However, Radimir also liked to get the measure of people, and this was a good way to do so. He had few concerns about the location, even if it detached from the wall and began to fall. Kell, on the other hand, didn’t like being here. Radimir strongly suspected Kell had never visited a spider market before. Just from that, and his contact’s arrival down the ladder instead of up it, he was fairly certain his initial impression had been correct.

‘Let us be brief,’ he said, and didn’t smile as the lines on Kell’s forehead eased slightly. ‘You have a problem that needs eradicating. I can perform that function.’

‘Pressure must be brought to bear,’ Kell replied. A token flicked out of one sleeve and skidded across the narrow table to come to rest in front of Radimir. He picked it up between thumb and forefinger and inspected it: a winged triangle, with two stylised stars at the base and a larger one equidistant between them, higher up, spaced to suggest two regular eyes and then a third in a forehead. The symbol of the Brobantis house of Navigators.

He nodded and tucked the token away. ‘Members, or associates?’

‘Members,’ Kell replied earnestly. Radimir nodded again, as though he hadn’t been going to target Navigators in any case.

‘I will require payment.’

Kell’s fingers flickered once more, and a small oblong of plant fibre slid across the table. Radimir unwrapped one side and ran his fingernail down the stack of tokens bound within: two thousand, in high denominations of the local scrip.

‘The agreed fee was five times this.’

‘The rest of the fee will be paid when results are satisfactory,’ Kell retorted. ‘Fear not – your patron has deep pockets.’

The threat in the promise was implicit: you are a tool. If you prove to be a problematic or ineffective tool, other tools can and will be employed to remove you. You are simply the tool we happened to choose, and you should consider yourself lucky to have the work.

Radimir simply nodded for a final time. This payment sufficed, and his aims would coincide with his patron’s for long enough. Until then, they could think that they owned him.

‘Then I shall get to work.’

Gallimo

Gallimo

The Solarox juddered again, but not like before – this was the regular strain of warp travel, and something it had been built to withstand. Chetta massaged her temples, intent on the point she had been focused on since she’d set her ship on this course, very determinedly not concentrating on the Other Things lurking near it.

‘Prepare for translation,’ she ordered. ‘In ten, nine…’