"Now, let's get to the other functions."

The process took a further hour, was sometimes confusing and sometimes exhilarating, especially when he connected to the AI grid and found out how much information lay but a thought away. He was run quickly through the tutorial contained within the aug and shown how to access its user manual. When the autodoc removed its nerve block and feeling returned to his head, Cormac waited impatiently for the clamps to be undone, then quickly sat upright.

"What can you tell me about this editing?" he asked.

The medic shrugged. "No more than that you were edited as a child. I rather suggest that's something you'll have to take up with your parents or guardians."

As he left that place Cormac was determined to find out more about whatever had been done to his mind, however, he knew that he would not be finding out for a while. Now he had another VR training session, followed by weapons practice, then tactical assessment training and analysis, and knew that after them, he would be falling exhausted into his bunk.

9

Cormac gazed at the crowds standing in the large waiting area of the editing clinic and briefly wondered where Dax had got to. Perhaps he had gone to the toilet, or to buy more cigarettes. Soon, he knew, they would enter Door Eight where a smaller waiting room was situated, then they would go into the editing suite itself, where a Golem nurse, telefactored from a local AI, would conduct the editing process on Dax. It would take some time, of course, because Dax was a medic, and much of what lay between his ears was too useful to lose. Ah, perhaps Dax was already in there being worked on… no, that couldn't be right, for they had remained in the smaller waiting room until the work was done… but that was in the past… it had already been done.

Cormac looked around, realised he was sitting, then glanced across at his mother who was sitting beside him doing something with her lap-top. She had a look of extreme concentration until she realised Cormac was gazing at her.

"I was just making sure I kept copies," she explained. "They're notoriously unstable in the carbon memstores they're using here." Then she paused, as if reviewing what she had just said, and cursed quietly to herself. After a moment she went on, "Are you all right now?"

Cormac had absolutely no idea what she was talking about. He just gazed at her, unable to articulate the weird déjà vu he was experiencing—the sensation of reliving memory, and being offended because memory wasn't matching up to reality. Hannah popped a memtab from the side of her lap-top and dropped it into the top pocket of her shirt, slid the device back into its carrycase and hung the strap from her shoulder. He continued staring at her while something tried to realign inside his head, then he abruptly realised that memory came after reality, not before it. They were not here with Dax—that was all in the past and Dax was, right now, many light years away on a world called Cheyne III.

"What?" he said, then after a long pause. "What happened?"

Hannah stood, her hand closing on his and pulling him to his feet. He felt a bit wobbly and realised he must have been asleep or something.

"You felt faint," she explained, "and this was the nearest place where you could sit down." They moved back into the aisle and started heading towards the exit. "Best I have you checked out," she added, "though it's probably due to the excitement of the last few days."

Cormac still could not quite get things clear in his mind. They'd seen off Dax at the runcible port in Paris, then returned by lev-train to Tritonia, but he couldn't remember if they'd returned to The Watts Hotel or were still on their way back there.

They stepped out into the street where his mother scanned about carefully before towing him off in the direction of The Watts. Yes, he remembered now. They had returned to the hotel to clean up and change, before heading out to try a local restaurant. He couldn't remember if they had eaten. It certainly felt to him like they hadn't.

"Weren't we going to get something to eat?" he asked.

Hannah came to an abrupt halt and gazed down at him. "Do you feel up to it? I thought it better to get back to the hotel for a rest…"

"I'm hungry," he complained.

She smiled a secretive smile then turned them right round again. Within a few minutes they came opposite a restaurant where the tables and chairs spilled out onto the street through the arched frontage. Inevitably, considering its location, this place served seafood. The holographic and moving sign above the arches depicted a crab holding a large gun in one claw with which it was blasting all about itself. The gun then, evidently, ran out at which point the crab began backing away from the human who now stepped into view—Jebel U-cap Krong—who advanced with a pulse-gun in one hand and a mine in the other. The crab ended up backing along a plank over a large cooking pot of boiling water, into which it fell when Krong jumped onto the back of the plank.

Cormac was mesmerized; he loved this place at once.

They seated themselves at one of the outside tables, whereupon they were approached by a metalskin android with a head like that of a platinum ant. Cormac immediately made his selection from the menu and the android said, "Good choice," then turning to Hannah, "Crab salad for you too, madam?"

Cormac adjusted his night goggles and gazed about for a moment, impressed at how well they worked for he could hardly distinguish his surroundings from how they had appeared during the day. Could this be a hindrance? Might he neglect to take advantage of concealing darkness because he was less aware of it? Then again, it might also not be a great idea to get complacent and assume all his enemies blind, for any of them could be sporting similar goggles. Nevertheless, he adjusted them slightly so his surroundings took on an unnatural tint, just to remind him that it wasn't day, then returned his attention to his companions. Not much of them was visible at the moment for like Cormac they all wore chameleoncloth fatigues, and until they moved it seemed three disembodied heads, six hands and various pieces of unconcealed hardware occupied this clearing in the woods.

Gorman, when wholly visible, just looked like a thick-set and brutal thug. He carried a lot of body weight, easily, his head was stubbled with grey hair, his neck bulging, his eyes grey and his teeth slightly crooked and yellowish. He smoked cigars, liked eating mouth-strippingly hot curries and drinking vast quantities of beer, but only when off-duty and relaxing. The rest of the time his appearance and general demeanour belied the speed of his mind, his reactions and the way he assessed the data coming in through the small flesh-coloured aug affixed behind his ear like some sort of growth. Travis was neat and lean and ridiculously good-looking, with jet black hair tied in a pony tail and startlingly green eyes. He grinned a lot and his sense of humour was distinctly odd. Crean's appearance was Asiatic, big-breasted and lush, dark-haired, dark-skinned and dark-eyed. It had taken a little while for Cormac to realise that, like Travis, she was a Golem. Gorman was so obviously human, and delighted in being so.

"These gods like to have their ugly pets along as a contrast," said Gorman, stabbing a lit cigar to where the two Golem were assembling a mosquito autogun.

Mills was the missing member. A Separatist sniper had hit him right in the head with an explosive bullet. It was Crean who got to the sniper first. Tore him in half and hung the bits from a tree. Cormac hadn't understood how Gorman seemed to be so accepting of Mills' death, until he learned from Travis that Gorman had been edited. This reminded Cormac of when his brother Dax went for editing during the Prador/Human war, and of the other events of that period, and of the drone he now knew to be called Amistad. He reached up and touched the bean-shaped lump of computer hardware behind his own ear. In his new aug he had files about Amistad he wanted to review at leisure, but with the VR training and now this fast deployment, he hadn't had a chance. Also, stored in the aug was a message he had been drafting to send to his mother, Hannah, asking why he himself had been edited as a child, and what memories were missing.