"I don't know — we went into U-space. It'll be in the landing craft guidance computer."

Cormac nodded. Occam would have downloaded that information by now.

"Have you any idea why the Masadans took you and your fellows off the station?"

"Not to rescue us… though that's what they said. But they made some of us work in the engine room of their ship. Mother said we were to be slaves."

Null-gee construction, thought Cormac: Outlinkers would make excellent station builders.

"That's all for now. I'll leave you to finish your meal."

In the bioscience section adjoining Medical, Cormac found Mika seated with her feet up on a workbench while she studied a portable screen.

"How's the mother?" he asked.

"She'll take a while. She had a fractured skull and a cerebral haemorrhage. I'm leaving her in cold-sleep for the present while I check my files here on Outlinker physiology." She nodded down at the screen she was holding.

Cormac moved further into the room and gazed into the isolation booth containing the thing he had killed on Callorum. Suddenly it just didn't seem as important now.

"Tomalon… Ship!" he said.

"What is it?" the ship AI asked abruptly.

"Do you have the co-ordinates of the Dragon attack on the Masadan craft?"

"Of course."

There then came a strange whining muttering sound followed by a sharp snapping. Like a vessel filling from the bottom with flesh, Tomalon appeared in the middle of the room.

"Yes, we have the co-ordinates," he said, taking over from Occam.

"I didn't know you had holojectors on this ship," said Cormac.

"Only in some sections. The Occam Razor was being refitted, prior to being called out to Callorum."

Cormac considered that: this ship was an old one and, though powerful, was in many ways far more primitive than other Polity ships.

"Can you take us to the co-ordinates of that attack?" he asked.

A moment's displacement had the room wavering and Tomalon's image flickering on and off, then it stabilized — they had dropped into U-space.

"In transit," said Tomalon, confirming this.

Cormac turned to Mika, who wore a puzzled expression. "Did you ask the boy about what happened to him?" he asked, trying not to put too much irony into his voice.

With a flash of irritation she replied, "I didn't need to ask. He needed to tell someone."

"Then you realize things are starting to get complicated."

"They always do when you are involved," she replied, returning her attention to her screen.

Cormac studied Mika until there came a further feeling of displacement as the Occam Razor rose back out of underspace. Returning his attention to the Captain's hologram, he observed it sliding sideways to pause by a console and screen probably used to run research programmes. The screen came on and lights played around the touch-pads of the console, as it no doubt linked into the ship's ubiquitous communications channels.

"We are there now," said Tomalon, his mouth moving but his voice issuing from the console.

Cormac walked over and stared at the screen. It showed him a spreading cloud of twisted lumps of metal tumbling through the void; the hazy glitter of metallic particles and a fog of gases. One large tangle of wreckage contained a dull red glow, and vapour was spilling from this out into space.

"Identify," he said flatly.

"Everything you would expect," said Tomalon. "The remains of a ship torn apart: hull plates, insulation, gas, and corpses."

Now a square isolated the glowing tangle of wreckage and the view closed in on that. Clinging to a twisted structural member projecting from the tangle were two bloated human shapes — one with bright red skin and one with skin of a golden yellow.

"Dead?"

"They are all dead," Tomalon replied. "These two probably died before the others out there, because that glow you see comes from a broken atomic pile."

"Anything else within scanning range?" Cormac asked, glancing behind when Mika came to stand at his shoulder.

"Four hundred kilometres out there is what remains of a landing craft — the twin of the one our friend Apis occupied. Nothing alive there either. I've been close-scanning all debris in the area for survivors, but there are none." Tomalon paused and a strange muttering issued from the console as if he was exchanging a comment or two with someone nearby him — obviously some spillover from his link with Occam. He went on, "Extending the range of scans now."

"A waste of life," said Mika.

"Death always is," Cormac replied.

"Life-form detected," Tomalon said suddenly, his voice containing that rough edge that was something of Occam.

"Where?" Cormac asked.

"Two light days along our projected path."

"Identify."

"Spherical creature one kilometre in diameter. Ninety-eight per cent projection: Dragon."

"Now the shit hits."

Mika had no comment on that. Tomalon merely flickered out of existence.

The woman studied instrumentation for a short while and the boy, knowing the importance of those things she did, contained his impatience, and turned his attention to the toys scattered on the floor all about him. Shortly the woman was satisfied with what she was seeing and returned her attention to the book.

"Out of the wilderness Brother Malcolm came at last to the house of the gabbleducks and lifting the latch, he entered said domain. Upon the table were three bowls, and thus Brother Malcolm said, 'I was hungry and so I was fed' And sampled only a little from each bowl of food, for he was a pious and ungreedy man."

The woman paused as she scanned back through the text. "Ungreedy?" she repeated, whilst the picture in the book showed the great slob of the Brother tucking into a huge mound of food on the table.

"Fatso," said the boy, pointing at the man's picture.

"Just so," said the woman, then went on. "Even after so small a meal, Brother Malcolm found weariness descending upon him, to hook lead weights in his eyelids. Moving then to the other rooms of the house, he found three beds. The largest of these that he tried was too hard, and he could find no rest. The medium bed was too soft, and he could find no rest there either However, the smallest bed was just right, and he slept the sleep of the just."

In the picture, the great fat Brother had not managed to haul his bulk up onto either of the large beds, and so chose a small bed that sagged under his weight and out of the end of which stuck his feet clad in filthy socks with red and white stripes.

The mountains were close enough now for Eldene to discern snow on their upper slopes and dark occlusions of vegetation fingering up from the plains that abutted below. From the slope they stood upon — a rampart of earth that divided croplands from the wilderness of Masada — she gazed out upon this scene with some trepidation. It had taken most of the day to get this far, and as yet there had been little danger of note. However, she wondered if the heavy mesh fence that now stood behind them was there to keep people in or to keep something out — something it was obviously ineffective at doing, as they themselves had scrambled over it in minutes. Her worries increased when Fethan took the stinger from her and handed her Proctor Volus's gun in return, then instructed her in its use.

"It's powered up for one magazine, but that's okay because that's all we've got. There are five rounds in each disc of the magazine, and seven discs in total," Fethan said, displaying the cylinder he had extracted from the butt of the gun before clicking it back into place. "Simple firing mechanism: the trigger's electrical, so it's very light and easy to use. You hold it down on one pull to get continuous fire for each disc — that's the five rounds. One press and release gives you one shot. Double press and hold down, and the gun will empty its entire cylinder — that's thirty-five shots discharged in about five seconds. Be very careful with this. I don't want to be picking bullets out of my syntheskin every time you get a little nervous." He handed the weapon over and Eldene accepted it as if she was taking a poisonous snake.