"I've got no sense of scale here," he admitted to Gant. "What do you see out there?"

"Creatures standing… about four metres above the flute grass. No way of telling their actual height, as there could be a few metres of leg and foot going way down through the grass and mud. They're moving away from us, anyway. It's those other ones that aren't visible which I find more worrying."

"I beg your pardon," said Cormac.

Gant shrugged. "I've led us round some big wormlike things that lie underground — don't know if they're predators or not — and Scar here stung the arse of something that started homing in on us all just before this happened." He gestured towards the crater.

"I'll thank you to keep me informed in future," said Cormac, almost unconsciously bringing his fingers up to the touch control of his shuriken holster as he scanned their surroundings.

"Those are heroynes," said Mika.

Cormac turned to her. "What?"

She pointed at the distant creatures. "Heroynes."

"Dangerous?" Cormac asked.

"As dangerous to a human as a terrestrial heron is to a frog," said Mika. "They might mistake us for food."

"Shouldn't be too much of a problem, then," said Cormac. Mika just stared at him, as he went on with, "Last I heard, terrestrial frogs didn't go around armed."

At this, Apis let out a laugh that sounded almost like a gasp of pain. Perhaps it was the surreal imagery; perhaps he was just losing it. He laughed again, tears in his eyes, then shook his head and made a weak gesture towards Scar, who was now crouching, with his attention still directed down into the crater, as it had been from the first. Cormac nodded, allowing that Scar bore a resemblance to a large and heavily armed frog, then turned his attention to Gant as the Golem gestured beyond the distant heroynes.

"That's not all," he said. "From the direction they and those other things in the grasses are heading, I'm seeing munitions flashes; and from what I've been able to pick up on uncoded frequencies, there's some sort of war going on."

"The Underground," said Cormac. "They'll be taking the surface now. From what I know they would have grabbed the opportunity presented."

They soon reached the area earlier indicated by Gant, where the impact had peeled up a huge slab of limestone from the bedrock and dropped it like a ramp up the slope of mud. Also peeled up with this rock was a mass of chalk and tricone shell conglomerate that lay in boulders half-sunk all around. Chalky water had drained from these and from the slab, and had run down the slope to gather in milky pools. There was movement here as well, as tricones gobbled their way under the surface dragging crushed vegetation down to be munched at their leisure. Gant led the way down into the crater, quickly followed by Mika with instruments, recently taken from the pack Scar carried, clutched in both hands. The dracoman came down last — reluctant and hissing quietly as he stepped delicately down the stone. Broken shell in the chalky slurry across the face of the stone made footing firm and it was only minutes after stepping onto it that they could all step off it to trudge through a chalky morass towards the remains of Dragon.

"Ambient temperature's low. From previous experience, too low. And there are no electrochemical signatures… nothing out of the ordinary," observed Mika.

"You're saying it's definitely dead?" said Cormac, who had stopped to change his oxygen bottle. "No ambivalence in the readings, like there is in Dragon's conversation?"

"I think… yes, I am sure," said Mika.

"Okay, we'll give you an hour here — so find out what you can," he said.

Mika looked round at him. "Only an hour, why?" she asked.

"Now that question sounded almost natural," Cormac replied. "It's a shame that the answer is quite obvious." He held up his empty oxygen bottle, and then tossed it aside. Mika went quickly to work.

Eldene allowed the ATV to roll to a halt as it broke through into the clearing. Thorn, who was inspecting the turret gun magazines from a drop-down ladder, swore then released his hold to land on the floor in a crouch. Fethan had reached the weapons-control chair before him and held the targeting visor ready to press against his own face.

Eldene looked round. "Something's happened to them," she said.

Thorn came smoothly upright and was beside her in a second, one hand leaning on the console as he gazed through the screen.

"Ease us forward," he said. Then with a glance back at Fethan, "Stay on it."

The last of the flute grass parted before the vehicle, to reveal a mossy clearing around a low outcrop of limestone nested amongst black plantains and the nodular volvae of rhubarbs. What lay near this outcrop was identifiable as the armoured car that had fled them, but only just so. It had teen torn apart: the back end, along with one axle still bearing shredded balloon tyres, lay to the right, a section containing a torn-open engine and one tread lay in front of them, and the remaining tread, cabin and guns seemed to have been put through a mincer, then pounded into the ground.

"They must have been carrying planar explosives or something," said Thorn. He glanced at Eldene. "Stop us here. I want to have a look at this."

He and Fethan were out through the door, even as Eldene was shutting down the motor and applying the brake. Before following them, she studied the scene a moment longer — such a savage wreck, but no burn marks… She left the ATV with her pulse-rifle held across her stomach, and with its safety off.

"Has to be a planar load," Thorn was saying. "I can't think of anything else that would make such a mess."

Eldene noted how Fethan scanned the surrounding grasses, his gaze coming to rest at last on an only just visible channel pressed through it. The old cyborg then tilted his head and listened intently.

"Where are they?" Eldene asked.

Thorn glanced round at her. "What?"

"Where are the soldiers?"

With a puzzled expression Thorn stepped closer to the wreckage to study it. He prodded at a shredded tyre with the barrel of the pulse-gun he had drawn, Eldene standing now behind him, nervously surveying their surroundings.

"Not there," said Fethan. "Over here." The cyborg crooked a finger at them.

Eldene and Thorn walked over to him and gazed down at what he indicated on the ground. The moss here was red, as such mosses often were, but this red was wet and glistening and recognizable as human blood — which she'd seen enough examples of quite recently. Also, scattered here and there, were small diamonds of human skin and fragments of bone. Fethan squatted down, picked up one of these fragments, and held it up to show how one edge had strange concave serrations, as if someone had drilled a line of holes before breaking the bone along them.

"Back to the ATV. I'll drive," he instructed. Then, pointing off to the right, "We go that way."

"What is it, Fethan?" Eldene asked, feeling something crawling up her spine.

"It's almost pointless to run if it comes after us," he replied. "In the mountains I had cover, and that was a small one."

"Quit with the mysterious bullshit," said Thorn.

"Hooder," said Fethan, pointing to their left. "It's about half a klom over there, as far as I can estimate, digesting its meal." Indicating the wreckage, he finished with, "And, judging by what's happened here, that meal was just an entrée."

Standing behind the Captain's chair, Aberil studied with cold satisfaction the screens and readouts in front of the man. Lellan had failed to take the spaceport, and would now be caught between hammer and anvil. The Lee and Portentous carried two armoured divisions each, and they would provide the hammer. The forces contained in the three remaining ships — Ducking Stools Gabriel, and Witchfire, the last of which he was presently aboard — were the anvil against which the rebellion would be crushed. It annoyed him now that he had chosen to board one of the ships carrying the fleet of landers, but he had not expected Lellan's failure to take the spaceport, and had not wanted to be stranded in orbit, merely conveying his orders to the attack leaders. Gazing around at his staff officers and orderlies, who were clinging to the rope nets ranged behind the seated command crew of the ship, and who would soon accompany him to the surface, he nodded with satisfaction then sent: