'I'm not going to shut down your link,' Blegg said.

Cormac nodded as the runcible installation came into view. He noted the sudden surge of excited talk from the other passengers. There, on the plain of rock, stood a city of glass and light. On clear nights it was something you could actually see from the surface of the planet. He drew his eyes away from the vision only when a soft chime announced a message.

'Please fasten your seat belts,' said the soft voice of the shuttle AI. Cormac did as instructed. The message was very different in executive class.

'Who will shut it down, then?' he asked.

'Any runcible AI will do so when you request it to,' Blegg replied.

Retros fired and the gravity inside the shuttle was slowly adjusted to that of Cereb's. Cormac felt his weight decreasing, but that gave him no lift.

'Am I ordered to disconnect?' he asked.

Something roared and the shuttle vibrated. It dipped down towards the shuttleport on the outskirts of the installation. Here was a webwork of glowing lines, almost like some huge circuit diagram, which painted the artificially levelled rock. The shuttle decelerated on retros and clawing AG fields. It tilted and sank down towards a boxed area beside a cluster of towers like perspex cigars. As it descended, Cormac caught a glimpse of the walkway snaking out across the rock.

'You are not ordered to disconnect. We do not order people to desist from actions that are killing them, just so long as they know it, and harm no one else,' Blegg replied.

'The link is killing me?'

'I did not say that. It would kill you if you were to continue in your present line of work. You have to decide if you want to continue.'

Cormac got the picture. He grimaced as he listened to the shuttle's skids extend and crunch on stone. While passengers were unclipping their belts and grabbing up for their hand luggage in a manner unchanged in centuries, he considered his options. He had been gridlinked for thirty years. He had been with ECS for ten years longer than that. Perhaps it was time for a change. He thought about the things he had seen and the things he had done. Many of the latter were not admirable, but they had been necessary. Perhaps it was time for him to retire, buy a nice little residence beside a sea on some nice peaceful planet? He undipped his belt and stood. Time for a change? Like hell it was. RuncibleAI.

Yes, Ian Cormac.

I wish you to disconnect and completely shut down my gridlink.

You wish me to do this now?

Yes.

Goodbye to you, Ian Cormac.

Cormac lurched where he stood, felt a hand seemingly made of iron grip his arm and steady him. He felt a hundred connections shutting down one by one. Huge frames of reference dragged themselves from his skull down to infinitesimal dots and just blinked out. A deep ache dug its claws into the base of his skull and suddenly, all around his head, mere was only empty air.

'You do not delay once you have made a decision,' said Blegg. 'It is why we are glad to have you working for us, Agent Cormac.'

A voice, just a spoken voice: soundwaves vibrating hair-cells in his auditory canal. How the hell could he manage with such an inefficient system? As he disembarked and walked into the connecting tunnel, Blegg silent at his side, Cormac had never felt so empty.

The Banks, two of them exposed by the receding tide like giant beached flounders, consisted of heaped penny oysters and trumpet shells. The former were an adaptation that had taken to the Cheyne III environment with alacrity, but only after an unexpected mutation. Though elsewhere they were appreciated for their distinctive, nutty taste, here they were noted only for their lethality. The latter was a native mollusc that grew up to a metre long and had an appearance much as its name implied. They were also poisonous to humans, but had been the dark otters' main food source. It had come as a surprise to ecologists to discover that penny oysters had also become a favourite.

'OK, Geneve, wind it out,' said Veltz, more for Pelter's benefit than hers; she knew what she was doing.

The cable motor went into reverse, so the dead egg-carrier remained where it was as Veltz turned his vessel to come athwart one of the banks.

'That should do us,' said Veltz.

The motor brake squeaked on and Veltz watched the cable as it dragged up the slope of the bank. He kept going until the Meercat was on one side of the bank and the corpse on the other, then he slewed the boat round to face the bank itself.

'Wind it in,' he said.

The motors came on again, drawing the cable taut and pulling both otter and vessel in towards the bank. Eventually the Meercat grounded and, a moment after that, so did the corpse. Veltz eased up the tfirust on the turbine as the motor continued to whine, keeping the Meercat in position. The dark otter slowly slid up the bank, ripping its skin on the sharp edges of the penny oysters and breaking the trumpet shells off at their stems. Soon it was clear of the water and draped over the central ridge formed of shellfish.

'OK, that's enough. Close off the barbs and get our knife back,' said Veltz.

Geneve hit another control, then increased the speed on the cable motor. The ceramal harpoon was pulled from the body of the dark otter, leaving a wound like obscene blue lips. It clanged to the ground and the motor rapidly wound it in.

Pelter stood. 'Let us take a look then,' he said.

Veltz and Geneve undipped their belts and also stood up. Geneve strapped the sheath of a long chainglass boning knife across her back. Veltz took a similar instrument from his seat and strapped it on. Pelter looked at bodi of them for a moment, then turned his back and stepped dirough the bulkhead door. Veltz saw Geneve's questioning expression and shook his head. Not a good move. They both wanted to get out of this alive.

Pelter lowered a metal roll-ladder from the hatch in the floor of the galley section of the cabin. He was first down to the mollusc-bound island. Geneve followed, then Veltz.

'This is where you always bring them?' asked Pelter.

'Yeah,' Veltz replied. 'Every high tide their kin dispose of the evidence. The bones would be indigestible, but, of course, there are never any left.'

Pelter nodded. 'Otter bone still gets a good price?' he asked.

Veltz studied the mounded corpse. It was over six metres long and two wide. There had to be a good ton of hard copper-impregnated bone under that slick black skin. The price would have been something just over 10,000 New Carth shillings. Would have been. Veltz doubted Pelter would allow them time to proceed with their butchery. This corpse would be lost in the next tide. He looked at Pelter and wondered what the hell the Separatist was delaying for. Pelter returned his look for a moment, then turned away.

'OK,' he said. 'Cut it open.'

Geneve drew her chainglass blade and held it up in the watery sunlight for a moment. She then stepped up onto the ridge and walked to where the otter's huge and eyeless frog head lay sideways on the ground, its maw agape. She drove the tip of her knife into its baggy throat, then, taking the handle in bodi her hands, she walked backwards and drew the blade down the lengdi of the creature's body. The body unzipped with the pressure of its bulk, spilling blue and purple offal down the ridge and across the bank. The offal did not steam, as Pelter had expected it to. He turned and looked at Veltz. Without a word the captain drew his own knife and joined Geneve. He began sorting the offal with the blade of his knife, then swore quietiy. He had to ask, so he turned to Pelter.

'We really need to know what we're looking for,' he said.

'Who, not "what".'

It was all the reply Veltz needed and he continued his search. After a moment he said, 'This is the main intestine. Similar set-up to an Earth mammal.' Pelter just stared, only displaying any reaction when Veltz split the intestine and spilled its contents. Masses of bile-bound shellfish spilled across the bank. From these there rose a little steam into the air, and a coppery tang of decay.