Chainglass pillars on either side of the bank’s entrance contained Rebecca Frisk and David Grenant, but these were the real thing: unable to die because of their tough Hooper bodies, unable to live because of their imprisonment and lack of nutrition and oxygen. Olian, on special occasions, fed them small supplies of both so that they could then hammer at the impenetrable walls of their containers and mouth screams through the preserving fluid in which they floated.

In the bank foyer, Olian Tay sat behind her desk working a console and screen. Two large Hoopers and two large skinless Golem stood to either side of her. The Hoopers eyed Ambel warily, knowing that if he caused any problems the four of them might not be enough to restrain him. Ambel studied the Golem, which stood there like silver skeletons. They were products of Polity technology: androids manufactured by Cybercorp, and here deliberately lacking their syntheflesh coverings so as to appear more threatening. He was not going to be a problem, though. With Boris and Anne standing at each shoulder, he took the seat opposite Olian and placed his box on the table.

‘Captain Ambel,’ began Olian, ‘always a pleasure. How is the lovely Erlin, and how is your crew?’ Before he could answer she went on. ‘And how is Crewman Peck?’ She repeatedly offered Peck a job in her museum as a guide and as an exhibit himself, he being the last victim to be skinned by the monstrosity back in the museum. Peck said the very idea gave him the willies, so it was not just the statue by the entryway keeping him away from here.

‘Peck is… Peck, and all the rest are fine,’ Ambel replied, opening his box.

Inside, two chainglass bottles nestled in kelp cotton. They contained rhombic ruby crystals. Ambel handled the bottles with care as he took them out and placed them on the table. Olian slid on a pair of surgical gloves, then a mask and goggles, before pulling over a set of scales. Though a Polity citizen, she had long been infected with the same virus as all Hoopers. Ambel leant back as she tipped crystals into the scales and weighed them.

‘I make that about four hundred and seventy-three grams. The Spatterjay measure is three hundred and twelve thanons, fifteen sear and twenty itch. Do you agree?’

Ambel nodded—he had weighed the stuff himself about five times.

‘A profitable trip. Anyone get hurt?’

‘Not by the leeches.’ Ambel gestured with a thumb over his shoulder. ‘Boris managed to cut off Crewman Sallow’s hand, but luckily it fell inside the giant leech we were cutting open, and we were able to retrieve it. Sallow’s as good as new now.’

‘So that’s three thousand one hundred and twenty New Skind, fifteen shligs and twenty pennies.’ Olian nodded to one of the Golem, who departed. She sat back. ‘Our rate is five per cent, as always, but you can keep the money here on account at three per cent interest, or we have some other interesting deals.’

Ambel started to fidget and scan around the room.

Olian continued, ‘You can buy share options in Artefact Trade Inc., or Island Jewels have an interesting…’

Ambel completely lost interest and the rest of her speech became just a background mutter to him. Once the Golem brought his money, Ambel thanked Olian and made his escape. What need did he have of accounts and investments? He would buy supplies, buy new rope and wood for repairs, maybe some Polity toys. But very soon he would be back out on the open ocean, where the Skind in your pocket meant less than the wind in your hair.

Below a low bloom of pastel green cloud spreading across the emerald sky, Windcheater the sail drifted on thermals high above the ferry. This was the only powered vessel he allowed on the seas of Spatterjay. He had lifted the design of the boat via his aug from historical records maintained in cyberspace—liking it because it ran counter to all the Polity’s present discrete technologies. It was in fact a Mississippi riverboat, though driven by a fusion-powered electric motor with a guaranteed lifespan of two hundred years. Windcheater liked to choose the technologies employed here, preferring his world not to be absorbed into the homogeneous Polity.

Gazing down he noticed that some rhinoworms were following the ferry, no doubt snapping up other creatures the big water wheels stunned in their leviathan progress. He watched as one of his own kind in turn snapped up a rhinoworm and flew off with the creature writhing in its jaws. He focused on the decks, but the people there were unclear, so he routed visual reception through his aug and in it magnified and cleaned up the image. The individual standing in the bows, clad in a long black coat, had to be the reification. Windcheater growled. No doubt Taylor Bloc had come to complain about interference in his plans. The sail now lifted his head and peered towards the ferry’s destination.

The Big Flint—a giant column of flint rearing a kilometre out of the sea—was wreathed in scaffolding which supported platforms, stairways, the oblate forms of easy-to-manufacture habitats, and communication arrays keeping the inhabitants here in contact with the Polity’s AI networks. Hoopers and some Polity citizens occupied those habitats, but his own kind kept to the platforms and the flat top of the Flint. Windcheater had briefly tried out enclosed residences for himself and his kind, but the resultant claustrophobia for flying creatures accustomed to living in the open had been difficult to overcome. At some point he intended to obtain Polity shimmer-shields because, that phobia aside, he had never enjoyed some of the weather the planet threw at the Big Flint.

‘I take it the Gurnard has arrived?’ he queried through his aug.

‘It’s in orbit, and Taylor Bloc’s cargo is being shuttled down to Mortuary Island,’ Sniper, the de facto Warden, instantly replied.

Windcheater banked, feeling the warm air rushing over his wing surfaces, found a thermal to take him higher.

‘What about the reifications?’

‘I’ve put out a call to those in the Dome. They’ll be shuttled to the island. I’ll also lay on a special shuttle for those yet to tranship, to take them direct. It’s about damned time. I’m getting an average of one complaint every few minutes and the air is none too sweet up here.’

Windcheater growled agreement. He understood reifications trying to ascertain why the nanochanger technology that could resurrect them had only worked on Spatterjay. But their deification of Sable Keech into the ‘Arisen One’, and their aim to journey to the Little Flint, where he had first employed his changer, and there attempt their own resurrection, stank of religion. Keech himself, before returning to the Polity and his beloved profession of hunting down criminals, had warned Windcheater not to let something like that get established here, as excising such was as difficult as getting rid of a bait-worm infestation. However, reifications were very often wealthy, by dint of having been around for a long time, and though Windcheater, Boss of Spatterjay, did not want them on his world, he did rather like their money.

‘By the way,’ Sniper added, ‘are you also aware that a large number of those reifs are not dead at all.’

‘You’re talking about the Batian mercenaries?’

‘Ah, so you are aware.’

‘Security for Lineworld Development’s investment in Bloc’s enterprise, and probably what Lineworld will use to steal that enterprise from him. I don’t know if Bloc is aware of them, nor do I care.’

‘Might get nasty,’ said Sniper with relish. ‘Many of the reifications are Kladites—Bloc’s little army.’

‘It might.’ Windcheater gave an aerial shrug—that wasn’t his problem.

Sniper did not want to be Warden, but such was his age and the sheer bulk of his experience, it had been unavoidable. Having sacrificed his old drone body to knock a Prador spaceship out of the sky before its owner used the vessel’s weapons to fry a Convocation of Old Captains, he had uploaded to the other Warden’s crystal and displaced that entity into storage. To relinquish control back to the original Warden required his being loaded to some other form of storage, and Sniper had thought about that long and hard. Over the last ten years, various drone bodies had been offered to him by the sector AI, all of which were better than his original in all but one respect: their armour and weapons. The sector AI had obviously wanted a less troublesome Sniper: a nicely castrated facsimile easier to control. But Sniper was a war drone, first, foremost and always.