'What the hell?' said Chaline.

On the screen they could see that a pseudopod had attached itself to one of the wall consoles.

'Getting the layout of the ship, probably, and anything else of interest,' suggested Cormac.

They watched as the drop-shaft door crumpled and broke and the pseudopods flooded through.

'They have entry,' said Chaline unnecessarily.

'Perhaps it mistook Hubris for a she-dragon,' said Thorn. There was a giggle from behind him that soon petered out.

Cormac ignored the comment and stared at the screen, his hopes growing. The pseudopods were going down the shaft - away from them - not coming up it. Suddenly he knew what Dragon wanted.

'Hubris, what is the status of the dracomen?'

'They were unhurt in the incident, but have since undergone changes.'

The screen flicked to reveal the interior of the isolation chamber. The two dracomen were lying on the floor, curled in the foetal position. They had excreted some kind of fluid that had sealed them in cauls, so they appeared newborn. Cormac knew they were making ready to go back, but should he let Dragon have them? Would they make bargaining counters? He had to try, else Dragon might just take its dracomen and disappear.

'Dragon, if you persist in this action, the dracomen will be destroyed. We will—'

The ship shuddered again. There was a loud crash over the intercom.

'Pseudopods just took out the door next to Isolation,' said Hubris. 'Do you wish the dracomen destroyed?'

The screen flicked again to show the scene outside the isolation chamber. Pseudopods filled the area and were pushing at the armoured shutters over the viewing window. A voice, which Cormac recognized of old, came over the intercom.

'Bluff, Ian Cormac, is for those without strength. You will not destroy what is mine, for if you do, I will crush this ship.'

Dragon…

'The dracomen are in a sealed chamber… all I want is some answers. Why were they here? What happen—'

'You have limited choices. Open this sealed chamber, or I will simply remove it from your ship. To do so I will need to open out some areas…'

Dragon was right.

'Hubris, open the isolation chamber,' Cormac said quickly.

The shutters slid aside and the pseudopods burst through the window. They were in, then out, in a moment, and the dracomen were lost in the mass of writhing flesh.

'Pulling back to the drop-shaft,' said Chaline, though they could all see that for themselves. 'Hubris, what seal do we have if Dragon disengages?'

'Have seals for drop-shaft ready,' replied the AI.

Scene by scene, the screen showed pseudopods being drawn back. One view showed the seals sliding into the drop-shaft behind it like great coins. In the shuttle bay the pods slid back into the fleshy wall beyond. The ship shuddered.

'Dragon disengaging.'

They all felt the explosion of air leaving the shuttle bay. The great sphere of Dragon drew away. Along with other debris, the shuttle followed it into vacuum.

'Dragon disengaged.'

'Cento…' said Aiden.

'We'll get the shutde back,' said Chaline.

On emergency drives, Hubris limped back into orbit around Samarkand.

'Dragon didn't know all that was going on,' said Mika as she repaired Cormac's ribs.

He did not want to see what she was doing to him. He had seen quite enough blood and ripped-open bodies in his time not to be squeamish, but as always it was a different matter when it was your own blood and your own open body. The nerve-blocker on the back of his neck had, after adjustment, numbed him from the armpits downwards. But, as was always the case with such operations, he could faintly feel the tuggings and certainly hear the sounds. Cormac had wanted to just strap his ribs up and avoid this, but Mika had insisted because he was in danger of getting a punctured lung. He glanced aside at the pipes leading into the remote lung, and again experienced that weird feeling of disconnection. The blocker had shut off some of his autonomics, and his heart and lungs were on hold.

'What makes you say that?'

Cormac's voice sounded exactly the same to him, even though it issued from a mechanical larynx, much like that of a Golem, operating on the shunted nerve impulses from the nerve-blocker. The object was stuck on his shoulder with a skin-stick pad. It had the appearance of a large snail shell made of blue metal, and fixed sideways to a coin of perspex in which small lights glinted.

'Well, the dracomen are part of it. I would speculate they were something like remote probes or agents. It wanted them back for debriefing.'

There was a thump in his chest, then a sticky squelching sound.

'It could have just asked,' said Cam from where he sat rubbing at his arm above his silvered hand. The technician was studying Cormac's open chest with great interest.

'I think you're right,' Cormac said to Mika. 'It was almost as if it was frantically searching the planet for them, and when it didn't find them there it turned its attention to us and grabbed them as quickly as it could.'

'Desperately,' added Mika.

'I don't know. Certainly without any regard for human life. We were lucky Hubris could take that kind of punishment.'

He fell silent. At least, most of them were lucky. Mika had been dealing with various injuries for some twenty hours now. Three of the crew were in life-support canisters, awaiting return to civilization. They might survive, though they would then be spending a long time in a regrowth tank. One of the runcible technicians had not been even that lucky; her head had been crushed to pulp when one of the runcible components had shifted and caught her against a wall

'Did Chaline have anything to say?' he asked her.

'Repairs are well under way, but she's not happy about the delays. She's becoming very single-minded about her runcible.'

Mika stepped back from him with her gloved hands held up and away from her white coat. The gloves were quite bloody. She looked up at the screen above where Carn was sitting. This screen showed a scanned image of Cormac's chest. He had only looked at it once.

'Aiden?' he asked.

'He retrieved the shuttle. Cento's been stored… so has the shuttle; it's beyond repair. They're getting another one out of storage as soon as the shuttle bay has been repaired. Chaline was panicking about the heavy-lifter, but it was undamaged.'

She stepped close and started manipulating things in his chest again.

'Heavy-lifter?'

'In storage… one heavy-lifter and four minishuttles. Chaline needs the lifter to take down the runcible.'

'Oh… seems we might be all right…'

Mika did not immediately reply. Cormac felt more movement, then heard the low drone of the bone welder. He glanced down at that moment and wished he hadn't. From his solar plexus upwards, the skin and muscle of his chest had been peeled back. Mika had a finger shoved through a hole between two obviously broken ribs and was running the tip of the welder along the break. Cormac could smell something strangely dusty. Calcium particles had escaped the electrostatic process that was laying them down in the breaks.

'We are, I suppose,' said Mika, standing back again to view her work. 'But Hubris is going to be here some time. It needs parts brought from Minostra, and they'll have to come through the runcible. Not until then will it be able to leave orbit.' She placed the head of the welder back in its sterilizing holder and pushed the wheeled unit a little way back from the table. 'Cellweld Inc.' was the wording of the logo on this device, which was a silvered box on top of a wheeled trolley. A touch-console was mounted in the top of the box, and from the side of it issued a skein of pipes and cables. These terminated in a head that could take any of the racked adaptors stored underneath the box. Mika selected something that looked like a small glass spade. 'I've clamped the breaks just to give some support to the welds. I don't suppose you'll be resting for a while yet. The clamps will take a year to dissolve; plenty of time for your ribs to completely heal. I've dealt with most of the internal tissue damage. I'll seal you up now.'