‘I asked the same question. Cinnabar is a red pigment; it’s also mercuric sulphide. Mining it is the chief economic resource here. There’s a runcible up there for transporting tankers of mercury all over the sector. The fluorspar is fluorescent. The combination of the two produces that red light, even when the daytime sky is green.’

‘Oh,’ said Thorn, and fell silent.

Cormac gave him an assessing look. Only as they had been speaking had he noticed that Thorn kept one of the proton guns resting against the wall next to him.

‘Little excessive?’ he said, nodding at the weapon.

Thorn picked it up and held it almost lovingly. In its main chamber the light was subdued: it writhed and shifted, a luminescent mist.

‘Well,’ said Thorn, ‘I do have to test this chap.’

Cormac reserved comment on that. There was little chance that any of the weapons provided for this operation would not work. They continued watching.

‘You are to be attacked by other humans?’

Cormac turned in surprise to look straight into the teeth of a grinning dracoman. It was the first question from one of them since they had been picked up by Hubris.

‘Yes,’ said Cormac, ‘killers out for vengeance on me.’

‘This would endanger mission.’

‘Yes, it—’

The dracoman slid off into the night. It was gone before Cormac could say another word.

‘Speedy chap,’ observed Thorn.

The other dracoman moved up beside Cormac and took hold of his biceps. Its hand was an iron manacle closing.

‘You will not be harmed,’ said the dracoman.

Cormac tried to free his arm. ‘Let me go, damn it!’

The dracoman lost interest in him and turned its head away. It did not release its hold.

‘You’re supposed to obey—’

‘Someone coming,’ came Aiden’s voice over com. ‘One figure approaching. Just walking in . . . Who is that coming from your direction? I thought—’ There was a pause of a couple of seconds. ‘I see. Did you send this dracoman out?’

‘I didn’t send it. What’s it doing?’

‘It’s lined up like a pointer to the trace.’

‘Just one figure approaching you say? You’re not missing anything?’

‘No, this scanner is the best, and Cento and I are also watching full-spectrum. There is no individual chameleonware that sophisticated.’

‘Could it be the android?’

‘No, not big enough and wrong heat emission for a metal-skin. It’s a man, heavily built. He could be nothing to do with Pelter.’

‘Aiden, I want whoever that is alive. If the dracoman goes for him, flatten it. Otherwise just keep watching and let him walk in.’

‘Will do,’ the Golem replied.

Cormac looked with irritation at the dracoman still clamped on to his arm, then watched the trees.

Aiden spoke over the com again. ‘Our dracoman just got a bit frisky,’ he said. In the background there was a sound as of someone shoving a knife into a tyre.

‘What happened?’ Cormac asked.