew from them.’ She gestured to the drink before Salind, who took up the cup and drank again. This time the mouthful he took seemed more satisfying.

Soper continued, ‘Praist is a drug dealt in by a small minority of the criminal element of Banjer. We have always been leaders here and the holders of moral. .’

As she went on Salind accessed Argus.

Praist statistics please.

Fifteen per cent of the population are praist users. That is approximately eighty million people. It is at the root of seventy-three per cent of all crimes committed here and ninety-two per cent of all suicides. It is speculated that terminal praist users will be the first to vote for Polity subsumption because of advanced Polity medical technologies. There is no cure for praist addiction here, and most users — those who do not commit suicide — are killed before the drug kills them. In the last year of addiction — addiction lasts eight solstan years — the user becomes psychotic.

More than tens of thousands, then.

As the interview drew to a close Salind felt it less and less difficult to keep smiling. He found himself starting to see that maybe Garp had not told him all of the truth. Deleen Soper did not seem quite so monstrous face-to-face.

‘I understand,’ he said to Soper’s latest contention. ‘A cop in his position could manipulate anything. Coming from the Polity we tend to forget how much power such a police force can wield.’

‘There, you see?’

Soper sat back and sipped her drink. Salind sipped his own. It had been topped up twice.

Perhaps it was going to his head.

‘What do you think of my collection?’ Soper asked him.

‘I think it’s wonderful, Deleen.’

Soper stood. ‘But you haven’t seen it all.’

As he also stood, Salind felt a dizziness wash through him. He blinked and seemed to see rainbow haloes around various objects in the room. Soper conducted him around the apartment.

She told him about the grandfather clock replicated about an original pendulum, and showed him carvings from banoak coral that would not have looked out of place in a Pharaoh’s tomb. She showed him lurid paintings and boasted their value. Then she finally came to her most prized possession.

The drowning jar had been the favoured punishment for criminals in the early years of the Theocracy. Criminals were sealed inside to drown in the preservative the jar contained. This one was a fat urn-shape standing four feet high. The man still inside the jar, she told him, was the predecessor of the Banjer reifs, but from the wrong side of the law. She giggled and he laughed with her — surprised at how easily the laughter came. The man, with his bulbous eyes and protruding tongue, shifted and scratched at the inside of the jar. He looked like the reporter who had stood behind Merril in the arrivals lounge. Next, the butler was opening the street door for Salind, and he then walked under a sky that was a sheet of skin flayed from the back of a giant.

He stood on a bridge and gripped the rail, his mouth dry and bitter and terror rising up inside him. The drowned man was coming to drag him back to the jar and there to pull him down into a clammy embrace. And now Geronamid stood over him with treels oozing out of holes in its allosaur body. Salind started screaming, and didn’t stop until a hydrocar pulled up and Geoff leapt out to press a pressure hypodermic against his neck. Then he blacked out. It took him a day to recover from the praist-based hallucinogen. And of course there was no proof that Deleen Soper had administered the drug.

Salind woke instantly and with crawling horror suffusing him. It was the middle of the night so Argus must have woken him with a betawave stim. He still wanted coffee though. He still had a hangover from the drug and still occasionally heard fingernails scratching against glass.

‘What is it? You know I’ve had a tiring day,’ he said, sitting upright on the futon.

Geoff is on his way round to pick you up. His message is: ‘Remember the hack-and-slash job?’ There is also an untraced message: ‘Cremation complete, will join you shortly.’

‘Yes,’ Salind hissed, standing and heading for the hotel minibar. He took out an Instacup, pulled the tab on it, and by the time he had dressed the beverage was hot. Taking it with him he quickly left his hotel. Standing on the pavement under a leaden sky backlit by green moonlight, he sipped coffee until the hydrocar pulled up.

‘Give me bad news or good news, but give me news,’ he said as he got in beside Geoff.

‘It’s news, whether it’s bad or good is something for you to decide,’ said the staffer. ‘Oh, here, I have something for you.’

Salind took the small container Geoff handed him, clicked out a pill and swallowed it with a mouthful of coffee. He tossed the empty cup out of the window.

‘Tell me.’

‘We’re going to the Groves. Our trusty police force have found Merril Torson.’

‘How?. .’

‘Oh the usual way when the Tronad wants to make a point.’

They had nailed her to a banoak. The treels were in her clothing, peeking from holes in her arms and stomach. A knot of intestines hung from one such hole. Floodlights, and the red and green flashing lights on the squad cars, cast the scene in a lurid glow. The uniformed cops stood by their cars drinking tea from small flasks while awaiting senior officers.

‘She was a hack,’ said Salind. ‘But this is excessive punishment.’

‘The Tronad don’t know the meaning of the word excess,’ said Geoff, as they both stepped out onto the gravel.

‘So this is how they hit people?’ Salind gazed slowly from side to side, making sure Argus was getting everything here and transmitting it.

‘This was how traitors were killed by the underground before the civil war, and it’s now how the Tronad kill people when they want to make a point. The holes were made by whoever nailed her there. The treels have to be pushed inside before they try to feed. They just keep grinding away and pushing through in search of banoak flesh. She probably died when one of them hit an artery. It can take anything from ten minutes to an hour.’

‘You’re very well informed.’

‘We all are here. This is what happens to you if you go piss-off the Tronad. This is why very few people will turn out to vote next Moonday.’

They moved away from the car and closer to the crucified reporter. Salind felt sorry for Merril and a little sad, but nothing more than that. She wouldn’t have suffered. Were they so primitive here they didn’t realize she could have shut off the pain with her aug?

‘Alright there. Keep back,’ said one of the uniformed cops as he strolled over.

Salind turned to him. ‘What’s happened here, officer?’

‘You got eyes ain’t you?’

‘A murder I take it. I think you should be aware that I know the victim.’

‘Who don’t? We know whose toes she stepped on,’ said the cop, turning to inspect the corpse.

‘So we can be expecting an arrest soon then?’ said Salind.

The cop snorted then glanced over as another car pulled up. ‘Yeah, there’ll be an arrest.

Some other toe-stepper’ll get shat on. And here comes the biggest shitter of ‘em all.’

Salind also watched as Callus and two of his thugs climbed from the car. Behind the car a van pulled up. He supposed that this must be Banjer’s equivalent of a medical examiner or some such. He started to move in their direction, but Geoff caught hold of his shoulder.

‘Not a good idea. Best to just watch,’ he said.

‘I only want to ask a reasonable question or two,’ said Salind.

‘Don’t,’ said Geoff. ‘Callus is never in his best mood when he’s clearing up after Soper. It won’t just be a slap next time. It’ll be a stiletto in your back followed by polite enquiries after your health for the benefit of your aug recording.’

Salind desisted. He turned to the uniformed cop. ‘You realize her augmentation will have recorded everything she saw?’

The cop glanced at him and shook his head. ‘That won’t be much then.’

The man walked back to join his companions. On closer inspection Salind saw Merril’s eyes had been gouged out. A treel worked its way out of one socket. Salind took out his pill container, clicked out a pill, and swallowed it dry.

From the van, two overalled figures bearing a stretcher approached the banoak. They conducted no forensic examination of the area, no careful search for evidence. After they deposited the stretcher on the ground, one of them took a crowbar from his belt and levered out the nails pinning the corpse to the tree. When it slid to the ground the two rolled it in a plastic sheet then passed a heating unit over this wrapping to shrink and seal it. As they carried the neat parcel back to the van Salind could still see treels moving about inside. While they loaded into the van he noted Callus spot him and start walking over with his thugs and two uniformed policemen in tow.

‘We better be leaving,’ said Geoff.

‘I don’t think so,’ said Salind.

‘I’ve warned you. That’s all I can do.’

‘Fine,’ said Salind, but he did step back to put himself up against the car.

Callus came up before him and his two thugs moved round to either side of the inspector.

They stood with their hands clasped before them. Salind had seen that pose before from other people who served the same purpose on other worlds — immediate testicle protection.

‘Well, well, Mr Salind, what do you have to say for yourself?’

Salind was momentarily distracted from replying, for another car had pulled up. The third plain-clothes cop who stepped out seemed familiar. Someone in the Tronad probably — someone about whom Salind had read a file. Was this one of Soper’s associates? He looked the part — a shaven-headed thug with slightly more muscle than necessary.

‘Sorry. . what?’

Callus went on, ‘I suppose it was professional jealousy that made you do it.’

‘Oh shit,’ said Geoff.

Callus glanced at him. ‘I imagine your accomplice will be able to tell us.’

‘You have got to be kidding,’ said Salind.

‘I’ll need your aug for evidence of course.’

Now the two thugs moved up on either side of Salind.

‘My aug is internal and backs up to the Tarjen AI every four minutes. It doesn’t retain a recording itself, but that backed-up information will prove I was nothing to do with this.’

Shit, get me some help out here. This fucker is going to kill me.

Message received: the legal department is onto it right now.

I don’t need the legal department! I need Polity monitors!

Polity monitors do not have jurisdiction here.

Callus smiled. ‘Here on Banjer we are aware how it is possible to interfere with computer-stored information.’

‘Argus is encryption-sealed! Nothing less than a major AI could interfere with it! And it’s internal — you haven’t got the facilities here to remove it!’

Callus gave the nod to his two thugs. ‘Mr Gem Salind, in the name of the Banjer Council I arrest you for the murder of Merril Torson, and with the powers vested in me by said Council, seize all evidential material. Please do not resist arrest.’

A fist like the bony end of a ham crashed into the side of Salind’s head. He slid along the car and the second thug hook-punched him twice in the gut.

‘I said “Please do not resist arrest” Mr Salind.’

Hazily he realized just what they intended. He would either die whilst resisting arrest or when they attempted to remove Argus. Case closed.

For a little fat guy Geoff could move very fast. He had jumped up on the bonnet of the car and slammed his recorder down on the second attacker’s head before Salind thought to react.

Salind punched the one on his right then fervently wished he’d used his boot. That hamfist came down again and the next thing he knew he was lying dazedly on the floor watching Geoff, his face covered with blood, being held by the scruff of the neck and having his head repeatedly pounded against the car’s wing.

‘That’s enough!’ someone bellowed.

Salind tried to stand as his attacker loomed over him. He saw the shaven-headed one moving up behind. Shavehead took hold of the thug by the shoulder and just threw him. The man hit the car then the ground, bounced and lay still. The second thug released Geoff in time to walk into a backhander that lifted him clean over the car. Salind staggered groggily to his feet. He glanced back and saw the two uniformed officers standing dumbfounded. Callus was on his knees holding his wrist. He looked up as Shavehead came up beside Salind, and real fear twisted his features. Scrabbling inside his coat he produced a nasty-looking pulse-gun.

‘You gonna do it to me, Mikey?’ asked Shavehead.

Callus did. The pulse-gun flashed. There came a thud and burst of smoke from Shavehead’s chest.

‘I just love this body.’ Shavehead strode forward and drove his fist down into Callus’s face.

Salind felt that familiar churning in his stomach: one hell of a story and now he knew the punchline, so to speak. One of the uniformed officers drew his own weapon — a similar pulse-gun to Callus’s.

‘Drake, put that away will you,’ said Shavehead.

The cop looked at his weapon in bewilderment, then he holstered it.

‘Inspector Garp,’ he said.

With Argus now set to record only, Salind observed, ‘So that’s how you looked.’

The uniformed police had been in disarray, and let them leave without protest, though Salind wondered what they could have done to stop them with their ex-boss, firmly uploaded to a Golem chassis, there to facilitate matters.

‘Yeah,’ said Garp, ‘ten years ago. Geronamid managed to piece together enough information to have this made.’ Garp touched his face and chest.

They sat in Garp’s car, Geoff in the back holding a med-patch to his head and groaning sporadically.

‘When I looked like this I was the big man who was a royal pain to the Tronad. Callus was my partner until Soper bought him off. I think he slipped praist into my tea.’

‘He won’t be doing that again,’ said Salind.

Garp gave him a slightly indifferent glance. Salind wondered if he was fully aware of the capabilities of the body he now occupied. He’d checked on Callus and the two others while Garp spoke to the uniformed officers. Callus and the one behind the car were dead. The third thug was not far from it.

They dropped Geoff at the Tarjen offices.

‘I’m gonna keep my head down now. Soper is not going to sit on her hands after this.

She’ll want us all nailed to banoaks,’ Geoff said, and with that disappeared inside.

‘What now?’ Salind asked. Without thinking he took out his pill container and clicked out a pill. Garp’s hand clamped on his wrist and the pill fell to the floor. Salind fought the grip, suddenly unreasonably angry.

‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ Garp asked.

Salind stared at him. He felt the hairs on the back of his neck rising. He was sure someone was scratching on the glass behind him.

‘I. . they’re to stop me. .’

‘I know what they are. How long have you been a user?’

‘Soper dosed me when I interviewed her. Didn’t you see that on the net?’

‘So a few days. She used pure derivative?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Nightmares during the day?’

‘Yes.’

‘I thought so. You’re on fifteen strength. You’re already at the level of a seven-year addict. You’re losing it already.’

‘I’ll get a detoxicant treatment when this is over.’

‘Be sure you do or I’ll off you myself.’

Garp released his hand. Salind picked up the pill from the floor and quickly swallowed it.

The feeling, like a looming wave of black chaos ready to fall on him, slowly receded. Not taking the next needed dose was unthinkable, as briefly he had seen how thin was the veneer over reality for him. Garp started the car and pulled away.

The ceramal mesh fence stood three metres high, carried a killing current and sported beam-break alarms set along the top. Beyond it, banoaks stretched up the hill in neat rows.

Between the rows the ground seemed in constant motion, and in the distance a discshaped vacuum harvester, towing a collection tanker, worked its way down.

‘They must have to empty those tankers quite often,’ said Salind.

‘Not as often as you might think. That’s a Massey Vacpress. It sucks up the treels, presses out the juice and shoots the pressings into the tanker — almost pure treelskin.’

As it drew closer Salind observed the waste juice pouring from pipes in the side of the harvester. The machine left the ground behind it completely clear of treels, but there were plenty yet to be sucked up. This had to be the first run of the morning. A driver sat in a bucket seat on the main harvester disc steering it with two levers. He wore blue armoralls and a sphere helmet.

‘Why that gear?’ he asked.

‘The helmet’s to prevent narcosis from the vapour, and it’s their uniform.’

‘Whose?’

‘Soper’s people.’

Salind nodded and wondered what the hell they were going to do now. No way were they going to get through that fence without setting off a mass of alarms, even if they managed not to fry themselves.

‘Boring job,’ he said, nodding at the driver. ‘That’ll be one to go with the Polity running things. They’ll stick a submind in the harvester and that’ll be that.’

‘Okay, let’s go,’ said Garp.

They stepped out of the car and Garp popped the boot. From it he removed his rail-gun and walked over to the fence. The red sun breaking over the horizon cast his shadow behind him.

He held the weapon out of view and waved. The driver raised a hand in return and continued down the row. Some minutes later the harvester neared the fence. Salind couldn’t figure what Garp intended. Was he going to hold up the harvester? Garp showed him. As the machine reached the point where it had to turn to go down the next row Garp raised his weapon and fired a short burst. The driver disappeared in a cloud of red.

‘Jesu! What the hell are you doing!’

Garp glanced at him. ‘Well you said he’d be redundant.’

‘You just killed him!’

‘Yeah, I did didn’t I. Come here.’

He took hold of Salind’s shoulder and walked him to one side. Salind felt himself shaking.

He’d seen some horrible things, but he’d never seen someone killed in such cold blood. The harvester kept going, from where it should have turned, and crashed into the fence. Electricity shorted through its body as it tore out a hundred-metre length of fencing and dragged it into the highway. Hitting the bank on the other side of the road it ground to a halt, its vacuum still roaring. Salind saw that the driver was still sitting in the bucket seat, though only from the waist down.

‘You killed him,’ he repeated.

‘They all know what’s going on in here. You’ve seen nothing yet. Come on, we’ve got to move fast now. The guards’ll be here soon.’

Garp led him back to the car and started it up. He carefully drove it off-road and through the gap made by the harvester. Then he floored the accelerator and the turbine soon had them up to a hundred kloms up the cleared lane between the banoaks.

‘They always come at a breach from the outside. We’ll be too far in by then for them to do anything about us,’ said Garp.

‘What about getting out?’ asked Salind.

‘I shouldn’t worry unduly about that.’

In a few minutes they reached the end of the grove and Garp dumped the car in an irrigation ditch. He gave it one shove to get it there, leaving a dent in the metal.

‘You still recording?’ he asked as he checked his rail-gun.

‘Yes,’ said Salind, wondering if that was the right thing to say.

‘Good. Let’s go take a look at the factory.’ He hung the gun at his belt and turned his back to Salind. Looking over his shoulder he said, ‘Hop on.’

This being his first piggy-back ride on the back of a psychotic Golem android, Salind did not know what to expect. He swore, after they covered four or five kilometres, it would be his last. In minutes they reached rocky terrain cut through by gravel roads. Banoaks grew in wild profusion here, with a low scrub of adapted thyme and spherule grass below them. On the higher ground the banoaks were bigger and older than in the grove. Perhaps they had been growing since before humans arrived on Banjer.

How long do they live?

Oaks on the north continent have been dated at over five thousand years in age.

Garp peered at him, and he wondered if the ex-policeman could listen in on these aug conversations. Garp pointed to a ring of pots strapped round one of the nearby oaks.

‘Sap drains. You’ll see how they use the sap in a bit. Still recording?’

‘Yes,’ Salind replied, prepared to give no more than that. He dry-swallowed another praist pill before following where Garp led. Soon they came to a rise overlooking a sprawl of warehouses. Garp pointed to the four trucks parked before the largest building.

‘See, they’re unloading cropsters,’ he explained.

Salind’s vision did not extend so far, for he did not have a Golem’s eyes. He could just about see some activity.

Argus, give me a visual feedback, magnification x10.

Processing.

After a moment his vision nickered and suddenly he could view the scene up close.

Trussed in straitjackets and with bags over their heads, people were being led from the trucks.

One of them tried to run and soon fell flat on his face. The men doing the unloading, men dressed in armoralls like those worn by the one Garp had killed, stood laughing. One of them walked over to the fallen man and proceeded to beat him with a length of wood, only desisting when one of his companions called to him. He then dragged his victim to his feet and with more blows drove him back to the rest.

Cut feedback.

Salind’s vision returned to normal.

‘What the hell is going on down there?’ he asked.

‘They’re all people who’ve done something to piss off Soper or one of her lieutenants. Or they’re other disposable members of society. It’s noticeable how few occupants our asylums and gaols have,’ replied Garp.

‘What are they going to do to them?’

‘That’s what you’re here to see. Come on.’

Using banoak copses, scattered boulders and the occasional natural gully as cover, they worked their way closer to the buildings. Salind worried about the footprints they were leaving in the spherule grass as its little glassy bubbles burst under their feet, until he looked back and saw how quickly the footprints faded. When they were within a hundred metres of the main building Garp stopped in a low gully.

‘Wait here. I’ll be back in a few minutes.’

True to his word Garp soon returned. He carried two pairs of armoralls and two helmets.

The helmet with a crack in it dripped blood. Salind selected the other one.

Garp told him, ‘Just follow me and keep your mouth shut. You’re going to see some pretty horrible things in there. Don’t react. These people see it every day.’

‘Can I start transmitting now?’

Garp glanced over to where a long and expensive-looking hydrocar was parked. ‘Yeah, I reckon so. She’s only got access to the Polity networks back in the city, and by the time she finds out it’ll be too late.’

With some relief Salind turned his aug’s transmitter back on.

They pulled on the armoralls, Salind trying not to notice his were still warm. Climbing from the gully to one side of the main building, they headed towards the doors. Those unloading the cropsters did not notice them for a moment. When they did, Garp raised his hand and continued walking. A hand was raised in return, but they were otherwise ignored. Salind just kept his head down and his teeth gritted. He’d just seen the previous possessors of the armoralls lying in a drainage ditch. Passing the trucks, they entered the building. Salind tried to ignore the crying from inside one truck.

Message from Jennifer Tarjen: Great job, Salind. You’re live on Earthnet right now!

Somehow Salind couldn’t get excited about that. He wondered how the Polity citizens were reacting to what he was seeing right now. Inside the building a group of three men were strapping cropsters to frames. They had it down to a fine art: no one escaped. After the victims were in place, two women went down the rows pulling bags from heads and pushing metal devices into the cropsters’ mouths. Salind supposed those devices were to stop them biting through the tubes that were then forced down into their stomachs.

‘Sap from the banoaks,’ said Garp. ‘It takes an hour or so to reach sufficient concentration in the bloodstream.’

Salind jumped when he heard an agonized scream from deeper in the building.

‘That was a cropster whose sap levels just reached sufficient concentration,’ said Garp.

‘What the hell are they doing here?’

Garp explained, ‘It was some lunatic ancestor of Soper’s who first drank tea made from the treels that had fed on an enemy he had nailed to a banoak. He discovered that tea to be powerful indeed. He had discovered the human-specific narcotic, praist. In his subsequent gruesome experiments he also discovered that treels live longer in victims who like their tea too much, and that in those cases the yield of praist increases.’

Deeper in the building Garp abruptly halted and gestured ahead. Here an old grey-bearded man, who Salind thought resembled the park labourer he had observed before meeting Garp the reif, was doing something to one of those strapped to a frame. It took a moment for Salind to absorb this further horror. The woman on the frame was unconscious. The old man cut slits in her body and opened them with sprung clamps. Into the holes, through a wide funnel, he fed finger-length treels.

‘During the later years of the cult of Anubis Arisen it was discovered that if you fed someone on pure banoak sap to get a sufficient concentration in the bloodstream, and if the treels are inserted just so, they will attach quickly without causing too much internal damage -

without hitting an artery. Allowed to grow in a sap-fed human body for as much as five days, the yield of praist is fifty times more than when it was done the old way. The victim dies eventually, as you can see.’ Garp gestured down the row of frames to where corpses hung, larger treels writhing in and out of holes in their bodies.

‘This is a nightmare,’ said Salind, and for once he wasn’t thinking about the story. He thought about what Geronamid had said: eight hundred of these places.

Garp nodded, then unhooked his rail-gun and handed it across. ‘Protect yourself.’

‘What?’

‘I intend to use my hands,’ said Garp, and walked over to the old man. The man looked up, grinning, for he obviously enjoyed his work. Garp reached out and pressed his hands to either side of the man’s face, then twisted. Salind could hear the bones breaking from where he stood.

Now Garp turned and headed back, passing Salind without looking at him as he headed for the building’s entrance. Salind turned and followed. Reaching the first of the women, Garp chopped once and she went down. The next woman went down the same way. The first two of the three men strapping people to the frames, Garp grabbed and slammed together. They dropped soggily.

The third man tried to run.

Message from Jennifer Tarjen: Polity monitors coming in through the runcible and two gamma-class dreadnoughts in orbit. Geronamid has ordered immediate intervention on Banjer!

This has to be because of your transmission!

Like hell, thought Salind. Geronamid had intended intervention here from the start.

Salind’s transmission was just part of the justification.

What’s Geronamid doing now?

Message: Geronamid cannot be traced at present.

Garp caught the third man by his collar, dragged him back and broke his neck. He was going to do them all. He just wasn’t going to stop. . Then there came a turquoise flash that left afterimages on Salind’s retina. He saw Garp fly back, his clothing and skin burning. He hit the ground hard then immediately sat up. Deleen Soper walked in from outside, three men in armoralls walking in behind her.

‘It was obvious you’d been uploaded to a Golem,’ she said. ‘And typically arrogant of you to consider yourself invulnerable.’ She held up her weapon and went on. ‘This is Polity hardware.

It will stop a Golem, as you’ve just found out.’

Garp began to chuckle, then to laugh.

‘It amuses you that you are finally going to die?’ she asked.

From where he was hiding behind a row of frames Salind shakily raised the rail-gun. He had to do something; had to commit. He couldn’t just observe.

‘I’ve already done that. It’s not something that scares me,’ Garp replied.

‘It’s a shame you can’t be put on a frame,’ said Soper.

‘Nothing you can do but destroy me. You can’t even use me for some idiot assassination attempt this time. You might have got your hands on a fancy gun, but no way you’ve got the tech to access Golem hardware.’

Soper leant the weapon across her shoulder and gazed down at Garp. ‘No point in that now. The fact that I could get an assassin through all the Council’s defences brought most of them back into line. I also gained the unexpected bonus of making Mr straight and true officer Garp kill an innocent Polity citizen.’

Salind could feel sweat running down his back. This was it: he could delay no longer.

Message: Salind, put the gun down before you shoot your own foot off.

Who the hell?

Just then he felt Argus go offline, but it wasn’t him that had made it do so.

Garp now began to rise.

‘Stay on the fucking ground!’

‘Polity hardware,’ said Garp, continuing to stand. ‘Had you the opportunity I know that you would have some strong words for your supplier.’

Soper aimed her weapon at him and pulled the trigger, again and again. Nothing happened. Salind could see first confusion then terror growing in her expression. Her three accompanying thugs were backing off, ready to run. He tried the record facility in Argus — that didn’t work either. On his feet now, Garp held his hands apart before him.

‘Don’t worry about me, Deleen. I’m not going to kill you.’ For a moment she found hope, then Garp gestured to the doorway behind, which now filled with a huge shape. ‘He’s going to do that.’

Soper and her three thugs turned. Salind stepped out to see more clearly as Geronamid, still in the form of an allosaur, stepped delicately into the building.

For a moment, stillness, then Soper laughed with relief and tossed her weapon on the floor. ‘You can’t do that. You’re an AI. It’s against all Polity law.’

‘Whatever gave you that idea?’ asked Geronamid, pacing forward.

‘You can’t interfere in places where that law doesn’t apply, and if it ever does apply here there’ll be a general amnesty.’

‘Who said anything about law?’ Geronamid asked. ‘But since you mention it, amnesty doesn’t apply in cases of intervention.’

‘What?’

Geronamid stepped in closer. Salind thought Soper must smell the last meal on the allosaur’s breath. What happened next was nightmarish. Geronamid’s head snapped to one side and one of Soper’s men fell over. His head was gone. Geronamid spat the head at Soper’s feet.

‘I think I would like you to run now.’

Soper stared at the head for one interminable moment, then turned and fled, her men following fast. Salind understood now why Argus was totally offline. The AI had remotely shut it down: no recordings, no transmission. He watched the allosaur take off after the three and disbelievingly watched what happened in the shadowy interior of the building. No one would believe this: Polity AIs were just so measured and moral.

Breathing ash out of his burnt mouth, Garp stepped up beside Salind. ‘Even AIs can get pissed off when a friend gets killed.’

‘I guess so,’ Salind replied, remembering the acrobat.

Soper’s scream, the last one, seemed more protracted than that of her two fellows, probably because Geronamid took his time about eating her.