‘Oh Arian,’ the man said, ‘Mr Crane was so wasted on you.’

The acrid smell of molten and seared plastic filled the room as Semper welded up the final seals of the covering. Syntheskin was not an option, as firstly it was difficult to obtain, and secondly it was quite thick; layering Mr Crane with it would only make him bulkier and therefore even more noticeable. Stanton thought the whole humanizing process laughable. The Golem was over two metres tall, possessed huge skull-crushing hands and didn’t really move like a person—there was an odd, jerky, sometimes birdlike tendency to his every gesture which somehow hinted at a frightening instability. Now, with his skin-tone plastic covering, Stanton thought he looked even worse. It was like making a crocodile walk upright and wear a suit—some horror from a child’s fairy tale.

‘Okay,’ said Semper, ‘you can put your clothes back on.’

Crane, who until then had been standing motionless while Semper worked, abruptly looked down at himself. Negligently he reached down, pinched at the skin over his chest, and tore a piece away.

‘Leave that!’ Semper reached out and slapped the Golem’s hand as if berating a naughty child. The next moment the Golem held him suspended off the floor by his neck.

‘Put him down!’ Angelina Pelter yelled. ‘Put. Him. Down!’

She rose from where she had been sitting on one of the packing cases stacked along a wall of the warehouse and, discarding her laptop, rushed over. Mr Crane’s hand snapped open and Semper collapsed to the ground, hacking and gagging. Stanton looked down at his pulse-gun, then returned it to his shoulder holster. There had been no real purpose in him drawing the weapon and, upon studying the file he had taken from Stalek’s computer, he discovered that even the sticky mine he had earlier placed on Crane would have no more effect than to briefly knock the Golem off its feet. Really, if they lost control of Crane and he decided to kill them, their only option was to run just as fast as they could, and hope the wrecked AI inside that brass body would soon find some other distraction.

Recovering somewhat, Semper dragged himself away from Crane before standing up. The Golem, as if nothing noteworthy had occurred, turned to the folding chair on which its clothing had been draped, picked up his hat and placed it carefully on his head. After standing utterly still for a second, he then took up the ragged trousers and put them on. Another pause, then the long coat. Watching him then don the big lace-up boots was almost comical. Almost.

Semper, who had now moved to stand beside Stanton, said, ‘Sooner or later, that fucking thing is going to kill one of us.’

‘You are so right—it certainly is,’ said a voice from behind them.

Semper whirled, groping for his weapon. Stanton didn’t bother—he’d already heard Arian Pelter walking up the aisle, between crates containing dark-otter bone.

‘Alston,’ said Stanton. ‘On his island.’ He turned. Alston was also part of the criminal organization supporting the Separatist cause. He was a part Arian Pelter wanted rid of. Stanton studied his boss.

Arian Pelter, Stanton felt, was just as pretty as his sister with his violet eyes, long blond hair and perfectly symmetrical features. Today he was dressed in an expensive white suit and a shirt that perfectly matched the shade of his eyes. He also wore a matching set of platinum New Tiffany jewellery: a single teardrop earring on the opposite side of his head to a matching aug, bracelets on each wrist, and rings on the fore- and mid-fingers of each hand. However, despite this foppish appearance, he was just as ugly on the inside as his sister, and just as dangerous. Stanton was certain it was Alston’s contempt for the Pelter vanity, rather than the man’s skimming cash from the otter-bone trade, that had made Arian decide he had become a liability. Unfortunately, out on his island, Alston was well protected.

‘Dear sister,’ Arian acknowledged, as Angelina walked over, ‘so this is our new acquisition.’ He walked forwards, Semper and Stanton parting before him, then following as he headed over to inspect Mr Crane. He paced one circuit of the Golem, then turned to Angelina. ‘Have you tried him with weapons?’

‘Not yet. We’ve only just put on his skin,’ she replied.

Arian turned to Semper. ‘Your weapon.’

Semper was reluctant, but he handed over his pulse-gun. Arian took it and held it out to Mr Crane. ‘Now…’ He looked around, then pointed to two crates standing one on top of the other on the further side of the warehouse. ‘Mr Crane, I want you to take this weapon and destroy the top one of those two crates.’ He held out the gun.

The weapon looked silly, toylike, in Crane’s big hand. With a darting motion, he dipped his head to inspect it. He then turned to face the crates, holding the weapon out to one side as if not sure quite what to do with it. There came a crunching sound and the brief flash of a laminar battery discharging. Pieces of Semper’s gun fell about the Golem’s feet as he abruptly lurched into motion. With long strides he ate up the ground between himself and the crates. Reaching them, he picked up the top one and just closed his hands on it, smashing the compressed-paper boards and the golden bones inside. Another abrupt movement scattered the debris all about him. He turned and strode back, stopping before Pelter to await further instructions.

Tapping his beringed forefinger against his aug, Arian said, ‘Well, he followed the instructions precisely, but not quite in the expected manner.’

About then, Stanton started to feel it was time for him to collect the money owed to him and depart. He did not want to be around when Mr Crane took literally one of Arian’s psycho ‘Kill them all’ orders. If the Separatists here on Cheyne III wanted to play catch with greased axes, he’d leave them to their game.

As he drove his spade into the ground, Marlen kept half an eye on what the man was doing, but he was not entirely certain of what happened next. The skull broke like egg shell in the man’s hands. Then, retrieving something small and black from inside it, he discarded the bony remnants as he turned away. When he walked back over to watch his two slaves work, Marlen saw that he now held nothing, and could not shake the impression that the man had put the black object in his mouth and swallowed it.

3

The flare momentarily blacked out the virtual view from the bridge of the Jack Ketch. When that view returned, a stray rock half the size of the ship itself had disappeared.