Cormac turned the unit off, then set out again. Within minutes he found the AGC transporter, with burns all across its hull, and what remained of Dusache clinging to the wrecked missile launcher. The ground was smoking and the air acrid. Cormac approached cautiously, then crouched when he saw movement beyond the platform. A shadow flitted through the trees and the smoke ahead of him. He fired once with his thin-gun. There was a yell, and pulse-gun fire returned with startling accuracy. Cormac hit the ground and tasted leaf-mould and lichen. His sleeve was smouldering. He rolled to the side, behind an oak, as the leaf-mould and lichen caught fire. Still rolling, he fired past the other side of the tree. There was a scream, the sound of someone stumbling, then falling. A smell similar to that of roast pork wafted on the smoky breeze.

Cormac rose to his feet with his gun still pointed where he had last fired it. To one side there was a tree. From behind it he could hear someone gasping raggedly. He approached.

The man lay with his back against another tree, his pulse-gun in his hand. His body was burned from neck to groin. Cormac had hit him once through the shoulder, but the wound from that was a neatly cauterized hole. These other burns were from the flare off high-energy turret-gun hits on the transport. Cormac moved in slowly and quietly. When he was less than a metre away, the man turned and attempted to bring his gun to bear. Cormac kicked it from his hand.

‘Svent,’ he said, ‘where’s Pelter?’

‘Stupid . . . stupid,’ said Svent.

Cormac just watched him and waited. Svent looked up.

‘Should have got out. Could see that . . . when it was off.’

‘What?’

‘Aug . . .’

‘What aug?’

‘Scaly . . .’

‘I’ll ask again. Where’s Pelter?’

‘Ain’t tellin’ you that . . . Why should I tell you that?’

‘Because if you don’t, I’ll kill you,’ Cormac suggested.

Svent glared at him, then his glare turned into a nasty smile.

‘Don’t turn,’ said Pelter. ‘You don’t know where I am, and you won’t be able to turn faster than I can pull this trigger.’

It had never been Cormac’s way to think too long about such situations, nor to throw himself on the mercy of any enemy. If Pelter had seen how it had been for Angelina, he would have known this and immediately shot him in the back when he had the chance. Cormac dropped to one side taking one snap shot from under his left armpit as he went. Something slammed his left biceps and he smelt burning as he rolled, then dived, snapshooting at a half-seen figure. He heard Svent scream as he reached cover behind the tree. Pelter had hit the little mercenary with his wild shooting at Cormac.