“Went off with Hand. How come you’re not doing the Coral Castle tour yourself?”

I smiled. “You’ve never seen the Coral Castle in your life, Tanya. What are you talking about?”

She seated herself beside me, facing the starscape.

“Trying out my Harlan’s World argot. Got a problem with that?”

“Fucking tourists.”

She laughed. I sat and enjoyed the sound until it died, and then we sat for a while in a companionable quiet broken only by the sound of Sun’s circuit soldering.

“Nice sky,” she said finally.

“Yeah. Answer me an archaeological question?”

“If you like.”

“Where did they go?”

“The Martians?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, it’s a big cosmos. Who—”

“No, these Martians. The crew of this thing. Why leave something this big floating out here abandoned? It must have cost a planetary budget to build, even for them. It’s functional, as near as we can tell. Heated, maintained atmosphere, working docking system. Why didn’t they take it with them?”

“Who knows? Maybe they left in a hurry.”

“Oh, come—”

“No, I mean it. They pulled out of this whole region of space, or were wiped out or wiped each other out. They left a lot of stuff. Whole cities of it.”

“Yeah. Tanya, you can’t take a city away with you. Obviously you leave it. But this is a fucking starship. What could make them leave something like that behind?”

“They left the orbitals around Harlan’s World.”

“Those are automated.”

“Well? So is this, to the extent of the maintenance systems.”

“Yes, but it was built for use by a crew. You don’t have to be an archaeologue to see that.”

“Kovacs, why don’t you go down to the Nagini and get some rest. Neither of us is up to exploring this place, and you’re giving me a headache.”

“I think you’ll find that’s the radiation.”

“No, I—”

Against my chest, my discarded induction mike burred. I blinked down at it for a moment, then picked it up and fitted it.

“…just ly—…—ere,” said Vongsavath’s voice, excited and laced heavily with static breakup. “What-ver… was… don’t thin—… died of starv…”

“Vongsavath, this is Kovacs. Back up a minute. Slow down and start again.”

“I said,” the pilot enunciated with heavy emphasis. “Th—…’ve found… ther body. A hu… body. Part… gang…—eked up at the dock…—ation. An—… looks li—… thing kill—… him.”

“Alright, we’re on our way.” I struggled to my feet, forcing myself to speak at a pace Vongsavath might have a chance of understanding through the interference. “Repeat. We are on our way. Stay put, back to back and don’t move. And shoot any fucking thing you see.”

“What is it?” asked Wardani.

“Trouble.”

I looked around the platform and suddenly Sutjiadi’s words came rolling back over me.

We shouldn’t be out here at all.

Over my head, the Martian gazed blankly down at us. As far removed as any angel, and as much help.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

He was lying in one of the bulbous tunnels, about a kilometre deeper into the body of the vessel, suited up and still largely intact. In the soft blue light from the walls, the features behind the faceplate were clearly shrunken onto the bones of the skull, but beyond that they didn’t seem to have decomposed appreciably.

I knelt beside the corpse and peered at the sealed-in face.

“Doesn’t look too bad, considering.”

“Sterile air supply,” said Deprez. He had his Sunjet cocked on his hip, and his eyes flickered constantly into the swollen roof-space overhead. Ten metres further on and looking slightly less comfortable with her weapon, Ameli Vongsavath prowled back and forth by the opening where the tunnel linked to the next bubble chamber. “And antibacterials, if it’s a halfway decent suit. Interesting. The tank’s still a third full. Whatever he died of, it wasn’t suffocation.”

“Any damage to the suit?”

“If there is, I cannot find it.”

I sat back on my heels. “Doesn’t make any sense. This air’s breathable. Why suit up?”

Deprez shrugged. “Why die in your suit on the outside of an open atmosphere lock? None of it makes any sense. I’m not trying any more.”

“Movement,” snapped Vongsavath.

I cleared the right-hand interface gun and joined her at the opening. The lower lip rose a little over a metre from the floor and curved upward like a wide smile before narrowing gradually up towards the roof on either side and finally closing in a tightly rounded apex. There were two metres of clear cover on each side and space to crouch below the lip. It was a sniper’s dream.

Deprez folded into the cover on the left, Sunjet stowed upright at his side. I crouched beside Vongsavath.

“Sounded like something falling,” murmured the pilot. “Not this chamber, maybe the next.”

“Alright.” I felt the neurachem sliding coldly along my limbs, charging my heart. Good to know that, under the bone-deep weariness of the radiation poisoning, the systems were still online. And after grasping so long at shadows, fighting faceless nanobe colonies, the ghosts of the departed, human and not, the promise of solid combat was almost a pleasure.

Scratch almost. I could feel pleasure tickling up the walls of my stomach at the thought of killing something.

Deprez raised one hand from the projection ramp of his Sunjet.

Listen.

This time I heard it—a stealthy scuffing sound across the chamber. I drew the other interface gun and settled into the cover of the raised lip. The Envoy conditioning squeezed the last of the tension out of my muscles and stowed it in coiled reflexes beneath a surface calm.

Something pale moved in a space on the other side of the next chamber. I breathed in and sighted on it.

Here we go.

“You there, Ameli?”

Schneider’s voice.

I heard Vongsavath’s breath hiss out about the same time as mine. She climbed to her feet.

“Schneider? What are you doing? I nearly shot you.”

“Well, that’s fucking friendly.” Schneider appeared clearly in the opening and swung his leg over. His Sunjet was slung carelessly across one shoulder. “We come rushing to the rescue, and you blow us away for our trouble.”

“Is it another archaeologue?” asked Hand, following Schneider through into the chamber. Incongruous in his right fist was a hand blaster. It was the first time, I realised, that I’d seen the executive armed since I’d known him. It didn’t look right on him. It marred his ninetieth-floor boardroom aura. It was inappropriate, a cracked front, jarring the way genuine battle coverage would in a Lapinee recruiting number. Hand was not a man who wielded weapons himself. Or at least not weapons as straightforward and grubby as a particle blaster.

Plus he’s got a stunner tucked away in his pocket.

Recently powered up to combat readiness, the Envoy conditioning twinged uneasily.

“Come and have a look,” I suggested, masking my disquiet.

The two new arrivals crossed the open ground to us with a blasé lack of caution that screamed at my combat nerves. Hand leaned his hands on the lip of the tunnel entrance and stared at the corpse. His features, I suddenly saw, were ashen with the radiation sickness. His stance looked braced, as if he wasn’t sure how much longer he could stand up. There was a tic at the corner of his mouth that hadn’t been there when we touched down in the docking bay. Next to him, Schneider looked positively glowing with health.

I crushed out the flicker of sympathy. Welcome to the fucking club, Hand. Welcome to ground level on Sanction IV.

“He’s suited up,” Hand said.

“Well spotted.”

“How did he die?”

“We don’t know.” I felt another wave of weariness wash through me. “And to be honest I’m not in the mood for an autopsy. Let’s just get this buoy fixed, and get the fuck out of here.”