It was a statement, not a question. Life-coven did not often need to ask questions.

‘How long?’ asked Chaline.

‘Thirty years. You lose sight of humanity in that time—and certain manual skills.’ He tried a tentative smile.

Chaline smiled back and nodded. ‘The opinion was that, as an agent of Imperial Earth Central, you were too high and mighty to associate with mere runcible technicians and crew.’

‘My apologies,’ said Cormac. It was autonomous politeness, and he saw that it was taken as such.

Ahead of the shuttle, the door irised open on a shimmer-shield: a direct offshoot of Skaidon tech. The shuttle passed through it as if through the skin of a bubble.

‘Acceleration,’ said Jane. If she had listened in on the conversation, she showed no sign. The conversation had been low, but not beyond her hearing. Few sounds were.

The slight thrust pushed them back into their seats, and Samarkand slid to one side of the front screen. Andellan came into view, tracking a black spot across the screen as the chainglass reacted to blot out damaging UV.

Chaline spoke again, obviously a rehearsed speech. ‘As acting science officer I am directing this, and you are along as an advisor, though I know you have veto and can assume command in a crisis. However, I would like to know, do you have any idea as to what we may find?’

Cormac considered for a moment. This was a thought that had been occupying him in those moments when he had not been feeling sorry for himself. He cleared his throat and concentrated on turning his unspoken thoughts into spoken words.

‘Well, we might get something from the submind at the heat-sink station, but I doubt it. The destruction of the runcible AI will have . . . damaged it. That’s the problem with centralized processing. Any information it might have retained will be badly scrambled. What we need to get a look at is the buffers, if there’s anything left of them.’

‘Sabotage?’ wondered Gant.

Cormac looked across at him. ‘That is considered likely.’

Gant nodded ponderously and removed a packet from the top pocket of his coldsuit, and from that a thin white tube that he placed in his mouth. He held a small chrome device up to it and a small flame flickered into life. Cormac realized with a feeling of shock that the tube was a cigarette, and Gant was smoking. He had not seen anyone smoke since he was last on Earth, twelve years ago. It had been all the rage then. He noted that Mika and Chaline were eyeing the soldier with fascination. Gant was aware of them all watching him as he puffed out a fragrant cloud of tobacco smoke.