BooksBarbecue
Back Gridlinked Save as PDF
Chapters (36)
  1. Title Page
  2. Acknowledgements
  3. Prologue
  4. 1
  5. 2
  6. 3
  7. 4
  8. 5
  9. 6
  10. 7
  11. 8
  12. 9
  13. 10
  14. 11
  15. 12
  16. 13
  17. 14
  18. 15
  19. 16
  20. 17
  21. 18
  22. 19
  23. 20
  24. 21
  25. 22
  26. 23
  27. 24
  28. 25
  29. 26
  30. 27
  31. 28
  32. 29
  33. Epilogue
  34. From Neal Asher
  35. Praise
  36. Copyright Page

Cormac glanced at Jane, who was keeping a wary eye on their two visitors, then turned to Mika, his tone acid. ‘You asked what they are. Well, a very long time ago a palaeontologist by the name of Dale Russell followed up on a little thought-experiment of his. He was wondering what dinosaurs might have evolved into, had not mammals displaced them. For his basic model he took a dinosaur called stenonychosaurus, and from that he developed what he called a dinosauroid. These are something like his model.’

‘But they are not dinosauroids,’ Mika stated.

‘Oh no,’ said Cormac, ‘I think these were made as a taunt, or a lesson, or for some other unfathomable reason. I’ve only ever seen one before now, and I assumed it was unique. I christened it dracoman.’ Cormac rubbed a hand across his eyes. Suddenly he felt very tired. ‘You see, these were made by an extragalactic dragon that might or might not have died a quarter of a century ago.’

They were staring at him in disbelief as he turned to them. All except Mika—she nodded sagely.

‘Aster Colora,’ she said. ‘The Monitor. The contra-terrene explosion. I was five then, but I’ve never forgotten the story. They turned it into a holodrama: “The Dragon in the Flower”. And there was a book called Dragon’s Message.’

Cormac sighed with relief. Someone knew the story, then. He turned back to the two strange creatures. ‘They’ll need to be decontaminated somehow. It would be a good idea to keep them in isolation. We should get back now. You should be able to get the whole Dragon story from Hubris.’

At that moment one of the dracomen gave a shiver, and its slotted pupils focused on Cormac. Then it grinned at him with lots of pointy white teeth. There was a raw bloody smell on its breath.

10

10

Chainglass: A glass formed of silicon chain molecules. Depending on heat treatments and various doping techniques, this glass has a range of properties covering just about every material that has preceded it. Chainglass blades can be as hard as diamond and maintain an edge sharper than that of freshly sheared flint, whilst having a tensile strength somewhere above that of chrome steel. Chainglass also lacks the brittleness of its namesake. This substance was the invention of Algin Tenkian, and it made him filthy rich.