"Whoever said vengeance is sweet certainly knew what they were talking about," he said, trying to put the other two at their ease.

"He killed your parents," said the boy, Apis, who claimed to be an Outlinker. "He probably killed more than them."

Setting a tin cup on the red-hot grid of his little stove, Stanton grinned to himself, then searched his utility belt for the coffee essence and a miniature bottle of brandy. The boy was groping for justification. He had obviously been as shocked by the duration of Aberil's agony as the girl had been. Though these two had reasons for vengeance themselves, they did not find it as sweet as did Stanton himself.

"Why did it take so long?" Eldene said at last, choking a little on her words. "Did it enjoy… torturing him?"

Stanton shook his head. "He could have shortened it all by taking off his mask and suffocating. Perhaps he didn't really think he was going to die," he said. Then, after studying his two charges for a moment, "There's no deliberate torture, really. Hooders just eat that way in order to survive. Their main diet is the grazers living in the mountains, which feed on some poisonous fungi there. The grazers' bodies are layered through with black fats that accumulate toxins. When the hooders capture them under their hoods, they need to slice their way through their prey very meticulously, to eat only what are called the creature's white fats."

"Why not kill first, though?" Apis asked.

Stanton tipped coffee essence into the rapidly heating water, then a handful of rough sugar crystals. Glancing at the boy he answered, "Apparently it's all due to the flight response. When the hooder goes after a grazer, the grazer immediately starts breaking down the black fat to provide itself with the energy to flee, and then its blood supply and muscles become toxic, too. So any serious damage to either could release poisons into the uncontaminated white fat."

"So it can't let them bleed?" Apis gaped in disbelieving horror.

"What about humans, then?" asked Eldene.

Stanton tested his coffee with his finger, then rocked back on his heels and opened his pack. For a moment the two forgot their morbid curiosity as he handed out potato bread and preserved sausage.

"Humans get treated just like the other kinds of grazers they occasionally catch," said Stanton, himself munching on a piece of sausage. "The hooder has to make the assumption that they are fungus grazers, so dissects them as meticulously, even though discovering no black fat in them. You heard the results of that." Stanton tipped some brandy into the coffee, then after taking a sip from the mug, he offered it around. He was glad when both the youngsters showed a disgust at its taste and declined more.

"That seems to be all finished now over there." He gestured over his shoulder to where the plain had earlier been boiling with fire. "We'll finish up here, then head on in. I'd stay longer, just to be sure, but" — he gestured to the remaining two oxygen bottles resting on the aero-fan's floor — "we don't have that luxury."

"Where will you go now — to the Underground?" asked Eldene.

"My ship first," Stanton replied. "That's where I keep everything that's precious to me." He looked around. "I don't think there's much more I can do here. Hopefully ECS will come soon, and perhaps it'd be better if I were not around when it does."

"What about us?" asked Eldene.

"You go underground," he said, staring at them directly, "and you wait for the Polity." He could see that they were curious to know why he should not hang about when the Polity arrived, but he did not feel inclined to give any explanations. For a minute he just sipped his way down through his cup of coffee, listening for sounds of movement in the surrounding vegetation. The laser strikes had driven away much of the local fauna, but most certainly the smell of broiled meat would bring the said fauna back, and he did not care to be around when that happened.

"Of course, you know what the irony is?" They looked at him attentively and he went on, "Eating human flesh just makes hooders, and the rest of them, sick. It's the oxygen I think — too rich for them."

"Yes, that is ironic," said Apis, exchanging a look with Eldene.

After packing away his bits and pieces, Stanton stood and gestured them back to the aerofan. Soon the three were settled on board, hurtling over a charred landscape below a black sky bright with a surplus of moons.

It was a bright and beautiful night to be skimming over the foothills, their two aerofans warded on either side by the battered and fire-blackened cylinders of the war drones. It was a fantastic night to be alive, and Gant wondered if he would have appreciated it any more by being so.

"There are creatures in the sky ahead of us," said Rom, its voice coming surprisingly loud to them in the roar of the wind, it being sent by directional beam.

"Probably kite-bats," Lellan said, turning towards Cormac. "Don't worry about them, they'll get out of the way."

Gant noted Cormac's quick glance, but did not have to be told to keep alert. He nodded and patted his pulse-rifle. Slung across his back was the APW he was saving for any situation warranting artillery. Focusing ahead, with his vision set to infrared, Gant made out a great flock of flying creatures circling the mountain peaks. Some of them were even roosting on peaks, turning them into a bluish melee of angled limbs and wing fabric.

"How far to the entrance?" Cormac asked Lellan.

"A couple of kilometres yet," the rebel leader replied. She pointed down with her thumb. "There are breakout caves all across here, but there's no point even trying them. Aberil was so keen we shouldn't escape that he bombed every one of them during his landing."

Gazing out into silvered night, the agent said, "You know, Skellor will be watching us right now." He gestured towards the war drones. "We're probably about the only mechanical things airborne, and with those two along…"

"Well," said Lellan, "unless he can also track you through stone, we'll soon frustrate him."

"He may even possess that ability," murmured Cormac.

Something was tickling the edge of Gant's memory. He knew that he could easily run a program in his head to track down that memory, but that would make him more Golem and less Gant, so he wanted to retain his imperfect recall. The flying creatures did not seem to be dispersing, in fact more were taking to the air, and now the whole flock was swirling in this direction. He could now see them much more clearly, and some of the others must already be able to see them through their night visors. There was something familiar…

"These kite-bats," he said, "is it the mating season or something?"

"They don't have a mating season." Lellan was leaning forwards to peer into the darkness. After a moment she pulled back on the steering column, abruptly slowing the aerofan so that Rom and Ram, and the other fan carrying Thorn, Carl and Fethan, shot ahead — then had to turn to wheel round to come back.

"Those are not kite-bats," Lellan decided.

Glancing at the agent, Gant asked him grimly, "Were there any winged calloraptors on Callorum?"

Reluctantly, it seemed to Gant, Cormac donned the night glasses Lellan had provided, and replied, "Never really looked into that. Mika would be the one to ask."

Just then, Carl brought the other aerofan alongside, and Fethan shouted across, "What are those things?"

Speaking into the comlink hooked at her neck, Lellan replied briefly, "The enemy, I think." She looked to Cormac and Gant for confirmation.

Cormac pulled up his sleeve and fingered in some complex attack programs on his lethal little weapon's holster console. Shuriken started clunking in its holster, as if eager to get out. Cormac withdrew it, and held it in the palm of his left hand. With the right hand he drew his thin-gun. He turned to Gant. "How many of them, do you estimate?"