"By the likes of the Makers, yes, and we saved the one surviving member of a mission from their race and are now transporting it back. What of that? Its arrival back in its home system is years hence in our terms, and presumably it is now a friend."

"Not just the Makers, Ian, but they illustrate a point — the rogue biological machine of theirs, Dragon, has caused the human race many problems."

Cormac snorted. "You talk of the human race as if you are not a member."

Blegg grinned. "Ye doubt me, Ian?"

"You are capable of things no other human is capable of, at least, to my knowledge."

Blegg allowed that a derisive grunt. "There're others like me, and there'll be more."

Cormac let that ride and instead asked, "Who other than the Makers are beginning to notice us?"

Blegg turned back to the shimmer-shield. It was a moment before he replied. Cormac stamped his feet against the deck plates. He had only just started to notice how cold it was on the platform. A chill blast came up from below, and there were gleaming nodules of ice on the rails.

"They're out there," said Blegg. "They were building starships before humans stood upright. There're star-spanning civilizations that're millions of years old."

"Oh, tell me more, please," said Cormac, his breath visible before his face.

Blegg grinned at him. "Better," he said.

"So what if they are watching us?"

"We have to be ready. Simple examination by such as them could destroy us. Levels of technology — like Dragon. Even now, our astronomers still think that all pulsars and black holes are natural phenomena. They also express amazement at how lucky the human race has been: a moon to prevent Earth's atmosphere becoming as thick as that of Venus, no large asteroid strikes while our kind developed, the aptly timed Ice Age late in our evolution. It also surprises them how abundant are living worlds beyond Earth."

"I presume there is a point to all this?"

"We squabble. We must be unified, strong and as one. Soon we'll be playing grown-up games. As we are we might not survive."

"Masada?"

"Masada. All of them."

Cormac stared at him and waited. He was sure Blegg was bullshitting him again for his own obscure purposes or amusement. Give the big picture, fine, but what do I do being only a pixel in that picture? Blegg turned back to watch as a shutter slowly slid down outside the shimmer-shield.

"Entering underspace," said Blegg, and as Cormac felt the strangeness, the dislocation, he saw that for a moment Blegg had gone translucent, flickering like a hologram. He reached out and touched the other man's shoulder, but he was there. His skin felt hot, fevered. As if he had not noticed the touch, Blegg continued to speak.

"Masada is not a heavily populated world but, under the Theocracy there, life is very cheap. The majority of the surface population would rebel, but they do not because they live at a perpetually enforced technological disadvantage. A grid of laser projectors hangs geostationary over their heads and, as I said before, the Theocracy are building a kinetic launcher to suppress what rebellion there is in the planet's Underworld. That religious order controls them all, and most of its members live safely out of the way in satellite cylinder-worlds. The sheep live a hard life on the surface of the planet."

"Sounds idyllic. What do you want me to do?"

"Thirty hours after the Occam Razor takes the position of the Outlink station, it will draw the line of Polity across the Masadan system. It would be useful if the populace rebelled against oppression, then they could be helped. It would be useful if there was a valid reason for the Occam Razor to enter the Masadan system."

Cormac noted the sarcasm. "Why not just move in and take over anyway?" he asked, deciding not to make things easy for Blegg.

"Politics."

"Yeah? Explain."

"Masada is held up as something of an icon for Separatists across human space. It would be nice if our intervention was on the behalf of the populace — useful if the Theocracy was made to look villainous."

"I still don't get it," said Cormac, deliberately stubborn.

"All-out war costs. You should know that. It has always been your job to prevent it."

"How very cynical. I can take the Sparkind down… to assist?"

"Yes."

"Anything else?"

"Two of the landing craft on this ship are carrying cargoes of high-tech weaponry."

Cormac considered that for a moment.

"What about the lasers? If they are operating we'll never get landing craft down."

"I am sure you can make a malfunction look plausible."

"Fine. So I have my instructions." Cormac turned away, then quickly turned back. "Before you disappear, tell me, are you human?"

"I was when the Enola Gay overflew my home city of Hiroshima. I saw my family incinerated about me and I remained untouched. When I walked out of the city I doubted my humanity."

"You don't talk much like a Japanese."

"I lived in Japan for ten years. I've lived in other places for a lot longer than that."

"I'm supposed to believe this?"

"Look at me. Look at my eyes."

Cormac did as instructed; saw that they were black, with a pinpoint of red, advancing. It suddenly seemed to him he was standing on the platform, without the body of the ship to protect him from the hard radiation of the stars and the incomprehensible distortions of underspace. The red came out and filled the gap. Cormac found himself in a furnace and he recognized the character of that fire. He also understood what Blegg meant when he said there would be 'others'.

Curled foetally, cold and shivering, on the deck plates, alone, Cormac believed in Blegg.

Lying on the surgical table Thorn could not help but cringe as Stanton swung across the autodoc. Though attached to a long jointed arm extending from the pedestal at the head of the table, the doc itself was indistinguishable from the one Lutz had used on him back on the barge.

"They say travel broadens the mind," said Stanton, calling up a program with the touch-console mounted on the pedestal, and initiating the doc. "Whoever says that wants to try spending a few months inside a ship of this size… We get into the cold-coffins as soon as possible, and thaw up as near to our destination as possible."

The autodoc hummed as it came towards Thorn's face, opening out its surgical tools and array of legs like a descending spider. He felt something stab into his face, but before he could react to that his face became like dead meat over his living skull. He attempted to speak, but his mouth just did not work, and all he managed was to issue a few grunting sounds. Seeing bloody implements moving about right over his face, he closed his eyes and tried to ignore the tugging sensations and audible crunching as the doc straightened the cartilage in his nose. Next, he felt a tugging lower down and surmised that the doc was pulling his lips apart so it could get to his broken teeth.

"It's measuring up now," said Stanton.

Thorn opened his eyes and glanced aside to see the man watching the procedure with obvious fascination.

Stanton went on, "You should have hung on to your broken teeth. It could have welded them straight back in. As it is, it has to measure everything and match colour and consistency for the synthebone and enamel. You're lucky, in a way: the doc on the first Lyric wasn't anywhere near as sophisticated — you'd have got your teeth back, but they'd probably have been the wrong colour."

Thorn wanted to make some sarcastic comment about being too preoccupied at the time to pick up his teeth. By Stanton's grin, he realized that the mercenary probably guessed exactly what he was thinking.

The droning of a cell-welder now ensued as the doc repaired the damage to the soft tissues of his face. While this was done he ruminated on how 'cell-welder' was a misnomer, as an autodoc did not actually repair broken, dying, or dead cells — it removed them and reconnected the tissues that had been parted by breaks, splits or cuts. For more substantial damage, the doc used synthetic or regrown tissues to fill in the gaps — in the case of the synthetics, this tissue was subsequently replaced by the natural healing processes of the body. However, he did not think that any such additions, other than his teeth, would be required for him since everything else was still there — if a little squashed.