How to perform surgery with a U-space field generator.

Dragon grew large in the screen. On other screens were views from the various grabships. Cormac saw forests of pseudopodia reaching towards monolithic devices on the dreadnought's hull. He saw the Occam Razor growing larger, and was able to compare the size of the creature with the size of the ship. A Dragon sphere had twice almost destroyed the Hubris, the ship on which he had travelled to Samarkand. But this sphere came like a supplicant to an iron god.

"Are all the scanners operating?" he asked Tomalon.

"They are all operating. The slightest sign of attempted entry, or the slightest sign of nano-attack, and we will know."

"What can be done with it this close?"

"Many things. We can electrocute it, slice it with particle beams or laser, even detonate a thermo nuke between it and the ship."

"And that won't harm the ship?"

Tomalon came back from his sensor to give Cormac a pitying look. "The hull of this ship is half a metre of Thadium s-con ceramal. There are few energy weapons that can touch it, and it can take a surface blast of up to forty megatons."

Cormac wondered if the people inside could. He also knew of one energy weapon that could touch this ship's hull, and wondered how Tomalon would react to being told that the Occam Razor could be destroyed by sunlight. Glancing at the Captain, it also occurred to him that the man looked very much like a creature of myth that could also be destroyed by sunlight, but reckoned Tomalon would not appreciate the humour, and so Cormac continued to watch the show.

There was no feeling of impact as the Dragon sphere took hold where it could and drew itself against the ship. The view of Dragon that Cormac now watched — from one of the grabships as it released — reminded him of a child hugging the legs of a parent. Soon all the grab-ships had returned to their hold.

"Going under now," said Tomalon.

They went.

The gabbleduck was his favourite toy. Once initiated, it just would not stop until it had found all of the toy Brothers he had concealed in the area, then chomped them down, and burped after every one. It made him giggle every time when it did that and, even though she tried to conceal it, he knew his mother was amused as well

"Let's get back to it," she said to him, turning away from the instrumentation that had absorbed her attention for some time now. "Where was I?"

"Babbleguck come home," the boy said without turning from his toy, which had just found a Brother shoved under the edge of the carpet but was having difficulty in pulling the man out by his feet — the victim seemed to have got a grip on the underlay.

"Gabbleduck," the woman corrected, then frowned when she saw her son grin.

"Daddy Duck said, 'Who's been eating from my bowl? and Mummy Duck, finding the soup in her bowl had been supped too, said, 'And who's been eating from mine? Baby Duck, not wanting to be left out, looked in its bowl and said, 'Some bugger's et me soup. "

The picture in the book now showed the room much expanded, the table piled with chewed bones and other detritus from some huge feast. The three gabbleducks were monoliths of alien flesh, bone and muscle that almost filled the rest of the room.

Somebody was talking really fast in a foreign language and she really wished that person would shut up. As she ascended through various levels of awareness, Eldene acknowledged to herself that though she knew what a 'foreign language' was, she had never actually heard one spoken. Obviously it was someone else jabbering away in the orphanage dormitory… no, in the workers' bunkhouse. She'd have to tell them to shut up in a moment. It was quite enough that she was cold and her bed felt slightly damp and lumpy…

As Eldene finally woke up, Fethan whispered in her ear, "Say nothing and make no sudden movements."

Eldene opened her eyes and stared at him. Fethan was crouching right next to her, holding the stinger across his lap. He was clearly visible in the silver-blue light of Amok — one of the larger Braemar moons — and as he glanced at Eldene, his eyes reflected that argent light. With delicate precision, he pointed out into the night.

Carefully Eldene eased herself upright, confused about what had woken her, but wary enough to obey Fethan's instructions. A breeze was evident and for a moment she thought she had been disturbed by the fluting of the grass. Then that other sound repeated, and she froze.

It was just like someone speaking utter nonsense very fast and affirmatively.

"Y'scabbleubber fleeble lobber nabix chope!"

Easing herself higher, Eldene peered in the direction Fethan was pointing. In the moonlight, it did not take her long to discern that something was nosing along the edge of the grasses. All she could see for a moment was a body like a boulder and a long duck bill swinging from side to side, then the creature reared onto its hind legs, opened out its sets of forepaws from the wide triple keel of its chest, and blinked its tiara of greenish eyes as it prepared for its latest oration.

"Y'floggerdabble uber bazz zup zupper," it stated portentously.

"God in Heaven," Eldene whispered, groping for her gun.

Fethan reached out and caught her wrist. "Still and quiet," he hissed. "Gabbleducks are only dangerous when not making any noise."

Gabbleduck!

Eldene had not really believed in them, but now the truth confronted her. She watched as the creature dropped back down and nosed back out into the flute grass, crushing a trail away from them and muttering as it went. When Fethan released her wrist, Eldene let out a suppressed breath and relaxed back against the rock.

"They eat grazers, you said?"

"Yeah, though you'll be unlikely to see any of them, as they run before you can get too close."

Eldene reached for her water bottle, but Fethan tapped her on the shoulder and stood up. "There's something else."

Eldene watched him climb up onto the outcrop, then unwrapped herself from her tarpaulin and followed when he gestured her to do so.

"Lot of activity out there tonight," said Fethan as Eldene joined him, failing to not crush the hemispherical molluscs under her feet no matter how carefully she trod. Fethan pointed over the flute grass, in the direction they had come.

The thing stood on two long thin legs that raised it high above the grass itself. Its body had the shape of a thick bucket seat, its long curved neck extending from what would have been the backrest. Below this neck, Eldene could just make out numerous sets of forearms folded as if in prayer. It had no head as such; the neck just terminated in a long serrated spear of a beak. While she watched, it took one delicate arching step that must have carried it over five metres. She noticed its foot was four-toed and webbed.

"Heroyne?" Eldene guessed.

"Yeah, a small one," Fethan affirmed.

As she watched the heroyne, Eldene felt tears filling her eyes — her recent experiences had been frightening, these creatures were frightening, yet both in their way were wonderful and in utter contrast to her grey toil under the Theocracy.

"Thank you," she said.

Fethan acknowledged this with a nod, and the both of them stood there for some time watching the heroyne as it strode on, occasionally spearing writhing shapes, occasionally shaking its beak at the jabbering of the gabbleduck. The rest of the night Eldene slept only intermittently, woken in turn by the increased fluting from the grasses, the momentary return of the gabbleduck, by nightmares of a heroyne towering over her and tilting its head while it decided if she might be good to eat — and by a tight ball of something in her stomach that she could only describe as happiness.