"How are you feeling?"

Cormac looked up and saw Gorman standing just inside the door. He hadn't heard him enter.

"Like someone's been scraping out the inside of my skull with a rusty knife."

"Yeah, been there myself."

Cormac gazed at him. "Really?"

"They weren't my memories, but those of someone like Sheen," Gorman replied. "I'm told it made the process easier precisely because they weren't my memories. Didn't feel easy at the time."

The pain was ebbing now, to be replaced by nausea. Cormac glanced at the sick bags on the medical table, took up one and opened it, then eased himself upright, immediately having to make use of the bag. A cool hand rested on the back of his neck as he finished and wiped his mouth with one of the tissues also provided.

"Was it worth it?"

He gazed at Crean in surprise, then looked around for Gorman. Where the hell had he gone? Then he remembered Sadist's explanation of the likely aftereffects, and a particular phrase about "temporal dislocation" came to the forefront of his mind.

"Ask me later," he replied.

She took her hand away and, after what seemed only a moment, he looked up to find she had departed. His back aching, for he had obviously been sitting in the same position for some time, he eased himself back and lay down again.

So, the memory of his mother's encounter with the war drone Amistad had been excised from his mind. It now sat in his skull much clearer than the current memories of his childhood but just was not integrating. He realised, after a moment, that no, this was not a memory of his childhood, rather the memory of very recent experience. And it did not fit because it was out-of-sequence and he was no child. Now he kept feeling that he was just too big; his hands and arms were like great lumps of meat and bone and his testicles felt as if they were made out of lead. Some part of him wanted to cry, but was vetoed by the rest. The only feeling that did not seem contrary was his fascination with that drone, which seemed to have been reinforced.

His mother had removed this memory from his mind for, during that meeting, she had learned from the drone of the death of her husband. Why the machine had travelled many light years to tell her, he could not fathom, nor could he fathom why she had not learned earlier in the conventional manner. Perhaps the death of Cormac's father had not been recorded by ECS and only the drone had known about it?

Reaching out to take up another sick bag, Cormac eased his legs off the surgical table and sat upright. Nausea surged through him, but he managed to hold onto what little was left in his stomach.

What, he wondered, would the other two chapters of excised memories contain? Since all three were about the death of his father and that news had been delivered in this one, were the other two just tidying-up exercises? It occurred to him that maybe he didn't need to experience those other memories and consequently suffer the horrible aftereffects. However, he knew that once he had recovered and this sickness itself had become a memory, he would certainly want to experience those other two chapters.

He stood, a little unsteadily, and headed for the door. His right eye had cleared now and the flashing in the peripheral vision of his left eye broke up into disassociated dots. His headache, which the patches had driven away, was returning but manageable. Opening the door he turned into the corridor beyond and headed for his cabin, now trying to access his aug and use it to obtain information. First he found out the time, and realised that they must now be approaching their destination—a world called Shaparon that had once supported a small colony of a million. The place was now inhabited by some ten thousand people, most of whom were previous residents but some of whom were those whose dealings were not looked on too kindly in the Polity itself, who mostly kept to the periphery and who often based themselves in places like this or retreated here when things got a bit too hot for them.

"You've got four hours, Cormac, are you up to it?" It seemed Gorman was speaking directly into his ear, but the question came via military comlink channel of his aug.

"I'm up to it."

"Briefing in the gym in half an hour."

"I'll be there."

Entering his cabin, Cormac first noted a large glass of some muddy orange drink sitting in the mouth of his synthesizer. He didn't recollect ordering anything, but then, there was no guarantee his memory was working properly.

"The drink will help," Sadist abruptly informed him. "If you can keep it down. It contains everything a growing boy should need, along with stimulants, anti-nausea medicine, anti-inflammatories and a tailored valium."

He picked it up and gulped it, by sheer effort of will keeping it down, then lay down on his bunk, thinking nothing and moving not a muscle for twenty-five minutes, whereupon he heaved himself up again and headed for the gym.

"Our informant on the ground," said Spencer, "positively identified the ship Thrace took passage on and positively identified Thrace himself departing from it." She grimaced. "Or rather our informant identified someone with the same appearance as Thrace when he departed that guest house back on Hagren."

"Was he carrying any luggage?" Gorman asked.

Spencer glanced at him, then said, "Sadist, give me the screen."

A virtual screen abruptly dropped down like a curtain across one side of the gym. It was blank grey at first then flickered on to show a ramshackle spaceport consisting only of a clump of low nissen huts beside a couple of large silo-like tanks. The latter, Cormac guessed, probably contained pure water, hydrogen and maybe even deuterium fuel for the aged ships scattered amidst the rest standing on the surrounding dusty white plain. Abruptly the camera view swung up and fixed upon a craft descending on antigravity. The thing looked just like a slab of granite with a framework mounted on its upper surface securing a long cylinder terminating in three evenly spaced U-space nacelles. As it approached the ground it jetted a series of thrusters from its underside to slow its descent and bring it down in the right place—obviously its antigravity system did not possess the required finesse or was not sufficient for the weight of the vessel.

It landed quite heavily, stirring up a cloud of the white dust, which took some time to clear. When the ship finally became visible again, an autohandler—a squat, treaded machine with double grabs to its fore—was carrying a large cylinder down a ramp. Walking down directly behind this were two people with a Loyalty Luggage case like an old sea chest trundling along behind them. One of these was a slim woman with cropped blonde hair, who wore orange overalls cut off at the knee. The other figure was a portly bearded fellow in leather clothing: Carl Thrace. At the bottom of the ramp he stopped to chat with the woman for a while then moved off, the luggage following him. Now the camera swung away to point up at the sky as another vessel descended.

"Shit," said Gorman. "Why didn't it stay on him?"

"The camera," Spencer replied, "was positioned on a nearby water tower and just following a program to record new arrivals. It picked up this before our informant knew to look out for this ship and Thrace, or rather 'Marcus Spengler. »

"So, do we know where he is now?" asked Travis.

"Enquiries have been made and are still being made," said Spencer. "He stayed in a local hostelry where he met with the local leading light of the community, then rented a car and headed out of town." With her hands on her hips she gazed round at the three of them. "That same leading light, an unpleasant individual called Tarren, will be our point of entry."