As they approached the hotel they’d booked, Joshua datavised an update into the car’s control processor. The car swept past the hotel’s entrance, heading for the city.

“There goes our deposit,” Melvyn complained.

“It bothers me,” Joshua said. “Ione, are we being followed?”

One of the serjeants was sitting at the back of the cab, pointing a small circular sensor pad through the rear window. “One car, possibly two. I think there are three people in the first one.”

“Probably some kind of local security police,” Joshua decided. “I’d be surprised if they weren’t keeping tabs on foreigners right now.”

“So what do we do about them?” Dahybi asked.

“Not a damn thing. I don’t want to give them an excuse to interfere.” He accessed the car’s net processor and established an encrypted link to the spaceplane. “What’s your situation, Ashly?”

“So far so good. I’ll have the electron matrices completely recharged in another three minutes. That’ll expand your options.”

“Good. We’ll keep a channel open to you from now on. If the city’s net starts to crash, come get us. That’s our cut-off point.”

“Aye, Captain. Lady Macbeth just fell below the horizon, so I’ve lost contact. Every civil communications satellite is out now.”

“If their situation alters, they’ll change orbit and re-establish a link. Sarha knows what to do.”

“I certainly hope so. Before I lost contact, Beaulieu told me four voidhawks have arrived. They’re heading for low orbit.”

“They must have come from the Dorados,” Joshua decided. “Ashly, when Lady Mac comes back on-line, tell Sarha to monitor them as best she can. And let me know if any of their spaceplanes land.”

The snowfall had thickened considerably by the time Joshua’s car reached the address his search program had identified for him. It reduced Harrisburg to a sequence of shabby granite streets that were hard to tell apart. Nothing was alive apart from people, wrapped in their insulated coats as they kicked their way through the pavement slush. Hologram billboards and neon signs were all that remained unaffected by the weather, flashing and morphing as always.

“I should have brought Liol down,” Joshua muttered, half to himself. “He said he wanted a taste of exotic worlds.”

“You’re going to have to come to terms with him eventually, Joshua,” Melvyn said.

“Maybe. Jesus, if he just wasn’t such a pushy bastard. Can’t you tell him to lighten up, Ione? You spend a lot of time talking to him.”

“It didn’t work before,” one of the serjeants said.

“You’ve already told him?”

“Let’s say I’ve been through the procedure earlier. He’s not the only one who needs to relax, Joshua. Neither of you are going to make any progress the way you both carry on.”

He wanted to explain. How it was. How he didn’t feel quite so alone anymore, and how that left him troubled. How he wanted to welcome his brother, but at the same time knew him so well he didn’t trust him. To be honest with him would be seen as a weakness. Liol was the interloper. Let him make the first gesture. I saved his arse from the Dorados, I was the honourable one, and what thanks do I get?

When he glanced around the car, he knew that anything he said which verged on truth would make him sound petulant. A year ago I would’ve told the lot of them to bugger off. Jesus, life was simpler then, when there was just me. “I’ll do what I can,” he conceded.

Their car turned off the street and dipped down into an underground garage. The building it served was a ten-storey block with small shops at street level (half of them empty), and the upper floors given over to offices and design bureaus.

“Going to tell us why we’re here now?” Dahybi asked as they climbed out of the car.

“Simple,” Joshua said. “When you need a job doing fast and effectively, go to a professional.”

The office of Kilmartin and Elgant, Data Security Specialists, was on the seventh floor. There was nobody behind the desk in the reception room. Joshua paused for a second, expecting a secretarial program to query them, but the desktop processor wasn’t switched on. The inner door slid open when he approached it.

In a rash of optimistic bravado accompanying their firm’s launch, Kilmartin and Elgant had taken a fifty-year lease on sufficient floor space to house fifteen operatives. There were still enough desks for fifteen in the open-plan office; seven of them had dust covers thrown over processors which were fairly dubious even by Nyvan’s technological standards; four desks had niches where processors used to be; one patch of carpet showed imprints where a desk used to stand.

Only one desk had a decent cluster of modern blocks, which shared the surface with a thoroughly dead potted plant. Two men were sitting behind it, staring intently into the hazy aura of an AV pillar. The first was tall, young, and broad-shouldered, sporting a long blond ponytail tied with a colourful leather lace. He wore an expensive black suit, tailored to provide maximum freedom of movement. He was not openly belligerent, but had a presence that would make people think twice before tackling him. The second was well into middle age, dressed in a faded grey-brown jacket, tufty chestnut hair askew. He looked as if he belonged behind the complaints desk in a tax office.

They regarded Joshua and his odd delegation with mild surprise.

Joshua looked from one to the other, slightly uncertain as intuition tickled his skull. Then he clicked his fingers decisively and pointed at the younger of the two. “I bet you’re the data expert and your friend handles the combat routines. Good disguise, right?”

The aura from the AV pillar faded as the younger man tilted his chair back and put his hands behind his head. “Clever. Are we expecting you, Mr . . . ?”

Joshua gave a faint smile. “You tell me.”

“All right, Captain Calvert, what do you want?”

“I need to access some information, and fast. Can you manage that for me?”

“Sure. Nationwide net access, no problem, whatever file you want. Hey listen, I know what this place looks like. Forget that. Talent isn’t something you can eyeball. And I’m so far on top of things I’m getting oxygen starvation. Someone’s search program locates my public file, I know about it before they do. You came down from the Lady Macbeth an hour ago. One of your crew is still with your spaceplane. Want to know how much the service company is ripping you off for your electron matrix recharge? You’re in the right place.”

“I don’t care. Money doesn’t concern me.”

“Okay, I think we’ve reached interface here.” He turned to his colleague and muttered something. The older man gave him a disgruntled look, then shrugged. He walked out of the office, giving the two serjeants a curious glance as he passed.

“Richard Keaton.” The athletic young man leaned over the desk, holding his hand out and smiling broadly. “Call me Dick.”

“I certainly will.” They shook hands.

“Sorry about Matty, there. He’s got enough implants to chop up a squad of marines. But he gets overprotective, and I don’t need him hovering right now. Smart of you to see which of us was which. I don’t think anyone’s ever done that before.”

“Your secret’s safe with me.”

“So what can I do for you, Captain Calvert?”

“I need to find someone.”

Keaton raised a forefinger. “If I could just interrupt. First, there is my fee.”

“I’m not going to quibble. I might even pay a bonus.”

One of the serjeants tapped a foot pointedly on the worn carpet.

“Nice to hear, Captain. Okay then; my fee is one flight off this planet on the Lady Macbeth , just as soon as you leave. Destination: who cares.”

“That’s an . . . unusual fee. Any particular reason?”

“Like I said, Captain, you came to the right place. This might not be the biggest firm in town, but I fish the data streams. There are possessed on Nyvan. They’ve already taken over Jesup, that wasn’t just propaganda by our upstanding government. The electronic warfare barrage in orbit? That was cover to help them get down here. There aren’t too many in Tonala yet—not according to the Special Investigation Bureau, anyway. But they’re spreading through the other countries.”