Fascinated as he was by this exchange, Stanton could not concentrate on it. The robot now removed the splint and bandages from his arm with a scuttling of curved scalpels. This would have been bad enough in a proper hospital, but here? It then split his shirt sleeve and parted it . . . only, Stanton suddenly realized, it wasn’t just his shirt that the machine had opened. He looked away quickly from the neatly snapped bone he could see there, and cringed at the sound of small tubes sucking away the blood that started to well up. There was movement next, but no pain, then came the reassuring drone of a bone welder. Stanton could not say he was impressed with Sylac’s bedside manner.

‘What will you be linking to?’ Sylac asked Pelter, the pebble object now held up close to his eye.

‘That is my concern.’

Sylac shrugged and held out the object. ‘This control unit I can slot inside your skull without creating too much pressure,’ he said, then turned and picked up a grey aug from the bench. It was the shape of a kidney bean and about five centimetres long. He continued. ‘This is a big ugly piece of hardware, Arian Pelter, and you’re not going to look pretty with that optic interface.’

‘I don’t really care, just make sure it works,’ Pelter replied.

Stanton looked at him. This was not the Pelter he knew. Where was his acclaimed vanity? The man had spent a fortune on cosmetic alterations during the time Stanton had known him. He looked to Sylac to find the surgeon gazing back at him. He felt a sudden tug at his shoulder and a deep ache returned to his damaged arm. He glanced down and saw that the wound had now been welded shut.

‘I have work to do,’ said Sylac, ‘so I’d rather you did not sit there all day.’

Keeping a wary eye on the robot, Stanton slid from the chair. He flexed his fingers expecting more pain, but found none. Pelter moved to occupy the chair in his place as Sylac walked over, his cyber-arms opening out, the complex glittering fingers of their hands revolving. Pelter turned to Stanton. ‘There’s something I need to do, John. Meet you in the Starport Boulevard in two days, at the Saone, usual time. When I meet you there, I’ll want to know who he was and where he went,’ he added.

So that was it. ‘You’ll be all right?’ asked Stanton.