It was invisible to his eyesight as he pushed forwards through the thick stalks, but his ex-sight remained fixed on it during his approach, alert for any treachery. The squads emerged cautiously from the upright bamboo into the impact zone. Slvasta felt it then. An aroma that made you want to step forwards and get a better smell, then a taste – all you had to do was lick the dark surface. A sensation hinting of unparalleled joy if you just stepped forwards and reached out. An elusive melody so sweet that you had to hear it properly, if you just stepped close enough to put your ear to the surface of the sphere it emanated from. As always, his heart began to race as his body reacted to the promised pleasure of the lure. If only someone had taught him this was what happened when you encountered an egg. Then Ingmar would still be alive – and Quanda with her devious incitement, manipulating the lure with the addition of sexual provocation, would have died in a blaze of flame and pain. If only . . .

‘Hold fast.’ Yannrith’s stern warning barked round the small clearing.

Slvasta hadn’t quite been going to take a step, but the appeal the egg’s strange thoughts radiated was darkly enticing every time. ‘Remember this, all of you,’ Slvasta said. ‘Look at your enemy and know its treachery, know its lust for your flesh.’ He glanced round the faces of the troopers, seeing each of them fight their own battle to resist. The new recruits were having the worst of it. Several were having to be physically restrained. ‘I need you to be strong enough to resist this bewitchment every time. We are going to stand here until you learn to scorn its trickery and lies. That promise you feel is death. It will kill you forever; it will consume your soul. If you Fall, there will be no fulfilment, and you will never be guided to the Heart of the Void. The Skylords do not come for the Fallen. They come for humans alone. They come for the worthy. And that is who I want in my squads. So will you show me that? Will you show me you are worthy?’

‘Yes, lieutenant,’ they chorused.

‘I cannot hear you. Are you worthy?’

‘YES, LIEUTENANT.’

‘Do you wish to discover the false wonder it offers?’

‘NO, LIEUTENANT.’

‘Good.’ He looked around the clearing again. The new recruits were standing firm. Nobody moved. ‘Trooper Jazpur.’

‘Yes, lieutenant?’

‘Release the goat.’

Jazpur let go of the leash. The goat, which had been silent as soon as it emerged into the impact zone, trotted forwards. It reached the egg and looked up at it, then pushed the side of its head affectionately against the dark surface. And stuck.

‘Now watch,’ Slvasta commanded.

The egg’s powerful psychic lure died away as the goat’s grubby hide began to sink below the surface. As always, Slvasta moved closer, probing with his ex-sight, trying to sense what was happening, trying to understand the process. As always, he was baffled. He perceived the surface structure, the thick living fluid inside. The strange uniform thoughts circulating within. The fizz of activity around the goat’s skin and skull as it sank into the bizarre yolk.

‘Once you have touched that surface, you are stuck,’ Slvasta said. ‘You cannot pull away.’ He thrust his stump out. ‘You can be cut free, but only if your friends are quick. If your chest is eggsumed, you are Fallen. Once your head is inside, you have Fallen. Now, despite the rumours you have heard, no cloth you wear can prevent eggsumption, no herbs can make it spit you back out, no teekay can lift you free. Fire will not make it let go. If a friend is Falling, be a true friend and kill him!’ Slvasta drew his pistol and shot the placid goat in its head. ‘Sergeant, axe the egg.’

‘Aye, sir.’

The recruits were given the first chance to swing their axes. It was hard work, for the blackened, rumpled surface was tough enough to survive a plummet through the sky. But they persisted, hacking away until cracks began to appear. Dribbles of pale white goo started to leak out. Then the second batch of troopers moved in and began swinging. The cracks were widened. The goo began to spray out in thin jets.

After twenty minutes, the holes were large and the internal pressure had been released. The peculiar substance of the egg simply poured out, forming big puddles on the ground.

‘Burn it,’ Slvasta ordered.

Five troopers with flamethrowers moved in. They began to play their fierce arcs of flame over the egg. The stench of burning jellyoil and roasting egg churned through the air. Slvasta had smelt it enough times before, but several of the troopers were gagging.

‘We’ve found one,’ Slvasta announced to his squads as the hot stinking flames incinerated the dead egg. ‘That means there will be another three or four somewhere close by, maybe even more. The eggs never Fall alone. So we’re going to go back out there, and we’re going to sweep this whole county if we have to. We will find those eggs, and they will be axed and burnt before any human Falls. Now, let’s get to it!’

*

Thirteen days later, Slvasta stood outside the tall glossy double doors of Brigadier Venize’s office. He was still in his field uniform, filthy from travelling and camping. The NCOs had led their squads back to the barracks to unpack and clean up and get themselves a decent meal in the headquarters’ long mess hall. They were the last of the regiment’s troops to return from the sweep. It had been a civilian passenger train which had brought them back to Cham; the troop train with the rest of the regiment had returned a week before.

One of the doors opened, and Major Rachelle came out. She was the regiment’s adjutant, in her late nineties, with silver-grey hair wound into a tight bun. Her skin was leathery from decades spent out in the sub-tropical sun commanding sweeps. Slvasta had to respect the service she’d put in. But that time was over, and now she was just another outdated officer clogging up headquarters. There were dozens of them, soaking up the region’s budget to pay for their extravagant salaries – money that could have been better spent on front-line troopers, in his opinion. And as for the regulations they invented that sapped the regiment’s operational performance . . .

‘He’s ready for you,’ she said curtly.

Slvasta followed her back through the doors. Brigadier Venize’s office was another indulgence. A huge tiled room with arching windows that reached up to the high roof. Large fan flaps swung gently above the open shutters, their cord pulled by a mod-dwarf who sat in the corner, rocking back and forth. More irrelevance, Slvasta thought, as he walked the length of the room to the brigadier’s desk. It wasn’t as if the fans made any difference to the heat. But he kept his shell smooth and impregnable, unwilling for anyone to know his sense of frustration and disappointment at the failure of the sweep.

‘Sir.’ He reached the desk and stood to attention, saluting.

Venize was pretending to read a thick folder. The previous month had seen a regimental dinner celebrating his one hundred and twentieth birthday, with the nobility from across the county filling the officers’ mess and two pavilions set up on the parade ground. Slvasta had seen the final bill, which presumably was one of the major reasons the regiment hadn’t yet bought terrestrial horses to replace all the mod-horses.

The brigadier looked good for his years. Still fit and active, with a set of thin wire-rimmed glasses to compensate for shortsightedness, and a slim moustache to add to the dignity of age. He looked up from the folder and extended a finger, pointing to one of the two chairs in front of the ancient leather-topped desk. ‘Sit down, lieutenant.’

There was nothing in the voice to give away what tone the meeting would take, and his shell was even sturdier than Rachelle’s.

Slvasta sat, keeping his back straight. Major Rachelle sat in the other chair, looking at him.