"You understand that your father won't be coming home," Hannah continued.

Cormac nodded again. He was not sure when this had become evident to him, maybe a year or so back, about the time Dax had last visited, but he couldn't remember being told.

"He's dead," he said.

"Yes," Hannah confirmed, though there was something in her expression Cormac found difficult to fathom. He did not pursue it—there seemed no need.

The interior of the Sadist rather belied its ominous name, and whereas Pearl had been a crotchety AI, Sadist was chatty and cheerful.

"Welcome aboard!" it boomed from the intercom system the moment they stepped into its thickly carpeted interior.

Cormac immediately received a schematic of the ship's interior and directions to his cabin. "Cheerful AI," he observed.

"Probably enjoys its work," said Gorman. "If its choice of name is any indication."

"I've some stuff arriving in the hold here that I need to check over," said Spencer. She stabbed a finger at Cormac. "We're five days away from the Graveyard, and in that time I want you to lose that rod up your arse." She turned and headed off.

"The rod up my arse?" Cormac enquired.

"Your military bearing, my son," said Gorman. "It was fine enough on Hagren where your cover included you being a soldier, but if we go undercover in the Graveyard, you'd be spotted in an instant."

"It's all those marching drills," said Crean dryly.

"Yeah, right," said Cormac, never having marched in his life.

Travis patted him on the shoulder. "You need to slouch a bit more, maybe acquire one or two bad habits—seemed to work for Gorman."

The four of them headed off down the corridor thick with carpet grass. At intervals framed pictures hung on the walls, each displaying what looked like Egyptian papyrus scrolls that were certainly copies. Soon they arrived at a row of doorways—Cormac halted before his.

"We'll meet up in the midship training area in half an hour," said Gorman. "Meanwhile, take a look at this." A message arrived in Cormac's aug.

The luxurious accommodation contained a wide bed, plenty of cupboard space, an en suite and even his own dispensary port from the ship's synthesizer. He dumped his pack and rifle on the bed and immediately turned back to the dispensary, since he had not eaten in some hours. First he got himself a coffee, which arrived behind the chainglass hatch in a porcelain cup and saucer; then, checking through the menu, he found that just about anything was available from the ship's synthesizers. He ordered a bacon sandwich on rye bread, which arrived while he sipped his coffee. The sandwich tasted wonderful, though what it contained had never come from a pig.

While on his second sandwich and second coffee, he opened the message Gorman had sent, which was empty, then opened the attached file. Therein lay the main factors that could identify someone as a soldier. Some things he could do nothing about, for he could not unlearn his familiarity with weapons. The rest was about speech patterns, combat techniques, choice of nutrition, neatness—and slouching and bad habits. After skimming through the extensive lists, he headed over to his pack, then opened it and upended it on his bed. From the contents he pulled out his casual clothing of jeans and a sleeveless light-blue shirt and, after stripping off his uniform, donned these, retaining only his enviroboots—nothing in the list about wearing crappy footwear. He then headed for the door, deliberately leaving the mess on his bed and deliberately not putting his cup and plate into the waste port next to the dispenser. Then he slouched down the corridor.

Gorman and Crean were awaiting him, both of them dressed casually. Gorman wore baggy black trousers and a brightly coloured Indian shirt, while Crean wore a tight little green top that exposed both an expanse of cleavage and her flat stomach, white combat trousers and karate slippers. Certainly she possessed assets that might distract anyone seeing her from being suspicious of who or what she was, and her chameleonware should be able to fool most scanners, however, her emulation wasn't perfect—Cormac had yet to see a Golem he did not recognise as a Golem, and guessed there were many others like him.

The training area was merely a cylindrical room with a hard floor and numerous lockers about the circumference, doubtless packed with training equipment. Cormac surveyed it all as he walked out and stopped before the other two. Smiling, Crean stepped up close to him and, despite her being a Golem, when she reached up and began running a finger around one nipple jutting against the fabric of her shirt, he could not help but be distracted. The next thing he knew her other hand had closed around his testicles and squeezed, hard, just prior to her forehead slamming into his nose, then she kicked his feet out from underneath him and stepped away.

"Now," she said, while Gorman looked on, grinning, his arms crossed, "you are going to learn how to fight dirty."

The analgaesic patches had taken the sting out of his grazes and bruises, the repair to his front teeth was invisible and the ache in his foot subsided once the bone and cell welding had settled. He had learned a lot over the last four days. Certainly there were the specifics like which brands of drink came in breakable bottles and therefore could be broken on the edge of a table and shoved in an opponents face, but generally it was an attitude. Everything was a weapon from spittle to drinking straws and always it was better to take the initiative: if it looked like a situation was about to turn violent, better for it to be you that turned that situation violent. He had learned something else too: knowing the difference between Golem emulation of humanity and humanity itself was not quite so cut and dried as he had liked to believe. Crean sweated, she smelt of woman, and grappling with her it was sometimes difficult for him to keep his mind on fighting techniques.

Cormac took a long, slow breath. He needed a shower, but first he turned on the room screen and gazed at the world the Sadist had now fallen into orbit about. Apparently Polity operatives, scattered throughout the Graveyard, had been told to keep watch for the light-cargo hauler Carl had departed on, and it had been seen landing here. Cormac was about to apply to the ship's server for details about this world when there came a tap at his door.

"Come in," he said, without looking round.

"How's the foot?"

Cormac looked round to see Crean standing there still dressed in the skin-tight, low-cut top and similarly clinging leggings she had been wearing earlier, while taking him through the finer points of kick-boxing with your hands tied behind your back. He had broken his foot on her hip.

"All stuck back together again, though still aching a little," he replied. "I'd ask you how your hip was, if it weren't for the fact that your bones don't break and you don't bruise."

"Now," she held up a finger, "you're only half right. Look." She took hold of the top of her leggings and pulled them down to show her hip, incidentally exposing this side of her pubis and neatly waxed traditional Brazilian-style pubic hair… or was it waxed? Cormac didn't know whether synthetic Golem hair grew. It seemed crazy to him that they would want growing hair, but then it seemed odd that they emulated flawed humanity. After a moment he focused on what she was supposed to be showing him: a growing bruise on her hip.

"Does it hurt?" he asked, a catch in his voice. He could not help but notice that her nipples, invisible when she entered his room, where now very definitely visible. Did she consciously control that, or was her emulation program an unconscious thing? How deliberate was any of what she was now doing? It then occurred to him that men often asked themselves that last question about flesh-and-blood women.