'You can get on with it now,' he said.

She smiled happily and left the room.

'How much of that did you believe?' Cormac asked Mika, Thorn and Aiden.

'I think it will let us set up the runcible, and I believe it is genuinely after whatever was in that artefact. Beyond that its motivations are debatable,' said Mika.

'All of it is plausible,' said Aiden. 'One must question one's own motives for distrust.'

Cormac answered him. 'Dragon has little regard for human life; we know this. Why would it be concerned about the possible deaths of a few million people?'

Aiden looked thoughtful for a moment, and then said, 'You are correct. It has motivated us because it requires our assistance. This makes a number of its claims invalid. I concur with Mika.'

'Thorn?' asked Cormac.

'Tapestry of fucking lies, old man,' said Thorn, smiling bleakly.

Cormac was sitting on his bed, wondering about the possibility of sleep, when there came a knock at his door.

'Come in,' he said.

In came Jane, apparently no less a goddess because she wore baggy overalls.

'Jane, please, sit down.'

Jane swished into the single chair with an economy of movement and an elegance that was enviable. She had a grace that Aiden lacked. But Aiden had a brute power she lacked. Bodi of them could have squashed the likes of Thorn widiout needing their artificial sweat glands.

'What do you require of me?' she asked, crossing her legs.

Cormac rubbed at his forehead. 'Chaline told me that your speciality was secondary installation. You deal with AIs normally, which was why she could release you to me last time. You hadn't a lot to do then.'

Jane smiled. 'Yes, that is correct.'

'That submind we brought back - Hubris can't get dirough to it. It's completely internalized. Do you have any suggestions as to how we might get dirough?'

'It would be kinder to shut it down. It was part of the Samarkand AI, and as such more of a fragment of a mind. The destruction of the rest of it has driven it insane.'

'No, I can't allow it to be shut down.'

'Might I ask why?'

'Dragon.'

'You think it contains vital information?'

'All I know is that when Dragon was scorching the planet, it managed to vaporize every remaining installation of the Samarkand runcible. It was all well disguised, as it scorched the entire area. But I find it suspicious for all that.'

'Destroying the evidence?'

'Looks like it.'

'What do you hope to find?'

'Perhaps some chronology to these events. There might be a record of when the dracomen arrived, or when the Maker left…' He paused and stared off to one side. 'Shit! Blegg!'

'I beg your pardon?'

'He knew! The bastard knew!'

Jane waited. Cormac went on.

'When he sent me here, he told me the runcible AI managed to transmit some information. I bet it told him about the arrival of the dracomen. That's why he sent me.'

'Does this mean the submind can now be shut down?'

'No, definitely not. All we can be sure of is that he knew about the dracomen, and about the runcible going down. There might be more. What were the events surrounding these various arrivals and departures? I need to know. Will you try?'

'If you so wish.'

Jane glided to her feet and with a quick smile she left him. He lay back on his bed. He could see what Blegg had done: given him the minimum of information so he would have to get over the effects of gridlinking and approach the problem without preconceptions. Did Blegg believe Dragon had destroyed the runcible? Or did he have some inkling of Dragon's version of events? Whatever the answer, Cormac knew he could not expect Blegg to deliver it to him. He was on his own, as always. Half-truths and outright lies, the casual killing of thousands; Blegg knew what motivated him. Cormac was determined that he would not let go until he had found some answers and someone, or something, roasted for what had happened here. He did not like playing the fool.

Twenty years in the ES regulars had left Cheryl with a jaundiced view of human nature and an almost supernatural recognition of potential shitstorms. When she saw the huge figure standing amongst the rows of vines, she did not shout a greeting nor ask that figure its business. She immediately ducked down, accessed her aug, and sent out a recall to the pickers. A two-and-a-half- metre-tall metal-skin would not come to the crop house to enquire about the passionfruit business, nor to purchase juice for one of the wine makers. Cheryl kept utterly still and hoped that the android had not heard her, and she felt some relief when the first of the pickers came along the rows.

These pickers were something to make the skin crawl on anyone who had not been born on Viridian. They were made so that they could scuttle through the vines without causing too much damage as they selected fruits of the required ripeness. Upon finding such a fruit, they did not actually pick it, but they would grip it in their mandibles and suck it dry; and once their sacklike bodies were full, they would go to empty themselves at one of the juicing stations. The AI that had designed them had taken their template from an Earth lifeform perfectly suited to this task. That lifeform was good at both scuttling and sucking things dry. Each picker, as a result, was a black plastic spider with a body the size of a football.

The android flicked its head from side to side as the spiders moved past it. Cheryl set a loop in their programs so they would keep searching the rows in that same area, then very carefully backed away. Now, with any luck, the android would not hear her: the scuttling in the growths might cover the sounds of her breathing and her heartbeat. When she had put four rows between herself and potential trouble, she crouched down by the small silo of a juicing station and put a call, through her aug, to the authorities in the capital. She was unsurprised to find her signal blocked. Just as she was unsurprised to see a man, another two rows across, walking towards the crop house. This man was dressed in plain businesswear, had black hair, and a black sun-band across his eyes. The giveaway was the Drescon assault rifle he had hanging from a shoulder strap.

Cheryl very carefully moved in the opposite direction from him. His attention was firmly fixed on the crop house and he was speaking into a comunit. So, there were others. Cheryl was very glad of the habit of dress she had acquired during those twenty years, a habit reinforced by the tendency of some Viridian inhabitants to sneak in and empty juicing stations in order to make a shilling or two with the wine makers. Her ES battle fatigues were chameleon cloth. Had they not been she felt sure she would be dead by now.

Five small thuds came in quick succession from her right. Not from the man she had already spotted. She froze and felt a sudden surge of fear. Until the moment she heard the horrible mosquito whining that followed immediately upon the shots, this had almost been like a training exercise. Seeker bullets! Whoever these people were, they were using seeker bullets. The sound of smashing glass leavened her fear. The shots had been fired at the crop house. Had she been inside, the bullets would have found her by now, homing in on her body heat to detonate at her skin in a blast of micro-shrapnel. A couple of small explosions then came from the house. The bullets had probably decided on hitting the most likely heat sources. That meant the central heating in the house would be gone.