Beyond the Medical section, by using the old mechanisms of the ship, Skellor shifted a corridor so there was a direct connection between that area and the bay containing the grabships. As the eggs turned metallic white on completion of the processes operating inside them, they were drawn in towards the main trunk of Jain architecture passing through that section, and microscopic cilia in their billions conveyed them into the newly constructed corridor, further down which Skellor now grew another spur of architecture to convey them to the bay. Here he glued them into a three-dimensional honeycomb that expanded the grabs of three ships so that in the end it seemed they held boulders of metallic conglomerate. When the doors of the bay finally opened, and the ships blasted out into space, Skellor felt great satisfaction with his creation, and even more so as he began to program sharp little minds. In all, this particular act had taken him five and a half solstan hours — about twice the time it would take him to denude the planet's surface of human life by using the conventional weapons of this ship. But that was not something he wanted to do just yet — not while he was having such fun.

Through her light-intensifying binoculars, Lellan surveyed the lower slopes and still saw no more sign of the Theocracy army. There seemed no rhyme or reason to anything the enemy had been doing all night. Earlier they had kept attacking erratically: squads charging from cover in what seemed a co-ordinated attack, then that charge losing impetus once out in the open, where her own troops could use the Theocracy troops for target practice. It had been mad, horrible, and seemed to make no sense at all, yet it had produced an effect simply by attrition, because the Theocracy forces outnumbered hers by three to one. Now, though, the foe were just turning around and walking away. Lowering her binoculars, she turned her attention to the technician, who had Lellan's coms helmet lying in pieces on a nearby mollusc-crusted rock.

"Any luck?" Lellan asked. "Because I could really do with talking to my field commanders sometime soon."

The woman glanced up. "You can use it for direct radio communication right now, if you want. All the computer functions are scrambled and the only way to clear that would be a wipe followed by a direct software download from—"

"From the operations room," finished Lellan. "From Polas."

The woman ducked down and, with quick expertise, reassembled the components of the helmet, then passed it up to Lellan before turning to pack away her tools.

"Okay, who can hear me?" asked Lellan into the comlink as soon as she donned the helmet, then winced at the barrage of sound as everyone tried to reply together. "Okay, okay! I'll list each of you in your numerical order and you can reply in turn, then you can shut it unless I speak to you individually." Twelve out of fifteen field commanders answered as she said their names. Lellan nodded to herself, then went on. "I have here with me a Theocracy soldier just taken prisoner — as no doubt have some of you. I want you to listen to this, then to what I have to say after."

Turning to the prisoner on either side of whom stood Carl and Uris, she asked, "Your name?"

"Squad Leader Sastol," said the man. He looked bewildered, as if not even sure about the truth of that statement.

"Shall we pretend, Sastol, that I've had you beaten and tortured, and am now threatening to take away your air supply?" she continued. The man Sastol jerked his head up from contemplation of his feet and stared at her in confusion. Lellan went on, "What's happening down there? Your entire army was attacking us previously without any co-ordination. We've captured hundreds like you who have ripped off their augs, but those still with augs would seemingly rather die than be captured. And now your entire army has turned around."

"Something destroyed Faith," Sastol replied, perhaps deciding he preferred this method of pretend torture.

"Something destroyed my faith a long time ago," said Lellan. "Are you trying to tell me you've lost yours?"

Sastol stared at her directly. "Something destroyed Faith — the cylinder world."

Lellan absorbed that, then asked, "And the army?"

"He who destroyed Faith also tried to capture my mind through the Gift. I tore my aug away. Others did not."

Carl said, "So whose side is this Skellor on?"

"His very own, I think." Lellan paused, then said, "Did you all get that? By the numbers, give me the confirmation — or otherwise — such as you can." Seven of her commanders confirmed that they were getting the same story from their own prisoners. Two others assumed the whole thing a ruse, and did not believe that one of the cylinder worlds had been destroyed.

"As your commander I'm very interested to have your opinions. Now I will tell you how I see things." Lellan paused, obviously uncomfortable with what she must now say. "We came up from below and we attacked not because we thought we could hold the surface, but simply because we thought we could increase the ballot and create enough noise to attract the attention of the Polity — so that our cry for help would be heard and could be responded to. We had to do this because staying underground, and staying silent, would have resulted in the Theocracy destroying us down there. Are you all in agreement with that?"

The chorus of 'ayes' was all she needed to continue with, "Now, we have above us an AI dreadnought, which I am told has been subverted by someone who worked for the Separatists. The Separatists on Cheyne III were supplied with arms by the Theocracy, yet, that same individual has come here and destroyed a cylinder world, and is now demanding that we… What is it, Pholan?"

The commander who had interrupted her gave a terse explanation, and when he had finished she went on, "Oh, not only a cylinder world, it seems — all of the Theocracy landers as well. As I was saying, this individual is now demanding that we hand over Ian Cormac. As I see it, Polas was right. The army must get under cover. You have to take your fighters back down into caves."

Lellan waited for the dying down of a storm of protest. Even in war, to be on the surface offered a kind of freedom none of them had experienced for a long time. When that protest turned to argument between various commanders, she lost her patience.

"Enough!" Argument died to muttering, then silence, and she continued, "Wake up and smell what you're shovelling. You know we cannot win a war on the surface. We have never been able to win a war on the surface. In the end we must have Polity intervention here to escape further oppression. And that we will get it is a foregone conclusion."

There came a brief flurry of further argument before they realized what she had just said. Into the silence that came after, she threw, "A subverted AI Polity dreadnought has destroyed a cylinder world, and has been striking at the surface. Anyone would be mad to think Earth Central Security will not come here now. What credibility they were preserving by non-intervention here is completely gone. Separatists across humanspace will claim that dreadnought was not really subverted. ECS will come here to investigate and to offer aid — and the whole furore the Polity has been striving to avoid is now inevitable. Now they have nothing to lose by coming here, but they do have a world to gain — one that has been iconic to Separatists for a long time."

Argument continued, but Lellan was determined. "You have my orders. Obey them or not." Then she shut off her comlink.

"We retreat and hide, then?" asked Beckle, inspecting the rail-gun he had taken from Sastol.

Lellan shrugged. "If we stay up here, this Skellor could fry us from orbit any time he likes. That he has not done so yet tells me that he's in such a strong position that we're almost irrelevant to him. Either that or he likes playing games."