Tay smiled almost hungrily and gestured to her console. ‘Stay as long as you like. I’m sure there is much more detail you can fill me in on.’

Keech watched her for a moment, then moved over to the console and sat down. He pressed the data crystal back into place then viewed what it contained on the screen.

Tay stood and walked up to stand behind him. ‘Now,’ she said, ‘describe to me exactly how it was when Aphed Rimsc killed you.’

The woman gazed out across the salt flats to where a plume of dust cut across a range of yellow sandstone buttes. Soon this plume opened into a line, abruptly terminating as the approaching transport turned to head in. like most Prador methods of transportation, this vehicle, when revealed, bore a close resemblance to the passenger or passengers it carried. It was a ridged teardrop like a spidercrab’s carapace, with antennae and sensor arrays mounted to the fore and grab claws folded up as ribs underneath. Beyond this, though, the similarities ended. The transport was bright red and had weapon turrets bulging from the sides. The pictographs of the Prador language adorned every surface, and this vehicle could really move. Behind it the clouds of salt crystals rolled on and settled, and as the vehicle came past the demesne, a double sonic crash shook the crystal windows before the following cloud obscured the view.

The woman turned from the window and for a moment inspected one of her collection of paintings. This particular canvas depicted a similar scene to the one she had just witnessed, and it had been painted by the previous resident of this house, being, as far as she knew, nearly a century and a half old. Next to this was a painting of a man and woman standing on a monolithic rock and staring out to sea, while things that might have been seagulls circled above them. She frowned at this picture before moving to the bar, pouring herself a drink, and then heading out on to the balcony. Here she watched the transport slow and turn. The taste of salt in the air was sharp on her tongue and she sipped her cool-ice to wash it away. Between two security posts the shimmer-shield flickered and went out, and the vehicle coasted in over the blue grass lawns and ornamental ponds. With the rumbling and decreasing whine of thruster motors, it settled by the ramp provided for Prador visitors. The woman went back inside to her comunit to see if there had been any communications yet.

‘Councillor Ebulan requesting audience,’ said the voice.

The woman looked at the face of the human blank on the screen and recognized it as one she had herself provided. She couldn’t remember the female’s name, but then what did it matter what name you gave a human shell? To the Prador, a blank like this would just have the title ‘Speaker’, as so many did.

‘I’m always glad to see the councillor,’ she said. It would have been impolitic to refuse to receive him. Even with all her wealth, she was still regarded as a second-class citizen of the Prador Third Kingdom. She finished her drink and went into her bedroom. There she discarded her robe and moved to stand before the wall mirror. Still good, after all this time. She had made the right choice with this body. The subject had been a beautiful woman with just the right combination of athleticism and femininity. Before coring, she had apparently been the daughter of an ECS monitor known to that damned Keech. A surprising discovery had been her virginity. The woman smiled at the memory and went to her wardrobe to select appropriate garb.

Three blanks walked up the ramp before the councillor drifted out. Ebulan was an old Prador and all his atrophied legs were gone. He was simply a carapace shaped like a flattened pear with a scalloped rim. Antennae clustered round his fore, and an arc of blood-red spider eyes arrayed the turret front of what might be called his head. Shell-welded to his underside were the four polished cylinders of his AG units. Underneath the slow grind of his mouthparts had been welded the hexagonal control boxes. The woman counted fifteen of them, which meant he controlled fifteen human blanks. In Prador terms this was a sign of prestige: Ebulan was wealthy enough to own fifteen cored humans and had the mental strength to run them all, through their thrall units, simultaneously.

The central blank of the three — the speaker the woman had seen, now clearly identified by pictographs tattooed on her body — stepped ahead of the other two. The woman noted the armour on the other two, and the heavy hand weapons they carried. It wasn’t hard to work out what they were for. Prador adults were meticulous about their personal safety. Prador adolescents, who were slaves to their parents’ pheromones, and human blanks, had mostly fought the war.

‘Greetings,’ said Speaker.

‘And to you, Ebulan. It’s been a long time,’ said the woman.

‘What is time?’ Ebulan asked through the mindless speaker.

The woman smiled and fingered the human-skin jacket she wore.

‘Obviously I am honoured by this visit, but I am also curious,’ she said.

‘A social visit,’ said Ebulan, ‘and a small return of favours.’

‘Then please, enter.’

The woman turned and led the way up the ramp. The three blanks followed her. Then came Ebulan, and after him came three adolescent Prador. Two of these were a twentieth of Ebulan’s size and each walked on six long legs. Folded underneath each of them were four arms ending in their hugely complex manipulatory hands, and in front of them were their heavy crab claws. These sexless creatures were loyal to their masters only while they remained sexless. Most Prador now used humans rather than their own kin, who were unpredictable and could not be as loyal as something mindless and under direct control. All high-level Prador like Ebulan had guards of some kind, since Prador politics was never less than lethal. All of the cored humans here, but for the speaker, were heavily armed. The third Prador adolescent was much larger than the others, and his coloration was deep purple and yellow. The woman realized that this one was not much longer for adolescence but unlikely to attain adulthood. No doubt he was soon due to have his legs stripped and his shell broken, which was the destiny of most of his kind.

Settled in the room of her demesne especially reserved for Prador visitors, the woman and Ebulan exchanged pleasantries for as long as it took Ebulan to have his blanks check out the whole area and position themselves. Once he was satisfied a rival had not predicted the visit, and no traps were laid, Ebulan settled down on his AG units.

‘Something has occurred,’ said Ebulan through the speaker.

‘Please tell me,’ said the woman.

‘The reification has returned, at last, to Spatterjay.’

The woman sat very still as a thousand memories shrieked for attention. She felt a brief nausea as her central core went into nerve conflict with the body she had stolen.

‘Does this not interest you, Rebecca?’ asked the councillor,

Rebecca Frisk turned and gazed out of the crystal windows towards the salt flats. Keech — always damned Keech. Even after sending her own body, fitted with the brain and spinal column that had been in this current body, to ECS, she could not be safe while he… existed.

‘He’s still alive,’ she stated.

‘I wonder who you mean,’ said Ebulan.

Frisk glared at him. ‘I mean Keech.’

‘Problematical,’ said Ebulan. He shifted on his AG units as if uncomfortable.

Frisk ignored that and stared out of the window again. ‘Eight contracts and a hundred subcontracts from them, and every one a failure. Two of them were taken up by Batian stone killers. That bastard almost found out about me when he smeared them,’ she said. She turned to Ebulan. ‘Does he know about Jay?’

‘This I was not able to determine.’

‘He will.’