“Okay, now you.” Hugh submitted to the procedure without complaint.

“There aren’t any rover reporters scheduled to come out here today,” Elana said. “The colonel hasn’t cleared Exnall yet.”

“I know,” Tim said. “I just wanted to get ahead of the pack.”

“Typical,” Elana grunted. She retreated back into the hall where twenty bulky zero-tau pods had been set up. All of them had active infinite-black surfaces.

Tim followed her. “This your department?”

“You got it, sonny. I get to perform the final act of liberation on these great people we’re here to rescue. That’s why I wanted to know who you were. You’re not army, and you’re too healthy to be ex-possessed. I got to recognize that, it’s like second nature now.”

“Glad someone’s alert.”

“Knock it off.” Her head rocked up and down as she examined them. “If you want to ask questions, ask. I’m bored enough that I’ll probably answer. You’re here because this is Exnall, right?”

Tim grinned. “Well, this is where it all started. That gives me a legitimate interest. Showing the accessors that it’s been retaken and sanitised makes for a good piece.”

“Typical rover, put the story before anything else, like mundane security and common-sense safety. I should have just shot you.”

“But you didn’t. That means you’ve got confidence in the serjeants?”

“Could be. I know I couldn’t do what they’re doing. Still doing. Thought I could when I came here, but this whole Liberation is one big learning curve, for all of us, right? We just don’t do war like this any more, if we ever did. Even if a conflict goes on for a couple of years, individual battles are supposed to be brutal and fast. Soldiers take a break from the front, have some R & R, grab some stims and some ass before they go back. One side makes a few gains, the other knocks them back. That’s the way it goes, but this—it never stops, not for one second. Have you ever captured that in your sensevises? The real essence of what this is about? One serjeant loses concentration for one second, and one of those bastards will slip through. It’ll start up all over again on another continent. One mistake. One. This isn’t a human war. The weapon which is going to win this is perfection. The possessed? They have to commit to being a hundred per cent treacherous devious sons of bitches, never let up trying to sneak one of their kind past us. Our serjeants, now they have to be eternally vigilant, never ever walk along the wrong side of the road because the mud isn’t so deep and vile there. You’ve got no idea what that takes.”

“Determination,” Tim ventured.

“Not even close. That’s an emotion. That’s a way in to your heart, weakening you. That can’t be allowed here. Human motivations have to be abandoned. Machines are what we need.”

“I thought that’s what the serjeants are.”

“Oh yeah, they’re good. Not bad at all for a first generation weapon. But the Edenists have got to improve on them, build some real mean mothers for the next Liberation. Something like us boosted, and with even less personality than the serjeants. I’ve got to know a few of them, and they’re still too human for this.”

“You think there’s going to be another Liberation?”

“Sure. Nobody’s come up with another method of kicking the bastards out of the bodies they’ve stolen. Until that happens, we’ve got to keep them on the run. I told you: show no weakness. Pick another planet, maybe one of those Capone infiltrated, and start rescuing it before they take it away. Let them know we’ll never let up chasing their asses out of our universe.”

“Would you join that next Liberation?”

“Not a chance. I’ve done my bit, and learned my lesson. This is too long. You wanted a story about what Exnall was like, you came a day too late. We still had some of the possessed around yesterday, waiting for zero-tau. They’re the ones you should have talked to.”

“What did they tell you?”

“That they hate the Liberation the same way we do. It’s wearing them down, they haven’t got enough food, the rain doesn’t stop, the mud climbs into bed with them each night. And ever since Ketton took that Ekelund bitch away, their organized resistance folded in. Now it’s just gone back to instinct, that’s why they fight. They’re losing it, because they’re human. They came back here because they were determined to end their suffering, right? That’s the ultimate human motivator. Anything to escape the beyond. But now they’re here, where they thought they wanted to be, they’ve got all their old flaws back. As soon as they became human again, it becomes possible to beat them.”

“Until they take their whole planet out of the universe,” Tim protested.

“Fine by me. That removes them from interfering with us any more. A stalemate in this war means we have won. Our purpose is to prevent them from spreading.”

“But even the war isn’t an end to this,” Hugh said. “Have you forgotten you have a soul? That you will die one day?”

Elana’s claws clacked irritably. “No, I haven’t forgotten. But right now I have a job to do. That’s what matters, that’s what’s important. When I die, I’ll confront the beyond fair and square. All this philosophising and moralising and agonising we’re doing, it’s all bullshit. When it comes down to it, you’re on your own.”

“Just like life,” Hugh said with a gentle smile.

Tim frowned at him. It was most unlike Hugh to offer any comment on death and the beyond; the one subject he (strangely) always avoided.

“You got it,” Elana boomed approvingly.

Tim said goodbye, and left her monitoring the zero-tau pods. “Live death like you live life, huh?” he chided Hugh when they were far enough away to be outside the range of the mercenary’s enhanced auditory senses.

“Something like that,” Hugh responded solemnly.

“Interesting person, our Elana,” Tim said. “The interview will need some tight editing, though. She’ll depress the hell out of anyone who hears her ranting on like that.”

“Perhaps you should let her speak. She’s been exposed to the possessed for a long time. Whether she admits it or not, that’s influenced her thinking. Don’t slant that.”

“I do not slant my reports.”

“I’ve accessed your pieces, you dumb everything down for your audience. They’re just a compilation of highlights.”

“Keeps them accessed, doesn’t it? Have you seen our ratings?”

“There’s more to news than marketing points. You have to include substance occasionally. It balances and emphasises those highlights you worship.”

“Shit, how did you ever wind up in this business?”

“I was made for it,” Hugh said, which he apparently found hilarious.

Tim gave him a bewildered glance. Then his neural nanonics reported his communications block was receiving a priority call from the Fort Forward studio chief. It was the news that the Confederation Navy had attacked Arnstat.

“Holy shit,” Tim muttered. All around him, marines and mercenaries were cheering and calling out to each other. Trucks and jeeps sounded their horns in continual blasts.

“That’s not good,” Hugh said. “They knew what the effect would be.”

“Damnit, yes,” Tim said. “We’ve lost the story.”

“An entire planet snatched away to another realm, and all that concerns you is the story?”

“Don’t you see?” Tim swept his arms round extravagantly, encompassing the occupation station in one gesture. “This was the story, the only one: we were on the front line against the possessed. What we saw and said mattered. Now it doesn’t. Just like that.” His neural nanonics astronomy program found him the section of dark azure sky where Avon’s star shone unseen. He glared at it in frustration. “Someone up there is changing Confederation policy, and I’m stuck down here. I can’t find out why.”

Cochrane saw it first. Naturally, he called it Tinkerbell.