It was the burn again. Through the crew member who now controlled all the Occam Razor's energy shielding and shield generators, he located the huge misalignment. Overall there were eighty-four separate generators that shielded the ship from the hard radiation of space, or attack, and most importantly from the mind-scrambling effects of U-space — which even now were not clearly understood, at least by any human mind. The flat screens — a harder version of the shimmer-shield, and likewise a product of runcible technology — all had to mesh perfectly within a second of the U-space motors dropping the ship into under-space. They also oscillated on and off thereafter — the brief period they were off enabling the U-space motors to keep the ship hurtling through that ineffable dimension. But that had not happened: they'd dropped into U-space unshielded; then, within only a few minutes, had been forced out of it again when the shields started operating out of alignment to the motors. Every one of those generators had been connected in a complex net, and every one of them had been run by something that fell somewhere in between a submind and a plain control program.

"You piece of shit," spat Skellor, shutting down the grav-plate below the Captain's corpse. Then, grunting with an effort that had tears of blood forming in the corners of his eyes, he extruded a Jain outgrowth from the wall behind the corpse, which grabbed it around the neck and hauled it upright and back against the wall. Probing inside the man, he found nothing alive. It was not the shots that had killed him — the man's mind was burnt out like everything else on this ship. There would be no satisfaction there.

Skellor closed his eyes, the rage in him growing beyond the proportions of the human part of his mind, cycling into something difficult to contain. Opening his eyes, he fixed his gaze on the man — the thing — he had created, to control the ship's shielding. This man started shaking inside the Jain architecture that enclosed him, then he started screaming as its material closed about him. His bones broke with erratic thuds, and suddenly his screams were choked off. Abruptly all of him that was still visible shrivelled and turned grey. He diminished, drained away as nutrient for… Skellor.

With his rage finally under control, Skellor slid into a cold analytical mode. There had been no real satisfaction there because what he had killed possessed less sentience than an animal, and the screams had been little more than an autonomic reaction, utterly disconnected and operating in its own limited circuit. Now Skellor must grow a replacement for this erstwhile member of his command crew. He turned his attention to Aphran and saw that she was watching him with terrified eyes — there was still enough of her left to realize her danger. Skellor turned his attention away from her before further temptation to kill overwhelmed him, and gazed out through the ship's sensors. Taking navigational information from those parts of himself and from the command crew wherein it was contained — already he was finding it increasingly difficult to identify those parts as somewhere outside his own mind — he saw that there was a solar system near enough for the ship to reach in a U-space jump of only minutes' duration. There he would find what he needed: energy from a sun, asteroidal matter — all those things he needed to fully control the Occam Razor, and to grow.

Cormac returned to consciousness, gasping: lightheaded with the euphoria produced by oxygen flooding a brain starved for long enough to drag him into unconsciousness. He reached up and more firmly clamped the mask over his nose and mouth, then opened his eyes.

His vision was blurred and dark around the edges, and it was a moment before he realized Gant was stooping over him. In another moment, he remembered where he was. He looked at the main screen, saw fire and black smoke, and heard a roaring crackle from outside the craft.

"You all right?" Gant asked.

Cormac removed the mask from his face for a moment. "Bruised, but not broken I think, though somewhat annoyed with myself." He put the mask back on.

"Annoyed?"

Cormac found it easier to speak into the mask, rather than run out of breath while speaking with it pulled away from his face. "I should have remembered about the air mix down here, just as I should have had Apis run a diagnostic on those ion engines."

"As to the air mix, not everyone's perfect," said Gant. "And as to the engines, do you think that knowing they wouldn't work would have helped in some way?"

"Maybe Dragon…"

Gant grimaced.

Cormac shrugged, wished he hadn't, then looked to one side. Apis was not in his seat. He tried looking back, but his neck hurt too much. "They okay?" he asked.

"In the back," Gant explained. "Let me help you."

Gant undid his seat straps and, using his supporting arm, Cormac got unsteadily to his feet, then took the oxygen pack Gant was holding and carefully slung its strap over one shoulder.

The back of the craft was in utter chaos — part of the floor was torn open, and seats had come away from their mountings; mud blackened many surfaces, having been sprayed up through this hole; and the air itself was hazy with smoke. Scar was not present; Mika stood, with her face masked, strapping on an oxygen pack; Apis had meanwhile opened a number of lockers, and was hauling out bits of equipment. There seemed to be plenty of it, certainly, but Cormac couldn't see any way they might transport it. He noted that the young Outlinker had an oxygen bottle, similar to Cormac's, clipped on the back of his exoskeleton, its nozzle obviously compatible with the exo's universal adaptor.

"Where's Scar?" he asked.

Gant pointed to the ceiling of the craft. "Up there, having a look."

"That's good, though I suspect he's not going to see a lot. Now, as far as I see it, we've got to get to help before our oxygen supply runs out."

"Help being?" Gant wondered. "I don't think the Theocracy are going to greet us with milk and cookies."

"What help we get from them might not be willingly given, but we'll have it all the same. No, we have to get ourselves to this Underworld and, from what I understand of it, the way to get there is through those mountains we overflew on the way in."

At this Apis spoke up: "Those mountains are now two hundred kilometres away."

"I didn't say it was going to be easy," said Cormac.

"There are also other aspects of this place which may make things difficult," added Mika.

"Delight me with the news," said Cormac.

"Obviously, knowing where we were coming to, I accessed the Occam's files concerning the ecology of this place."

"Let me guess: the full set of flesh-eating monsters?"

"In most cases that is correct," she agreed. "Though in one case the creature concerned is probably capable of eating metal as well." She glanced at Gant. "No offence intended."

"None taken, I'm sure," Gant replied.

Cormac turned to inspect the stuff Apis had pulled out of the lockers. "Okay, let's see what we can take and get moving. Even though the Theocracy currently has enough problems with Dragon, they still might send someone out here to investigate."

Cormac soon had confirmation that they had no shortage of supplies — it was just a question of how much they could carry, and what items to select. When Scar returned inside, and bluntly informed them that the fire — having used up all the air that had spilt like a pool around the lander — was dying, Cormac realized that they would not need oxygen for the dracoman — the lack of it outside obviously not having bothered Scar in the slightest. Slightly puzzled, Cormac asked him, "Why did you need oxygen on Callorum?"

"Didn't," Scar replied. "Just didn't want to change for the cyanide."