Mika checked her readouts. All the life-support equipment was working at its maximum. She could keep Apis alive like this for many hours; but then she would need those hours to put him back together. Tiredly she went to work, cell and bone welders humming and hissing busily. When she finished, he would be complete and physically unscarred, but the remains of the Jain mycelium might still kill him, and if he remembered any of this, he might not be entirely sane.

Two metres down they hit gold, or rather brass.

The head was like something cracked from a brass statue of Apollo, only lines of division and of mechanical linkage showing that this head bore features that had once moved. Marlen reached down, attempting to pick the head up with one hand, but it was too heavy. He put his spade aside and grasped the object in both hands, holding it up to their captor, who took it in one hand, as if it weighed nothing, and inspected it. With a shudder, Marlen glimpsed movement in the grasping hand like something black writhing underneath the skin.

‘Case-hardened ceramal covered with a layer of zinc and copper alloy containing the superconductor net,’ the man said, then turned to the two diggers. ‘Keep digging. I want it all—every last piece.’ After a pause, he redirected his attention to the head, and Marlen, turning once again to take up his spade, briefly glimpsed two brass eyelids clicking open to reveal obsidian eyes.

‘What a pretty machine you are, Mr Crane. Aphran was so in awe of you.’

Placing the head on the ground, its gaze directed up at the sky, the man took his hand away and the eyes closed.

Soon Marlen and Inther uncovered a heavy ripped-open torso with one leg attached whose weight required both of them to haul it out of the excavation. Then came the other leg, and an arm. Continuing to dig, Marlen and Inther unearthed smaller components and fragments of memory crystal. The man was now getting impatient. Checking his scanner, he paced the entire area, then finally returned to them, obviously angry.

“There’s an arm missing,’ he snarled.

The two diggers gazed up at him dumbly. Then Marlen stooped, picked up another of the lumps of memory crystal, and placed it at the rim of the hole. The man now turned his attention to this, and abruptly smiled. ‘Find all of that.’ He turned and headed over to the laid-out pieces of android. Still digging, Marlen found that the latest command was not so harshly enforced, now their captor had other things to occupy him, so Marlen could keep a wary eye on what was occurring.

Their captor knelt by the juncture between separated leg and groin. He picked up the leg in one hand, then reached out and tilted the torso so that the exposed ceramal thighbone, still attached to the torso, was raised off the ground. He then slid the leg back over this bone until it was nearly back in position. He could not get it all the way on because of the torn metal, ripped optics and bent mechanical linkages at the break. Dropping the torso back to the ground, he then turned his attention to the arm, which he could do no more than push close to where it had been ripped away. Ball joints, protruding below the head, seated into the neck with audible clicks. Now, his expression beatific, the man pushed his hand inside the torn-open chest and closed his eyes. Immediately his skin seemed to turn grey, with a black insectile shifting underneath it. He jerked and, lying on the ground, the huge brass Golem jerked as well. In the gap between brass shoulder and arm, Marlen glimpsed glittery squirming movement before the arm drew up to the shoulder, sealing the gap.

‘Bring those other components,’ the man ordered.

Marlen scrambled out of the hole, gathered up the pile of twisted metal and brought it over. Dumping this on the ground beside the Golem, he observed swirling tentacular movement spreading from the man’s hand into the chest cavity. Marlen went back to pick up the pieces of crystal. As he returned with these, it was in time to see the man backing off, his hand still in the cavity, while the Golem stood up. Withdrawing his hand the man glanced down at the twisted scrap, snorted, then kicked it aside. Without speaking, he then directed Marlen to place the crystal fragments on a nearby rock. Given no further orders after this, Marlen stood watching while the man squatted and assembled the fragments like a Chinese puzzle.

‘There are more pieces to be found. Return to your digging.’

Before the instruction took full control of him, Marlen managed, ‘Who… what… are you?’

The man looked surprised at this resistance and somehow prevented the order from taking full effect, so that Marlen was able to remain where he was.

‘Me—just a man who has important work to do. It doesn’t matter that you know who I am, and soon enough the whole Polity will know my name. I’m Skellor. Now, best you get back to your digging, as your companion will soon be no great help to you, since I will be requiring his arm.’

Marlen turned and walked woodenly back to the hole, inwardly resisting all the way, knowing why it didn’t matter what he knew. Inther walked past him the other way, still drooling, one eye now red with blood. Marlen supposed Inther had been chosen because his stature more closely matched that of the Golem. Even while he shovelled earth, Marlen possessed freedom enough to turn his head and watch what happened to Inther. He did not, but he could not close his ears to the horrible sounds that ensued, and Skellor crooning, ‘Ah, Mr Crane, soon you will be better, so much better. I’ll perfect the work others left incomplete.’

The lander was a flat ellipse with a quarter segment cut out, where was substituted an ugly particle cannon and a pan-pipes missile launcher. Ascending on AG, the pilot made the mistake of correcting with HO attitude jets. Stalek sighed, pulled down his visor and checked the projection in its bottom right-hand corner, to be sure that all his hotsuit’s seals were locked down. He then took the remote control off his belt and pointed it ahead of him, sending his favourite pet digging for cover in the loose soil under the briars over there.

Inevitably, the flame from one of the ship’s attitude jets touched the ridge, and the incendiary briars there exploded into fire. Falco, standing to Stalek’s left, hurriedly slammed down his beaked visor as he had only just realized the possible danger.

The ship swung away and up, the particle cannon tracking the sheets of flame, then out in an arc from the fire itself looking for attackers. Stalek felt something thump against his shoulder and glanced down as a briar pod—much like a segmented cluster of Brazil nuts — landed on the ground with its segments opening out. He noted the pod’s blue-green hue.

‘Premature,’ he said.

‘What?’ said Falco.

‘Premature burn. The briar isn’t really ready, so the fire won’t spread.’

Falco nodded and flicked up his visor, once again demonstrating to Stalek the man’s stupidity. Stalek would have dispensed with him long ago had it not been for Falco’s ability to follow orders with admittedly no imagination but meticulous precision—exactly the sort of person required for some of the more repetitive mind-numbing tasks Stalek’s business required. Still watching the man, Stalek waited. The fire was dying, but the danger wasn’t past. Briar pods began thumping down all around, in a green hail. It took one of these breaking on Falco’s armoured shoulder to make the man realize he should not yet have opened his visor. Falco swore and jumped, slamming his visor down over his avian face again. Stalek sighed and returned his attention to the ship, as it came towards them.

Coding the frequency he had been sent into his comunit, Stalek said, ‘Any kind of naked flame down here is not really a smart idea. I suggest that if any correction of attitude is required, you use gravadjustment or air jets.’