Aberil turned back to Apis, then pointed to something lying in a heap beside the ramp, which it took a moment for Apis to recognize as the exoskeleton he had been wearing previously.

"That suit," said the Deacon with obviously more than passing interest. "How does one remove the limiters?"

Here it comes, thought Apis: the first question he could not answer. "I don't know," he said, then seeing an opportunity to turn things away from himself, he tipped his head towards Speelan. "He killed the woman who did know."

Aberil glanced at Speelan, then abruptly reached out and closed his hand around Eldene's throat. "You are an Outlinker," he said to Apis. "You manage to stand down here which, as I understand it, is quite exceptional, but I don't want to risk killing you just yet." Eldene was now choking, fighting for breath. She tried kicking him, but he easily avoided her attempts. Apis started to move forwards, but one of the guards caught him by the hair and struck him lightly across the back of his legs with a gun barrel, so that Apis went down on one knee.

Aberil went on, "So, every time you either refuse to answer, or give me an answer that displeases me, I will do something unpleasant to your companion here. Is that understood?"

"Understood," said Apis, tears in his eyes.

Aberil gave Eldene a shake. "The correct reply from you, Outlinker, is 'Yes, your reverence. »

"Yes, your reverence," said Apis.

Aberil released Eldene and she too slumped to her knees. Another man walked down the ramp — this one wearing a less obviously military uniform — and stood observing things from a wary distance. Aberil turned to him. "Ah, Molat, hand me your stinger."

"There's no need for this," said Apis, as the man unhooked a white baton from his belt and passed it across to Aberil.

Aberil glanced at him. "What there is need for or otherwise, I will decide. Now, my first question: how did you get here?"

"I was rescued from the station Miranda as it started to come apart, by a ship called the General Patten," Apis replied.

Aberil stared at him for a long drawn-out moment, then abruptly turned and drew the stinger across Eldene's stomach. She gasped, then clamped down on her pain, obviously determined not to scream.

"It's the truth!" Apis yelled.

"Truth," Aberil sneered, "is the General Patten was obliterated, and everyone aboard was killed. You arrived here with Polity spies and saboteurs." He slapped the stinger against Eldene's face and, even though determined not to, she screamed. "You came here to undermine the true faith and spread rumours and lies!" As Aberil pulled back the stinger to inflict it on Eldene once again, Apis found a strength in his legs that surprised him. He launched himself from the ground, driving himself headfirst into the commander, had the satisfaction of feeling air whoof out of him, and seeing him fold up, stagger back, then go down on one knee. Then the guards were dragging Apis away, and Aberil was standing up again, holding the stinger ready, his expression vicious.

"Oh, I tire of questions," he sneered.

Then suddenly it seemed as if the whole atmosphere inside the tent shuddered, and every one of the Theocracy soldiers jerked as if just dealt a blow. Apis watched Aberil's expression slide from viciousness to bewilderment and shock. Suddenly men were howling and dropping to the ground. Aberil bent face-forwards, his hands pressed to either side of his head. Molat was on his knees, his hands clasped as if in prayer, while Speelan was in a foetal curl with his arms over his head. Apis gaped about himself and wondered what madness had descended on them. He glanced across at Eldene, whose expression mirrored his own shock, but who reacted much faster: she stood up and, moving as fast as the hobble allowed her, went over to an open toolbox that was being used by those erecting the partitions. In a moment she had found a pair of wire-cutters to quickly release herself from her bonds, before returning to free Apis too.

"What's happening?" Apis wondered, as he discarded the severed plastic from his wrists and ankles.

"Oxygen and masks," said Eldene curtly.

Apis surveyed his surroundings. The others were all clawing at the biotech augs they wore, and the tent was filling up with a smell like seared pork. She was right: now was not the time to ask questions but to act.

Sastol grated his teeth as he watched the rebels being seemingly sucked away by the evening shadows. This squad with which they had been playing a lethal game of hide-and-seek all day was made up of only three men, formerly four, yet they had taken out seven of his own men — including Braden, who had burnt up in his own oxygen supply. Sastol wanted to go after them exclusively, but orders were orders and they must continue their slow advance beside the swamp basin, allowing the rebels to flee back and entrench themselves in their damned mountains.

"Okay, hold it here. Seems they're all pulling back now."

Over his aug he could feel their disapproval at the order, but only Donch felt any inclination to voice it:

"It would seem like an opportunity not to be missed."

Speaking out loud, now that the rebels were quite obviously not trenching in to a new position or turning round to attack, Sastol said, "An opportunity for what?"

"Filling their backs with iron slugs, I think," said Sodar, who had moved in to crouch at his right side, dropping the heavy rail-gun — which had somehow survived the destruction of the car — on the ground before him.

"It was a direct order from Aberil Dorth. Do you want to take it up with him?" Sastol asked.

"That would not be so wise," admitted Donch, moving in close on Sastol's left. "How long do we have to hold these positions?"

"For as long as necessary — probably throughout the night." He did not look at either of his comrades, but he guessed their feelings on the matter. The previous night had been bad enough for them, what with Dominon killed by a mud snake, and that siluroyne which had charged them just before dawn, but the worst of it was the screaming during the night, the result, they had discovered, of an entire squad being taken out by a hooder. They knew about hooders — who could not know about such creatures of gruesome myth and horrifying reality?

"We'll dig in here as best we can, and wait it out," he announced.

"Seems crazy to let them get to terrain they know, and where they can easily find cover," persisted Donch.

"Do you doubt the First Commander's capabilities?" Sastol asked, staring at him directly.

"Not to his face I don't. I want to keep my extremities intact."

Sastol grinned at this and turned to Sodar. "What do you think—" he began, but then spoke no more, because of the sheer powerful horror of what he now knew to be happening.

"Oh my God, what is that?"

Donch's was the clearest voice of them all, over the huge rush of screaming communication that filled all channels. Sastol slapped his hand against his aug and screamed too, adding his voice to the thousands doing the same all along the Theocracy front.

"Faith… it was Faith… Gone!"

But even that was not the worst. Where once Behemoth had worked his twisted wiles, before being pushed away by the chanting and praying of the Septarchy Friars, something else loomed — and it wanted him, it wanted them all. It was reaching… Sastol tried to find something to hang on to, as his aug squirmed against his head and something utterly putrid overran his senses of smell and taste. Trying to mould solidity out of the indescribable, he saw himself standing with his men — and that something reaching out for him like a huge multibodied mud snake. But how could he fight it when there were no weapons to fire, and no physical body to fire them at? Then Donch showed him the way. Yelling angrily, the man reached up and tore away his aug, hurling it to the ground, stamping it into the ground. Sastol reached up for his own, levered his fingers behind it and pulled down. The pain, in the end, was nothing compared with the relief of blessed silence.