‘Then he can moan. At least he won’t be here doing it . . . Did the lifter get away on schedule?’

‘It did, and by the time it returns we should have enough clear bedrock to offload the runcible onto.’

‘Fused and levelled?’

‘Yes, we’re keeping up with the dozers. Should be able to drive in the bracings for the containment sphere by the time the lifter goes up for the prefabs.’

‘What word from Jane?’

‘The AI’s ready, just has to be brought down and keyed in. The hour-eater’s going to be setting up the horns and aligning the fields. The AI can do the fine tuning.’

Chaline nodded to herself in satisfaction: all according to plan. Fifty hours she had estimated, and fifty hours it would be. Chaline prided herself on her estimates.

* * *

‘—lined in lies hurled grey-suited arms flapping wings of ashen crow cage him in screaming orbit cast and broken in sum beauty of chaos calm eye of storm hub fulcrum—’

‘Hubris just does not have the processing power to unravel this mind without the danger of scrambling it further,’ said Jane.

She and Cormac were seated before a bank of controls—grudgingly allowed them by the frenetic runcible technicians—in Downlink Com.

‘Then that is a risk we must take. I’ve got my back to a wall here. I think Dragon is lying about an awful lot, but I’ve got no way to prove it, and this is a life-and-death situation. If I fuck up, people are going to die, and the killers are going to go unpunished. Remember, there were ten thousand people out here.’

‘You do not have to remind me,’ said Jane with something approaching anger.

‘Sorry,’ said Cormac.

‘—axis screams roar of own might swastika purge emetic sponge of obscene colour blowing across lizards light fleeing sinter sinter fell into new day skulls satchel leather fetid hollows wasp eaten apples pork bone-exposed crackling . . . dying . . . black rats—’

‘There, damn it. There!’ said Cormac. ‘Lizards could easily be the dracomen. Light fleeing could be the Maker escaping. And the skulls and crackling . . . ten thousand people.’

‘Somewhat interpretive . . . But there may be a way . . .’

‘—chewing rotating heart in assonance chained before red-hot grate spitting intestines died died am—’

‘Sorry, what did you say?’

‘I said there may be a way to unscramble it. Though Chaline won’t like it,’ said Jane.

‘Tell me. Don’t tell her.’

‘The new runcible AI might be able to do it. It is not keyed into the grid yet, and has fifty times the processing power of Hubris. It needs that to sort out the five-space math and nil-space co-ordinates.’

Cormac was silent for a while, staring off down the room at a screen showing the heavy-lifter coming up from Samarkand.

‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Of course.’ He turned and stared at her fiercely. ‘Now—we do it now.’