‘When you’re ready to give me some time in your schedule, we need to figure out a strategy, because I’m not waiting for the Munitorum to send me my In His Glorious Service databurst detailing on what shithole world she died. You got that? She’s not joining up.’

Then she brushed past him, heading back to the dorm-chamber.

‘And you can sleep in her bed again tonight, once you’re done. I need some rest, and you clearly don’t. We’ll talk tomorrow.’

The slide-door slammed, and a little bit more of the wall paint flaked off.

Zidarov leaned against the wall, and blinked heavily. He remembered Brecht’s words.

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I’ve just got it all.’

Chapter Nine

Chapter Nine

Vasteva was there, wearing the circlet, trying to get him to come back to the apartment, but he knew he couldn’t go, not so soon, and so he tried to get out of it. There was a ringing from somewhere, like a fire alarm, and for some reason the Luxer wouldn’t start. He turned around to the passenger seat and saw Udmil Terashova, who told him to look harder, or he’d find himself hooked up to a cell-drainer, but it wasn’t Udmil, it was Vongella, and she had a lit shock maul in her fist.

Then the ringing burst into reality – a priority scramble-signal over the dataveil. He thrashed around, forgetting again that he was in a strange cot, nearly falling heavily onto the hard floor.

> Code E. All units respond. Code E. Loc-ref 456-908. Code E.

Code E. That was the assignment for an attack on an enforcer. It shouldn’t have come to him at all – it was a channel for the sanctioners – but he guessed, even in his groggy state, that he had been deliberately put on the iris distribution. He had a sudden horror-lurch, like his stomach dropping out of his torso.

He dressed quickly, grabbing the Tzarina from the strongbox and jogging down to the groundcar berth. He blinked a chrono-reading up as he went – the middle of the night. He could only have had three hours’ sleep.

He strapped in, shunted the ref to the machine-spirit and waited for the HUD to power up. Then he was driving, going fast, sliding between the nocturnal traffic, trying to clear his head.