‘One of investigation. You’ll travel from Minostra on a starship that has the unfortunate name Hubris. It’s going there to set up a stage-one runcible to bring the rest of the runcibles through, and to search for survivors, though it’s unlikely there’ll be any. We have to know what happened there. I don’t have to tell you how important this is.’

‘I know. If someone has found a way to sabotage runcibles . . . Could it be Separatists?’

‘There’s that possibility.’

Cormac leant back in his seat, sipped at his Scotch, but found he had finished it. Blegg took his glass.

‘No, I . . .’

‘Ian Cormac, it is time you learnt what it is to be human again.’

Blegg went to the bar and Cormac turned to watch him. The seadapt barman served him immediately, even though there was a crowd waiting. Blegg said something to him and the barman laughed, the gill slits on each side of his neck opening and closing as he did so. Blegg shortly returned with two fresh drinks. Cormac took his and stared into it doubtfully.

‘It’s said you do not have internal augmentation—that you link with AIs in some other manner,’ he said, without looking up.

Horace Blegg chuckled. ‘A lot is said about me, but don’t concern yourself. Your primary concern is this mission. For its duration you’ll be without direct information access.’

Cormac felt something lurch inside him. It was a confirmation of something he had been expecting, something that was overdue, yet it was something he could not visualize at this moment.

‘Why . . . surely there will be a transmitter on the ship?’ he said, perhaps trying to delay the inevitable.

Blegg shook his head. ‘In the service of Earth and the Human Polity you have been gridlinked for thirty years now. Studies show that nearer twenty years is the safe limit psychologically. Your ability to comprehend the spectrum of human emotion has been impaired, and it is imperative that it should not be. Without it, your usefulness becomes . . . less.’

‘I am becoming dehumanized, is that what you’re telling me?’

‘Your recent mission has shown this.’

Cormac considered his complete misjudgement of the situation with Angelina. He reached almost instinctively for access. It flooded through the wiring in his skull, with all its reassuring excess of information.

‘I see,’ he said, suddenly feeling more confident. ‘But by taking away my information access, do you not impair my efficiency another way?’

‘It’s our opinion we’re removing an impairment.’

‘Wouldn’t someone else be better?’

Blegg smiled. ‘You’re just right for this mission.’