'You'd think the price would have included fucking heating!' Stanton shouted.

The intercom crackled, and Jarvellis spoke. She sounded slightly dopey. 'Sorry, John. I used a timed drop from underspace here. No asteroids to hit and not much else that the automatics couldn't handle. I've only just thawed up myself,' she said.

'Yeah, and I bet it's nice and warm where you are.'

'Give me a chance. I'm not up to speed yet.'

'Well, get up to speed. It's warmer in these coffins than in the hold.'

Immediately there came the drone of fans. Pelter turned Crane's head to watch the frost disappearing in waves across the walls.

'We're insystem, then?'

'Insystem and coming up on Huma.'

Stanton surveyed the hold. Of course, mere were no portals, so he could not prove, disprove, or appreciate that statement. He glanced at Pelter's coffin, men across at Mr Crane. He shivered, maybe in response to the cold.

'What about Arian?'

'I set your coffin to open first, John,' said Jarvellis. 'Perhaps we can—'

Stanton interrupted. 'Best you get Arian's coffin open now. I don't want any misunderstandings with Mr Crane here, and Arian has that command link with him fed in through his optic nerve. I'd rather Arian was awake and controlling him.'

Pelter reassumed control and turned Mr Crane's head. Stanton was now standing beside his cold coffin, trying to shake frozen stiffness from his shirt. He was also looking at Mr Crane. Yes, thought Pelter, that's the way it is. He returned Mr Crane's attention to his toys and cut the link.

There was a sound, a deep crack, and a line of brilliance cut to the left of him. His whole body suddenly had severe pins and needles as the nerve-blocker detached and feeling returned. This feeling slowly ebbed, only to be replaced with a sensation as of his entire skin having been burnt - and he knew how that felt. Suddenly he gasped, and fluid bubbled in his lungs. Until then, he realized he had not been breathing.

'Best to get moving,' said John Stanton, looking down at him.

Pelter sat up and looked at himself. His body, like Stanton's, was covered with pinheads of dried blood. He lifted his legs from the coffin and tried to stand. His legs started to give way and Stanton caught hold of his arm.

'Takes a moment for the blood sugars to kick in. Your blood is full of food, but the cells of the rest of your body are starving. You'll know when it happens,' he said.

Pelter tried standing again and this time got control of his legs. The burning sensation began to retreat like the frost on the walls. The feeling that replaced it was an endorphin rush. For a brief minute he got the buzz that turned people into heroin addicts. He hated it. He shook off Stanton's supporting arm and carefully stooped down to take up his frigid clothing. The intercom crackled its phoney crackle.

'We're into atmosphere now and will be landing in about an hour. As part of the service, you'll find a wallet of Carth shillings in the black holdall. It's your entry fee. They're desperate for Polity currencies. Customs here are pretty relaxed, but it's best to lubricate the wheels of their bureaucracy,' Jarvellis told them.

Pelter looked at Stanton. 'Customs?'

'Yeah, we're not in the Polity now. You'll find that if you want anything done here, you'll have to do a fair bit of lubricating,' Stanton told him.

Pelter nodded thoughtfully as he pulled on his jacket. 'Tell me about this place,' he said.

'Nothing much to say,' Stanton replied. 'The only habitation here is at the poles. At the equator the average temperature is not far below the boiling point of water. They're eight solstan years prior to Polity subsumption, and what government they have is on the edge of collapse. It's completely corrupt and therefore just what we need. You can do anything you want here, if you have the money.'

'Dealers?' Pelter asked.

'You'll be falling over them. You can get just about anything. Fortunes are made out here on the edge, fhrough technologies coming out of the Polity and proscribed weapons going in. Huma's become a trading outpost.'

'I'll want a dropbird, seeker bullets and missiles -proton guns as well.'

'You'll be able to buy all that. Not cheap, but anything you want. We should be able to get it all through the dealer Jarvellis used.'

Pelter nodded and looked closely at John Stanton. 'I'll find a dealer. I'll want you to find the boys and sort out one or two other things,' he said.

'Whatever you say, Arian.'

As they sat out the hour until landing, sipping from

Grldlinked self-heating soup cartons, Pelter could almost feel the image in his missing left eye. The thin-gun. It seemed to push a cold ache through the centre of his head, and he knew that place to be the hole the pulse would burn right the way through.

The door irised open and bright lemon sunlight flooded the hold, before a wave of heat and spicy perfume. Pelter led the way out into that light, with Mr Crane walking a step behind him, holding the briefcase. Stanton paused at the lip and glanced back in, before hurrying after them.

The landing field was compacted greenish dirt webbed with plants similar to liverworts or some spillage of boiled spinach. From these plants sprang long hairlike stalks topped with spherical pink buds the size of peppercorns or the two-petalled flowers they opened out as. As he walked on a patch of these and got a stronger waft of their spicy perfume, Stanton remembered his last time here. Twenty solstan years ago he had come this way on his route into the Polity to make his fortune. Things had been different then. For one, there had not been as many ships here then as there were now. He looked around at the multifarious vessels. They were, on the whole, small cargo haulers, though of every conceivable design. He could guess what an awful lot of them were hauling too, and that was another change. At that time, the government here had put restrictions on arms, much the same as those in the Polity, and there had also been very strict laws concerning landing permits, passes and codes of conduct. Now nobody bothered. Why should they, when the Polity was soon to step in and take control? Why bother when there were fortunes to be made in the intervening years?

The two customs officials who approached were one example of the indolence and greed that affected the citizens of a world about to be subsumed. Their clothing was a mixture of uniform and personal clothing. The man wore the green peaked cap and jacket of customs personnel over a dusty pair of monofilament overalls. The woman wore the jacket over a brown leaf-shaped skirt, but no cap. She carried a scanner on which Stanton could see the charging light flickering, and as such was useless until charged. She also had an organic-looking augmentation behind her right ear. It had the flat bean shape of most augs, but was a greenish colour and seemed to be covered with glinting little scales.

'Do you have a permit for that?' said the man, pointing at Crane.

'Permit?' replied Pelter flatly.

Stanton quickly stepped up beside him. 'We're not sure of what is required. Perhaps you can help us out?' he said, noting how intently the woman was staring at Pelter.

'We can issue you with a permit. The cost will be… ten New Carth shillings, or the equivalent in New Yen. Then there is the matter of your visas,' said the man.

Stanton pulled out the wallet Jarvellis had provided for them and opened it, making sure the man could not see how much it contained. Ten shillings was a derisory sum back in the Polity. Out here it was probably a day's wages.

'Perhaps you could tell us how much the visas cost?' Pelter asked.

The man studied them. They looked, Pelter knew, somewhat ragged round the edges. He could also see how the man's eyes kept straying to the briefcase Mr Crane carried. That case was obviously new.