Pench walked back down his own dock, his legs weak, and a strange taste in his mouth. He went into his litde hut and called in an emergency. The police and various members of the emergency services that turned up ten minutes later found him sitting on his dock with his back against Auto Handler Three. None of them believed his story about the headless woman driving Veltz's boat, but it would become an oft-repeated legend.

4

Cormac assumed that the Cereb police station was a small affair because here so much was visible to the omnipresent runcible AI, and crime was, mosdy, not an option. A portico, with a hemispherical roof of ribbed ceramal, protruded from a building little different from those surrounding it, all with their mirror-glass windows and false-brick or stone facades. The portico was supported by pillars and completely open. Inside it, against the pillars, stood service consoles for those who did not want to take their problem as far as a human officer. As he stepped inside, Cormac noted telltale signs in the construction of the roof. There were armoured shutters up there, ready to slam down at any moment. Maybe small did not necessarily mean inefficient or unready; Cheyne III was, after all, a world that had seen a lot of Separatist activity. He walked to the mirrored door of the station and slapped his hand against it once.

'ECS agent Ian Cormac. Scan me and get confirmation from the runcible AI,' he said. It was only after he said it that it hit him: had he still been linked, this door would have been already open and everything would be ready for him. But this was how it would be from now on. Could he take it? He was glad when the door slid open almost immediately.

Cormac walked into a foyer tiled with a local marble he had noticed before. It struck him as unfortunate that it was white with blood-red swirls across it. Along two walls were rows of decidedly uncomfortable looking chairs, and on the walls behind these chairs were active and inactive posters showing still and moving pictures of criminals, recorded crime scenes, proscribed weapons and, for some reason he could not fathom, some rather strange adaptations. At the back of the foyer was a large, apparently wooden, panel door. Cormac knew that the wood was probably a skin over case-hardened ceramal.

'Scan confirms that you are carrying a dun-gun and an active attack weapon. Please remove these items, place them on the floor, and move back four paces,' said a rather hoarse female voice. Cormac looked up at the ceiling and observed a curious light fitting. It was a bulbous disc with a half-metre diameter and flat edges on which complex patterns and small lights flickered. Swivelling underneath it was a short chrome cylinder with cooling fins all around it. The disc was attached to the ceiling by a dück rod of ceramal, and down this rod ran ominously thick cables.

'I take it you haven't had confirmation of my identity from the runcible AI yet,' he said.

'Place your weapons on the floor and move back four paces,' the security drone replied.

'I presume,' said Cormac, wincing slightly at the sound of security shutters closing behind him, 'that you wish me to place my weapons on the floor so you can make them safe - that is, melt them into slag?'

'This is my third request. Place your weapons on the floor and move back four paces,' said the drone.

Cormac clicked a button on his shuriken holster. No doubt the drone saw this, because it began to emit an AC hum. Cormac wondered just what its reaction speed was. He knew it would go for the shuriken in the first instance, and that would be its mistake. As he readied himself, the AC hum abruptly cut off. Behind him the shutters clicked open.

'Agent Cormac, welcome to Cereb police station,' said the drone, and the wood-skinned door opened before him. He looked towards the bulky, uniformed woman who came through.

'You were taking a little bit of a risk there, weren't you?' she asked him. Her voice was similar to the drone's, but not quite identical. He studied her. Because her uniform, with its impact-absorbing layers and buried mesh, effectively concealed her physique, she appeared fat. By the heavy muscles that he could see supporting her head, and by the shape of her hands, Cormac guessed her to be a heavy-G adaptation.

'Who might I be addressing?' he asked.

'First Constable Melassan, and you are the famous Ian Cormac of ECS, or should that be notorious? Aren't you getting a little too high-profile for undercover work?'

Cormac smiled to himself and paused for a moment before replying. 'Let me answer your first question first: I was taking a calculated risk,' he said.

'No, you'd have been stunned,' said Melassan.

'And I must say no to you. I would have launched my… attack weapon, and your drone here would have focused on it, assuming it to be the greatest threat. It would then have been locked into destroying something very reflective moving at the speed of sound. And while it was working that one out, I would have killed it with this.' Cormac removed his dün-gun and held it out to her.

She took it and inspected it. 'ECS issue. Very neat,' she said and made to hand it back.

'No, keep it,' he said. 'I won't be able to take it dirough the runcible.'

She nodded and pocketed the weapon. 'I still don't understand why,' she said.

He looked down at her and became suddenly quite aware that, though she was two heads shorter dian himself, she did possess the capability of snapping him in half if he allowed her to get hold of him. He held up his arm and pulled down his sleeve to expose the shu-riken holster.

'This is a Tenkian. It is worth a great deal of money, it has sentimental value, and it has saved my life on many occasions. I would not have it casually destroyed because of an identification error. I owe it at least that,' he said.

'AI?' she asked him.

'Borderline. There has been dispute about the issue. What kind of Turing test do you use on a throwing star that does not speak?'

She watched his arm as he lowered it, then returned her attention to his face. She gestured with her thumb, then turned and walked through the door. Cormac followed her into an open office laid out with desks for three occupants. She headed for the one nearest the window, but rather than seek sanctuary behind it, as he had expected, she sat on it and faced him with her arms crossed.

'Well, what can we do for you, Agent Cormac?' she asked.

Cormac pulled round a swivel chair from one of the other desks and sat astride it. 'It is more a case of what I can do for you. I have come here to register my testimony with the Cheyne III police and make available to you certain… closed ECS files.'

'Concerning?'

'The Separatist cell on Cheyne III that has been responsible for just about every… incident here for the last five years, and, as I recollect, such incidents would include the flame-bombing of the Eriston police station two years ago. It is of course the case that Separatists consider anyone other than themselves to be collaborators. As for police who enforce Polity law…'