The other man’s grin faded, then he reached out and nudged an open case with his toe. Inside rested two polished aluminium objects the size of coffee flasks: two CTDs, low yield, but enough to raise the temperature in here to that of a sun’s surface.

‘Yes,’ said Cormac, ‘that’s one option.’

Moving off he entered the side cave to which the Golem had directed him. This stretched back only ten yards, and there Scar and two other dracomen sat by a pool down into which the cave roof slanted.

‘Scar, I want some of your people to scout out that fissure.’ Cormac stabbed a thumb over his shoulder.

Scar stared at him for a long moment, then blinked. ‘I have sent two there already.’

A beat.

‘Are you in communication with them?’

‘Always.’

‘What have they found?’

‘The fissure runs down sheer for fifty yards, then its angle changes to forty-five degrees for another four hundred yards before beginning to level out. My associates have just now reached that point. Seismic scanning ahead indicates a crawl of nearly two miles, then several pools from which tunnels extend under water.’

Cormac noted how the dracoman held his hand submerged in the pool he presently crouched beside, fingers spread out, and wondered if this somehow enabled contact with the two dracomen below.

‘These tunnels?’

‘I know no more yet, however the route to it is too narrow for the autogun, or for Arach.’

Cormac considered their options. If they remained here they’d certainly end up in a fight they could not win.

‘Recall them,’ he said. ‘We’ll be going down there anyway.’ He turned and headed back out into the main cavern.

‘Arach, over here.’

The spider shape reared away from the wall and scuttled over to him. Cormac studied the drone for a moment, then explained the situation.

‘No problem,’ Arach replied and, before Cormac could say any more, scuttled away again. Cormac now called over everyone else in the cavern and gave his instructions, finishing with: ‘Those that need it, get some rest now—we move in two hours.’

‘He doesn’t talk much, does he?’ said Samland Karischev, as he gazed out through the massive chainglass screen.

‘Brutus is feeling as frustrated and annoyed as we all are,’ replied Azroc.

Freed from his duties by the Coloron AI, Azroc had immediately transferred to the Brutal Blade, the utile dreadnought run by the AI Brutus, and sometimes jokingly referred to—because of its resemblance to some titanic beast’s liver plated with metal—as the Organ Transplant. Fresh from that devastated world, where an entire arcology capable of housing a billion souls had necessarily been destroyed, the opportunity for some payback filled him with joy even though he was Golem. And when Battle Wagon joined the fleet, now grown to twenty dreadnoughts, numerous attack ships and other warcraft, that joy only increased.

Serious payback: now one of the big boys accompanied them.