“Good,” he said, and put his case on the desk, datavising a code at it. The upper surface flowed apart, revealing a couple of processor blocks and several fleks. He picked up one of the fleks, which was embossed with a gold lion: Norfolk’s national symbol. “Here we are. I loaded in all the information Tilia gave me; name, where you live, age, that kind of thing. All we need now is an image and a full body biolectric scan.”

“What do we have to do?” Louise asked.

“First, I’m afraid, is the money.”

She gave a hollow laugh and took a Jovian Bank credit disk from her small shoulder bag. Once the money had been shunted over to Faurax’s disk, he said: “Remember not to wear these clothes when you go through the Halo’s immigration. These images were supposedly taken on Norfolk before you left, and the clothes are new. In fact, I’d advise dumping them altogether.”

“We’ll do that,” Louise said.

“Okay.” He slotted the first flek into his processor block and read the screen. “Genevieve Kavanagh?”

The little girl smiled brightly.

“Stand over there, dear, away from the door.”

She did as he asked, giving the sensor lens a solemn stare. After he’d got the visual image filed, he used the second processor block to sweep her so he could record her biolectric pattern. Both files were loaded into her passport, encrypted with Norfolk’s authentication code. “Don’t lose it,” he said and dropped the flek into her hand.

Louise was next. Faurax found himself wishing she were a Martian girl. She had a beautiful face, it was just her body which was so alien.

Fletcher’s image went straight into his passport flek. Then Faurax ran the biolectric sensor over him. Frowned at the display. Ran a second scan. It took a long time for his chilly disquiet to give way into full blown consternation. He gagged, head jerking up from the block to stare at Fletcher. “You’re a—” His neural nanonics crashed, preventing him from datavising any alarm. The air solidified in front of his eyes; he actually saw it flowing like a dense heat shiver, contracting into a ten centimetre sphere. It hit him full in the face. He heard the bone in his nose break before he lost consciousness.

Genevieve squealed in shock as Faurax went crashing to the floor, blood flowing swiftly from his nose.

Endron looked at Fletcher in total shock, too numb to move. His neural nanonics had shut down, and the office light panel was flickering in an epileptic rhythm. “Oh, my God. No! Not you.” He glanced at the door, gauging his chances.

“Do not try to run, sir,” Fletcher said sternly. “I will do whatever I must to protect these ladies.”

“Oh, Fletcher,” Louise groaned in dismay. “We were almost there.”

“His device exposed my nature, my lady. I could do naught else.”

Genevieve ran over to Fletcher and hugged him tightly around his waist. He patted her head lightly.

“Now what are we going to do?” Louise asked.

“Not you as well?” Endron bewailed.

“I’m not possessed,” she said with indignant heat.

“Then what . . . ?”

“Fletcher has been protecting us from the possessed. You don’t think I could stand against them by myself, do you?”

“But, he’s one of them.”

“One of whom, sir? Many men are murderers and brigands, does that make all of us so?”

“You can’t apply that argument. You’re a possessed. You’re the enemy.”

“Yet, sir, I do not consider myself to be your enemy. My only crime, so it sounds, is that I have died.”

“And come back! You have stolen that man’s body. Your kind want to do the same to mine and everyone else’s.”

“What would you have us do? I am not so valiant that I can resist this release from the torture of the beyond. Perhaps, sir, you see such weakness as my true crime. If so, I plead guilty to that ignominy. Yet, know you this, I would grasp at such an escape every time it is offered, though I know it to be the most immoral of thefts.”

“He saved us,” Genevieve protested hotly. “Quinn Dexter was going to do truly beastly things to me and Louise. Fletcher stopped him. No one else could. He’s not a bad man; you shouldn’t say he is. And I won’t let you do anything horrid to him. I don’t want him to have to go back there into the beyond.” She hugged Fletcher tighter.

“All right,” Endron said. “Maybe you’re not like the Capone Organization, or the ones on Lalonde. But I can’t let you walk around here. This is my home, damn it. Maybe it is unfair, and unkind that you suffered in the beyond. You’re still a possessor, nothing changes that. We are opposed, it’s fundamental to what we are.”

“Then you, sir, have a very pressing problem. For I am sworn to see these ladies to their destination in safety.”

“Wait,” Louise said. She turned to Endron. “Nothing has changed. We still wish to leave Phobos, and you know Fletcher is not a danger to you or your people. You said so.”

Endron gestured at the crumpled form of Faurax. “I can’t,” he said desperately.

“If Fletcher opens your bodies to the souls in the beyond, who knows what the people who come through will be like,” Louise said. “I don’t think they will be as restrained as Fletcher, not if the ones I’ve encountered are anything to judge by. You would be the cause of Phobos falling to the possessed. Is that what you want?”

“What the hell do you think? You’ve backed me into a corner.”

“No we haven’t, there’s an easy way out of this, for all of us.”

“What?”

“Help us, of course. You can finish recording Fletcher’s passport for us, you can find a zero-tau pod for Faurax and keep him in it until this is all over. And you’ll know for certain that we’ve gone and that your asteroid is safe.”

“This is insane. I don’t trust you, and you’d be bloody stupid to trust me.”

“Not really,” she said. “If you tell us you’ll do it, Fletcher will know if you’re telling us the truth. And once we’re gone you still won’t change your mind, because you could never explain away what you’ve done to the police.”

“You can read minds?” Endron’s consternation had deepened.

“I will indeed know of any treachery which blackens your heart.”

“What do you intend to do once you reach Tranquillity?”

“Find my fiancé. Apart from that, we have no plans.”

Endron gave Faurax another fast appraisal. “I don’t think I have a lot of choice, do I? If you stop this electronic warfare effect, I’ll get a freight mechanoid to take Faurax to the Far Realm . I can use one of the on board zero-tau pods without anyone asking questions. Lord knows what I’ll say when this is over. They’ll just fling me out of an airlock, I expect.”

“You’re saving your world,” Louise said. “You’ll be a hero.”

“Somehow, I doubt that.”

•   •   •

The cave went a long way back into the polyp cliff, which allowed Dariat to light a fire without having to worry about it being spotted. He’d chosen the beach at the foot of the endcap as today’s refuge. Surely here at least he and Tatiana would be safe? There were no bridges over the circumfluous reservoir. If Bonney came for them she’d have to use either a boat or one of the tube carriages (however unlikely that was). Which meant that for once they’d have a decent warning.

The hunter’s ability to get close before either he or Rubra located her was unnerving. Even Rubra seemed genuinely concerned by it. Dariat never could understand how she ever located them in the first place. But locate them she did. There hadn’t been a day since he met Tatiana when Bonney hadn’t come after them.

His one guess was that her perception ability was far greater than anyone else’s, allowing her to see the minds of everybody in the habitat. If so, the distance was extraordinary; he couldn’t feel anything beyond a kilometre at the most, and ten metres of solid polyp blocked him completely.