‘Well, our friend must be one of the other two, so let’s go back outside,’ said Skellor.

The woman carried on screaming and fighting; the man tried reasoning, but he too soon started to scream once the outer lock was open. Skellor was surprised at the tenacity with which a person could hang on to life. Even with smoke pouring from their clothing, their skin melting and slewing away and contrails of flame whipping up and about their bodies, the two still tried to fight their way past Crane and back into the ship, which was filling with the same searing acidic air anyway.

‘Hey ho,’ said Skellor, as the two finally died and the heat began to blacken and contort them into ebony foetuses. ‘Let’s go find the others.’

‘“Mission objective achieved” is all I’m getting,’ said Angelina, her fingers pressed against the bean-shaped aug behind her right ear.

‘What about visual? Aural?’ John Stanton asked.

‘Nothing.’ Angelina shook her head. ‘It won’t tell me anything more. It’s almost as if it’s shut down. We know where it will be anyway, so no problem there.’ Now turning to face Semper and Stanton, she said, ‘I’ll want you first to check that Stalek and that idiot Falco are both dead.’ And with that she waved the two men ahead of her.

Stanton closed his mouth on any further comments and tried to restrain his cynicism about this whole little outing. He drew his heavy pulse-gun from its insulated holster in his hotsuit. From his belt he detached a small adhesive mine and held it in his left hand. He was just as unenamoured with the idea of using a subverted Golem as were many others in the Pelters’ organization. Facing forwards, he and Semper now advanced.

Stalek had built his house on the equatorial belt of Huma, so it necessarily possessed a ceramic shell and thick, heavily insulated walls. At present that insulation only served the purpose of maintaining a comfortable internal temperature against the constant fifty degrees outside, since the resinous incendiary briar that constituted most of the surrounding jungle had yet to achieve ripeness. In the distance, Stanton noted a column of smoke from where one patch of briar had reached that point in its growth where the sparks from its exploding seedpods ignited it. It was early, though. Later in the season, this entire continent would become an inferno: the briars burning down to provide plenteous ash in which the seeds could lie ready to germinate in the ensuing sooty rainstorms.

Semper studied the door’s palm lock, then let out a bark of laughter. He took a crowbar from his belt, jammed it under the lock, and levered the plate and attached console from the wall.

‘Is that a good idea?’ Stanton asked.

‘It’s a dummy,’ Semper explained. ‘Understandable really: he has to be able to get in and out wearing a hotsuit, so he can’t use something that operates by his palm print and DNA coding. Merely a simple input code.’

Taking a small console from his belt he unwound two optic cables terminating in interface clamps, which he now closed on two optic cables trailing from the back of the lock and into the wall. Then he simply waited while the device he still held did the job of safe-breaker for him. The seals on the circular door eventually whoomphed, and it hinged outwards to reveal an airlock and an inner door. Semper stared inside for a long moment, before turning to Stanton.

‘Now this I don’t like,’ he said. He stooped and picked up one of the many pieces of briar charcoal that were scattered on the ground, then tossed it into the lock. The thing that immediately dropped from the ceiling onto the charcoal was a wolf spider half a metre long—only it was a spider with metal bracings and hydraulic pistons augmenting its legs, and a more complicated arrangement of gleaming motors augmenting its obsidian fangs.

‘Jesus!’ Semper bellowed.

Stanton’s pulse-gun sputtered white light, hitting the creature mid-air as it leapt out at them. It slammed back against the jamb, hit the ground and, smoking, made to leap again at Semper. Angelina drew her own weapon and fired, complementing the shots Stanton was again putting into the creature. Twice more it leapt and their shots slammed it back. It only gave up when its organic body was reduced to a charcoal remnant inside its cyber-bracing skeleton.

‘Okay, Semper, the door,’ ordered Angelina.

Stanton kept his weapon pointed at the cyborg spider as it slowly curled up its legs like a fist. Semper took rather longer over the true palm lock operating the second door, but soon they were stepping into the brightness of Stalek’s home.

‘Stanton, find his house system and neutralize it,’ Angelina instructed, herself making no move to go further into this strange home.

The big man moved on, rounding furniture seemingly fashioned from the carapaces of huge crustaceans, while keeping an eye on the large plants contained in pots scattered throughout the room—plants whose beautifully coloured giant daffodil heads turned to track his progress. Reaching the further wall, he studied something set into it that looked more like a work of weird art than any technology, then stepped back raising his weapon and blasted it, his shots punching molten holes through the gleaming metalwork and oddly shaped touch panels and screens. The bright lights flickered briefly as they dropped from the control of a house AI to some backup safety system. Turning, Stanton fired twice at a plant lowering its lime-green and purple striped head towards him, severing its stalk. As the head dropped to the ground, it protruded a red tongue coated with small metal hooks.

‘About as safe as we’re gonna get,’ he observed.

Angelina pointed to a wooden door to Stanton’s right. ‘We go there—up to the attic. That’s where Stalek did his work.’

She followed, giving the plants a wide berth but staying well back so he and Semper would encounter first anything nasty, Stanton noted, as he operated the simple latch and opened the door. The stairs winding up into the attic were lit by biolights—yet another sign of Stalek’s attraction towards exotic technologies. Stanton eyed the spidery creatures with their glowing sugar-bag bodies, then glanced back at Angelina.

‘Why the hit on him?’ he asked abruptly. ‘Seems to me he was providing you with some useful toys.’

‘Not really your concern,’ Angelina replied. ‘But he was becoming increasingly unstable, and some of his work was of questionable… quality.’

‘So you have this lunatic subvert a Golem Twenty-five android for you?’

‘Just get up the stairs, mercenary,’ Angelina spat.

Stanton nodded to himself and began to climb, thinking how Angelina and her brother Arian were not the best people to make judgements on the stability of others. However, Stanton was not about to push his luck too far—the money of these terrorist rich kids was still good.

From the topmost landing, four wooden doors led off into different rooms, but Angelina, coming up closer behind Semper and Stanton, pointed to the one directly ahead. ‘The rest also contain various workshops, but he uses that one for any final assembly.’

Adhesive mine still to hand, Stanton nodded to Semper, who shoved open the door in front of him. Stanton stepped into the room and then slid to one side, crouching down, pulse-gun aimed and adhesive mine held palm outwards in readiness. Semper did the same, moving to the other side of the door. Stanton noted that the man was just as trusting as himself: as well as brandishing a pulse-gun, he held a small EM grenade.

No action. Stanton slowly stood upright and surveyed the room.

Stalek’s and Falco’s bodies were not visible, but Stanton tracked the trails of blood over to the Cleanviro booth, and guessed where they might be.

‘Find the fucking control module,’ said Angelina, obviously shaken by what she was seeing.