Quinn laughed softly. “Not that easy, shithead. I told you, I want your help. I need a local smartarse to straighten out crap like a ship and how to sneak my possessed disciples past the pigs guarding the planet. Someone who knows all the access codes around here. And that’s you, Twelve-T. As He chose me, so I have chosen you.” He glanced around at the gang’s remaining soldiers. “We’ll open the rest of this worthless trash for possession; then convert all of Jesup. After that, nobody down below will be able to resist us.”

“Oh, Jesus, help us,” Twelve-T begged. “Please.”

“Ain’t no God,” Quinn mimicked savagely. “So he ain’t got no son, has he?” Laughing, he pushed Twelve-T down towards the decking. The gang lord’s knees bent, allowing the stikpad to fasten to his trousers. Quinn stood in front of the supplicant and beckoned Lawrence over. “I know you’re a tough mother, Twelve-T. If you’re possessed you’ll only try to fool your new owner, jazz me about as best you can. You and your dumb pride. I can’t afford that kind of shit anymore. That means I’m gonna have to squeeze what I want to know out of you myself, so I know you’re being honest.”

Kneeling before the monster, head bowed, Twelve-T said: “I will never help you.”

“You will. I have many ways of binding my disciples to me. For most it is love or fear. For you, I choose dependence.” He placed his hands on either side of Twelve-T’s silver head. The feat was the converse of a coronation. Quinn lifted the silver cap from the gang lord’s skull with an almost gentle reverence. It came loose with a soft sucking sound. The bone underneath was covered in a sticky red mucus. Ichor dribbled over Twelve-T’s face, mingling with sticky tears.

Lawrence took the cap from Quinn, acting as jester to the king. A little mad giggle escaped from the boy’s lips as he held it in front of the stricken gang lord, its mirror surface ensuring he witnessed his own reduction to impotent vassal.

Quinn’s hands descended again. This time the noise was louder as the bone creaked and split. He lifted the top of the skull high, smiling at the bloody trophy. Twelve-T’s naked brain glistened below him, wrapped in delicate membranes, small beads of fluid weeping up from the tightly packed ribbons of tissue.

“Now I can keep a real close eye on what you’re thinking,” Quinn said.

“So your group has no organized structure, as such?” Alkad asked.

“We’re organized, all right,” Lodi Shalasha insisted. “But nothing formal. We’re just like-minded people who keep in touch and help each other out.”

Alkad pushed her legs down into the chameleon suit trousers. There was still a residue of cold sweat smearing the fabric from when she’d worn the suit last night. Her nose wrinkled up in distaste, but she kept on working the trousers up her shins. “You said you had junior cadres, the ones clearing the spiders away. That sounds like a regular underground movement hierarchy to me.”

“Not really. Some of us work in day clubs, that way we help to keep the memory of the genocide alive for the children. Nobody should be allowed to forget what was done to us.”

“I approve.”

“You do?” He sounded surprised.

“Yes. The original refugees seem to have forgotten. That’s why I’m in this mess right now.”

“Don’t worry, Doctor; Voi will get you off Ayacucho.”

“Perhaps.” Alkad prided herself that the somnolence program had been for the best. When the girl had woken this morning she’d been subdued, but still functional. The grief for her father was still there, as it should be, but it hadn’t debilitated her.

Over breakfast, Alkad had explained what her priorities were: to get away from the Dorados as fast as possible now her location was blown to the intelligence agencies, and the remaining principal requirement for a combat-capable starship (she still couldn’t bring herself to mention the Alchemist). It would be too much to hope for the ship to be crewed by Garissan patriot types; a mercenary crew would just have to do now. The three of them had discussed possible options, and Voi and Lodi had started arguing over names, who to contact for what.

Voi had left by herself to secure a starship. It would be inviting disaster for Alkad to be seen with her again. As a pair they were too distinctive, however adroit the chameleon suits were at hiding their peripheral features.

“Hey, you’ve made the news.” Lodi waved his communications block enthusiastically. He’d entered a reference search program to monitor the media output. “Access the Cabral NewsGalactic studio.”

Alkad struggled the suit on over her shoulders, then datavised the room’s net processor for a channel to the studio.

Cabral NewsGalactic was showing a recording of a holomorph sticker which had a young cheerleader shouting: “Run, Alkad, run!”

“Mother Mary,” Alkad muttered. “Is this the work of your people?”

“No. I swear. I’ve never seen one before. Besides, only Voi and I know your name. None of the others even know you exist.”

Alkad went back to the studio. A rover reporter was walking down one of Ayacucho’s main public halls. The stickers were everywhere. A cleaner mechanoid was trying to spray one off the wall, but its solvent wasn’t strong enough. Smears of black semi-dissolved plastic dribbled down the metallic wall panel.

“It is as if a plague has visited Ayacucho,” the rover reporter said cheerfully. “The first of these stickers appeared about six hours ago. And if I didn’t know better I’d say they’ve been breeding like bacteria. Police say that the stickers are being handed out to children; and detectives are currently correlating security monitor recordings to see if they can identify the main distributors. Though sources inside the public prosecutor’s office tell me they’re not sure exactly what charges could be brought.

“The question everyone is asking is: Exactly who is Alkad, and what is she running from?”

The image went back to the studio anchorman. “Our company’s investigations have uncovered one possible answer to the mystery,” he said in a sombre bass voice. “At the time of the genocide, the Garissan navy employed a Dr Alkad Mzu to work on advanced defence projects. Mzu is said to have survived the genocide and spent the last thirty years under an assumed name teaching physics at the Dorados university. But now foreign intelligence agencies, acting in response to Omutan propaganda, have started hunting her under the pretext of illegal technology violations. A senior member of the Dorados governing council, who asked not to be named, said today: ‘Such an action by these foreign agents is a gross violation of our sovereignty. I find it obscene that the Omutans can lay these unfounded allegations against one of our citizens who has dedicated her life to educating our brightest youngsters. If this is their behaviour after thirty years of sanctions, then we must ask why the Confederation ever lifted those sanctions in the first place. They certainly do not seem to have had the desired effect in remedying the aggressive nature of the Omutan government. Their current cabinet is just a new collar on the same dog.’

“The council member went on to say that if Alkad Mzu turned up at his apartment he would certainly offer her sanctuary, and that every true Dorados citizen would do the same. He said he would not rest until all suspected foreign agents had been expelled from the asteroids.”

“Holy Mother Mary,” Alkad groaned.

She cancelled the channel and slumped down onto the bed, the suit’s hood hanging flaccidly over her shoulder. “I don’t believe this is happening. Mother Mary, they’re turning me into a media celebrity.”

“That’s my uncle for you,” Lodi said. “Did you check out the positive bias in those reports? Mary, you’d be elected president tomorrow if we were ever allowed to vote around here.”