‘I’ve got to hit at least one of the buffers from the outside. All I did in there was burn out some of the safety automatics.’

Cormac fired wide-beam. A section of wall, two metres long by a metre wide, disappeared in a purple flash. He could now see the edge of the buffer, and redirected the beam. Metal flashed away in seconds, exposing coils of doped superconductors and paralectric crystals. A hidden canister blew its contents and leapt into the sky on a tail of gas and flame. As Cormac shut down the beam, a fog of CO2 vapour obscured all, then CO2 snow began to fall. Cormac ducked into the car and slammed shut the insulated door, just before his eyes froze over.

‘Out of here . . . now . . .’ he managed to gasp, and began to shiver violently. He was not the only one, for the inside of the car was as cold as the inside of the containment sphere.

Aiden slammed the AGC up into Samarkand midnight, not bothering to disconnect from the walkway. The walkway held for a moment, then broke and fell away like a snake that has just missed its prey. From the windows of the AGC they could see one of the runcible buffers glowing with the colours of magma.

‘OK . . . Aiden, no airspeed restrictions here. What’s it capable of?’

‘Fourteen hundred kilometres per hour, in safety; any faster than that and I might lose it.’

‘Fast enough,’ said Cormac. ‘Fast enough.’

He leant back in his seat next to Mika and looked across at the dracoman, then he glared out through the window. Poised in the sky, like a watching moon: Dragon.

‘I knew it wouldn’t miss this. Gloating bastard.’

Mika turned to him questioningly, but he offered up no further comment, for just then Aiden applied full acceleration. They were all thrust back in their seats so hard they had not the breath to speak anyway. Only when the AGC was streaking along at its maximum speed did the pressure relax. Cormac looked at the clock set into the dash. It was on solstan time, permanently updated by a signal from Samarkand II.

‘I wonder when it will come through,’ said Thorn carefully.

‘Any time now, I should imagine,’ said Cormac flatly. ‘Could be right this . . . second.’

At that moment Samarkand experienced a premature day. The light was hard and white: an ungentle light that lasted for twenty seconds and seemed to find and burn away every shadow. When it went out, they looked back at a growing sphere of yellow fire, cut through with sheetlike flashes of lightning.

‘One unmade Maker,’ commented Cormac.

Thorn looked at him in exasperation, about to say something. Cormac gave a fractional shake of his head, and flicked his eyes at the dracoman.

‘How long till we reach the complex?’ he asked Aiden.

‘Not long: quarter of an hour.’

Thorn turned to face forwards. He asked no more questions.