Anderson nodded, then picked up a roasted rock louse, broke it open, pulled out the thumb of flesh it contained, ate it. He eyed the ripples in his shot glass of quavit, before picking it up and taking a sip. ‘True, this has been a journey I’ve not wanted to end—but I don’t consider the acquisition of knowledge to be aimless.’

Just then, something crashed down amid the buildings on the other side of the street. Anderson noted that many citizens were now picking up their pace and looking about themselves nervously. But it seemed the quake had reached its peak, for it now began to tail off.

‘So why are you going to end your journey?’ Tergal asked—pretending negligent unconcern about the vibrating ground, Anderson thought.

‘I don’t think I will, really. I’ll travel through the Sand Towers up onto the Plains and find my dragon, then I’ll probably just carry on. I guess the reason I’m going is that I’ve seen all I feel inclined to see this side of the Towers.’

‘What about money?’ Tergal asked.

Anderson did not feel inclined to answer that. Being kind, he could suppose the boy was discomforted by the fact that Anderson had paid for their room, for the hog corral, and now for this food and drink. But, being himself, he also felt sure the boy was in the process of deciding whether or not Anderson was worth the risk of robbing. He’d made no move so far—Anderson had been watching—but then perhaps he was a meticulous and careful thief.

‘I suspect I won’t be requiring much money until I reach the other side of the Plains. There’s not many people live between here and there,’ the knight replied.

‘But you’ll be needing supplies.’

‘Yes.’

‘Then so will I.’

Anderson watched as the boy picked up the small rucksack he had brought along in Laforge’s small diesel car, and opened it on the table to reveal some fine lumps of yellow jade. He felt a sudden tiredness at this intimation of Tergal’s past, combined with a hope for the boy’s future. That he intended to use his ill-gotten gains to obtain supplies perhaps meant he did not intend to rob Anderson, at least yet.

‘You think I’ll find a buyer for this here?’ Tergal asked.

‘I should think so. You intend to accompany me then?’

Tergal replied, ‘I’ve seen a maelstrom and a singing tornado, and I once saw the Inconstant Sea fleeing between dunes. But I have never seen a dragon.’

Was that it? Was the boy now attracted to a different and less criminal adventure? Anderson hoped so but, knowing human nature so well, he did not have much faith in redemption. As Tergal stood, Anderson returned his attention to his surroundings, and then, as the boy moved away, turned his mind to other thoughts.

The quake had ceased, and as always Anderson wondered what was causing them. He had read about earthquakes in the library of Rondure, just as he had read about so many other things that for many years had no bearing on the people of Cull. Here, on this old world, the radioactives cycled up from the planet’s core were all but spent, and as the magma cooled, the crust just grew steadily thicker. Plate tectonics were nonexistent—the crust was one big plate. There should be no earthquakes.

There was little sign of the drastic procedure Gant had described, but then, as Cormac knew from personal experience, it was possible to cell-weld the most severe injuries so that no visible sign remained. Apis lay flat on the surgical table with thin optic wires leading to probes in his body, and the various tubes connecting him to the area of the autodoc Cormac recognized as containing its filtration equipment. Eldene glanced up from the chair she had sprawled in beside the supine Outlinker, before returning her attention to her lover. She looked tired — worn out by worry.

‘So you’re back,’ was all she said.

‘What is Mika’s prognosis for him?’ Cormac asked. At her puzzled expression he added, ‘Does she say he’ll recover?’

‘She doesn’t know. She said broken and dying filaments inside him will perpetually poison him, while others still alive may start to grow out of control,’ Eldene replied, then looked past him as the door behind opened.

Cormac looked round and studied Mika as she entered the room: tired, obviously, and perhaps a little guilty. She gazed at Apis, then turned her attention to Cormac.

‘The quarantine is over,’ she suggested.

‘Not entirely. First all the Jain technology here must be secured and made safe.’

‘All Jain technology,’ Mika stated, again trying not to make it a question.

Cormac nodded towards Apis and Eldene. ‘These two will have to stay under observation here in a Polity base. You and Thorn will also remain under observation while you accompany me.’

Eldene abruptly stood up. ‘Apis cannot be moved.’

‘He won’t be moved, not until it is safe to do so,’ Cormac replied.

Eldene looked at Mika, seeking some kind of support, some reassurance from her.

Mika said, ‘There will be doctors and surgeons coming here with abilities equal to if not in excess of my own, and with more… more Polity technology to employ. I am primarily a research scientist. He will do better with them.’

This seemed to satisfy Eldene and she just as abruptly sat down again.

Cormac again studied Mika’s expression. ‘What went wrong?’

Mika rubbed at her face. ‘In the days when we couldn’t correct them, faults in DNA led to cancers. The chemical machinery of the mycelia I made is not DNA, but is just as complex.’

‘Faults?’ Cormac raised an eyebrow.

‘There’s something you must see,’ said Mika, gesturing for Cormac to follow her. When Gant and Thorn also moved to follow, she held up her hand. ‘This is for the agent only.’

The two seemed set to object, but with a look Cormac stilled any protest. He then leavened this by leaning in close to them and whispering, ‘Get your stuff ready—we ship out as soon as possible.’

Mika led him out of the surgical facility and into a room kitted out much like a research laboratory aboard a spaceship. Once Cormac closed the door, she indicated a cylindrical chainglass tank standing on one of the counters.

‘That’s what I took out of him,’ she said.

Cormac studied the tank’s contents. The mycelium was moving slowly and in some places had etched marks into the tough chainglass. He noted the woody, fibrous structure of the thing, and the nodal growths within it.

‘Interesting, but what is it you want to tell me?’

‘It is difficult to admit to error, sometimes.’

Cormac instantly understood why she had not wanted the others present, and he waited for her confession.

She continued, ‘The mycelia I made, or rather transcribed, must have been faulty, though I’ve yet to discover what that fault is. Certainly it is some kind of copying error in its contained blueprint—its DNA, if you like.’ She gestured at the writhing mycelium. ‘These are becoming cancerous. I can only surmise that the nodes you see there are tumours.’

‘You said the mycelia you made?’

She nodded. ‘Probably this is not the case in the original, and the four I made are all exactly the same.’

‘So what happened to Apis, will happen to Eldene, Thorn and yourself?’

‘Yes, it’s happening now.’

Cormac considered her guilt. ‘Apis would have been dead by now without it, as would you after being shot by that Theocracy soldier.’

‘But Thorn and Eldene…’

Cormac grimaced. ‘You made a mistake, Mika.’ He thought about Elysium and the deaths he himself had indirectly caused there. ‘But in your time you have saved more lives than you have taken—that’s the best any of us can hope for.’

‘But I still made a mistake,’ Mika said woodenly.