slow slow ahead and up, it told the Rescue-handlinger. something here stay with me, it breathed across the city to the other hunting sinistrals. It felt them hover and give the order to slow, felt the other pairs draw to a halt and wait for his report.

The dextrier eased up through the air towards the twitching patch of psychæther. Rescue-handlinger could feel the sinistral’s unease communicated through its link, and it clamped down hard not to be contaminated by it. weapon! it thought. that’s me. no thinking!

The dextrier slid through layers of air, creeping up into a thinner atmosphere. It opened its host’s mouth and rolled its tongue, nervous and ready to spitsear. It unfolded its host’s arms, held the pistol up and ready.

The sinistral probed the disturbed area. There was an alien hunger, a lingering gluttony. It was slick with the juices of a thousand other minds, saturating and staining the patch of psychosphere like cooking grease. A vague trail of exuded souls and that exotic appetite dribbled out through the sky.

to me to me sibling handlingers it is here I have found it, whispered the sinistral across the city. A shiver of shared trepidation rippled out from the sinistrals, the five epicentres, crossed and made peculiar patterns in the psychosphere. In Tar Wedge and Badside and Barrackham and Ketch Heath, there were rushes of air as the suspended figures flew across the city towards Ludmead as if pulled on strings.

Chapter 39

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

“Do not be alarmed by my avatar,” hissed the brainless man to Isaac and the others, his eyes still wide and unclear. “I cannot synthesize a voice, so I have reclaimed this discarded body that bobbed along the river that I may intercede with bloodlife. That—” the man pointed behind him at the enormous, looming figure of the construct that merged with the rubbish heaps “—is me. This—” he stroked his quivering carcass “—is my hand and tongue. Without the old cerebellum to confuse the body with its contrary impulses, I can install my input.” In a macabre motion, the man reached up and fingered the cable where it sank behind his eyes, into the clotting flesh at the top of his spine.

Isaac felt the huge weight of the construct behind him. He shifted uneasily. The naked zombie-man had stopped about ten feet from Isaac’s party. It waved its palsied hand.

“You are welcome,” it continued, in a trembling voice. “I know of your work from the reports of your cleaner. It is one of me. I wish to speak with you of the slake-moths.” The ruined man was staring at Isaac.