The Line of Polity

4

"Little Molly Redcap walked the plantained path to take potato bread and wine to her grandmother, but unseen by her, with his green and gold stripes, Father Siluroyne stalked the flute grasses," said the woman, shaking her head in amazement at the corrupted story. The picture book showed the girl strolling along, smiling and happy in her sickening piety, then slowly a shape became visible in the long grasses. Previously the creature depicted had born a resemblance to something wolfish, but not now… now it was horribly real.

"Long before she reached her grandma's compound, she came upon Father Siluroyne lying across her path. 'Where are you going on such a fine day? he asked her. Showing him the viands she told him, 'I'm taking these to my grandma' "

The woman paused and both she and her son leant forwards to more closely study the picture displayed. So realistic was it that it seemed the monstrosity on the path would surely have the girl as a grandma appetizer there and then — but it looked up at the passing aerofans bearing unlikely-looking axe-wielding proctors, and slunk back into the grasses beside the path. The picture paused in its slow evolution, because the text had not been moved either by touch or voice activation. The woman continued:

" 'Is that all you are taking to her when the flute flowers are blooming? asked the monster. Little Molly looked about and saw that the flowers were indeed blooming in red and yellow and gold. 'You must gather flowers for your grandma, like a good grand-daughter should' And Molly went to do as bid, for she had no resistance to these most beautiful creations of God."

For a moment, the picture showed the girl gathering flowers, then it quickly clicked to a picture of an archetypal and utterly unlikely cottage in the alien landscape. "Grandma," the text began, "was not having a good day."

"Brom wants to meet you," she said.

Thorn shrugged and continued his meal.

"Now," she said.

"This is excellent fish. You should try some," said Thorn.

"You could get dead, fucking us about," said the man. He leant across the table sticking his chin out. It seemed to be a habit of his. Thorn thought him quite ridiculous and resisted the temptation to break his jaw.

"Calm down, Lutz. Mr Stiles likes to play hard-to-get. He has his reputation to think about," the woman said, and removed her sunglasses. Thorn looked into eyes with sideways-slotted pupils — they were the latest thing, apparently, and a recent addition for her, since she had not possessed them the last time he had seen her. He smiled. For someone who supposedly hated the Polity she certainly liked the benefits its technology brought.

"When and where?" he asked.

"Now, and we take you there."

Thorn nodded and glanced round the restaurant. Three trying not to appear conspicuous while clicking through the menu, at least one outside, waiting by an AGC, probably more. He had a bad feeling. He continued eating.

"Move it, Stiles!" said Lutz and made to shove Thorn's plate away. Reputation at stake, Thorn stuck his fork through the back of Lutz's hand and, before the man had a chance to scream, side-fisted his temple. He caught him before he fell and pulled him so he slumped across the table. A couple of diners looked on in puzzlement, unsure about what they had seen. Nobody but they and the menu clickers seemed to have noticed. The latter three began to rise, until the woman glanced at them and shook her head.

"What do I call you?" Thorn asked her.

"Ternan," she said, staring at her unconscious companion.

"Well, Ternan, you know how I operate. What makes you think I want to meet your boss — and, incidentally, put myself in possible danger."

"Special operation."

Thorn was unmoved.

Ternan added, "Two hundred thousand standard, in any currency, credit, or precious materials."

Thorn dabbed at his mouth with his serviette and stood up.

"Now why didn't you say so?" he said.

As the menu clickers carried Lutz out of the restaurant, the two diners accepted that he had drunk too much. It was that kind of place.

One AGC, no, two. Thorn retained the smile elicited from him when Lutz had revived in the back of this AGC and puked in the lap of a menu clicker. Ternan swore at that point, then chewed at her bottom lip as she drove on — her sunglasses once again covering her fashionable eyes. Thorn secretly kept a watch on the direction indicator. They were heading out over the sea and he wondered just how close his team was and how quickly they could get in. It was comforting to know they would be tracking the underspace transmitter embedded in his pelvis. His body would never be lost, well, at least not that part of it.

"Where is he then?" Thorn asked while, in the back, a menu clicker dressed Lutz's wounded hand.

"You'll see," said Ternan.

He had expected no different. He was about to make some comment about villains' hideaways on remote islands being a cliche, but decided against it. While in training, one of his instructors had warned him about his streak of irreverence, and he had to work continuously to suppress it. Anyway, it was a cliche that villains hid away on remote islands because remote islands were one of the best places for them to hide. Nor did he think Ternan would take kindly to him referring to Brom as a villain. He looked around for such an island as Ternan slowed the AGC. There was no sign of one.

"Where now?"

"You'll see," she repeated.

From the console Ternan flipped up a cover that hid some custom controls and, as she punched in a sequence, small lights ignited along the bottom of the front screen and a grid flashed up, seemingly imbedded in the glass. The whole scene he was seeing, through the screen, flickered and changed. The sea looked somehow different now, and not just because of the huge barge that had suddenly appeared.

Chameleonware. Fuck.

"I'm impressed," he said and Ternan bared her teeth in response.

He studied the barge and estimated it to be nearly half a kilometre long, and a quarter that wide. It was huge. It was also liberally scattered with gun turrets and missile launchers, and rested on the sea like some battleship out of ancient history. Brom had to have outside help. No way could he have got all this organized in the few years since the fall of Arian Pelter's Separatist cabal. And chameleonware? That was worryingly sophisticated. Thorn now realized that he needed a damned sight more backup than he presently relied on. If his own team came here, they'd get smeared before they even saw the place.

With practised ease, Ternan brought the AGC in to land on a platform mounted at one end of the barge, and the other AGC followed her down. Four people waited on the platform. Two of them were guards armed with what looked like rail-guns of a manufacture Thorn did not recognize — not Polity because these weapons required a separate belt-mounted power pack. He stepped out and, with Ternan coming to his side and the others coming quickly behind, advanced on the four.

"Ahh… Stiles."

Brom.

He wore a loose suit of silky material over his gross frame and seemed indifferent to the chill breeze coming in off the sea. Thin grey hair framed his thickly jowled face and, on seeing it close, Thorn saw the man's skin seemed flecked with small scales. There issued from him a smell reminiscent of a reptile's terrarium. The aug he wore was more than a temporary attachment — it looked like a growth from his body. Thorn recognized him at once from his file, but he was not supposed to know him. He shook the proffered hand.

"You're Brom?" he asked.

Brom nodded and smiled a hard smile as he studied Thorn's face. Thorn glanced past him to the strange individual standing at Brom's shoulder. This man was pale with contrasting flat black hair, and wore a white shipsuit with something written down its side and all down one leg. Around his neck he wore a wide band of white metal, and on the side of his head he sported a scaled aug, the same as everyone else here. His face was lacking in expression, almost dead.

Brom gestured to a stair leading from the platform down to the deck, and began walking in that direction. Thorn, glancing behind to note the others moving off in a different direction, fell in beside him, sticking his hands in his pockets so his wristcom was well away from the itchy forefinger on his other hand. One press and his team would be on their way in — and likely he would have signed their death warrant. He had to just ride this out for the moment, get away safely, then come back in force. No way could he send a message out of this place without being detected. If it came to the worst, he would first use the spring gun concealed in his sleeve.

"You seem well-organized here," he said.

"Due to my friend here: Deacon Aberil Dorth," said Brom.

Thorn glanced at the pale man indicated and got only a flat stare in response.

"Well, your friend has provided you with some sophisticated equipment. That 'ware shield seems almost as good as anything the Polity possesses."

"Ah." Brom raised a pudgy finger. "Now that comes from another source, and you'll understand if I do not feel able to reveal it to you." Brom glanced at him. "You did good work at the study facility. John Spader was beginning to ask some awkward questions about the dark-otter death rate in this area. He had to go."

Was that all?

"And now you have something more for me?"

"Oh yes." Brom led the way down a spiral stair to the lower deck. As he climbed down after the man, Thorn surreptitiously studied the nearest gun turret. Rail-guns again, which confirmed Brom's assertion of there being two sources of technology here, for such weapons were fairly low-tech when compared with, the chameleonware shield this barge employed.

Moving across the deck, Thorn now studied a group of people working on a jetty ramp by which was moored a motorized catamaran. Boats like these, he knew, were employed for the illegal hunting of dark-otters for their metals-laden bones, which were used decoratively by those with that kind of taste. The workers were unloading from the vessel plastic crates Thorn immediately identified as the kind that weapons were often packed in. His attention focused on a heavy-set individual, obviously boosted, who was standing next to the woman supervising the unloading. His and Thorn's eyes locked for a moment, then the other turned away as if nothing of moment had occurred. Thorn turned his head so his face was no longer visible to the man.

John Stanton. Jesus!

Stanton was a mercenary often employed by Separatist cabals for his expert knowledge. He'd worked for Arian Pelter, and he'd given himself up on Viridian to betray Pelter, after coming to believe the Separatist leader had killed Stanton's lover — the smuggler woman, Jarvellis. During the resultant battle he had escaped — and no one was really sure how. If Stanton recognized him, then that would be it, all over, for Thorn had been in Ian Cormac's fighting force on Viridian.

Brom led Thorn and the Deacon into a luxurious cabin set right over on the edge of the deck so that the panoramic window on one side of it looked out on nothing but sea. He waved them to a sofa upholstered with dark-otter hide, then played the perfect host with the autobar. He brought over a glass of orange for the Deacon and a cips for Thorn. He himself drank expensive Earth-import whisky — obviously having a taste for wealth, and the luxury it could buy. As the governor of a planet, of course, he could enjoy plenty of both — such was the real aim of many would-be 'freedom fighters'.

Sitting down in a huge armchair Brom said, "A few years ago this planet lost some of its foremost Separatist leaders—"

"They rest with God," murmured Aberil.

What the hell is he doing here? wondered Thorn. He did not seem Brom's type at all.

With a flicker of a frown Brom went on, "The man responsible for their deaths was an agent of Earth Central, very high up. He is in fact almost as legendary as Horace Blegg. On some worlds they do not even believe he exists. But unlike Blegg, he does exist. His name is Ian Cormac." As he finished speaking, his inspection of Thorn was quite intense.

"Son of Satan," hissed the Deacon.

Thorn ignored Aberil and leant forward. "I've heard of him, of course. Is it him you want me to kill?"

Brom smiled and leant back. "Oh no, I'm just outlining the dangers such people as ourselves need to face, and why we must take the actions we will take."

"Those actions being?" Thorn asked.

Waving a negligent hand Brom said, "Later. Let us finish our drinks and discuss something else. Tell me, Stiles" — Thorn did not at all like the emphasis Brom gave the name — "what weapon did you use for that distance shot?"

"Low-speed gas rifle firing an explosive seeker round. Anything above the speed of sound would have been detected, and taken down by antimunitions. I always find the simplest approach is best," Thorn replied.

As Brom mused over this, a chime sounded and he reached out and tapped a touch-console inset in the pedestal table beside him. The door to the suite opened and in stepped Ternan and Lutz, the latter watching Thorn with a sneer of satisfaction. They both held nasty-looking gas-fed pulse-guns. One press on the face of his wristcom would have Thorn's team coming in — but the team would die if he did this. He curled a finger back to the spring-release concealed in his sleeve, but before he could decide who to go for first, there came a low thunk and something stabbed his chest. He glanced down and saw some sort of dart sticking into him. It had two bulbous sacs that pulsed once, pumping something dark down its glassy stem. Like a ripple on a pool of flesh, deadness spread out from the point of penetration. The gun sprang from Thorn's sleeve and struck a hand already going numb, before clattering to the floor. He stared across at Brom and saw that the man was returning to concealment — under his silk top — something tubular, organic. Brom now waved Ternan and Lutz forward.

"What came up on scan?" Brom asked, as the two caught Thorn under his arms and hauled him to his feet. He managed to get his legs underneath himself and gained a modicum of control over them.

"Underspace beacon in his pelvis, and his wristcom set to transmit a preset signal. We also found two coded frequencies in storage. Got to be Earth Central Security," said Ternan.

Thorn tried to move, but he now felt like a wet rag. Some sort of paralytic in the dart, but what the hell kind of delivery system was that? It was biotech, certainly, but none he recognized. As Brom moved before him, he just had enough strength to lift his head and meet the man's eyes.

"Trooper Thorn, I believe," said Brom. "You know you really should have changed your appearance. Or have you such contempt for us that you can't comprehend that we possess our own information networks?" Brom nodded dismissively to the door and, as his two lieutenants dragged Thorn in that direction, Lutz took great pleasure in twisting the barbed dart from the agent's chest. Thorn wanted to yell out, couldn't even manage that.

Stanton — had to be his doing. The man must have recognized him and passed on this information. The network proscriptions on the identity of ECS agents and soldiers would never have allowed his physical appearance to be recorded or transmitted from either Viridian or Samarkand. Once outside Thorn found that even the dull light of Cheyne's pale sun hurt his eyes. He blinked on tears and managed enough movement from his neck so that he could look around. Stanton was standing there still, watching the unloading of the catamaran. Thorn saw him glance over briefly at him, and turn away. Then he felt a tugging at his arm.

"DNA-keyed I have no doubt," said Brom. "And no doubt it won't work unless still strapped on your wrist. What is it, right forefinger?"

No!

While Ternan gripped his left wrist, Lutz pushed Thorn's right hand across to the wristcom and pressed his right forefinger down on the screen.

"Signal's been sent," confirmed Ternan, and Thorn glanced at her. She had one hand up at the side of her sunglasses, and he realized she must have some sort of screen set into them. "My," she went on, "that was fast. One military carrier coming in from the east. Should be within visual any time now."

"Well, let Mr Thorn see," ordered Brom.

Lutz grabbed his hair and wrenched his head back. They turned him roughly so he was staring out to sea. And there, immediately, Thorn discerned a black dot on the horizon — growing rapidly as it approached.

"Of course," explained Brom, "they cannot see us."

God no.

The carrier became increasingly visible: like a railway carriage hurled into the sky — all grey armour and hard angles. Four people on board, people he'd eaten with, slept with and worked with for more than a solstan year. He heard the rail-gun turret turn and heard the cycling drone of it powering up.

"Not quite near-c," said Brom.

"At this distance it makes no difference," interjected the voice of the Deacon.

There now came a rushing crackle and Thorn saw the carrier dip in midair, then in silence transform into a plummeting shell spewing fire as it arced towards the waves. The sound of the explosion came shortly after — the grumble of a distant storm over the sea.

Bastard.

"Right," said Brom, "let's get moving. ECS will soon be all over this area like worms on a turd."

"You'll kill him now?" asked the Deacon.

"Oh no, he's got far too much information in that fine head of his for us to open it so inelegantly. Show Mr Thorn to his accommodation, Ternan."

As they dragged him, staggering, across the deck, Thorn felt the vibration of engines starting below, and before they took him down inside the barge he saw that it was already moving. The cell they threw him into was a ceramal box containing only a chair and a table on which rested the chromed carapace of a small autodoc. Just for the pleasure of it, Lutz drove his fist three times into Thorn's face, breaking his teeth and nose. Thorn wanted to defend himself, if not with blows then at least with words. All he could do was lie on the floor and bleed, as Lutz then went to pick up the autodoc.

"You know, you can do some real nasty things with these," he said. "Let me tell you: I'm setting it to cut that beacon out of your pelvis without nerve-blocking. But don't worry, I'll also set it to inject the drugs that'll prevent you fainting from shock."

A moment later, Lutz stood over Thorn, holding the doc up for view. The thing was much the same size and shape as a streamlined cycling helmet, and from below his view of it was mainly its chrome gripping legs and the array of surgical cutlery underneath. Grinning nastily, Lutz put it on the floor beside Thorn and stood back. Immediately it scuttled towards him and sliced a hole in the side of his trousers. He felt the tug of it then cutting into his flesh, but the pain arrived only as a probe went in. Thorn closed his eyes and locked his expression — he would give Lutz no satisfaction at all from this. Soon he felt a humming vibration as the doc began to drill into his pelvis. The pain became unbelievably intense for a moment and Thorn felt he might yell out despite himself, but then it began to fade as a bone-welder thrummed, then a cell-welder after it as the probe itself withdrew.

Thorn opened his eyes at last to see Ternan stooping over him. She stood examining something bloody held between her forefinger and thumb. She turned to Lutz. "Go and throw this over the side."

For a moment he appeared set to rebel, but he then took the beacon and left the room.

Ternan returned her attention to Thorn. "You know, we could have done with an emulation of you in which to plant that." She gestured with her thumb to where Lutz had gone. "It would have then taken ECS somewhat longer to get around to genetic testing and therefore discover it wasn't you. We did our own testing very quickly."

Thorn stared at her, puzzled.

"We have people in the facility, you see, and one of them brought us a sample of Spader's so-called corpse." She gave a sneering smile. "It was his ear I think."

Thorn managed a grunt of enlightenment.

"Imagine our surprise," she went on, "upon discovering that the thing you shot was a syntheflesh emulation — no more alive than a wristcom."

With that she left the cell, closing and locking the door on him.

Apis cringed in horror when he saw what he had done, but he did not allow himself to cry. The landing craft was now full of bloated bodies, floating in a fog of their own evaporating juices. He surveyed this human wreckage for only a moment, before selecting one of the bodies and towing it to the airlock to send it tumbling out into space. Quite a crowd was drifting away from the ship when he finally pulled his mother inside and sealed the locks.

It seemed an interminable time passed before his body began to react to the increase in pressure. He felt himself contracting — deflating to a more normal human shape. After a time the resin sealing his lips and nose softened, and he rolled it away before taking his first breath. Inside her suit his mother had also returned to normal, so it was much easier to remove her from the suit than it had been to put her in it. He next installed her in a sleep bag, and was looking for medical equipment when he discovered that what he had at first taken to be lockers lining the walls were in fact cold-coffins. Eventually, locating what he wanted, he returned to his mother with a diagnosticer that seemed primitive to him. It revealed she was unconscious and had a skull fracture, so he administered the drugs it prescribed and left her to recover — hopefully. It was all he could do, and he did not know if the drugs or dosages were right for an Outlinker, but there was no AI to advise him — nothing.

In the cockpit extending across the front of the landing craft, he was in familiar territory again. The controls there were similar to the manual controls on which he had trained. A quick check showed him that the craft was increasing its speed, though that acceleration was still small — the engines having been set for the least wasteful burn. Another quick check showed him that the course keyed in was not to the nearest inhabited world. It was with a cold lack of surprise that he calculated that there would have been quite enough supplies on board to have taken them all there rather than to 'Masada or nothing'. For a moment he stared at one screen that gave him a view back towards the now distant General Patten. Increasing magnification, he saw now only a cloud of floating wreckage dispersing from around its assailant, Dragon. With a cold sick feeling he reckoned how long it would take for him to return to that area, but realized there was only an outside chance that any Outlinkers who had survived the destruction of the ship would be alive by the time he got there. Dare he risk such a rescue mission with Dragon still in the vicinity? He dared not, and surely they were all dead — and sometime soon he knew he would begin to feel that.

Fethan closed the casing on the control column of the aerofan, clicked down a sequence of bright red buttons on the panel below the joystick, and stepped back. Something in the thick floor of the aerofan droned and engaged with a clunk and, starting with a low susurrating whine, its fans began to get up to speed. A second clunk notched up that speed, and from where she stood Eldene felt the blast of air. Upon the third clunk, the machine lurched from the ground like a rock hauled up by elastic and, twenty metres up, it tilted and slid away as if caught in a vicious crosswind. As soon as this happened, Fethan rested his hand on Eldene's shoulder.

"About now, girl, they'll be getting the return signal from this fan. They'll know Volus's Gift died, but they won't know for sure about him. We'll soon see if he's been found," he said.

"What do you mean?" Eldene asked.

Fethan did not reply: the sky did. A greenish flash ignited the air, leaving afterimages on Eldene's retinas. Shortly after this there came a thunderclap and, as her vision cleared, she saw that the aerofan was now just falling debris and a drifting cloud of black smoke.

"Guess they found him," said Fethan. "That was the battery EL-41, unless I miss my bet: artificially lased emerald focusing in an argon field-cylinder. It's their oldest array and the only one of that type they have up there."

Eldene stared at him. If Fethan had ever come out with a mouthful like that before recent events, she would have thought the old man's mind going, but now she had to contend with the fact that what was speaking here was not wholly a man. Also, she had to contend with the fact that she now did not have very long to live. Pulling away from Fethan, she stepped to a nearby tricone shell resting on the damp soil and sat down on it.

Fethan gazed at her. "That gives us a breathing space. If we're not seen, we should get to the mountains with no real problems," he said.

Eldene laughed. "You don't need to breathe," she pointed out.

"Ah," said Fethan, then quickly moved over to the flute grass near to where he had been working on the aerofan. Soon he returned, carrying a tangle of equipment it took a moment for Eldene to recognize. "You've got enough in this bottle for a day or so, and the spare should provide you with enough for another two to three days."

Eldene now recognised Proctor Volus's helmet with its tinted visor, lower breather collar against which the visor sealed, and a tangle of pipes leading to a flat square bottle which was worn on the back. For a little while she felt the urge to continue feeling sorry for herself, but Fethan was now offering her a chance at life. She stood up and held out her hands for this equipment.

Fethan withheld it for a moment. "Not yet. You want to get as much as you can out of your scole before it dies and that could be in anything from six to twelve hours — anyway, start direct-breathing oxygen now and it'll just take it out of you to store up," he said. Eldene well understood that, as she knew that the oxygen keeping them alive during the working day was stored up by the scole during the night they spent in the compound bunkhouse. She nodded, and he then allowed her to take the breather.

Eldene inspected the helmet and breather unit — she'd seen proctors wearing these without the helmets and visors, just using a muzzle-shaped mask like Ulat had worn, which hinged up from the collar and sealed over the mouth and nose. After a moment she noticed a pack of such masks — compressed fibre and disposable — clipped to the side of the pack containing the oxygen bottle. She detached the helmet and visor and discarded them, placed the collar around her neck, closing its clip at her nape, then fitted the mask to its hinge below her chin. Hooking her arms through the straps, she hung the oxygen pack on her back — the spare she slung from its straps over her shoulder. With the mask hinged down — for closing it up against her face instantly started the flow of oxygen — she turned back to Fethan.

"You said the mountains?" she said, noting that Fethan now had the Proctor's stinger and pistol at his belt.

"Yeah, we head there and find ourselves an entrance to the Underground. Should take about three days so let's get moving." Fethan led the way across the sodden ground and began tramping a path through the flute grass.

As she followed, Eldene could not help but speculate on how the figure of three days so closely matched the extent of her remaining oxygen supply. Perhaps Fethan was merely humouring her in the last days of her life.

The flute grass was last season's, and consequently dead, dry and brittle. Just by walking into it, Fethan had it breaking and collapsing before him. Each stalk was hollow and the thickness of a human finger, with holes down its length where side shoots had earlier broken away. In gentle breezes, strange music issued from these stands of vegetation, but anything more than a gentle breeze would turn them into snowstorms of papery fragments. Under Eldene's feet, the ground was thick with fragments already trodden down by Fethan, or what had fallen from the plants earlier, and it was this layer, over the plants' rhizomes, that prevented her from sinking into ground that was becoming increasingly boggy. Stabbing up from the rhizomes themselves, she noticed the bright green-and-black tips of this season's new growth poised to explode into the air. When the temperature rose above a certain point — something due to happen soon — the plants would begin growing at a rate that was sometimes visible.

"Ah, Theocracy justice," said Fethan at one point, making a detour around something lying in the stand of grass.

Eldene saw a skeleton pegged out on the sodden ground — grass stalks growing up through its ribcage. With a grimace, she remembered that this was one of the many punishments handed out by the proctors for serious infringements of Theocracy law. Precisely at this time of year the proctors pegged out such criminals, and as the grass grew, its sharp points penetrated flesh and the stalks then just grew straight through. Something like this, she knew, would be her own punishment if they caught her.

The paralysis was easing a bit now, though Thorn was not sure if he could manage to stand. The cold ceramal floor had sucked the heat out of him, and worked its own paralysing effect. His pelvis still ached, but at present the major pain was coming from his shattered teeth and broken nose.

As was his nature, and the nature of his training as Sparkind, he dismissed from his mind the deaths of friends and comrades, and instead concentrated his attention upon his present situation. That Brom intended to use some sort of mind-ream on him, he had no doubt, though he did doubt the man would find anything useful to him by that means, since it was ECS policy to change all relevant codes once an agent disappeared. When they came to inflict that on him, he had to be ready to act — for he either would die during the reaming, or be killed shortly after.

Using a huge effort of will, Thorn rolled over and managed to drag himself to his hands and knees. Just this effort left him dizzy and nauseous, but he pushed himself even further and managed to rock back onto the support of his knees only. His neck felt like it was without bones, his head swollen and aching, and the rest of his body as responsive as a sack of potatoes. Not allowing himself any pause, he flung himself to his feet, nearly went over on his face, staggered to the table, and clung while he vomited over the autodoc.

"Careless," he grated, once he got his nausea under control. He was about to turn the doc over in search of something sharp inside it to use as a weapon when the door opened behind him.

"Oh, up and about already? We'll soon change that."

Thorn glanced over his shoulder as Lutz pulled a baton from his belt and slapped it into the palm of his hand. Behind Lutz, John Stanton drew the door closed. Momentarily Thorn felt despair: he might be able to take on Lutz, but John Stanton? Well, maybe, if he was at the peak of condition.

"John here tells me that Sparkind are trained to resist direct-mind interrogation, but I was delighted when he told me how we should go about softening you up," said Lutz.

Thorn turned fully. Maybe if he threw the autodoc at Stanton he would then have a chance to get to Lutz and take a weapon from the man. While thinking this, it took a moment for it to impinge upon him what Lutz had just said — it was nonsense. Sparkind had no more ability to resist reaming than anyone else did. Something like that could not be trained in; it required substantial alteration of the structure of the brain. He watched as Stanton moved up beside Lutz and looked with bored contempt at the man.

"Yeah," said Stanton, "and because you're so completely stupid, you believed every word."

Lutz had time only to whip his head round. Stanton's straight-fingered strike went into his throat like an axe. Lutz stood there choking for a moment, then went down on his knees, where he tried to retrieve something from his jacket. Stanton stooped down and, with a complete lack of haste, took hold of the man's head and turned it right around.

Thorn winced at the sound of crunching vertebrae and stared as Lutz thudded down on his front and shivered and gargled into death. Then he transferred his gaze to Stanton as the mercenary stood.

"Bloody amateurs," said Stanton at last, rubbing his hands before removing an injector from the pocket of his long coat. He walked over to Thorn and inspected him. "How the hell did they manage to catch you?"

"I got careless," Thorn managed.

Stanton acknowledged this with a snort, then reached out and pressed the injector against Thorn's neck. Immediately something cool suffused Thorn's body and he felt his limbs freeing up.

"It'll take a minute or two. That paralytic of Brom's is a curare derivative. You may find you've received some nerve damage."

"Does this mean you're on my side?" Thorn asked. "I thought you were here selling arms."

Stanton grinned nastily. "That's what they think, too."

Suddenly Thorn found he no longer needed the support of the table. "Some other contract?" he asked.

"You've met Dorth?" Stanton asked, and now there was a hardness in his expression that had not been there even while he had tried to twist Lutz's head off.

"The Deacon? Yes, briefly."

Stanton turned and gazed somewhere distant. "Well he comes from my home world and I have been tracking him for the last year. When I knew him way back, he was just one of the Theocracy's proctors. He was my mother's lover and he had her accuse my father of heresy, supposedly to expedite a divorce. Once she signed the papers, the bastard took my father outside and shot him through the face."

"Your mother?" asked Thorn, studying the man.

"Died under questioning."

"Personal, then," said Thorn, now flexing his torso and wondering if the numbness in the ends of his fingers might ever go away.

With a flat expression, Stanton turned back to him. "I would guess you're here to retire our friend Brom. So, let's be about it. Brom is in his cabin and the Deacon is there as well." He turned and stepped towards the door, drawing a large pulse-gun.

Now more confident in his body, Thorn moved away from the table and stooped down by Lutz, pushing the dead man over onto his back, which incidentally put him onto his face. A quick search yielded a gas-system pulse-gun — not quite as effective as the weapon Stanton carried, firing as it did ionized gas rather than aluminium dust and consequently not having the range, but good enough for close work.

"You don't really need me," Thorn observed, standing. "Why did you risk this?"

Stanton glanced round. "Let's just say that after Viridian I have the greatest respect for Ian Cormac, and that my perspective has changed somewhat."

"Doesn't really answer my question."

"It's all the answer you'll get," Stanton replied, opening the door.

Once they were outside, Stanton removed a small cylinder from under his jacket, twisted the timer on its end, and tossed it back into the cell. Moving on, he led them up the stairs and through a hatch, out onto the deck. It was night, and Thorn realized he must have been out of it for longer than he had thought. Now they moved into the moon-shadows of a tower supporting some odd oblate device.

Stanton pointed at this and whispered, " 'ware generator," and placed another cylinder next to the wall of the low building below it.

"What timings?" Thorn whispered.

"Ten minutes. Can't get a low-power signal out while that thing's up, and I'll need to. There's two or three hundred of Brom's people aboard and I can't take them all."

They moved on until Brom's cabin came into sight. Between them and it, all the structures on the deck were well lit. One of these was a long cabin with light glaring through its wide windows. Stanton pointed beyond it. "I've got a nice planar load in their middle hold. That'll go in" — he glanced at his wristcom — "six minutes. The one I have on their pile should go… shortly." He squatted down and Thorn squatted beside him.

"What's your route out?" Thorn asked.

"Same way as I came in," Stanton replied, gesturing to the right of Brom's cabin, where Thorn had earlier seen him supervising the unloading of the catamaran.

The first of the explosives blew, ripping the side out of the barge, some distance from them. Thorn observed hot metal flung across the sea, then sinking in clouds of steam, next the orange glow of fires lighting the sky as all the lights on the ship went out. He pressed his hand to the deck and felt the vibration of its engines stutter to a halt. Glancing at Stanton, he nodded back at the tower they had just passed.

"Independent power supply — U-charger I think," Stanton explained, rising to his feet.

Some of the crew were now rushing towards the source of the explosion. Others were quite wisely not moving in that direction at all, but arming themselves. The two men broke into a trot to match this frenetic activity.

"Hey, you're—" one man managed, hesitating in his rush to join a group of his comrades. Thorn shot him in the face, then quickly dragged the corpse to a nearby dark hatch and shoved it down below.

Stanton was meanwhile twisting the timer on another explosive, while staring in the direction of the group the dead man had been about to join. He stooped and rolled the cylinder along the deck towards them, then gestured to the nearby long cabin. "We go through here."

Thorn was not sure that was such a good idea, but was not about to argue — his companion certainly seemed to know what he was doing.

Stanton explained anyway. "There's a camera down that side, and you can guarantee Brom'll be watching his screens right now." He kicked open the door, they stepped through. The door closed on explosions and screams from the deck behind them. Inside the cabin were a man at some sort of console, a woman screwing a power pack onto a pulse-rifle, a second man sitting on the side of a bunk, pulling on his boots. Both Stanton and Thorn hit the woman first — the greatest immediate danger — and she toppled back over a bench strewn with weaponry, leaving most of her head on the bench itself. The man at the console was groping for something just to his right when Stanton's shots blew him backwards, still in his swivel chair, then threw him jerking out of the chair, to sprawl beyond it. Thorn meanwhile shot the man on the bunk before he could get his other boot on.

"Back window," urged Stanton, as they ran down the length of the cabin.

To their right, crouching by some lockers, a man still in his underpants, unarmed. Stanton aimed at him, then changed his mind and stepped in, ready to knock the man out. Thorn shot the guy when he made a grab for something in the locker. He went over, clutching a heavy rail-gun, its attached cable and power pack falling on top of him as it fired, taking away half the ceiling and opening the cabin to the night.

"Shit," said Stanton flatly.

Thorn gave him a berating look.

Stanton shrugged. "In his underpants?" he said.

Four shots — not being sufficient to shatter the tough chainglass — blew the window out of its surrounding seal in one piece. Stanton, for such a heavily built man, went through in a graceful swan-dive, rolled, turned, and fired at something Thorn could not see as he stepped through the gap. Soon he spotted the two guards outside the door to Brom's cabin. One of them was down, but the other — boosted like Stanton — was trying to drag his rail-gun round on target, despite having lost his right arm. Stanton and Thorn fired together, repeatedly. The guard went backwards through the door, and the two men followed him through, stepping over what remained of their victim into Brom's so luxurious accommodation. Behind them came two further explosions, the light of which cast their shadows ahead of them as they entered.

"Leave it!" Thorn ordered.

Brom was sunk in his otter-hide armchair, a screen opened up from the pedestal table beside him. His feet were bare and Thorn was fascinated to note that his toenails were painted lavender. His hand was poised over the organic-looking weapon he had used earlier, which was now resting on the arm of the chair. He stared back at them with the intensity of a snake, and slowly moved his hand away from the weapon to his lap.

"Where's the Deacon?" Stanton snapped.

Brom shifted his gaze from Thorn and said not a word. Out of the corner of his eye, Thorn saw Stanton hold out his free hand and as if by magic, a dagger slapped into it. Again, Thorn felt some fascination — the dagger was a Tenkian, and Stanton had summoned it to his hand from somewhere else about his person.

"I won't ask so nicely, next time," said Stanton.

Brom blinked and smiled. "Well, I'm afraid you've missed the fellow. He's on his way home."

"Fuck," said Stanton. He stared at Brom. "When did he go, and by what route?"

Brom shrugged, a hint of a smile on his face as he grew more confident. "He went by AGC about four hours ago. Should be on the shuttle to Cereb even now, if he hasn't already shipped out."

Stanton seemed lost for words for a moment, then flung Thorn a glare of accusation. Thorn looked back from him to Brom, and noted that the Separatist had a slight tilt to his head and an abstracted expression.

"His aug," he said.

Stanton returned his attention to Brom and threw. The dagger entered the seated man below the chin. Brom's eyes grew wide as he choked, then he stood and groped at the dagger with fingers soon bloody. He managed a step before he went over.

Just to make sure, Thorn fired down once, excavating a cavity in the back of the man's head. "Let's get out of here," he then said.

Stanton nodded, held up his hand, and did something with the ring on one of his fingers. Brom's body jerked as the dagger pulled free, arced through the air, and slapped its handle into Stanton's hand. He stooped and wiped it on Brom's clothing. Now there came an explosion that rocked the entire barge.

"Seems like a good idea," Stanton opined, as he stood upright again.