The lizard possessing the double wings of a dragonfly — obviously—rested in the rigid curve of a sulerbane leaf and with sapphire eyes observed Skellor run on. When he was out of sight it launched into the air to hover above the remains of his prey. Then it descended and began to tear up the few remaining fragments of meat — it too needed to eat after all. Replete, it turned its attention to the golden node resting in the sand nearby and observed vague cubic patterns travelling over its surface. The creature’s programming was simple, but its mind was still somewhat part of the mind of its creator. It still also possessed the survival instinct engendered by its original DNA (which had as its source, human scientists might be frightened to learn, a lizard from the Australian outback, some tens of thousands of years before any human knew what DNA was, as well as another fragment it had amused Dragon to find in a piece of amber). Therefore, seeing that node and recognizing what the cubic patterns meant, the creature took off and fled just as fast as it could back to the sulerbane plant. There, perched again in the curve of a leaf, it knew it had ventured too close to something. Might be infected by something. Its kin, resting on buttes, roosting in empty sleer burrows or secreting themselves in the iron gutters of Golgoth, whilst observing other scenes, other human dramas, as they had ever since Dragon had first created them thirty years before, abruptly shut it out. It began shivering, knowing it would soon be uncreated.

As Anderson mounted Bonehead and Arden climbed up behind him to sit on one of his strapped-down packs, Thorn eyed Tergal and then his strange mount. Its carapace was much like that of a horseshoe crab, but more stretched out, and its forelimbs also were similar to that creature’s. Its rear limbs, however, resembled the powerful reverse-kneed legs of a land bird, but armoured with chitin. It showed no sign of eyes or antennae until it flipped up its complicated dual, feeding and sensory, heads—sometimes appearing independently from under different areas of the carapace rim, or sometimes joined like mating components in a child’s build-your-own-monster kit. As the creature dropped down onto its crawler legs, Thorn grabbed at the rim and jumped on. He then moved up behind Tergal and, gripping the back of the youth’s saddle, squatted down carefully, as the creature rose back up again. Soon the two sand hogs were advancing through a haze of dust, the ground still shaking as parts of the plain collapsed into the kilometre-deep hollow Dragon had left behind them.

‘I heard him call his own beast Bonehead,’ Thorn said to Tergal. ‘So what’s this chap called?’

‘Stone,’ Tergal replied briefly.

‘I see it’s smaller than Anderson’s… sand hog. Is that because it’s younger, or of a different sex?’

Tergal glanced at him as if he had said something idiotic, which Thorn supposed he doubtless had.

‘Stone’s the younger hog, and females aren’t used as mounts—there’s fewer of them and they tend to stray very quickly. They’re pampered and kept for breeding.’

‘Ah.’

Within a few hundred metres, the sand hogs were stepping carefully across uprooted boulders and ground that had been churned up by Dragon’s departure. Thorn noted the iridescence of scattered Dragon scales, shed pseudopods like snake skins, and other abandoned, unfathomable devices obviously of draconic origin. He wryly considered just how Mika would kill for a chance to be here studying these things. Then he directed his attention ahead to where the ejected VR chamber still rested at the edge of this widespread devastation. The monster, which Arden had named a droon, was nowhere in sight and, with that particular danger no longer evident, Thorn felt he should consider what to do next. He was still experiencing a feeling of unreality, and was aware of the danger of VR detachment which led people to believe that nothing happening around them mattered. Even so, as they drew athwart the VR chamber, though still sufficiently detached not to be making any plans, his reactions had not slowed at all.

Stone was now ten metres ahead and somewhat to the left of Bonehead, and consequently much closer to the chamber when its roof peeled up like the top of a sardine can and the droon reared up out of it.

‘Oh fuck,’ was the extent of Tergal’s reaction. Stone flung out its sensory head then abruptly retracted it. The hog began to turn as the droon opened its numerous orange mouths, its head extending as it charged itself with mucal acid. Thorn grabbed Tergal around the waist, heaved him up, then hurled the pair of them sideways off the hog. A sheet of mucus splashed behind them just as they went over the edge and hit the ground. As he released the youth and rolled, Thorn glimpsed the sand hog stumbling back and collapsing on its rear, its two necks and its legs seemingly entangled. Thorn was already on his feet, dragging Tergal upright into a stumbling run, as the hog issued a siren scream and began to boil, its limbs shaking as liquid bubbled from the joints and both heads thrashing from side to side.

‘No… Oh no…’

As Tergal stumbled to a halt, gazing back in horror, Thorn caught him by the shoulder and shoved him onwards. The droon was already stepping out of the VR chamber, its head tracking towards them. Automatic fire crackled as Anderson emptied a clip into the monster, but he might as well have thrown gravel at a rhinoceros. It was the fourth-stage sleer materializing to one side of the droon that gave them time to get to Bonehead and mount, before the old hog turned and fled back towards the draconic devastation. Clinging on beside Tergal and Arden, Thorn observed the illusory sleer flicker out of existence, and the droon turning to watch them go before bowing its head down to the steaming remains of Stone.

With the supreme confidence of a most lethal attack ship, Sword accelerated towards Dragon, weapons carousels turning as the AI made its armament selections like some chocolate connoisseur in a Belgian sweet shop. It was aware that Dragon was dangerous and that its previous incarnations had caused huge destruction of human installations and ships—the obliteration of the laser arrays at Masada being ample demonstration. But other AIs had already evaluated these actions, and Sword knew that unless this particular sphere possessed substantially more firepower than its previous incarnations, the AI attack ship would easily be able to flatten it.

‘Interesting move,’ Sword sent, ‘but that’s got to have burnt out a U-space engine, so I have to wonder how many more you have left.’

‘I don’t want this fight,’ Dragon replied, dragging itself across the surface of space to avoid the kinetic missiles fired at it. Beyond it, the blackness filled with multiple flares as many of those missiles impacted an evanescent debris ring.

‘Isn’t that always the protest of those who know they are going to lose?’

Sword tracked the Dragon sphere as it rolled into silhouette in front of the ice giant. How the creature was managing to propel itself was a mystery. Certain spacial anomalies surrounded it, and this made Sword a little more cautious. That caution increased when, precisely at that moment, the communication from King reached it, and it learnt that Reaper was gone.

‘Damn you, Jack.’ Sword spat out this communication on a tight beam towards the gas giant.

‘It’s a dangerous universe,’ Dragon then sent. ‘Don’t overplay your hand.’

There was no way the alien entity could break encoded radio transmissions so quickly. Almost in a fit of pique, Sword fired gas lasers and then masers at Dragon, and followed these with a cloud of smart missiles. The laser strike flashed away on a mirrored hard-field, while the maser strike just seemed to expand that same field without reaching the surface of Dragon.