"I can't transmit out of here," said the Golem. She glanced across to her console, and almost as if in response to this, it too went offline.

Cardaff stood, marched across the room and palmed the touch-plate of the weapons locker. This at least did work and the door sprang open to reveal riot stun-guns, two pulse-rifles, and an assortment of hand weapons. He pulled out one pulse-rifle and tossed it towards Shenan before selecting the same for himself.

"Looks like we got problems," he commented.

"Yes," said Shenan, turning as the door to the room slid open onto the darkened corridor beyond.

Cardaff dropped down behind his console and sighted his rifle on the door. Shenan merely moved back, with her weapon held loosely. It was all right for her, thought Cardaff: Golem Twenty-sevens did not have much to fear in this world. There was a flicker, some sort of distortion in the air, then utter stillness, and Cardaff could feel the hairs prickling on the back of his neck. He had seen nothing come through that door, but this particular nothing certainly had presence.

"Chameleon—" Shenan managed, before something picked her up and slammed her into a wall of screens. She dropped out of their ruin with clothing ripped and syntheskin torn from her cheek. She fanned fire before herself, and her shots must have hit home for there came a bubbling snarl from the air and something searing hot gripped her head and yanked her from the ground.

Cardaff had never heard a Golem scream, and never seen one taken out so quickly. Shenan was discarded and thumped to the floor like a sack of tools — her head a blackened and misshapen thing. Cardaff opened up, fanning his own fire in the area where… it had been. There were a few hits, clearly, and again that snarling, then all that was happening was that he was trashing the systems mounted in the wall beyond. Half a second after he ceased firing, something feverishly warm pressed against the side of his head, and that warmth spread into his head, and grew hooks.

Cardaff reached up and slapped his hand against another hand — febrile and slippery to the touch. Suddenly his head felt full of hot wires and he screamed, turning as he did so. Now he saw who was standing behind him.

"Interesting," grated Skellor, tilting his own head as best he could.

Cardaff could feel himself going, draining away through that hot touch. The sight faded from his right eye, then his hearing went. He groped for Skellor's arm with his other hand, tried to bring his pulse-rifle to bear. Skellor shook his hand as if to dislodge an irritating insect. For Cardaff… nothing.

"Well, it didn't get away unscathed," said Gant.

They all looked at the view projected on the screen in the bridge pod. The Dragon sphere hung, apparently lifeless, in space — a damaged moon of glittering jade and charcoal. A large segment of it had been charred, and huge black bones protruded into the void like the ruins of some vast cathedral. Around it orbited shed scales and other fragments of its body that had broken away, and this debris was now settling into an orbiting ring. There were no other signs of movement.

"The damaged area is highly radioactive," said Tomalon.

Cormac glanced at him then around at the others seated in the arc of command chairs. The presence of such chairs told him how old the Occam Razor was, since obviously it had been built when such ships required pilots, navigators, gunners and the like, and in subsequent refittings the chairs had not been removed. Tomalon's presence told him that the Occam Razor's AI was also old, for the newer battleship AIs did not require human captains to implement or make judgements on their decisions. It was not that AIs were now more trustworthy; it was simply because humans no longer controlled the Human Polity.

"Only the damaged area is radioactive," said Mika.

Tomalon did not deem this as a question, so Cormac asked of him, "Is that so?"

"Yes, it would appear to be the case. And that is not normal."

Cormac studied Tomalon. While all of them were looking at the screen, the Captain turned his head aside, his eyes unseeing opaque, and his mind linked to the ship's sensors.

Mika said, "This means it is either dead or has shut down its circulatory system to those areas. Any living creature receiving a radioactive wound soon ends up with the rest of its body contaminated as well."

"It has a circulatory system?" asked Cormac.

"Yes — though what circulates is not blood as we recognize it. Much more complex. Dracomen have the ability to consciously alter what their circulatory system carries, so we can presume Dragon has the same ability. I would very much like a sample of that substance now."

I bet you would.

Cormac turned his attention to the dracoman who had come up with Mika from Medical. Scar stood behind the chairs — he found human seating arrangements difficult — his attention fixed firmly on the screen. Cormac wondered just what was going through his head. Scar possessed curiosity, and the need to survive, but few recognizably human motivations beyond that, and that kilometre-wide sphere of living matter out there was the twin of the one that had created him.

"If your hand was exposed to that level of radioactivity, what would you do?" Cormac asked him. Mika turned and inspected the dracoman with intense curiosity. Scar's gaze slid to Cormac.

"What level?" the dracoman asked.

Cormac nodded to the screen where Tomalon had obligingly supplied the figures.

"Cut it off. Grow another," said Scar after inspecting those figures.

Mika's eyes widened in shock. Cormac hoped she had now learnt just how informative direct questioning could be.

"And if the contamination affected more vital organs?" he asked.

"Isolate organs. Drop to minimal function. Grow more."

"Do you think this is what this Dragon sphere is doing?"

By now, most of those on the bridge were staring at Scar. Even the Captain had come back from the ship's sensors and was watching. Aiden and Cento had turned as one to watch and listen. Gant, moodily slumped in his chair, was the only one with his attention still on the screen. He seemed to be trying to outstare Dragon. Scar was a long time in replying.

"Maybe," he said finally.

"What alternatives are there?"

"Dying," said Scar.

They all turned back to look at the screen, except for Mika, who was fiddling with some instruments in the top pocket of her coverall and gazing speculatively at Scar. No doubt the dracoman was in for another battery of tests, and it was lucky for Mika that he did not seem to mind.

"What does deep scan of the undamaged areas reveal?" asked Cormac.

Tomalon's eyes went opaque again and he spoke consideringly.

"There are signs of life, but I cannot tell if they are normal or not."

"The temperature would be a good indicator," suggested Mika.

"A range between twenty and thirty Celsius, nominally twenty-two a metre under the skin," said Tomalon.

"I would say it is not dead, or has died only recently," said Mika, checking figures on her laptop. "It would take some time for it to cool, as it is well insulated. But if it had died shortly after its attack on the Masadan ship, its temperature would be well below twenty by now."

"Send an all-radio-band signal to it. See if we get a reaction," said Cormac.

"Is that a good idea?" asked Gant, still staring broodingly at the screen. "Wouldn't it be better to stick a missile in it, then move off?"

Cormac had already considered that, but there were things to learn, and even a fully capable Dragon sphere would not have been much of a problem to the Occam Razor.

"Things to learn," he therefore said simply.

"Rise in temperature in a lobular structure at its centre," said Tomalon.