‘It cost me my career. And that implies you are not a rogue by circumstance. Are you really the radical they say you are? The diabolus threat that has five sectors looking for you?’

‘What I am is immaterial–’

‘Not so,’ he replied. ‘Even if you are innocent, this isn’t the time or place to prove it. Your reputation is accursed. You should not be here.’

‘I walk where I choose.’

‘Dark places, all of them.’

‘And I am not here to prove my innocence. I am here to see you.’

‘Which is why you should not be here at all,’ he said.

Gunfire echoed down through the house. Upstairs, another attempt was being made to smoke out or kill the psyker assassin.

‘You could stop that. You could crush him,’ I said.

‘No.’

‘You’re the strongest mind on the island.’

‘Once, perhaps.’

‘You won’t use your psy to restore order here?’

‘Others will. Gaguach and Corwal are closing the killer down. Another few minutes.’

‘Neither of them is strong enough.’

‘Together, they’ll do it.’

‘So you don’t use your mind anymore?’ I asked.

‘It was a condition of my pardon. The inquiry lasted fifteen years, Gregor. Molotch made a terrible mess.’

‘Not as terrible as the one he wanted to make. The one you stopped.’

‘I agreed to retire from active duty. I swore to suspend my mind from psychic activity. I merely use the little mind-impulse I need to control the chair and run life support. Nothing else. Nothing active. Not even telepathy.’

‘Why? The greatest mind of your generation.’

‘In a ruined body, with a shattered reputation. My mind and your body, there’s almost one whole person between us. Almost.’

I looked away. Even without the nuance of micro-expression on my part, he could tell he’d offended me.

‘Your skin is thinner these days,’ he said. ‘It was a joke, yet it cut you. You never used to care. Are you so ashamed of the path you’ve taken?’

I holstered my weapon and readjusted my falsehood.

‘I came to see you,’ I said. ‘I know it’s been a long time, but it was for something important. But I can see you’ve changed. There is no point bringing this to you.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘I’ll get over my disappointment.’

‘We cannot work together,’ he said. ‘We cannot be seen together, or have any association.’

‘Because I am a radical? Diabolus?’

‘Because I was given a choice after Molotch,’ he replied. ‘Retire from active service and refrain from psionics. Or, on behalf of the Holy Ordos, hunt down my old master, the heretic Gregor Eisenhorn.’

I did not know what to say. He had chosen the prison of his chair and the negation of his extraordinary consciousness over me.