She glanced up at him. "There's always so much more to learn about them."

"And what more have you learnt today?" he asked.

"A lot gets revealed about a body's structure when it is torn open," she said. "Scar is asexual, but his kin out there are not."

"I wonder if that would make Scar happy or sad," he said.

"I think you miss the point. Sex has more purpose than social bonding or physical gratification."

"Well, make the point clearer to me then," said Cormac, irritated.

"The point is that we are no longer dealing with just organic constructs. We are dealing with self-determining beings who can breed — a race."

"Well, that's nice," said Cormac distractedly. Then, "Can't this thing go any faster, Fethan?"

"I'm doing my bloody best," the cyborg replied.

Crouching down to retain his balance as the machine accelerated, now jouncing all over the place, Cormac continued to Mika, "Personally, I don't see the difference between a group of organic constructs and any naturally derived race, but I will be interested to know how the Earth Central AI sees it."

"You will let me live," stated Mika, echoing both Scar and Dragon.

"Still can't ask even the important ones?" he asked her. "I didn't promise anything, and what I promise is irrelevant — I wouldn't be the one to pull the trigger."

Mika was about to make some bitter comeback when Thorn's sudden frantic activity distracted her. They both turned as he slammed a cartridge of grenades into the launcher and swung the device round, then up.

Just then two shadows slid over above them.

The Occam Razor caught the last of the setting sun, and hung half-gilded in the sky long into the evening. Observing the massive thing through her binoculars, Lellan could not help but shudder. With the riotous fighting below it, this object seemed to represent some demon presiding over one of the numerous circles of Hell described in Theocracy dogma. She lowered her binoculars to observe men looking little better than walking corpses fighting those hellish lizard creatures. The dead on both sides strewed the churned ground and flattened vegetation, and now that most rail-guns were empty, the combat was hand-to-hand, or rather hand against claw and teeth.

"If you recalled our army, who would you instruct them to fight?" asked Carl, as he turned the aerofan back towards the compound embankment.

Lellan looked round at the Theocracy soldier, Sastol, who was the only other occupant of the aerofan. "Who is the enemy now?" she asked him.

"I do not know any more," he replied. "Perhaps they are." Unable to point, his wrists being secured to the rail of the aerofan, he nodded towards two heroynes striding through the flute grasses some distance away to their right. As Lellan and Carl turned to observe these creatures, one of them pecked downwards and came up with something that was recognizably a struggling soldier. Tilting its head back, it tossed the man around until it had him in the right position, then swallowed him head first.

"Sweet Lord," said Sastol.

The heroyne and its companion strode on in search of further prey, whilst the struggling lump slid slowly down its long neck to its stomach. Lellan considered going after it, but what would they achieve by blowing the creature open? The Theocracy soldiers now seemed little better than automatons, and apparently did not cease fighting even when captured. From what Sastol had told her of his own experience, she surmised that the soldiers did not have much individual mind left to them, and were merely following a program, albeit a complex one. As Carl finally brought the aerofan down onto the embankment, where they found Beckle and Uris attempting to get another aerofan up and running, Lellan noticed a light flashing on the essential part of the coms helmet she had hanging on her belt. Unhooking it, she placed the speaker button in her ear and spoke into its mouthpiece.

"Yes, what is it?" she asked.

"We have located agent Ian Cormac and his companions. What are your instructions?"

"Just bring them safely to the compound, Rom," she replied, wondering if the drone's voices had become distinct from each other the moment she had named them, or if they had always been that way. In appearance they had originally been indistinguishable, but even that was no longer so — the damage each had received giving them visible individuality as well. Bringing her binoculars back up to her eyes, Lellan began searching the horizon. Shortly she located the two cylindrical shapes heading directly towards the compound, and below them, intermittently visible between still-upright stands of vegetation, came a car with an interesting collection of passengers.

Fethan and Thorn, the one with a bushy orange beard and the other with a cropped black one, were easily identifiable from a distance. Lellan had no idea who the woman was, and presumed the other, silver-haired man to be the agent Cormac. The shaven-headed trooper who had, leaping aboard at speed, just joined them in the car, she presumed to be something more than human. Lowering her binoculars she turned to lean on the rail of the aerofan and peered down the slope of the embankment. "Any luck with that thing?" she asked Beckle and Uris casually. The two men crouching by the tilted aerofan, at the bottom of the bank, had its control column in pieces between them.

Uris looked up. "Needs a new column, but we can still run it."

"Then get it in the air and head back to the compound," ordered Lellan. "See if you can find any spares there. Also get everyone prepared to move out. We don't know what these creatures are likely to do when they've finished out here."

The two men stood and with one heave dropped the aerofan back into its upright position. In disgust Beckle kicked the pieces of its control column to one side.

"You will go with them," said Lellan, stabbing a finger at Sastol. He might have surrendered himself, and circumstances might have changed dramatically, but he was still Theocracy and she trusted him not at all. She watched as Carl unclipped the man's wrist-ties from the rail and stepped back with weapon drawn while the captive climbed to the ground.

Climbing onto the righted aerofan, Beckle sat with his legs either side of the control column base, and his arms inside the casing. Uris waited cautiously until Sastol was aboard, then climbed on behind him, his pulse-rifle covering the prisoner's back. The fans started with a slightly discordant drone, sending a spray of mud in every direction, as the machine rose and slid off over the chequerboard of ponds towards the compound. There, Lellan knew, Sastol would be wise to stick close to her two men, for the newly liberated pond workers had a penchant for removing the breathing apparatus of any Theocracy soldiers caught, then tossing them into one of the squerm ponds to see if they could survive even long enough to suffocate.

"We may find out what those creatures are all about," said Carl.

Lellan turned back to observe the approaching car, and watched in perplexity as one of the lizard creatures ran along behind it then jumped aboard without either attacking or being attacked. It seemed there were some things she still needed to know.

As the vehicle drew closer Lellan saw that more of the creatures were now emerging from the surrounding vegetation and running alongside the vehicle. Despite no signs of aggression towards the car's occupants, or of Rom and Ram considering the creatures a threat, Lellan turned to Carl. "Take us up and out a few metres."

Carl sharply did as requested, obviously glad to get out of reach.

"What's happening, Fethan?" Lellan called out when the whole strange procession had finally reached the embankment.

"Always the unexpected," the old cyborg shouted up.