That is not your concern, Arian. Just let him complete his mission, then you can kill him.

Pelter used Sylac’s aug to interpret the chaos of scales. A sorting program gave him the form of a web. At the centre of that web was an obese shape, a human taking on the form of his master. From this shape he felt the controlling link and the force of alien personality.

‘What forces will he have with him? Do you know that much?’

There may be four Sparkind. Perhaps he will have others, but they are inconsequential.

‘Sparkind are not.’

You have substantial weaponry. You also have Mr. Crane.

‘Don’t worry. When he sets foot out of the runcible installation he is a dead man.’

On Viridian, Arian Pelter, I want you to wait. Let him do what he has come to do.

‘Merely an expression. He will be a walking dead man. I will hold back for you, for all that you’ve told me. But tell me, how is it that you know all this?’ The scales were fading now and Pelter could see his own bitter expression reflected back at him. The reply he got now was faint.

Their runcible AIs, Arian Pelter, so arrogant and so sure that they cannot be overheard. I listen to them all the time and, sometimes, I find things even they have missed. I wish I had found it earlier. Samarkand would not have been . . . necessary . . .

The personality turned away. The pterosaur head faded. But the links, all through, remained. Pelter summoned up an image of a thin-gun pointed at his face, and used it as an anchor. It took a huge effort of will as he fought the cold pain in the side of his head and disconnected from the Dragon aug. Scales faded, links that had been growing ever stronger faded. He snorted the smell of cloves from his nostrils and stood.

‘Like hell I will,’ he said, and walked over to his bedside table. There he picked up his comunit and made a particular connection.

‘Arian,’ Grendel said to him. ‘Do you have what you . . . need now?’

‘In one respect, yes. In others, no.’

‘I do not understand.’

‘It’s a matter of hardware again,’ said Pelter. ‘Can you meet me at the warehouse.’

‘The storm . . .’

‘This is important, Grendel, and the storm’s nearly over.’

‘Very well. I’ll see you there in an hour or so?’

Pelter clicked off the unit and turned to Mr. Crane. ‘Nobody controls me, and nobody controls you but me. Did they think I was so stupid?’

He gazed through the window. His problem did not lie in the aug, but in the force of the personality behind it. Dragon, he knew, could swamp him with a direct connection. Here, of course, the connection was not direct. Dragon was somewhere deep in the Polity. The link was an obese man who called himself Grendel.

* * *