Cormac looked round and saw Cam and Thorn dragging themselves over to their seats. He, too, strapped himself in.

'It's coming,' said Aiden. He looked at the readings on the instrument panel. Then he looked again. 'Accelerating at eight Gs.'

'Jesus!' said Cam.

'Everybody strapped in?' asked Aiden.

'Give me one fucking second!' Cam shouted.

With his hand poised over a lever to one side of the joystick, Aiden glanced back. After a moment he nodded and turned back to the screen.

'Acceleration,' he said, and then he hit the boosters.

Cormac diumped back in his seat so hard he was sure he contacted its framework. Something not tied down went crashing into the back of the shuttle. He heard Cam swearing monotonously before running out of breath. It was as if something was trying to drag the flesh off his bones. He could just see the instrument panel, greying out as he watched it.

'Ten… Gs…' he managed, then blacked out.

'You broke my fucking arm,' was Cam's protest - and the first thing Cormac heard as he came to. He felt as if someone had gone over him with a lawn roller while he was lying on a cobbled street. It took him a moment to pull himself togedier. He tried to blink away the lights that were fizzing at the edge of his vision. Ahead of the shuttle he saw the doors to the Hubris's shuttle bay opening.

'How far behind?' he said, when he was sure he could speak properly.

'About three minutes,' said Aiden.

The shimmer-shield touched the nose of the wing, then slid back over it as if they were entering a vertical pool. It engulfed and passed the cockpit in an expanding circle, and they were into the bay. Aiden fired the front and side retros to slow and turn them. As they came to the centre of the bay floor, the cockpit was facing the shimmer-shield. Gravity came on and eased them down. The shutde settied with a clunk.

'Stay in the shuttle, and secure shutde for impact,' came Hubris's voice from the panel. Red lights were flashing in the shuttle bay. Aiden's hands ran over touch-pads, his fingers a blur. Cormac felt the dull thuds of the grabs coming up out of the floor and taking hold of the shuttle.

Hubris now spoke the words it was probably voicing throughout the ship. 'Secure for impact. Secure for impact. All personnel to emergency modules.' Cormac felt the shuttle vibrating, and a glance through the shuttle-bay windows confirmed that Hubris was accelerating. The view of Samarkand slid from the portals to the shimmer-shield, then quickly past. The irised door closed across the shield, then heavier armoured shutters slid in from the sides. Armoured shutters also closed across the portals.

'Impact in three minutes and fifty seconds. Mark. Correction. Impact in two minutes thirty seconds. Mark. Secure for impact.'

Cormac glanced at the rear-view screen. All of the internal shuttle-bay doors were closed now. An armoured shield had closed off the entrance to the drop-shaft.

'Impact imminent! Impact imminent!'

Cormac braced himself against his seat. This was going to be bad. People were going to get hurt.

It was worse.

The sound was like a giant gong being struck - and cracking. Cormac felt as if his skull had just broken and his guts had been pushed back past his spine. He heard the scream of metal being wrenched and twisted, then snapping. The grabs had broken. The shuttle left the bay floor and hit the doors. The impact threw

Cormac against his straps. He felt blood spraying from his nose. Blackness threatened, withdrew, threatened again. He shook his head and saw blood dripping on the screen in front of him. The chainglass cockpit had not broken, of course, but it had been shoved back into the body of the shuttle. The shuttle itself was resting at an angle against the bay doors. But that was not the end of it. He could hear a wrenching tortured sound working its way through the ship as, like a great bubble, it sought to regain its spherical shape.

'Oh shit oh shit oh shit…'

Cormac looked back up at Cam, who was hanging belted in his seat, clutching his broken arm. Thorn hung next to him, unconscious, blood dripping from his mouth. Aiden was the first to move. He undipped his harness, dropped down to the screen, then shoved his hands into the distorted metal to one side of it. Somehow he got the required leverage, and kicked down with legs like hydraulic rams. Cormac was not quite sure he believed what he was seeing. The screen moved forwards with a crash. Two more kicks and it hinged away, on the distorted metal to one side of it, like a domed lid. Aiden immediately hauled himself up and over the flight console, and then across his seat to reach Cam. As Cormac freed himself, he winced at the feel of broken ribs moving in his chest. Very carefully, he lowered himself down from the shuttle. There he took hold of Cam, whom Aiden lowered to him with a single grip on the collar of his coldsuit. Thorn came next. Soon all four of them were safely on the shutde-bay floor. Using the shuttle medical kit, Aiden splinted

Cam's arm and injected painkillers. Thorn came to and vomited. Cormac just sat and clutched his own head.

'Emergency personnel to sector three, with fire retardants. Automatic systems out. All hull breaches temporarily sealed. All drop-shafts inoperative. Sector one closed to all personnel until coolant leaks traced and repaired…'

The list went on and on, yet there was no word of what had happened to Dragon.

'Hubris, what's going on? What's Dragon doing?'

The list continued to be recited by subsystem while Hubris spoke to them in the shuttle bay.

'Dragon has taken hold of this ship with its pseudo-podia. It is dragging us back to Samarkand. I have had to close down engines because of coolant leaks. All attempts to remove the pseudopodia have failed. I do not wish to resort to energy weapons at this range.'

There was a thump, and the entire ship shuddered. The shuttle groaned, then slid to the bay floor with a crash.

'What the hell?' pleaded Cam.

Hubris said, 'Dragon is attempting to gain entrance to the shuttle bay. I suggest you abandon this section and head for the communal area.'

As one, they turned to stare at the shuttle-bay doors. They were creaking, flexing.

'I have temporarily engaged drop-shaft one,' said Hubris.

They headed there as the armoured shielding slid away from the shaft. Cam went first, and was wafted up to the communal area. Thorn went next. Cormac turned and watched as the bay doors were slowly wrenched to one side. The shimmer-shield was out, but there was no danger from vacuum at that moment. Beyond the door was a wall of scaled flesh. And all down the edge of the door appeared pseudopods like blue-tipped fingers.

'Is it after me?' Cormac asked.

'We go,' said Aiden.

They stepped into the drop-shaft.

They gathered in the recreation room: Cormac, Aiden, Thorn, Mika, Chaline, and some of the technicians and crew. Cormac saw that one of the technicians was holding a bloody cloth to his head. Another was sitting holding his ribs. He wondered how many more had been hurt.

Hubris showed them the scene in the shuttle bay. The external doors were wide open now and pseudopodia were flooding the bay in a landslide of flesh, their cobra heads feeling along the walls like the fingers of a blind man.

'Intruder defence mechanisms online—'

'No,' said Cormac, 'belay that. Put me through to the shuttle bay.'

'You are through. Intruder defence systems offline.'

'Dragon, why have you attacked this ship?' He had a horrible feeling that he knew the answer; that he had just pissed it off and that it was after him. He somehow doubted, that being the case, that there was anything that could prevent him from being found.

'It's concentrating on the drop-shaft door now,' said Chaline. 'Stress readings are up.' Hubris said, 'Unauthorized access to information banks. Information being downloaded from shuttle-bay area.'