There was a sudden jump. Randomness resolved to order. The signal simplified itself and split in two, with the fainter component—coloured deep violet—blinking rapidly in and out of view.

“What am I looking at?” demanded Seria Mau.

“Two vessels,” the mathematics told her. “The steady trace is a K-ship. Phase-locked to its mathematics is some kind of Nastic heavy asset: maybe a cruiser. One clear benefit is that no one can interpret their signature, but that’s a sideshow. The real issue is this: they’re using the K-ship as a navigational tool. I’ve never seen that done before. Whoever wrote the code is almost as good as me.”

Seria Mau stared at the display.

“What are they doing?” she whispered.

“Oh, they’re following us,” the mathematics said.

12
The Warren

Tig Vesicle, stunned into a kind of strained passivity as his adrenaline high wore off, was lost but refused to accept it. Ed Chianese, his ears full of the faint far voices of demons, continued to follow Vesicle because he couldn’t think of anything else to do. He was hungry, and faintly embarrassed by himself. After their escape from the Cray sisters, they had wandered about the streets east of Pierpoint until they found themselves on some high ground near the corner of Yulgrave and Demesne. From there they could see the whole sweep of the city, falling away, clotted with light at major intersections, to the docks. With an air of renewed confidence, Vesicle had thrown his arms wide.

“The warren!”

Plunging downhill into the maze of light and dark, they were soon nowhere again, wandering aimlessly round corners into the sudden teeth of the wind until they found themselves back on Yulgrave—the black, echoing, completely deserted perspective of which stretched away between warehouses and goods yards, apparently forever. There, they were witness to an event so strange that Chianese put it out of his mind until much later. Too much later, as it turned out. At the time all he thought was:

This isn’t happening.

Then he thought, it’s happening but I’m still in the tank.

“Am I still in the tank?” he said out loud.

No reply. He thought: maybe I’m someone else.

Snow was still coming down, but warm air from Clinker Bay, tainted with the smell of the inshore rigs and cracking plants, had dissolved it to sleet, falling through the mercury vapour lamps like sheaves of sparks from some invisible anvil. Walking through the sparks towards them came a small, plump, oriental-looking woman in a gold leaf cheongsam slit to the thigh. Her gait had the quick irritability lent by high heels in bad weather. One minute, Chianese was sure, she wasn’t there: the next she was. He blinked. He rubbed his hand over his face. Flashbacks, hallucinations, all the bad dreams of a twink.

“Do you see her too?” he asked Vesicle.

“I don’t know,” said Vesicle listlessly.