“What do you want to know, Isaac?” said Vermishank smoothly. Isaac was enraged, but impressed. The man was damn good at regaining and retaining his aplomb.

That, Isaac decided, would have to be dealt with.

Isaac stood and stalked over to Vermishank. The older man looked up at him idly, his eyes only widening in alarm too late as he realized that Isaac was going to hit him again.

Isaac punched Vermishank in the face twice, ignoring his old boss’s squawk of pain and astonishment. Isaac gripped Vermishank by the throat and lowered himself into a squat, bringing his face next to his terrified prisoner’s. Vermishank was bleeding from his nose, and scrabbling ineffectually at Isaac’s massive hands. His eyes were glazed with terror.

“I don’t think you understand the situation, old son,” whispered Isaac with loathing. “I have sound reason to believe that you’re responsible for my friend lying upstairs shitting himself and drooling. I am not in any mood for sodding around, playing games, going by rules. I don’t care if you live, Vermishank. D’you understand? Are you with me? So here’s the best way of doing this. I tell you what we know-don’t waste my time asking how we know it-and you fill in what we don’t. Every time you don’t answer or the consensus here is that you’re lying, either Lemuel or I will hurt you.”

“You can’t torture me, you bastard…” hissed Vermishank in a strangulated wheeze.

“Fuck you,” breathed Isaac. “You’re the Remaker. Now…answer the questions or die.”

“Possibly both,” added Lemuel coldly.

“See, you’re wrong, Monty,” continued Isaac. “We can torture you. That’s exactly what we can do. So best to co-operate. Answer quickly, and convince me you ain’t lying. Here’s what we know. Correct me if I’m wrong, by the way, won’t you?” He sneered at Vermishank.

There was a pause as Isaac ran through the facts in his head. Then he spoke them, ticking each item off on his fingers.

“You’re in charge of biohazardous stuff for the government. That means the slake-moth programme.” He looked up for a reaction, some surprise that the secret of the project was out. Vermishank was motionless. “The slake-moths have escaped-the slake-moths that you sold to some fucking criminal. They have something to do with dreamshit, and with the…with the nightmares that everyone’s having. Rudgutter thought they were something to do with Benjamin Flex-wrongly, incidentally.

“Now, what we need to know is the following. What are they? What’s the connection with the drug? How do we catch them?”

There was a pause as Vermishank sighed lengthily. His lips were trembling wetly, slick with blood and saliva, but he gave a little smile. Lemuel wagged the gun to chivvy him along.

“Hah. Slake-moths,” breathed Vermishank eventually. He swallowed and massaged his neck. “Well. Aren’t they fascinating? Amazing species.”

“What are they?” said Isaac.

“What do you mean? You’ve clearly found out that much. They are predators. Efficient, brilliant predators.”

“Where are they from?”

“Hah.” Vermishank pondered a moment. He glanced up as Lemuel lazily and ostentatiously began to aim his gun at Vermishank’s knee. Vermishank continued quickly. “We got the grubs from a merchant on one of the southernmost of the Shards-it must have been on their arrival that you stole one-but they aren’t native to there.” He looked up at Isaac with what looked like amusement. “If you really want to know, the current favourite theory is that they come from the Fractured Land.”

“Don’t fuck about…” shouted Isaac in rage, but Vermishank interrupted him.

“I am not, you fool. That is the favoured hypothesis. Fractured Land theory has been given a powerful boost in some circles by the discovery of the slake-moths.”

“How do they hypnotize people?”

“Wings-of unstable dimensions and shapes, beating as they do in various planes-stuffed with oneirochromatophores. Colour-cells like those in an octopus’s skin, sensitive to and affecting psychic resonances and subconscious patterns. They tap the frequencies of the dreams that are…ah…bubbling under the surface of the sentient mind. They focus them, draw them out into the surface. Hold them still.”

“How does a mirror protect you?”

“Good question, Isaac.” Vermishank’s manner was changing. He sounded more and more as if he was giving a seminar. Even in a situation like this, realized Isaac, the didactic instinct was strong in the old bureaucrat. “We simply don’t know. We’ve done all manner of experiments, with double-mirrors, treble-mirrors and so on. We don’t know why, but seeing them reflected negates the effect, even though it is formally an identical sight, as their wings are already mirrored in each other. But, and this is very interesting, reflect it again-look at them through two mirrors, I mean, like a periscope-and they can hypnotize you again. Isn’t that extraordinary?” He smiled.

Isaac paused. There was, he realized, something almost urgent about Vermishank’s manner. He seemed anxious to leave nothing out. It must have been Lemuel’s unwavering pistol.

“I’ve…seen one of these things feeding…” said Isaac. “I saw it…eat someone’s brain.”

“Hah.” Vermishank shook his head appreciatively. “Astonishing. You are lucky to be here. You did not see it eat anyone’s brain. Slake-moths don’t live entirely in our plane. Their…ah…nutritional needs are met by substances that we cannot measure. Don’t you see, Isaac?” Vermishank gazed at him intently, like a teacher trying to encourage the right answer from a petulant pupil. The urgency flashed again in his eyes. “I know biology’s not your strong point, but it’s such an…elegant mechanism, I thought you might see it. They draw the dreams out with their wings, flood the mind, break the dykes that hold back hidden thoughts, guilty thoughts, anxieties, delights, dreams…” He stopped. Sat back. Composed himself.

“And then,” he continued, “when the mind is nice and juicy…they suck it dry. The subconscious is their nectar, Isaac, don’t you see? That is why they only feed on the sentient. No cats or dogs for them. They drink the peculiar brew that results from self-reflexive thought, when the instincts and needs and desires and intuitions are folded in on themselves and we reflect on our thoughts and then reflect on the reflection, endlessly…” Vermishank’s voice was hushed. “Our thoughts ferment like the purest liquor. That is what the slake-moths drink, Isaac. Not the meat-calories slopping about in the brainpan, but the fine wine of sapience and sentience itself, the subconscious.

“Dreams.”

The room was silent. The idea was stunning. Everyone seemed to reel at the notion. Vermishank seemed almost to be revelling in the effect his revelations were having.

Everyone started at a clanging sound. It was just the construct, busy vacuuming the rubbish beside David’s desk. It had tried to empty the bin into its receptacle, had slightly missed and spilled the contents. It was busy trying to clear up the pieces of crumpled paper that surrounded it.

“And…Dammit, of course!” Isaac breathed. “That’s what the nightmares are! They…it’s like fertilizer! Like, I don’t know, rabbit-shit, that feeds the plants that feed the rabbits…It’s a little chain, a little ecosystem…”

“Hah. Quite,” said Vermishank. “You are thinking at last. You can’t see slake-moth faeces, or smell it, but you can sense it. In your dreams. It feeds them, makes them boil. And then the slake-moth feeds on them. A perfect loop.”

“How do you know all this, you swine?” breathed Derkhan. ‘How long have you been working on these monsters?”