Cormac assumed that the Cereb police station was a small affair because here so much was visible to the omnipresent runcible AI, and crime was, mostly, not an option. A portico, with a hemispherical roof of ribbed ceramal, protruded from a building little different from those surrounding it, all with their mirror-glass windows and false-brick or stone façades. The portico was supported by pillars and completely open. Inside it, against the pillars, stood service consoles for those who did not want to take their problem as far as a human officer. As he stepped inside, Cormac noted telltale signs in the construction of the roof. There were armoured shutters up there, ready to slam down at any moment. Maybe small did not necessarily mean inefficient or unready; Cheyne III was, after all, a world that had seen a lot of Separatist activity. He walked to the mirrored door of the station and slapped his hand against it once.

‘ECS agent Ian Cormac. Scan me and get confirmation from the runcible AI,’ he said. It was only after he said it that it hit him: had he still been linked, this door would have been already open and everything would be ready for him. But this was how it would be from now on. Could he take it? He was glad when the door slid open almost immediately.

Cormac walked into a foyer tiled with a local marble he had noticed before. It struck him as unfortunate that it was white with blood-red swirls across it. Along two walls were rows of decidedly uncomfortable looking chairs, and on the walls behind these chairs were active and inactive posters showing still and moving pictures of criminals, recorded crime scenes, proscribed weapons and, for some reason he could not fathom, some rather strange adaptations. At the back of the foyer was a large, apparently wooden, panel door. Cormac knew that the wood was probably a skin over case-hardened ceramal.

‘Scan confirms that you are carrying a thin-gun and an active attack weapon. Please remove these items, place them on the floor, and move back four paces,’ said a rather hoarse female voice. Cormac looked up at the ceiling and observed a curious light fitting. It was a bulbous disc with a half-metre diameter and flat edges on which complex patterns and small lights flickered. Swivelling underneath it was a short chrome cylinder with cooling fins all around it. The disc was attached to the ceiling by a thick rod of ceramal, and down this rod ran ominously thick cables.

‘I take it you haven’t had confirmation of my identity from the runcible AI yet,’ he said.

‘Place your weapons on the floor and move back four paces,’ the security drone replied.

‘I presume,’ said Cormac, wincing slightly at the sound of security shutters closing behind him, ‘that you wish me to place my weapons on the floor so you can make them safe—that is, melt them into slag?’