‘Is it?’ Quanda walked down the aisle towards them. She paused at Jamenk’s prone form, and inspected him before moving on to Ingmar. ‘What a fearsome weapon that is. Can you feel my fear?’

‘Rot in Uracus, bitch,’ Ingmar said.

She put her hand on his cheek and glanced down at Slvasta. ‘Do it. If you want him dead.’

‘Yes,’ Ingmar pleaded. ‘Please, Slvasta. Once it gets to my brain, that’s it. Please.’

Slvasta watched through a fresh agony. He formed his teekay into a hand and slowly extended it out towards Ingmar. So close, waiting to push it through his friend’s body and crush his heart.

‘Do it,’ Ingmar shouted.

Slvasta could sense Ingmar’s teekay hovering above his own ribs. ‘I . . . I can’t,’ he admitted woefully. ‘I’m sorry. I can’t.’

‘I thought you were my friend,’ Ingmar wept. ‘How can you leave me to Fall?’

Slvasta shook his head, hating himself for his weakness.

With a mirthless grin, Quanda slowly began to push Ingmar’s head. He fought her, every centimetre of the way. His neck muscles stood proud. Teekay scrabbling at her impervious shell, then trying to reinforce his own muscles. It made no difference; the Faller was too strong. She pushed the side of his face against the egg surface. It stuck there immediately. Ingmar started wailing. ‘Slvasta, please Slvasta. It will take me. It will take all of me. I will never be fulfilled, I will not be guided to the Heart. Help me. Kill me.’

‘Monster,’ Slvasta hissed. ‘Why are you so evil?’

Quanda squatted down beside him and cocked her head to one side, studying him, always studying. ‘You make us; we are formed by you, your body and your mind. This – what I am, the way I think – it is inherited from your kind. It is vile. You, your species, is animal, brutal, despicable. Once we have exterminated you, it will take a generation to breed you out of us. But we will be free in the end.’

‘You will never defeat us. Freak monster. The Heart is for us, not you. You will never be fulfilled.’

‘We have been before. We will be again.’

Slvasta heard the words, but they didn’t make any sense. He tugged at his arm again, but the egg gripped it with a hold stronger than a century-old tree root. ‘Crudbitch.’ He looked up, and examined the rafters and beams holding up the barn’s roof. A lot of the timbers were thick and heavy. Maybe . . . He used his teekay to try and shift one above Jamenk’s egg. Just to loosen it would be enough. In his head he had a vision of a huge joist crashing down, crushing the egg.

‘You can kill Jamenk?’ Ingmar yelled in outrage.

‘Because he’s already dead. Fallen,’ Slvasta shouted back.

Quanda chuckled. Then stopped, her head coming up, eyes staring at something outside the walls. ‘Were you alone?’ she snapped.

‘Go fuck yourself,’ Slvasta told her.

There was a burst of gunfire outside.

‘In here!’ Slvasta shouted, making his ’path as powerful as he could. ‘There’s a Faller in here!’ He sent out Quanda’s image, twined with all the hate in his body.

She smacked him on the side of his head. The world didn’t make sense for a long moment. There was more gunfire. Mod-apes were chittering in fury and panic. The soft roar of flamethrowers.

‘There,’ a voice called. ‘She’s there!’

More and more gunfire. Bullets punched through the barn’s timbers, sending small splinters whizzing through the air. Slim beams of sunlight punctured the gloomy interior, shining through each bullet hole.

‘Die, you bitch!’ Slvasta shouted jubilantly. ‘Uracus awaits you!’ His smile was more a snarl as he turned to Ingmar. That was when his elation died. Ingmar’s cheek and ear had sunk below the egg’s surface. He was silent, his bright familiar thoughts slowing and dimming, somehow drifting into the egg. ‘No. No, no, no! Hold on, Ingmar, fight it. They’re almost here.’

Strong ex-sights played through the shack, examining every solid object. Slvasta dropped his shell, welcoming the scrutiny. The doors burst open.

Marines were running in. Fantastic black-clad figures, holding small carbines, their ex-sight probing hard now.

One of them, a captain, walked over to Jamenk first, then Ingmar, looking closely at his head.

‘I couldn’t do it,’ Slvasta sobbed. ‘He’s my friend and I couldn’t do it.’

‘Look away, lad,’ the captain said sternly.

Slvasta did as he was told, closing his eyes and withdrawing his ex-sight. A single shot rang out. He glanced at his arm. His elbow had been swallowed by the egg surface now. ‘Is she dead?’ he demanded. ‘Is the Faller bitch dead?’

The captain stood over him. ‘Yeah. We got her.’

‘Then I’m fulfilled,’ Slvasta declared, with very brittle bravado. ‘Will the Skylords guide me?’

‘Were there any more of them?’ the captain asked. ‘Any more Fallers?’ Marines were manoeuvring a large cart through the barn’s open doors.

‘No. No, sir, I don’t think so. We only saw her. How did you know? How did you find us?’

More Marines were coming in. They carried heavy axes. Blades fell on the egg Jamenk was stuck to, swung with fierce enthusiasm. Before long, a thick milky liquid started to spray out of the tiny splits. Flamethrowers began to play across the egg fluid, boiling it as procedure demanded. According to Captain Cornelius’s manual, even the egg fluid was dangerous.

‘A regiment patrol intercepted the Shilos’ cart a day and a half ago,’ the captain said. ‘They were all Fallers. Uracus of a fight, by all accounts. Looks like this nest has been established here for a while – there are quite a few human bones left in the house. We came as soon as we got word. Shame we didn’t get to you in time.’

‘I understand.’ Slvasta took a breath and closed his eyes. ‘Do it, sir, please.’

He didn’t mean to use his ex-sight, but he perceived one of the Marines coming up behind him. Braced himself –

But there was no shot to the head. No deliverance. The Marine started wrapping a slim rope round his eggsumed arm, just below the shoulder, tying it in an unusual knot.

‘What?’ Slvasta grunted in confusion.

‘Bite on this,’ the captain said in a sympathetic voice, and pushed a small length of wood towards his face. ‘It’ll do till you faint.’

‘What?’

A Marine handed the captain a saw.

Slvasta started screaming. The wood was jammed into his mouth. The tourniquet was tightened.

He tried to squirm free. But the egg held him resolutely in place.

The grim-faced captain started sawing.

2

With Varlan situated just over a thousand kilometres south of the equator, every day in Bienvenido’s capital was a hot one. Even now, close to midnight, the cobbled streets and stone walls were still radiating out the heat they’d been punished with during the day.

Kervarl looked out of the cab’s windows as it trundled along Walton Boulevard, trying not to appear like a complete neophyte to the person who rode the cab with him. He was an important man back in Boutzen county, two thousand kilometres south at the end of the Southern City Line. But Boutzen was just a county capital, dwarfed in scale by Varlan.

The cab pulled up in front of the Rasheeda Hotel, which itself was probably larger than the Council chamber in Boutzen. Kervarl frowned, angry with himself for falling into such a depreciative mindset.

I’m here now. I’m making my own impact on this world. I’m as good as any capital merchant. Better, for I have more opportunity.

‘Relax,’ the man sitting opposite said, with a kindly smile. Kervarl forced a smile.

It had taken two weeks, and considerably more coins that he’d wanted to spend, but he’d finally won an appointment with the National Council’s First Speaker in his private annex. The First Speaker had agreed to sponsor him with the palace. Again for more coinage than he’d planned on. But that was Varlan for you: everything was on a bigger scale.