'It is a submind of my predecessor. It contains information pertaining to the incident here.'

'You have it? You have the information?' asked Cormac eagerly.

'Not yet…'

'—cast aluminium hand shield over green volcanic glass orb head red quartz rods sulphur yellow green sulphur yellow sulphur blue stink aniseed prodesti-nationactinicablecomlivesurvin—' The monologue from the submind suddenly became a high-pitched squeal.

Samarkand II said, 'My predecessor survived the blast for nine-point-two seconds. It discovered a virus-lock on some information in itself. This, along with much else, it transmitted to its subminds, as by then it was no longer on the grid."

'—Broken caltrops under lead hooves. Horse-head is a hollow roll of tin with star diamonds for eyes and mussel shells for ears. Jade hands in red moonlight; night green and black over contrast land. Unlogged matter/energy transmission 32562331. Glass dragons in green sky red moon—'

Samarkand II said, 'Unlogged matter/energy transmission forty-eight solstan days before the incident. Confusion as to the nature of what was transmitted indicates a high probability that it was the entity referred to as "Maker".'

'—Lizards with heavy bones. Dragon In The Flower.

Gridlirtked

No law prevents. Dogs mad of grain held together with fungal filaments. Fish-head reptiles. Hot pools filled with man stew. 326222400—'

'The two dracomen arrived one day before the buffer went down. This information was transmitted into the grid prior to the explosion.'

Cormac said to Jane, 'Seems likely the dracomen set the mycelium. Dragon would say it was keyed to their arrival, and that the Maker set it.'

''Why would they set it, if the Maker was gone?'

'Did they know that?'

Jane said, 'I think you are prejudiced against Dragon. This information does not confer guilt.'

'Perhaps,' mused Cormac, then said, 'Samarkand II, is there any indication as to who set the mycelium? Also, where did the Maker go?'

'I will allow the submind to answer that.'

The submind said, 'No warning prior buffer failure. No indication source mycelium. Matter/energy transmission directed Chirat Cluster, Mendax System, Planet Viridian, ref. AB87.'

That the station was a centrifugal ring station showed that it was old. The off-shoot technology from Skaidon tech of gravity manipulation had taken a while to impinge on the design of stations, mainly because it took a long time for people used to the essential requirements of space habitation to trust it. That Nix, the station, had an elevator showed it was pre-runcible and truly ancient. Another sign of this great age was the worn ceramal deck across which Jarvellis was dragging herself. At one-quarter G it would have taken the passage of many feet to put such hollows in such a hard material.

'Come on, you can do it,' said Tull for the «th time. His wife Jeth offered similar, though less sincere, encouragement. Her lack of enthusiasm was understandable. Both Outlinkers were scared: they were allowing a person into their home who could kill them with a friendly pat on the back. It did not escape Jarvel-lis's notice how brave Tull had been: first to retrieve her from outside, then to slap her face once she was inside.

It took minutes that dragged like hours, but Jarvellis eventually reached the lip of the metal box and looked back. She made the final effort and dragged herself in. The Outlinkers were back against the walls now. Jeth held out her narrow hand in which lay the flattened sphere of the nerve-blocker.

'Will you keep still for me?' she asked.

Jarvellis coughed. Her lungs were filling with fluid. Her entire body ached and her left side was a wide line of pain. She felt dizzy and sick. She nodded her head, then turned it to one side. Jeth cautiously stepped in close and pressed the blocker to the back of her neck. The fibres of neural shunt went in, and blessed numbness rolled down her body in a wave. Tull pressed buttons on a small control panel. Jarvellis did not feel the elevator move. She only knew it was coming to the centre of the station, when panic that the floor had fallen away pulled her out of the haze. She was weightless.

Now the Outlinkers felt safe, they quickly got hold of her and manoeuvred her through the sliding door into a tubular tunnel. Even this exercise was difficult for them, for though she was weightless she still had inertia. It took the both of them hauling at her to overcome it and get her moving. The walls of the tunnel were diamond-patterned to offer grip for feet and hands. Interspersed at regular intervals were rails and catch-loops. Sinking back into the haze, Jarvellis watched the little robot swinging past on the latter of these like an iron gibbon.

They brought her eventually to a curved room with no definite floor or ceiling. There was equipment on every surface and she was relieved to see a modern medbot, cell-welder and all those other devices that equated the repair of the human body with that of any other machine. They pulled her to the weightless version of a surgical table, a frame ringed with adjustable clamps, and there secured her in place. Tull pulled back the dressing on her breast, while Jeth set the medbot to work on her thigh.

Til do my best, but you'll need to see a cosmetic surgeon,' he said. 'You'll need regrowth and reconstructive surgery. Too much mammary fat is missing.'

Jarvellis tried to speak, but hardly anything came out of her dry mouth. Tull leaned closer and she tried again. Eventually he got the gist of her request. She heard him speak hurriedly to his wife, but could not distinguish the words. There came a humming sound: some sort of ultrasound scanner.

'Still alive,' Tull said. 'We'll make sure the foetus stays connected.'

Jarvellis tried to speak again, and once more he leant in close to hear her.

'All right,' he said, and made an adjustment to the nerve-blocker. The numbness rose from her neck and rolled her into oblivion.

An area two-thirds of a kilometre in diameter had been cleared, and the bedrock fused to obsidian and levelled. The containment sphere rested between the two cylindrical tanks of the buffers seemingly placed to stop it rolling away, and from it an enclosed walkway led to the surrounding complex of newly erected buildings. The buildings were domed and apparently made of native materials. Prefabricated sections had been joined, then sealed, with a composite of crushed rock and epoxy resins. Vapour jetted from them as they were heated and the moisture and excess CO₂ was pumped out. The whole complex was knitted together by more enclosed walkways, pylons carrying's-con cables, ground-level pipelines, and by a nimbus of electric light. Beyond the perimeter was impenetrable darkness.

Night had come to Samarkand.

The minishuttle rested in the twilight at the perimeter and, as he disembarked, Cormac had a good view across the complex. He paused for a moment on the CO₂ slush, his visor polarizing as the containment sphere emitted a flash of orange light. After fooling with the directional gain of his comunit, he heard Chaline bawling out one of her technicians.

'Dave! I said ninety gigahertz not megahertz! You're not going to get anywhere near alignment - What? What did you say?'

'I said why not leave it to the AI.'

'Because we are here and the AI isn't. Now, ninety gigahertz. Try to get it right this time.'

Cormac's visor polarized again as a tower of rainbows rose from the sphere and stabbed into the starlit sky. As it flickered out, he heard Chaline speaking in a somewhat happier tone.

'That's it: the spoon's in, close as we're going to get. The AI can lose the light-show.'

Cormac looked round as Jane disembarked, carrying a small suitcase.

'Seems they're ready for you,' he said. 'I heard. A good thing too.' She patted the suitcase. 'It's getting impatient.'