As I looked up an ancient hydrocar motored past. It was the cops, and I was surprised to see them. The car, a by-blow of flying saucer and Mercedes, had an assault drone like a huge grey copepod squatting on its roof. The vehicle was painted white with fluorescent blue circles decorating it—a colour scheme that had come to mean much the same as the black and white stripes of a wasp: danger. The driver and his mate, respectively a hulking man and an equally lethal looking woman, eyed me as they passed, the blue ring-shaped scars on their faces visible in the street lights.

  “Probably here in the hope of picking up any strays,” I said.

  “There won’t be any,” said Harriet.

  “They would probably like to join in,” I continued. “John told me that he had some trouble dissuading his hoopers from contacting me and offering assistance.”

  Harriet dipped her head in acknowledgement. “Understandable, considering the history. Jay Hoop, his pirates and their coring operation weren’t very popular on Spatterjay.”

  Weapons grade understatement, I thought. It surprised me that Straben had managed to keep his headquarters here at all.

  “Here they come,” said Harriet.

  Hobbs’ Street was crowded, it being one of the most popular thoroughfares here, and now it was becoming even more crowded. The thetics in the street where clad in a wide variety of clothing and their faces were concealed by syntheskin, but they hadn’t managed to suppress their inclination to march along in neat squads like the soldiers they were meant to be. There were five street doors to Straben’s conjoined buildings, which extended five floors up with the chainglass street roof attached across on top of the fifth. Fifty thetics were in the street, ten to each door, while a further seventy thetics clad in light space suits were, even now, moving into position up on the building’s roofs, which were exposed to vacuum.

  I watched, through the eyes of my artificial body and through pin-cams the thetics all wore in their clothing. I saw those up on the roof avoiding the heavily secured airlocks, consulting building blueprints and selecting areas over which they glued down atmosphere shelters, before beginning to cut through below, thus making their own airlocks. They would be inside within five minutes. Meanwhile, those down on the street were moving in on the doors with sticky bombs or sausages of thermite, depending on the design of door concerned. I began walking.

  “So, Harriet,” I said. “You seem a lot more coherent lately.”

  She glanced at me, her reptilian face unreadable. “Do I?”

  “Undoubtedly,” I said, watching her.

  “I’ve never been incoherent,” she argued.

  “Not as such but—.”

  I couldn’t take that further because a loud bang ensued, the explosion as bright as a welding arc and a gust of smoke blowing out into the street and then rising up towards the glass roof. People started yelling and running. It might have been thirty years since John Hobbs took control but there had still been incidents, and the people here still knew when it was best just to run. I noted that one of the doors had disappeared just as thermite flared further down the street and two more explosions ensued. I watched thetics pouring into three of the buildings, pulling short wide-blast sawn-off pulse rifles from under their coats. I saw thermite burn in a fast ring around an armoured door then a central charge blow it inwards. Just one more …

  I glanced over towards the door concerned as a machine gun began firing in short bursts. An explosion took out the door, but from a stone-effect arch above it a lumpish ugly security drone had dropped on a pole and begun firing a miniature version of the Gatling cannons prador favoured. In annoyance I saw thetics being torn apart, even one civilian who had been a bit tardy going down. I reached down and flipped open the patches on my trousers, drew my QC laser and plugged in its power lead, then I drew the other gun, noting Harriet now watching me intently. Meanwhile a thetic opened out a telescopic launcher, shouldered it and put a missile into the door arch. The drone arced smoking and bouncing out into the street.

  “Harriet—” I began, but didn’t get to finish as she shot off and went through the door concerned. Obviously the most secure doorway was the one into the building I most wanted to enter because, if my data was correct, Gad Straben himself had entered here just a few hours ago. I now entered to be greeted by the sound of gunfire and the commingled screams of pain and terror which were the usual result of Harriet’s presence. It occurred to me that she might have been uncomfortable about my questioning and that was why she had gone ahead, but why this occurred to me I don’t know.

  Through pin cams on their clothing I observed the thetics in the other buildings moving from room to room and killing anyone who resisted, just so long as they weren’t Straben. It was brutal, but then Straben’s organization was brutal and any working for it had to know they were culpable in mass murder. Those on the roof were now in too and working their way down—just as efficient and methodical as those working up from below—but also just as indifferent to personal survival. I reckoned on walking away from here with maybe just twenty or so surviving thetics. The rest would crawl off and die completely to become food for the honey fungus, or else turn into something nasty in the drains.

  Directing my course by pin-cam feeds I climbed the stairs since the building’s drop-shafts were keyed to staff ID tags and wouldn’t work for anyone else. Most of the action was now taking place on the third floor. At the second floor some man in businesswear carrying a heavy flack gun charged down, skidded to a stop on a landing and took aim. I raised my other gun just as a flack round exploded against the wall behind me and peppered me with shrapnel, then changed my mind and raised my QC laser, a short while afterwards stepping over the burning corpse.

  By the time I reached the third floor it was all over. The main data room looked like an abattoir and over in one corner Harriet was tearing chunks off of some rather corpulent individual and gobbling them down. Many of the consoles were smashed and smoking, holo-displays flickering through the air like panicked spectres and flimsy screens seemed to burn with internal blue fires. Over to one side a chainglass window overlooked all this, plush office space inside and there, working a console in frenetic panic, sat Gad Straben. I ran over to the door—armoured of course—kicked it hard then swore as my other boot went straight down through the floor and the door remained in place.

  “Get me a charge!” I shouted, heaving my leg back out of the hole.

  There were only two surviving thetics in the room, and they were guarding two women and a man who lay face down with their hands behind their heads.

  “You three,” I said, brushing debris from my trousers as I walked over. When they looked up I continued, “Get up and go,” and stabbed a finger towards the door. They slowly stood up, eyeing me as I replaced my weapons in their holes in my legs and closed them up, then took off just as fast as they could. They were probably only temporary employees of Straben since they hadn’t resisted, so whether they lived or died was a matter of indifference to me. I turned to the two thetics.

  “I want an explosive charge to get through that door,” I said concisely, since neither of them had understood me the first time.

  One of them went over to one of its fellows, who was quietly deliquescing in a corner, pulled some sticky bombs from his belt and returned with them. I stared at them for a moment then went over to the dead thetic myself and checked its belt. There—just what I needed. I detached a circular object like a coaster and took it over to the office window, slapped it against the chainglass and hit the pressure button at its centre. With a whumph the chainglass turned to white powder and collapsed to the floor. I stepped over the ledge and into the office, seeing Straben simply stand and hold out empty hands.

  “You move quickly,” he said.

  Straben was a slightly fat man with a bald rounded head. He was clad in businesswear and looked like some Polity executive styling his appearance on some antediluvian fashion. I ignored him for a moment, carefully studying my surroundings.

  A glass-fronted case along one wall contained a variety of ghoulish antiques: a spider thrall and a full-core thrall, a couple of slave collars and an old automatic pistol. These were all the kind of objects you could obtain from dealers out of Spatterjay. I watched a nano-paint picture transit to its next image—a painting of a hooder coming down on some man in ECS uniform. Then I strolled over to the desk, then round it, and stood facing Straben.

  “I move quickly?” I enquired mildly.

  “You arrived in the Graveyard only a few days ago,” said Straben, then with a shrug, “I didn’t expect you to act so quickly.”

  I looked at the desk, noting a flimsy screen up out of the surface and the holographic virtual control Straben had been using a moment ago. The screen was blank. I tried my hand in the control but it wouldn’t respond to me.

  “It’s genetically coded to me,” he said.

  “I could always cut off your hand,” I suggested.

  “That won’t work either,” said Straben, for the very first time showing some sign of anxiety.

  I gazed at him for a second, then waved him out into the main office space. He nodded congenially and walked over to where the window had been and stepped through.

  “Questions now?” he asked.

  “Yes, questions,” I replied.

  Straben halted and turned towards me, tilted his head irritatingly like Harriet, and waited.

  “So,” I said, “was it your intention to try and seize the Coin Collector?”

  Straben gazed at me in apparent puzzlement. “Certainly not. It was my intention to sell you some valuable artefacts I have obtained.” He turned slowly to survey the wreckage around him. “But it seems I was mistakenly under the impression that you were a reasonable man I could do business with.”

  I fought down another surge of irritation. We couldn’t stay here much longer. John Hobbs might have decided to look the other way but he wouldn’t do so for much longer. There would be reports going in of an incident here and he would have to respond.

  “From Penny Royal’s planetoid?” I suggested.

  “Yes,” said Straben. “I have them in a secure location and, despite this unfortunate mess,” Straben gestured about himself. “I am still prepared to do business.”

  “So which of your vessels salvaged them?” I asked.

  “The Cadiz—it got there before Hobbs or any of the other vultures.” Straben smiled as if in pleasant recollection. He was certainly a cool customer and was now growing more confident. “The objects concerned seem to be part of something larger and certainly contain U-space tech, though precisely what they are for is a puzzle.”

  The objects sounded precisely like what the Client was seeking, which was beyond suspicious. It was also the case that before coming down here I’d thoroughly checked the relevant details Tank had taken from the Layden’s data store. Straben was lying, though to what degree and precisely what his aims were was unclear.

  “Wrong answer,” I said. “The Cadiz was in the prador Kingdom at the time.”

  Straben hid his shock well, but it was evident. “Do you honestly think I keep precise records of my ship itineraries?”

  “Possibly not.” I shrugged. “But apparently you shut down your salvage operation decades ago.” I paused contemplatively for a moment. “In fact, as I understand it, John Hobbs would be the best to ask about artefacts from the planetoid since it seems his salvagers were the only ones that went there before everything of value was obliterated by some sort of chain reaction, and that the artefacts he did obtain were routed directly to the Polity.”

  “So John Hobbs might tell you,” said Straben, obviously thinking quickly now. “He was trying to nail down the market—make it exclusive.”

  He paused, searching for further excuses and lies, so I quickly interjected, “Perhaps you could tell me about the warehouse you’ve been renovating—the one located on an asteroid in this system.” He definitely couldn’t hide his shock now. “Perhaps you might like to tell me why you felt the need to kit out the place with so much armament along with a hardfield caging system?”

  “How can you—”

  “You set the bait and that’s the trap,” I said.

  Now he was lost for words. I gave him a little while, but he lost the struggle as Harriet moved up to stand beside him, leaned her head down and gave him a long sniff.

  “No more lies,” I said turning to Harriet. “Usual method: if he lies again I give you the nod and you bite off his right hand.”

  Harriet danced from foot to foot, champed her jaws then as usual licked round her mouth with her long red tongue.

  “Now,” I continued, “what exactly is all this about?”

  Straben just stood staring at Harriet for a long while. He shrugged, then sighed.

  “It’s about the reward,” he said.

  “What reward?”

  “I will need guarantees,” the man replied.

  “You can guarantee that if you don’t answer my questions Harriet will first eat your hands. If that doesn’t work she’ll start on you from the feet up.”

  “You are rather brutal and uncivilized in your dealings,” Straben observed primly.

  That was it; that was the limit. A man who cored and thralled human beings to sell the prador was calling me uncivilized? I reached down to my thigh, opened the patch in my trousers then mentally unlocked the hatch in my leg there. I took out the other gun and weighed it in my hand. Harriet, noting this, look a pace back. It didn’t look like much—just a heavy chromed revolver.

  “Your last chance,” I said mildly.

  Straben could obviously see I was feeling a bit testy. He quickly said, “A fortune in any form required, a Polity amnesty for all crimes and a free fifty-year pass into the Kingdom ratified by the King himself.”

  Puzzling. The Polity never gave amnesties to the likes of Straben, and that the Kingdom and the Polity had agreed on some joint reward seemed just as unlikely.

  “There’s some heavyweight action behind it,” Straben continued, now taking a step back and resting his weight back against one of the desks here. “I couldn’t believe it at first but it really checks out.” He gestured vaguely upwards. “Polity agents out there and direct confirmation from one of the watch station AIs. The King’s Guard are involved too. I don’t know what you are involved in but both the prador and the Polity desperately want to get hold of you.”

  “It is feasible that such rewards might be offered to negate some very serious threat.”

  It took me a moment to realize that Harriet had spoken. I eyed her carefully. Once we were back aboard the Coin Collector I felt we needed to have a long talk, and I needed to scan what was going on inside that reptilian skull of hers. However, I knew precisely what she was implying.

  “I need to talk to the Client,” I said.

  “Yes, I think you do,” Harriet agreed. “Shall we finish up here?” She tilted her head slightly, directing her gaze towards the gun I held.

  There was nothing more to be learned from Straben. I returned my attention to the man and fired once, the kick jerking the barrel up and the shot going into his stomach and flinging him back across the desk. Despite that, the impact of the bullet had been toned down for the human form, since this gun had been designed to punch bullets through a prador’s natural armour.

  The man lay gasping, then abruptly jerked, stretched out flat and went into convulsions. Black threads spread across his skin and his flesh started swelling. He emitted a gargling scream then slumped into stillness just as brown sprouts broke out of his skin like spear points, then began to swell at their tips. These swellings, each rapidly growing to the size of a tennis ball, turned a darker brown and acquired widely scattered black scales.

  “Fascinating,” said Harriet. “So it doesn’t take control of the host—just kills quickly?”

  “It’s weaponized,” I replied. “There’s no advantage in spread by it keeping the host alive since that comes with sporulation—and at a point of growth the host cannot survive.”

  Harriet glanced round at me. “But sporulation has been retarded I presume?”

  “It has—I don’t want to kill off the whole colony here.”

  She nodded thoughtfully, then asked, “I am right in assuming that this is based on ophiocordyceps unilateralis or as it is known as on Earth, the ‘zombie ant fungus?’”

  “It is,” I said, slightly stunned by her sharpness.

  “And that is just one of your bullets?”

  “Yes.”

  “Fascinating,” she repeated.

  This sharp new Harriet would be, I thought, fascinated to know that this particular weaponized parasitic fungus would also be an effective way to kill another creature, a multiply renewing one. But that wasn’t something I wanted to think about too much, especially with another conversation due with the Client …

  Upon returning to the Coin Collector I delayed and delayed, but the Client was not to be denied—always testing its connections to my mind, always pushing.

  Time.

  The stabbing sensation in my head told me I had delayed too long. I closed my eyes and began numbing all the nerve connections to my artificial body, highlighting the other intrusive connections in my skull. The link, between me and the thing sitting in the tank, which in turn connected to the ship’s U-space communicator, opened up. And all at once I returned to hell.

  Rage and suspicion came first, with that forever present undercurrent of loss. I stretched a hundred feet tall; a conjoined chain of insect forms reaching towards the roof of the deep volcanic chamber, a boiling wind blowing across the nearby lake of lava raising the temperature just enough. Hive creature and hive, perpetually dying and giving birth, immortal, the Client clung now to ersatz trunk of a giant tree being fashioned of silica crystals by one of its exoforms—a thing like a giant horseshoe crab suspended from the roof by a long jointed tail. It read me, and peeled its upper section from the tree in its fear, emitting a pheromone fog, distributing it with the beating of glassy wings. Exoforms down below like manta rays on spider legs, hoovering up and crunching down old fallen husks from past renewals, bleated and bumped against each other in bewilderment.