"Perhaps, if it is not too much to ask, you could fill in that detail."

"Ah, you have an overdeveloped tendency towards sarcasm in one so young."

"It's a result of my cynicism—something I believe to be useful survival traits for one working for ECS. Now, must I keep guessing?"

"Vernol's brother was one of those who died at the ship, but Vernol attempted to kill Carl because he believed Carl to be an ECS plant. As we understand it the man always put 'the Cause' before family and didn't really like his brother very much."

Cormac felt uncomfortable with all this. Without his intervention Carl would probably have taken Vernol down, but did this matter? Carl was obviously guilty of something…

"Vernol is no longer with us," Cormac observed, "and Carl, I suspect, will not be leaving ECS care this side of eternity."

Olkennon shrugged—not her decision.

"The situation now?" Cormac enquired.

"Removing Separatists from play is the main purpose of ECS here. Through Carl we might have been able to take down a number of cells."

Cormac said nothing, for he was tired of having to squeeze information out of her. He knew that Olkennon would eventually tell him all he needed to know, but no more.

"As we understand it," she continued, "there is divided opinion amidst the Separatists we know of in this area. Some believe Carl an ECS plant and that Vernol was right to try killing him. Others believe Vernol's motive was vengeance only and that he tried to kill a valuable asset."

Annoyed at himself for prompting again, Cormac asked, "And my role?"

"According to his record, which we are not entirely sure of right now, Carl came from Callisto. His family were members of the Jovian Separatists, though they never went so far as violent protest or terrorism. We can alter your records to show you came from there too, and any enquiries sent directly there can be fielded by our agents, since the Separatist organization on Callisto was penetrated long ago and is only allowed to continue functioning because of the leads it gives us to other Separatist enclaves."

"I see; I am to be the partner Carl never mentioned."

"Outstanding." Olkennon grimaced. "I do hope you understand how dangerous this might be, especially considering the doubts about Carl's antecedents?"

Cormac snorted in annoyance, waved a hand as if to brush that aside. Yeah, maybe there were anomalies about Carl's past, but didn't that rather tie in with his nefarious dealings here and now?

"They'll take some convincing," he said. "They'll know that just about all information is falsifiable, and there might be those who will want to take me down."

"Certainly—can you be convincing?"

Cormac considered the situation. He was being roped into an undercover operation because he was conveniently placed. Such operations were usually the province of those with decades of training and experience in the field. He was only twenty-two.

"Yeah, I think I can be convincing."

"Cormac, Dax is back," said his mother. Again she was wearing old-style sunglasses—a habit that seemed to make her unapproachable, just like her perpetually distant tone, just like her perpetual affirmation of his name change. Cormac abandoned his p-top and school bag and broke into a run for the stair. "Don't bother him for too long—I've packed your suitcase with clothes and you need to sort out what else you'll be taking with you."

Cormac skidded to a halt at the bottom of the stair and turned. "We're going away again?"

"Yes, we'll be spending a week with Dax in Tritonia."

Cormac felt a flood of joy. Tritonia. He loved the city which stretched—with intermittent breaks—along the seabed from the south coast of Britain to France. His mother might allow him to take a haemolung out, especially if Dax went with him to keep watch. He charged up the stair yelling, "Dax!" but halted before his elder brother's door. Dax, who had lived at home until finally shipping out with the medical arm of ECS, liked his privacy, especially so since the time Cormac had charged in while he had been having sex with Marella. She had been sitting astride him naked, bouncing up and down—the image was forever etched in the young boy's mind. Cormac knocked on the door.

There was no answer for long seconds, and Cormac was about to open the door to peek inside when he heard the sound of movement from within. He waited a little longer and, disappointed, was about to head to his own room when there came a gruff, "Come in, Ian."

"Dax! We're going to—"

The sight that greeted him brought him to a confused halt. This was Dax? His elder brother had always been a big, heavily muscled young man with jet-black hair and an easy smile. This thin, haunted individual with flecks of grey in his hair, just did not seem like the same person.

"Dax," he said, but could think of nothing else to add.

Dax was still wearing the camouflage fatigues of an ECS medic—the blue uniform had been abandoned during this war since to the Prador a medic was just as much a target as any human being. He stood with his back to the window, and was smoking a cigarette—something he had once frowned upon even though body nanites could negate the adverse health effects. "You're thin," Cormac finally managed.

Dax nodded contemplatively then stared with what Cormac could only feel as a complete lack of engagement. After a moment he shrugged, shook his head, then tried a weak smile.

"It's hard out there, little brother," he said.

Hoping for some return to normality, Cormac asked enthusiastically, "Tell me about it!"

"No." No excuses, no explanation or justification, just No.

"What's it like?" Cormac wheedled.

Dax just shook his head, then after a moment turned to the window. After a drawn-out silence he said, "We'll talk once we've reached Tritonia—maybe I'll feel better then… maybe."

After another long delay, Cormac finally retreated, closing the door softly behind him.

They were going to take the hypertube in the morning, and when he was sent to bed Cormac observed his mother opening a bottle of whisky while Dax sat in strained silence smoking cigarette after cigarette. Already deft in the art of learning things he shouldn't, Cormac left his p-top open on the side table, its camera screen directed towards the two of them, the microphone functioning, all its other functions in silent mode. Retiring to his bedroom he turned on his room console, linked in, and watched his mother and brother.

"— when I'm ready," his mother was saying, "and if it doesn't get to him first."

Dax gulped his whisky as if to sate a terrible thirst, then replied, "Do you want me…?"

"No, that won't be necessary," she replied. "So are you going to tell me, Dax?"

More whisky. "What's to tell? It's a fucking nightmare out there."

"But you knew it would be."

Staring at something distant, Dax said, "Our first assignment… we set up a treatment unit for flash-burn victims. They came in with their skins coming off. We handled it to begin with, but then one of the Prador scout ships started taking out our supply ships. We handled that—using nerve blockers and anything else we could scrape together." He shrugged. "They weren't in any pain, but they just kept on dying on us. Then Prador ground troops attacked and we had to withdraw. About eight hundred of our patients we just couldn't move—it would have killed them. Our commander was green and he decided that we should leave them with nerve blockers in place. Maybe the Prador would ignore them. That commander ended up being shipped back with other wounded when one of the ECS regulars found out what he had done. Smashed him up real bad." Dax looked up at his mother. "You know what Prador do with the wounded?"