The air was noticeably cooler when they finally drove out onto the top of the plateau. Ahead of them, the trees were thinning out, although the individual specimens seemed to be even larger than those on the slopes, reaching thirty to forty meters high. In between them, the ground was carpeted in monster plumes of spiked crown reeds, their withered leathery seed pods swaying three or four meters into the air. The Great Loop Highway degenerated to a heavily compacted dirt track with deep wheel ruts that had been burned through the reeds. Sooty black clumps lined the sides where the highway maintenance robots had incinerated any living frond that crept back across the designated route. To prevent any possible misdirection, slender metal pillars were spaced every kilometer, wearing a high collar of solar cells to power their beacon lights and transponder.

Lawrence went back to mountain-gazing again. There were more Mitchells visible now, thrusting bluntly out of the lush subtropical plain, the awesome monuments of tectonic petulance. Long strips of dark cloud scudded round them, raining hard on the lower slopes.

The convoy reached Rhapsody Province first—an area marked out by dozens of slate-gray slag heaps thrown up across the plain where mining equipment bit deep into the plateau's stratums, hunting out bauxite deposits. The spoil was fresh and dark, slick with dank chemicals that prevented anything from growing on its treacherous, shifting sides.

Aluminum was not one of the metals that Auley supplied to the planet. And capturing another asteroid that had it in quantity wasn't cost-effective given the amount used by Thallspring's industrial concerns. Most cities had secured their own source, and Rhapsody Province even produced enough of a surplus for Memu Bay to export to other settlements.

Located almost dead center of Rhapsody was Dixon, a mining town, or at least an engineering center where the mining machinery was maintained and repaired. A full quarter of the town was given over to huge sheds of corrugated composite where cybernetic tools and humans worked alongside each other to service the mining and processing equipment. There was even a small fusion plant sited a kilometer away, a squat white concrete hexagon with a slightly convex roof. It was surrounded by pylons that carried bright red power cables out to the active mining sites.

The houses, shops and offices, that made up the rest of Dixon all had a prefab appearance. Their layout and size were highly individual, but every wall was made from the same insulated composite paneling, and each roof was a matte-black solar collector. Even the air-conditioning cabinets that stood outside were the same make, all with their fans whirring away behind rusting chrome dissipater fins. The plain's dusty volcanic soil hazed the air above the grid of streets, frosting every surface with a dark ocher patina.

As soon as the convoy arrived at the end of the main street they had to stop and reverse. One of the massive excavator processors was being delivered back to its site after a spell in the maintenance sheds. The unit was twice as long as a locomotive, and three times as wide. It was sitting on an even bigger low loader whose caterpillar tracks must have been as wide as Lawrence was tall. He whistled with respect inside his Skin helmet as the massive rig crawled past, shaking the nearby buildings.

Captain Lyaute, who was commanding the convoy, ordered the vehicles to draw up in the town's central square. By the time they'd parked in a circle and the squaddies jumped out they'd gathered quite a crowd. It was the first time Z-B had visited the plateau; people were curious. They were also suspicious and sullen, standing well back from the Skins.

Lawrence hoped they weren't going to have to demonstrate the weapons capability of their Skin. It had taken several unpleasant days to convince the citizens of Memu Bay that they were invincible and everyone should just knuckle under and cooperate. But this bunch were tough engineers working hard for a living. They also had a quantity of hardware and tools that could damage Skin if correctly and creatively misapplied.

Lyaute snapped out a few quick orders, and three Skins snatched a civilian each. Before anyone could react, they'd been fitted with collateral necklaces. The captain started to speak to the crowd; he quickly had to crank up the volume on his Skin's speaker as the crowd shouted abuse and insults back at him. They were furious at what they were being told, that the squaddies were going to go through their town and help themselves to anything remotely valuable. Any resistance would result in the collateral necklaces being activated.

After walking just a couple of streets, Lawrence decided the convoy was a waste of time. There really wasn't much in Dixon worth taking. Not that the town saw it that way. As soon as the Skins went into the cavernous maintenance sheds they found the articulated trucks that brought the aluminum down to Memu Bay. Except they hadn't been used since the day the starships flew into orbit overhead. Every one of the big trailers was filled to capacity. But that was only a fraction of the hoard. Lawrence and Amersy walked into the first of the big sheds, only to stop in amazement. Aluminum ingots were piled up as high as the roof. Nobody was going to send the town's one product to the coast where it could well be stolen by the invaders and taken away on their pirate star-ships. Amersy laughed at the metal mountain. "What kind of idiot thinks we can afford to transport a shitload of aluminum on a starship?" he asked.

Lawrence didn't share his mockery. Thallspring had never heard of asset realization before this first campaign had arrived. Out here in the hinterland they certainly didn't know what was regarded as valuable. They were playing safe, trying to protect what they'd worked for. He could appreciate that.

When Dixon's AS was scrutinized, the logs showed that the excavator processors were operating at minimum capacity, and had been for weeks. The only reason the operators hadn't stopped them altogether was that it was more trouble to start them up again than keep them ticking over like this.

Captain Lyaute explained the financial reality of asset realization to the mine managers, trying to tell them they were wasting their time by the go-slow. They just glared at him.

A jeep was sent over to the hospital. Some of the more advanced medicines and vaccines were loaded into it. A truck was driven out to the fusion plant, where it could stock up with expensive spare components. Lawrence and Amersy helped shift excavator cutting heads from their storage racks in one of the big sheds, heaving them into the back of a truck. The bulky cones were studded with long compression-bonded diamond blades that Z-B would strip off back in Memu Bay before boosting them up to the waiting starships.

"That's our livelihood you're killing," one incensed technician yelled at them. "How can we buy food if we can't work, you bastards?"

Lawrence ignored him.

"The guy's got a point," Kibbo said. "This does seem kind of petty. The blades, okay, they're high-tech and expensive. But medicines from the hospital?"

"It's the same deal for everyone on the planet," Lawrence said. "They'll produce replacements as soon as we leave. We're not taking the factories with us."