"Oh no!… No!" Molat shouted, finding himself fighting against Speelan's determined grip on him. Speelan would not let go, so Molat dragged the man along with him as he tried to flee the looming siluroyne. Subliminally he was aware of Aberil taking to his heels — not even trying to use the weapon he had appropriated. Speelan did not attempt to use his weapon either, so determined was he to cling on to Molat that he dared not unhook it from his shoulder. Fighting panic, Molat finally looked away from the monster into Speelan's terrified eyes, then he drove his fingers into their sockets.

Molat was already running when he heard Speelan scream, "No, please don't!" The gnathic crunching that followed was interspersed with further wails of, "No, don't! No!", terminated by a horrible bubbling wail. Escape was all Molat could think of, then in horror he heard the sound of the monster pursuing him, obviously not being satisfied with its meal of just one human being.

Oh no… oh no…

Perhaps it was because his terror was even greater, or perhaps due to the injuries Aberil had suffered, but Molat soon had the Deacon in sight and was fast catching up with him.

"Wait for me!" he shouted.

Aberil glanced back, but did not slow. Behind them both Molat could hear the siluroyne's grunting snarls as it pursued. He glanced back to see it clear a tall stand of flute grass and land with heavy and sinister grace. Just that glance was enough for him to realize the creature was not even exerting itself. He felt himself like something leaden and clumsy accelerated to the limit of its capacity, whilst the siluroyne kept moving in short bursts only to keep him in sight, between slowing down to a gentle lope as it studied its prey. In its nightmare features he seemed to read amusement, but that could have been his imagination.

"Shoot it! Shoot the fucking thing!" Molat shouted to the Deacon, as he got closer to him. Aberil glanced around, gasping for breath, and obviously suffering at this punishing pace. Molat pushed himself harder and reached out for the weapon slung from a strap over Aberil's shoulder. At the last moment Aberil turned slightly, aiming the snout of his rail-gun downwards. A rattling crackle and Molat felt the ground drop away from him. His legs gave way and, as he went over, he caught a glimpse of shattered bone and burst-open flesh. From somewhere came a horrible keening and whimpering and, as he tried to stand but went down again, he realized it issued from himself. A shadow then drew across him.

"Please… no…" he pleaded.

But the creature had no pity — nothing in its mien or expression that was in any way Terran and Molat now knew he had been mistaken about its apparent amusement earlier. Caught in teeth like blue hatchets, Molat saw a torn and bloody pair of uniform trousers. The three-fingered claws, big as garden rakes on doubled forearms, closed around his torso and up-ended him. Over his shrill screams Molat heard a rail-gun opening up and emptying its magazine, but by then the siluroyne had eaten his legs and was crunching into his pelvis.

"If I ever possessed any inclination to religion, I think I'd find it now," said Gant, shading his eyes from the bright sunlight as he stared up into the sky.

"Ignore it, then," said Cormac. "We have to focus on our goal, and just that." But even he did not feel any great ease in that assertion. What Skellor had done to the appearance of the Occam Razor was a blatant demonstration of his power, and that he managed to hold it so easily in low orbit yet further evidence. The Occam was poised there like a giant overseer directing some huge chess game on the ground below, ready in a moment to sweep board, pieces, everything away. Cormac tried to focus his attention on the game, and specifically on one of those pieces whose abilities he now did not really know for sure.

All that distinguished Scar from the rest of the dracomen was his weapons harness, his loose fatigues, and the facial scar that had given him his name. Cormac remembered Mika explaining how the dracoman could easily have erased that scar, but had retained it for some reason of pride, and now perhaps for some means of identification. Standing upon the burnt-out carcass of a lander, Cormac studied the dracoman a moment longer before returning his attention to the wilderness stretching before them. Now, with the budding of the grasses, the formerly green landscape was tinged with washes of red, white, yellow and metallic gold. But these flowering grasses were now shaking with some approaching movement.

"Okay, what have we got out there?" he asked. He had a good idea — just wanted confirmation.

"Soldiers," replied Scar, before Gant could.

Gant glanced at the dracomen. "Looks like the whole Theocracy army is heading our way." He looked from side to side. "We won't be able to move fast enough to get round them."

"We go through them," said Scar abruptly.

Cormac gazed down at the thousands of dracomen gathered around the landers or in the surrounding flute grass. Every one of them was indistinguishable from Scar when he had first encountered him, and many of them seemed to have similar appetites. They had found charred corpses lying amongst the incinerated landers and had obviously decided not to let the meat go to waste. The carnivorous scene appeared hugely primitive but for other dracomen checking over, with smooth expertise, the weapons they had also found. Cormac feared Mika was allowing her fascination with these creatures to outweigh her caution as she walked amongst them, scanning and sometimes even daring to take samples from them. But then perhaps she had less fear of injury now, with the alien mechanisms operating inside her body.

"Convenient that you arrived when you did," he said to Scar.

The dracoman grunted as he surveyed his fellows, then something seemed to claw at him from the inside, and he hissed before turning to Cormac again.

"You will let me live," said the dracoman, echoing Dragon's words, and Cormac wondered if it was truly the dracoman speaking.

"Polity law." Cormac gestured to the gathered dracomen. "It was a single entity that was guilty of crimes against the Polity, but I see no such single entity here."

And so it was. Before eagerly gathering up her instruments, Mika had observed to him, "Here's that missing fifty per cent of Dragon. Now we know what it meant about both dying and living."

Cormac continued speaking to Scar. "But what ECS decides to do is irrelevant at present, and genocide may yet be committed." He gestured up at the Occam Razor before scrambling down the lander to the ground. Scar and Gant quickly followed him, and the three moved over to join Thorn and Fethan, who were listening in on radio exchanges through Thorn's partially dismantled coms helmet.

"What have you got?" Cormac asked.

"Radio only," said Thorn. "Lellan's sending her army back underground. Some of her commanders are protesting, but they're doing what they're told. It would seem Lellan sees no purpose in keeping them up on the surface. From something I heard, they probably haven't enough supplies to stay up any longer. What about you?"

It was Gant who replied. "The whole Theocracy army is heading this way, and too rapidly for us to get around it."

"The whole subverted Theocracy army," Cormac added.

Thorn nodded, turning his attention to the ominous shape in the sky. "Why is he doing this? Why doesn't he just incinerate this whole place?" he asked.

Gazing up too, Cormac said, "I think he wants us alive for some reason, to use or to play with, whatever. I don't see what else could possibly keep him here."

"Not so omnipotent then," said Thorn.

"No," Cormac agreed. "Still human enough to want to make his enemies suffer, and prideful enough to want to show off. Let's just hope he doesn't move beyond that stage just yet."