"So the Mind's still around somewhere?" Yalson said, looking at the drone in Horza's hand. The Changer nodded.

Balveda watched Horza and Yalson walk into the darkness at the far end of the station. She went over to where the drone floated above Neisin, monitoring his vital functions and sorting out some vials of medicine in the medkit. Wubslin kept his gun pointed at the trapped Idiran, but watched Balveda from the corner of his eye at the same time; the Culture woman sat down cross-legged near the stretcher.

"Before you ask," the drone said, "no, there's nothing you can do."

"I had guessed that, Unaha-Closp," Balveda said.

"Hmm. Then you have ghoulish tendencies?"

"No, I wanted to talk to you."

"Really." The drone continued to sort the medicines.

"Yes…" She sat forward, elbow on her knee, chin cupped in her hand. She lowered her voice a little. "Are you biding your time, or what?"

The drone turned its front to her; an unnecessary gesture, they both knew, but one it was used to making. "Biding my time?"

"You've let him use you so far. I just wondered: how much longer?"

The drone turned away again, hovering over the dying man. "Perhaps you hadn't noticed, Ms Balveda, but my choices in this matter are almost as limited as yours."

"I've only got arms and legs, and I'm locked away at night, trussed up. You're not."

"I have to keep watch. He has a movement sensor which he leaves switched on, anyway, so he would know if I tried to escape. And besides, where would I go?"

"The ship," Balveda suggested, smiling. She looked back up the dark station, where the lights on their suits showed Yalson and the Changer picking something up from the ground.

"I would need his ring. Do you want to take it from him?"

"You must have an effector. Couldn't you fool the ship's circuits? Or even just that motion sensor?"

"Ms Balveda-"

"Call me Perosteck."

"Perosteck, I am a general-purpose drone, a civilian. I have light fields; the equivalent of many fingers, but not major limbs. I can produce a cutting field, but only a few centimetres in depth, and not capable of taking on armour. I can interface with other electronic systems, but I cannot interfere with the hardened circuits of military equipment. I possess an internal forcefield which lets me float, regardless of gravity, but apart from using my own mass as a weapon, that is not really of much use, either. In fact, I am not particularly strong; when I needed to be, for my job, there were attachments available for my use. Unfortunately, I was not employing them when I was abducted. Had I been, I probably wouldn't be here now."

"Damn," Balveda said into the shadows. "No aces up your sleeve?"

"No sleeves, Perosteck."

Balveda took in a deep breath and stared glumly at the dark floor. "Oh dear," she said.

"Our leader approaches," Unaha-Closp said, affecting weariness in its voice. It turned and nodded its front towards Yalson and Horza, returning from the far end of the cavern. The Changer was smiling. Balveda rose smoothly to her feet as Horza beckoned to her.

"Perosteck Balveda," Horza said, standing with the others at the bottom of the rear access gantry and holding out one hand towards the Idiran trapped in the wreckage above, "meet Xoxarle."

"This is the female you claim is a Culture agent, human?" the Idiran said, turning his head awkwardly to look down at the group of people below him.

"Pleased to meet you," Balveda muttered, arching one eyebrow as she gazed up at the trapped Idiran.

Horza walked up the ramp, passing Wubslin, who was training his gun on the trapped being. Horza still held the remote drone. He came to the second level ramp and looked down at the Idiran's face.

"See this, Xoxarle?" He held the drone up. It glinted in the lights of his suit.

Xoxarle nodded slowly. "It is a small piece of damaged equipment." The deep, heavy voice betrayed signs of strain, and Horza could see a trickle of dark purple blood on the floor of the ramp Xoxarle lay squashed upon.

"It's what you two proud warriors had when you thought you'd captured the Mind. This is all there was. A remote drone casting a weak soligram. If you'd taken this back to the fleet they'd have thrown you into the nearest black hole and wiped your name from the records. You're damn lucky I came along when I did."

The Idiran looked thoughtfully at the wrecked drone for a short while.

"You," Xoxarle said slowly, "are lower than vermin, human. Your pathetic tricks and lies would make a yearling laugh. There must be more fat inside your thick skull than there is even on your skinny bones. You aren't fit to be thrown up."

Horza stepped onto the ramp which had fallen on top of the Idiran. He heard the being's breath suck in harshly through taut lips as he walked slowly over to where Xoxarle's face stuck out beneath the wreckage. "And you, you goddamn fanatic, aren't fit to wear that uniform. I'm going to find the Mind you thought you had, and then I'm going to take you back to the fleet, where if they've any sense they'll let the Inquisitor try you for gross stupidity."

"Fuck…" the Idiran gasped painfully, "… your animal soul."

Horza used the neural stunner on Xoxarle. Then he and Yalson and the drone Unaha-Closp levered the ramp off the Idiran's body and sent it crashing down to the station floor. They cut the armour from the giant's body, then hobbled his legs with wire and tied down his arms to his sides. Xoxarle had no broken limbs, but the keratin on one side of his body was cracked and oozed blood, while another wound, between his collar scale and right shoulder plate, had closed up once the pressure was taken off him. He was big, even for an Idiran; over three and a half metres, and not thin. Horza was glad the tall male — a section leader according to the insignia on the armour he had been wearing — was probably injured internally and going to be in pain. It would make him less of a problem to guard once he had woken up; he was too big for the restrainer harness.

Yalson sat, eating a rationfood bar, her gun balanced on one knee and pointing straight at the unconscious Idiran, while Horza sat at the bottom of the ramp and tried to repair his helmet. Unaha-Closp watched over Neisin, as powerless as the rest of them to do anything to help the wounded man.

Wubslin sat on the pallet making some adjustments to the mass sensor. He had already taken a look round the Command System train, but what he really wanted was to see a working one, in better light and without radiation stopping him looking through the reactor car.

Aviger stood by Dorolow's body for a while. Then he went to the far access ramp, where the body of the other Idiran, the one Xoxarle had called Quayanorl, lay, holed and battered, limbs missing. Aviger looked around and thought nobody was watching, but both Horza, looking up from the wrecked helmet, and Balveda, walking round and stamping and shaking her feet in an attempt to keep warm, saw the old man swing his foot at the still body lying on the ramp, kicking the helmed head as hard as he could. The helmet fell off; Aviger kicked the naked head. Balveda looked at Horza, shook her head, then went on pacing up and down.

"You're sure we've accounted for all the Idirans?" Unaha-Closp asked Horza. It had floated about the station and through the train, accompanying Wubslin. Now it was facing the Changer.

"That's the lot," Horza said, looking not at the drone but at the mess of fractured optic fibres lying bloated and fused together inside the outer skin of his helmet. "You saw the tracks."

"Hmm," the machine said.

"We've won, drone," Horza said, still not looking at it. "We'll get the power on in station seven and then it won't take us long to track the Mind down."