The metrotel was primitive by Polity standards. The rooms had no sleepfields, the showers only squirted hot water, room service came by way of a grumpy robot trolley and, rather than drop-shafts for transport, the building merely had express elevators. Stanton hit the pad beside the sliding doors and waited impatiently. Shortly the doors hissed open to show Dusache and Svent. Stanton felt uncomfortable getting into an enclosed space with them.

'Action, do you think?' he asked them.

'Yes,' they said simultaneously, then looked at each other. Svent went on. 'The hotel server has it that the storm should be finishing soon.'

The doors hissed open onto the lobby and they walked out across thick carpet. By the glass frontage a beetle-shaped robot was droning back and forth, cleaning up the mess tracked in by the hotel guests. Dusache glanced through that frontage before turning towards the bar.

'That isn't rain, it's a vertical sea,' he said.

To a certain extent Stanton agreed with him: it was a vertical sea, except when the wind turned it into a horizontal one. He followed the two mercenaries into the bar area and looked around. Corlackis and Men- necken were sitting playing cards at a low table. Corlackis had a stack of coins next to him and Men-necken a murderous expression on his face. He was gambling, and losing as usual.

'Where's Pelter?' Stanton asked. Corlackis shrugged and continued dealing out the cards. Svent and Dusache moved over to join the school. Svent looked up.

'He's on his way down,' he said.

The communication between the three of them was obvious, and why not? Any augs could link together like tfiat. What bothered Stanton was that such linkage was out of character for botfi Pelter and Dusache, just as wearing an organic aug was an odd thing for Svent to do. He walked over to the bar, where a metal-skin was waiting in obedient stillness.

'Give me a vodka cool-ice,' he said.

The skin immediately took up a glass and held it to the vodka optic. Stanton wondered if the ill-fitting shirt, bow-tie and black trousers it wore were an example of what passed for humour here. He watched the skin open the ice dispenser and select two of the rainbow cubes to drop into the vodka. It didn't need tongs - its metal fingers were tongs. Stanton was taking his first sip when Pelter walked in, Crane's presence behind him so expected now that Stanton found himself beginning to ignore the android. Perhaps not a healthy habit to get into.

'We go to the warehouse now,' Pelter said.

'You sure that's a good idea? It's only a little while until this shit stops,' asked Corlackis, glancing up from his hand.

Pelter moved further into the room. He stared at

Corlackis until the mercenary looked up again. There was a brief uncomfortable silence until Pelter spoke.

'Whether or not it is a good idea is irrelevant. You will go outside and get the transporter round to the front here. You will do it now.'

Corlackis dropped his cards on the table and stood. He glanced past Pelter to Mr Crane, then headed from the bar. Mennecken stood and followed him. Stanton watched the two of them go. Corlackis would do what he was told. He would complete whatever task was given to him and he would take the money. He would not try to kill Pelter; he was not that stupid. Pelter now looked at Stanton.

'A word,' he said and nodded over to the bar. The others watched them with curiousity as they moved beyond hearing range. By the bar Stanton waited on what Pelter had to say. Pelter reached up and touched the organic aug. Strain further distorted his features. He lowered his hand and glanced at Mr Crane. The android had now reacquired those small movements it had been devoid of over the last few days.

'You have a stun pistol?'

Stanton tapped his trouser pocket. 'I liked that one Corlackis has. They're cheap here,' he said.

'Very well. When we are at the warehouse and when I give you the signal, I want you to hit Dusache and Svent with it.'

'What?… Why?'

'Just do it,' said Pelter.

'As you say, Arian.'

Pelter closed his eyes for a moment and then glanced across at the two mercenaries. They were looking back with puzzled expressions.

Pelter went on. 'Contact Jarvellis. Have her at her ship within the hour. If she wishes she may stay in her cabin, but just make sure she has the B hold open for us, and is fully prepared to open the A.'

Stanton moved off to one side to do as bid, while Pelter returned to the others. He was starting to get an uneasy feeling about all this. Jarvellis, of course, greeted his news with a stream of very colourful invective. He grinned, pocketed his comunit, and joined the others.

'Is Grendel meeting us out there?' he asked Pelter.

'He is.'

That ended the conversation, but gave Stanton an inkling of what was going on. They waited in silence until the transporter glided in from the AGC park to the front of the metrotel.

The trip out to the warehouse was a risky venture. The old AGC transporter, effectively a long alloy box with a cab bolted on the front and turbines on the side, swayed and plummeted as the walls of water it passed through confused its ground-level detector. The noise was tremendous, but not enough to cover Corlackis's quiet swearing at the controls.

'We could take it up,' Mennecken suggested, after an errant and ferocious gust of wind tried to slam the vehicle against a building.

'Not one of your best ideas, brother.' Corlackis said.

Stanton, who along with the others was clinging to the webbing straps distributed along the inside of the box, had to agree. If Corlackis lost control here, they at least had a chance of getting out alive. He looked at Mr Crane, who was standing alone in the middle of the floor, and wondered if the android had magnetic feet. He appeared to have been welded there.

Eventually they left the old hydrocar streets behind and came to a wide scattering of buildings like giant Nissan huts. Through the front screen Stanton saw a crack of light opening out, as the doors of one warehouse slid aside. Corlackis brought the transporter in through those doors and landed it on the plascrete flooring. As Stanton followed Pelter out into the warehouse, he looked with renewed wonder at their most recent acquisition.

The dropbird had the appearance of a winged egg, when you could see it at all. Stanton found that if you stared up at it for too long, it faded into the background of the warehouse. It was only by glancing down at its landing skids and reacquiring it from them that you could make it out again. Of course, while dropping through atmosphere, the skids would be inside it and the bird would be invisible to the naked eye. It was also radar inert, and pretty difficult to nail down with any other kind of scan. It was laughable, Stanton thought, that the likes of Pelter believed they had any chance of beating the Polity. This was Polity manufacture and it was out of date, yet it was far in advance of most things Separatist groups could obtain.

'What are those?' asked Mennecken, pointing at the objects underneath each wing. This was the first time he had seen the bird.

The objects were visible. If you stared at them too long, it seemed as if they were floating in midair.

'AG lifters for transporting it,' Stanton replied.

'It has no AG at all?'

'No, grav motors are heavy and it needs to be as light as possible. Also, even when they're not operating, grav motors give off a recognizable signature. Of course, when they're operating you might just as well come in ringing bells and letting off fireworks.'

'It isn't completely necessary to state the obvious. I was just thinking of safety,' said Mennecken.

'There should be no problem. This is, as Svent would say, good tech.'

'If there is a problem?'