"Pramer," he said in surprise, now recognising the real reason for his hesitation.

"You," said Pramer, abruptly swinging his gun towards the doorway where Cormac stood.

A slight pressure on the trigger and the machine pistol hummed contentedly to itself, and Pramer staggered back, shots stitching up his front. A cloud of vaporous blood and bits of flesh and bone exited his back as he crashed against the bunk beds, then he abruptly sat down as if suddenly very weary. Blood gouted from his mouth. Cormac brought the targeting frame onto his head, triggered again and watched the top of Pramer's skull disappear, then turned to exit the room. Now he was suddenly angry, and not entirely sure why.

Gorman stood poised by the next door.

We've got her, Travis informed them all.

Gorman leant around the door jamb and fired twice. "Okay," he said, "we're out of here—fast."

Gorman was past him and heading back along the cave at a run before Cormac realised it was over—they'd got what they'd come here for. For no reason he could quite fathom he ducked back into Pramer's room, studied the man for a short moment, then picked up his thin-gun. A trophy? He felt that to be so, but no trophy of any victory. He turned and followed Gorman, for a moment feeling utterly bewildered. Pulse-gun fire issued from behind. He turned, fired, saw someone fold up. No need to check targets now. In moments they reached the junction where Crean stood firing intermittently back down the way she had come. Travis stood there with a body slung easily over one shoulder, nodded to Gorman and Cormac, then broke into a fast run for the exit. As they followed him out, Cormac noticed Gorman removing a short black cylinder from a pouch on his belt. He primed this with his thumb then sent it skittering back into the cave. Cormac recognised the item: gas grenade, probably Hazon. In a moment they were outside and moving back into the trees, the mosquito still poised at the cave entrance behind them to finish any that made it that far.

"Good work, people," said Gorman.

Cormac wondered who would come here to clear up the mess. Certainly someone would come, for there might be information in there useful to ECS. He wondered momentarily if the cave would then be sealed. Probably not; they'd just take what might be of use and burn the bodies.

As they headed down into the trees Cormac heard yelling, and the mosquito opening fire. He didn't look back.

It being imperative the prisoner stayed alive, no lethal weapons were to be put within her reach, so Cormac and Gorman armed themselves with stun batons only. Cormac thought it all a bit over the top, but then he had been a captive too, and look what he had managed to do. Gorman was smoking one of his big cigars, the contented look upon his face as he digested the huge chicken madras he had eaten, tempered only by the fact that he had been unable to wash it down with numerous beers. But later, he said, they'd drink some beer later.

"We normally don't get to see this side of things," he announced.

"Then why are we seeing it now?"

"This is for you," Gorman replied. "I've seen it before and know what's involved, but you haven't and ECS likes its Sparkind to be thoroughly aware of the consequences of what they do. None of this 'I didn't know' or 'I was only following orders. You can choose to leave the military at any time, you know."

The cell block corridor appeared little different to how such corridors had looked for hundreds of years, though someone from a past age might have mistaken the pendent ceiling drones for light fittings. They halted at an armoured door with a screen display fixed centrally. Gorman tapped the screen and it came on, showing the interior of the cell and reassuring them that the prisoner wasn't crouched beside the door ready to jump them. Though it seemed unlikely she would be in any condition to do so, since she would still be suffering the aftereffects of stun toxin and a robust scanning routine. Gorman pressed his hand against the side palm-lock and the door swished open silently, and they stepped inside.

A bed, wash basin and toilet were provided. The bed was fixed to the floor and the wash basin was a flimsy thing that folded down from the wall. Neither provided an opportunity for the prisoner to hang herself, just as the bed possessed no sheets that could be turned into ropes and the paperwear she wore consisted of a tissue that turned powdery when torn. Also, there were no sharp edges to be found in here, nor anything that could be turned into a sharp edge. Via pin-cameras positioned in every upper corner of the room the prison submind kept perpetual watch, and other hardware in the walls monitored the prisoner's vital signs. ECS did not want its captives to die here, though it had been known to happen. Gorman had already related to Cormac a story of the man who managed to drown himself with his own urine, though he was revived shortly afterwards, and a story about a woman who tore out her own jugular artery.

"Hello, soldier Cormac," said Sheen, easing herself upright and swinging her legs off the bed. He noted that she looked bruised, with a couple of raw spots on her bare arms. However, no one had beaten her, for the marks were a result of the full-spectrum scan she had undergone, just to be sure she had no pieces of syntheskin attached about her body. They had learned their lesson with Carl.

"Stand up," said Gorman, then removing his cigar butt from his mouth, dropping it to the floor and crushing it out.

"No civilities then?" Sheen enquired.

She still looked like a teenager, but the information they had available about her put her age at fifty-two. Her present appearance was the result of cosmetic work, perpetually maintained by whatever suite of nanomachines she was running.

"You heard the man," Cormac said. "You can walk out of here or we can carry you out—makes no difference to me."

"Ooh, tough talk."

"Zap her on the tit—that usually gets their attention," said Gorman.

Cormac began to step forwards, but Sheen abruptly lurched to her feet. He and Gorman moved in on either side of her, Gorman closing a hand just above her elbow, his stun baton held in his other hand casually down at his side.

"Let's go." He marched her towards the door, Cormac, as instructed earlier, falling in two paces behind Sheen.

"You have to keep them off balance," Gorman had also told him earlier. "If they're untrained you usually have no problem because they continue to maintain the hope that somehow they're going to survive, to get away with what they've done or that ECS might be forgiving if they cooperate." He had paused for a moment to lave a piece of poppadom with lime chutney and chomp it, washing it down with a swallow of fresh mango juice. "This one isn't going to be like that. She's trained and she's wily, and she knows that no one is given amnesty by ECS. Ever. She'll go for one of us once we leave the cell corridor and step outside the range of the security drones, and she'll fight for her life knowing that if she loses, her life is certainly forfeit."

At the end of the cell corridor the door stood open. Gorman turned her into the corridor beyond. Sheen lurched sideways as if losing balance, then turned, her foot coming up in an arc towards Cormac's head. It was smoothly done. Perhaps she hoped Gorman would lose his grip and that she would have time to relieve Cormac, obviously the least experienced of the two, of his baton. Gorman's grip was iron. He turned slightly, dragging her truly off-balance whist planting a foot against the back of the foot she kept on the ground. As she started to go over backwards, her kicking foot coming well short of its target, Gorman casually touched the baton to her chest.

Sheen gasped, then hit the floor on her back convulsing, her spine arched. Gorman and Cormac stepped forwards to grab a wrist each, and they dragged her the rest of the way, leaving shreds of her paperwear clothing in the corridor behind.