‘And there are labs. Lots of them, and they make plenty of on-the-books slate. Vongella’s probably spent half her stipend there for twenty years, and it’s all legit. But then he put his hand on my shoulder, and he shook me up like I was some dumb canid and he said that whenever there’s an expensive, safe thing, there’s also a cheap, dangerous thing. And then he told me how it works, and that you can bypass the cultivators by just harvesting the plasma and the stem-cells direct from the living marrow, and if you’re really after the big margins and you have no soul or conscience you don’t even need to use proper sedatives. And he told me how long it takes for the donors to die, and how painful it is, and how you’re swapping the young for hideous old bastards with more slate than morals, and it’s going on all over Varangantua, and has been for years. It’s worse than kidnap. It’s worse than murder. They steal… youth.’

The third round of drinks arrived, and this time the caffeine wasn’t part of it.

‘He wanted to shock me, I think, and he did, even though I didn’t really believe it, and thought it was just another story to scare the newblood. So then we actually went in and broke up the den, and I saw what was left of the luckless buggers strapped into those machines, and I thought I’d never stop throwing up. Didn’t sleep for a few nights after that. I was single then, so I just stayed in the bars downclave and got properly dosed.’

‘It’s a strategy,’ said Brecht.

‘So I liked breaking up those things, after that. I liked using a maul on the ones who tricked those poor bastards into the dens. Draj told me he’d hook them up to their own machines, this morning. Draj doesn’t always talk complete shit.’

Brecht raised an eyebrow, but didn’t say anything.

‘I don’t like the thought that someone’s protecting them,’ said Zidarov. ‘I might be prepared to do some digging.’

Brecht put his glass down. ‘Don’t be stupid. Listen, Zido, you’re taking your eye off. Castellan will forgive a botched hit, but you need to get her what she needs, which is this boy, wherever he is.’

‘It’s all sh–’

‘Shut up. You don’t know that. And even if it is, you need to show that you’re running it down. Do some legwork. You really thought he’d be there, just like the warp spat him out in front of you? You were reaching, trying to get out of a waste assignment. How many people have you spoken to? Filed any reports yet?’

Zidarov smiled grimly, and took another swig. ‘You’re a real motivator, you know that, Gyorgu?’