Charming.

‘Nice doing business with you,’ said Jed.

Then he left without checking for a reaction from Corplane. As he walked along the white corridor, he reviewed the interaction in his mind, deciding that his own annoyance would have appeared entirely natural, without betraying his secret knowledge of Corplane’s duplicity.

Let’s see how you handle the outcome, you bastard.

Corplane had just bought his own doom.

The Zajinet attacks had been subtly placed, so that it had been difficult to backtrack to the security leak; but now Clara’s people had done just that, there would be counter-ambushes set up and waiting, ready to destroy the attackers while incidentally gaining legal proof of Corplane’s guilt, as the Zajinets followed the false data supplied by Jed.

Soon enough, Jed found himself in another concourse, its architecture bare – suggestive of a cargo hold embellished with a series of catwalks – but filled with the bouncing chatter of some three dozen people on a break, the animated energy of those who had been working quietly for hours and had more to do, needing to interact with friends and colleagues while they had a chance.

He bought himself a hot drink and carried it to one of the upper catwalks, where he could lean against the rail, sipping his drink and watching the people, wondering if someone was going to make contact.

There was a local team in place, their job to maintain surveillance on Corplane and detect any contacts he made, and preferably to follow anyone that Corplane met in person. Jed knew nothing beyond that, not even their numerical strength, save for the team leader’s name: Shireen Singh. She had a recognition code for introducing herself if she thought it desirable, otherwise Jed would end up leaving Coolth knowing nothing, until such time as Clara or someone else in the Admiralty might share a titbit of information regarding his success or failure here.

The sight of three racks of antlers among the crowd surprised him, until he remembered the rumours, that Haxigoji were travelling to other worlds now, more than just the occasional official delegation to Earth, the previous extent of their voyaging.

Suddenly the antlers jerked.

What have they seen?

Of course he meant smelled, or did he? Either way, something had disturbed the Haxigoji down below, and as far as Jed was concerned they were trustworthy friends, because they had protected him on Vachss Station after he had killed the thing that had been Rick Mbuli, and the reason for their protection was that they had perceived Mbuli’s true nature.

So what had they detected here?

Corplane. Must be.

The bastard had been in close contact with an Anomalous component, or more likely a renegade Pilot, and the Haxigoji could detect some echo of that. It was the logical explanation, except that Jed could not see anything of Corplane. Raising his tu-ring, he was about to send a comm signal in the hope Corplane would answer, when a woman appeared beside him and his tu-ring beeped a code-received acknowledgement.

‘I’m Shireen.’

‘Jed. Corplane is—’

‘Still in his office. Whatever they’ve spotted, it’s not him.’

So she had noticed the Haxigoji too.

Her smartlenses were dark brown, enough to make her look like an ordinary human under normal circumstances; but Jed caught sight of tiny golden sparks inside. She was worried and getting ready for action, and if someone were trying to engineer another Anomaly here, the only way to save the research station crew was sudden violence, to kill the once-human component before it could begin absorbing others.

More killing.

The thought made him tremble, because killing Mbuli was already hard enough to deal with. But he would do whatever was necessary now.

You need me, my love?

Not yet. Stay up there.

All right.

His ship’s presence, a kilometre overhead, gave him strength, allowing him to centre himself.

‘Look there,’ said Shireen. ‘In the corridor.’

One of the Haxigoji had left the concourse proper, and was pressing his double-thumbed hand against a view window. From here it was impossible to tell what he was seeing.

‘Someone outside,’ said Jed.

‘I’ll call in my team.’

‘Right. You do that.’

He broke away, jogged along the catwalk to the steps, then threw normal behaviour aside, throwing one leg over the rail and commanding his jumpsuit fabric to become friction-less, as far as it was capable. Like a schoolchild, he slid down fast, hopped to the concourse deck, ignoring the reactions of everyone around, and pelted into the corridor, popping blue smartgel into his mouth because the air outside was impossible to breathe unassisted.

There was an emergency exit and it responded to his tu-ring’s signal and then he was in cold air, stumbling across snow, trying to correct his gait and squint against the wind – stronger than before – to make out the man who was staring at him.

Narrow-bodied, brown hair, plain jumpsuit. Nothing special about him – except that when Jed glanced back, two of the Haxigoji were standing in the open exit and pointing. The atmosphere was even less suitable for them, nor were most of them prone to violent behaviour, which was exactly what was needed now.

‘Jed?’ It was Shireen, calling via her tu-ring. ‘Corplane’s dead. We just checked his—’

‘Shit.’

‘I’m triggering the public emergency net.’

The figure ahead was moving away now, his boot-soles elongating to form snow-shoes, moving with an easy-looking gait that drew him further and further away from Jed’s awkward pursuit through ever-deepening snow.

A wail cut through the air behind him, followed by a ripping sound – icequake! – but it was not the ice-mass beneath the snow that was splitting apart: it was the research station behind him, the domes and linking tunnels all cracking into segments, sealing themselves into fifty or more modules; and as Jed watched, they began to slide away from each other, their motive power unclear but visibly accelerating, smoothly moving across snow and heading for the cold ocean, because ice-quakes were not uncommon and this was a viable defensive procedure for most contingencies.

Jed was not sure that an incipient Anomaly was one of them.

It’s more likely a renegade.

An Anomalous component might have tried to initiate absorption, the process obvious because it was accompanied, as far as anyone had ever observed, by a characteristic spillover glow that was a precise shade of blue. This might be one of Schenck’s renegades, but even at this range Jed should have been able to detect the induction neurons and other characteristics of a fellow Pilot. Everything indicated that this was an ordinary man he was chasing.

A man capable of moving faster than Jed, and perhaps heading for a weapons cache or transport, even a submersible flying shuttle, because that was what the researchers used for—

He had stopped, the man, amid falling snow but with an ellipsoidal volume of clear air surrounding him, and it took Jed several stumbling moments to realise what he was looking at: a smartmiasma, no doubt weapon-primed and ready to strike.

I’m dead.

Jed’s tu-ring had weapon capabilities and he even had an old-fashioned knuckleduster with embedded grasers tucked inside a pocket, but they needed human action to initiate a strike while the whole point about smartmiasmas and similar technology was that they operated at a trillion times the speed of thought, because organic brains are slow.

The man smiled and raised his arms.

I’m sorry, my—

Something huge and bronze crashed into existence.

What for, lover?

It was a ship, gleaming and beautiful.

Where did you—? I love you.