Fact: the runcible buffers were sabotaged in a way easily within the capabilities of Dragon and of this Maker, if what Dragon said were true. Fact: this Maker had escaped from its containment vessel, if such it was, and escaped Samarkand by runcible. That they had not discovered this until recently bespoke the Maker's ability to interfere with AI programming, an ability Dragon probably had as well. Fact: the creature in the tunnel had not been made to withstand the cold, yet the dracomen had. Fact: Dragon probably knew about the Maker's departure long before it arrived here and threw its apparent tantrum. These particular facts made a lie of Dragon's story. But what was the truth? Conclusion: if Dragon was responsible for what had happened here, how would he find out for sure, and what the hell would he do about it?

Cormac closed his eyes and he began running through things again. He knew, in the end, that the explanation would be simple, and any solution perhaps less so. Right at this moment he just couldn't seem to get anything in order. He needed rest. The bench was padded and would have to suffice. He stretched out on it and was wondering if he would be able to get any sleep, when sleep crept up and got him instead.

The cracking of the shuttle door had Cormac sitting upright and pulling his mask across. Thorn entered with a large bag slung over one shoulder. He dropped it before Cormac as the door closed.

'That was quick,' Cormac said.

Thorn pulled off his mask and gave him a quizzical look. 'It was quick,' he said, 'for shuttling up to Hubris and back.'

Cormac dropped his mask and looked around for some sort of time readout. He realized then that he should have acquired some sort of timepiece. While grid-linked he had always known the time, so it had never occurred to him that he might not know it.

'Ten hours,' said Thorn, as if reading his mind.

Cormac shook his head, trying to dispel that last fuzziness. He stood up, pointed at the bag and looked questioningly at the Sparkind.

'Your uniform,' said Thorn.

'Right,' said Cormac, taking up the bag, 'I'll change in the sphere. Let's go.'

They masked up and cracked the door for a second time. Outside, vapour was rising off the CO₂ slush as the machine and human activity raised the temperature. They hastened for a lock into one of the covered walkways, then on to the containment sphere. Upon reaching the sphere, Cormac found the temperature almost uncomfortable: it was above zero Celsius.

Around the sphere, prefabs had been erected in some sort of analogue of embarkation lounges - and they were crowded. Technicians were setting up information consoles, laying insulated flooring, installing powerful little air heaters. Cables snaked all over the place and there was a racket of compressors, power tools, talking and shouting. When they finally got through to the sphere itself, they found it crowded as well. Thorn pointed out where Aiden, Cento and the dracomen stood. As he and Thorn headed over, Cormac saw that strangers viewed the dracomen without surprise. They probably thought they were just more adapted humans. There were plenty in the crowd already: catadapts with multicoloured fur, ophidapts with fangs, forked tongues and skin litde different from that of the dracomen, tripode adaptations to heavy-gravity worlds, and others more exotic and less easy to compare. There were some who looked askance at the dracomen. They were perhaps more observant or were members of the original mission.

'Wonder how long before we see copies,' said Cormac, when they reached the two Golem and the two dracomen.

'It would be a difficult adaptation,' said Aiden.

'Why's that?'

'It would require extensive rewiring of the nervous system.'

'You mean putting the legs on backwards and making them work.'

'Yes, that's what I mean.'

Cormac allowed himself a strained grin, then inspected Cento. The Golem had a fine network of lines on his face and on his hands. Obviously a new syntheskin covering could not be found quickly enough. He still wore his old one and the joins showed.

'Are you… all right?' he asked.

'All right?' Cento repeated.

'I mean,' said Cormac, 'are you fully functional?'

'I have eighty per cent efficiency. Replacement is better than repair. The welding of my chassis I cannot trust under the full loading of my joint motors.'

Eighty per cent. That meant the Golem could probably rip only one man in half at a time.

Cormac surveyed the crowds, then shrugged and began to pull off his coldsuit. Thorn did likewise. No one paid attention. Under his coldsuit, Thorn - like Cento and Aiden - had the uniform of a major in the ES regulars. Once he had his coldsuit removed, Cormac kept going until he was naked. He stooped and opened the bag Thorn had deposited. Inside he found underwear, chainglass body armour and a uniform. When he strapped on the armour, that drew more looks than his nakedness had.

Over the body armour Cormac donned the green and grey fatigues of a colonel in the ES regulars. It would ease the giving of orders. Once dressed, he again strapped shuriken to his wrist. He would be the only one of them armed. Hardwired proscription prevented the transmission of certain weapons through the runcibles, and it was easier to collect new weapons on the other side, rather than disconnect that wiring. Cormac could only manage to get shuriken dirough because he had managed to get it classified as an antique, but even then he needed special dispensations, and the weapon had to be deactivated. Had he tried to get it through illegally, it would have been reduced to dust by the proscription filter the runcible had inbuilt when he stepped out the other side. The body-armour helmet he dropped into the bag, along with a laptop that held all the information relevant to this mission. This was all he was taking. With a quick inspection of the inside of the sphere, he hoisted the bag to his shoulder.

'All set?' he asked, with a wary glance at the draco-men.

'Ready,' said Thorn, grimly.

Cormac stepped up onto the black glass dais and led the way to the twin horns of the runcible. In a moment they had reached the containment sphere and soon had it to themselves. They gathered before the twin horns.

'Samarkand II, is our destination set?' asked Cormac.

'Ready when you are,' replied the AI.

Cormac mounted the steps to the pedestal. 'Send the dracomen next,' he instructed Thorn, and stepped through the cusp.

STOP.

START.

One pace - and he stepped out of one of a bank of runcibles on the planet Viridian in the Mendax planetary system, in the Chirat cluster, 173 light-years from Samarkand.

The containment sphere was empty. But for the lack of crowds here, he might well have been stepping out in the Samarkand sphere again. Quince and light-cargo runcibles had been standardized for half a century; the big difference here was that this sphere was one of many, as had once been the case on Samarkand and as, hope- fully, would be the case again when Chaline finished her work. As he stepped off the pedestal the dracomen came out behind him, then Thorn, Aiden and Cento.

'Viridian?' Cormac asked, as of the air.

The voice of this new runcible AI had a maturity Samarkand lacked. Irritatingly it still had that patronizing tone, though.

'Sergeant Polonius Arn is waiting for you with a carrier. The weapons and supplies you detailed will be onboard. He will take you to a rendezvous with the ES regulars. They are waiting at a place called Motford, and from there we can head straight for your destination. It's one Viridian day's journey away, just a few hours more than solstan.'

'What about here, when that thing runs?' asked Thorn.

The AI replied before Cormac could say anything. 'In one day's time there will be an evacuation of this port, the surrounding area, and Westown, because of a fluxing antimatter-containment field. From that moment all runcibles here will only open to Samarkand. The Samarkand AI informs me that, from there, newly arrived personnel are being sent back to Minostra. The remaining technicians will return to Hubris, ostensibly to carry out a refit. The reason given is that another crisis has developed at the outlink station of Danet.'