‘That’s days of work, that is. Days and days.’

Anderson noted that Chandle, though giving a warning, seemed disinclined to interfere and was waiting for his reply. He noted that some of these people carried metallier weapons, and perhaps that was making them overconfident. Really, he didn’t need this as, though he might manage to trade off a few phocells to nomads on the Plains, he had no real need for them. And as for money—he had accumulated plenty of that. But a sense of duty asserted itself. He glanced at the little girl standing beside Chandle. A third-stager would take only seconds to mince her into easily ingestible portions.

‘Days, you say.’ He turned and walked back to the wall of the house. ‘Dornick, I see you have a measuring wire on your belt. May I borrow it?’ Anderson held out his hand.

The man looked rebellious but, after a warning glare from Chandle, handed over the wire. Anderson unspooled it above his head, measuring the height of the damage to the wall.

‘There was no reason here for the creature to climb, so I would bet it chewed on this dwelling while keeping its forelimbs on the ground. So, when you find marks like this, there’s an easy calculation to apply.’ He wound the wire back into its spool. ‘The body length of a third-stager is nominally two and a half times the height of its mouthparts from the ground. These marks are over two metres high.’ Anderson observed how some faces had taken on a sickly hue. Dornick was mouthing the figures. ‘Five metres,’ Anderson told the man. ‘A third-stager of that length weighs five times a big man. And, incidentally, can run twice as fast.’

‘So you say,’ muttered Dornick.

Anderson handed back his wire. ‘I’ll bring you the body, and if it is less than five metres long I’ll waive my fee.’

‘You have a deal, Rondure Knight,’ said Chandle, stepping forward before Dornick could say any more.

The ECS doctors had erected a chainglass partition to prevent any air-transmission of infection, and it was an infection possible for even Fethan, with his flash-frozen bio-gridded brain and body of plastic and metal, to contract. Not that there had been any sign of the dying remains of the Jain mycelium—inside the outlinker — spreading through the air, but no one was taking any chances.

‘The girl will be next?’ he asked, scratching at his ginger beard.

The surgeon master, Gorlen, gave him a funny look. Fethan had noted that same look from many of those members of the hospital arm of ECS. It encompassed their amazement at finding a cyborg such as himself still existing—for those of his kind who had survived the process had long since transferred themselves to more durable Golem bodies—and their overpowering urge to take him apart to see how he ticked.

‘The girl is already undergoing surgery,’ Gorlen replied. ‘One of the nodes was pressing against her heart and there was a chance of arrest.’

‘She’ll survive?’ Fethan turned towards the man.

Gorlen nodded towards where Apis Coolant lay on a bed inside the quarantine booth, almost concealed by monitoring equipment. ‘She has as good a chance as him. The nanobots sent from the Jerusalem are breaking apart every last scrap of the mycelium and, unless I’ve missed something, he’ll be out of here in a day or so.’ The surgeon now picked up an aluminium box with carry strap from a nearby table.

‘So that’s the bugger, is it?’ Fethan asked.

‘That’s it—designed by Jerusalem itself.’

The man passed the box over, and Fethan, after inspecting the ouroboros motif on the lid—Jerusalem’s mark—hung it by its strap from his shoulder. He then turned and looked outside through the window to his right.

Dry flute grasses spread for as far as he could see, beyond where Polity machinery had churned the ground to black mud veined with the green of unearthed nematodes. Against aubergine skies, he saw another big carrier setting out for the mountains, surrounded by its swarm of robot probes. Most of the calloraptor bodies had been recovered, along with the landing craft Skellor had sent down to the surface, and all were now stored in the burnt-out Theocracy cylinder world Faith—which struck Fethan as somehow ironic. The huge research vessel Jerusalem was to pick up those items, only that was not now the case. Jerusalem had decided it was needed elsewhere. Perhaps that was a good thing for the people of Masada, for even the runcible-linked communication from that AI had apparently caused the Flint runcible AI to shit bricks. It had taken a mind such as that to design the nanobots; nothing less could have managed it.

‘I guess it was too good to be true,’ said Fethan, now seeing a group of Masadans coming in from the flute grasses. All of them wore bulky breather gear.

Moving up beside him, Gorlen asked, ‘What?’

‘The mycelium—enabling people to live out there, rebuilding their bodies, keeping them alive…’

‘We know it’s possible now. A lot of benefits will come from this technology.’

Fethan grunted, then turned to head away.

‘And you’ll be taking it to them?’ Gorlen asked.

‘So I’ve been instructed.’

‘Good luck.’

‘Let’s hope so.’

Heading for the tunnel leading to the shuttle landing-pad, Fethan abruptly turned aside and made for the airlock. Just one last time he wanted to hear the strange music from the flute grasses. Stepping outside he looked around. This place had been his home for many years while he worked here for ECS, fomenting rebellion against the ruling Theocracy, and he began to feel the wrench of departure. Turning to walk along the composite path laid down on the mud, he wondered, as ever, how true that feeling really was. His flash-frozen brain was as unchanging in content as it was in structure; and what he was, was as much crystal memory and emulation as existed in any Golem. Was he foolish to hold so stubbornly on to what little humanity remained to him? He turned and headed for the waiting shuttle. Once aboard, he tersely greeted the human monitor who was his pilot, strapped himself in, then set his internal timer and turned himself off… slept.

With seemingly no transition he then woke to a view of the moonlet Flint.

Well, why have I been woken? he asked through the wide-open channel in his internal comlink.

Runcible linked communication, the Flint AI told him.

Let’s have it then, he said.

There came a clatter of static, as of something small scrabbling out of the path of a juggernaut.

Something more is required.

Fethan paused as he felt the vastness of the mind poised beyond the link. He shivered and felt a sinking in the pit of his stomach—all emulation, but he still understood what was scaring the Flint runcible AI.

Jerusalem?

Evidently.

At this word, Fethan looked down at the box in his lap, then across at the pilot who was watching him. The ouroboros turned—swallowing its own tail endlessly — then Fethan felt a series of clicks as locks disengaged.

What do you want?

Playing your cards close to your chest is advisable; not having all your cards visible on the table is better still.

Quit buggering about and cut to the chase.

‘You okay?’ asked the pilot.

Fethan tapped a finger against his temple. ‘Having a little chat with one of our silicon friends.’

‘Oh… right… you’re the…’

‘Yeah, I’m a cyborg.’

The man returned to his piloting.

The research station Ruby Eye has just received a visit from friend Skellor and his brass killing-machine where, subverting a Cybercorp network, he obtained certain coordinates.

So that’ll be Cormac’s next stop—to try to pick up the trail.

Correct.

And there’s a runcible on Ruby Eye.

Correct.

Well, you want to get the nanobots to the Jack Ketch for trooper Thorn, so what’s all the subterfuge about?