On he talked. I wasn’t interested. I was here for Ghosts, not archaeology.

I waited until he took the lead, and we walked on, leaving the ruined township behind.

Another ‘night’, another broken sleep in the dirt. Another ‘day’ on that endless plain. In places the surface had been blasted to glass; it prickled my feet as I staggered across it. We didn’t seem to get any closer to that damn bridge.

We had nothing to do but talk.

A lot of it was L’Eesh’s refined bragging. ‘You know, the Commission was always very tolerant of us, we hunters. Under the Coalition, you aren’t supposed to get old and rich. The species is the thing! Of course the Coalition found us useful, in the closing phases of its war with the Ghosts. It is not comfortable to feel one has been manipulated, even controlled. But it has been glorious nevertheless.’

It turned out L’Eesh had taken part in that great Ghost massacre on Snowball.

‘Snowball was actually the first Ghost planet anybody found. Did you know that? The site of first contact two thousand years ago. When Ghost numbers collapsed the Commission slapped on conservation orders - some nonsense about preserving cultural diversity - but there wasn’t a great deal of will behind the policing. On the day the orders were lifted we were already in orbit around Snowball. We made a huge circle around the major Ghost nest, with aerial patrols overhead, and we just worked our way in on foot, firing at will, until we met in the centre. The major challenge was counting up the carcases.

‘So it went: while those big nests lasted it was a feeding frenzy. You were born too late, Raida. You know, a thousand years ago the Ghosts’ pits of twisted spacetime struck dread into human hearts. They were deployed as fortresses, a great wall right across the disc of the Galaxy. Magnificent! . . . And now we hunt down the Ghosts like animals, for their hides. An intelligent species hunted as game. Remarkable! Appalling!’

‘Who cares? Ghosts are predators.’

‘They are colony creatures,’ he said gently. ‘Communities of symbiotes. You have been listening to too much Commission propaganda.’

‘After all you’ve done, why go on? Why risk your neck in places like this, for the last few scraps of hide?’

‘Because some day there will be a last Ghost of all. I must be there when he is brought down. It is the logic of my whole life.’

We walked on, across a land like a dusty table-top. L’Eesh kept up his dogged, unspectacular plod, hour after hour. He looked determined, sharp, as if he had plenty of reserve.

I was determined not to let my own gathering weakness show. I continued to carry that bone spear.

At the end of the third ‘day’ we reached the bridge.