They had brought him inside and allowed him to get dressed. The bald man had not given him back his gun. Drusher’s mouth, jaw and neck hurt from the blow that had knocked him down. He was fiddling with his spectacles, but the frames were still bent. No one had even said sorry.

Macks came in, pulled out the other chair and sat facing Drusher. He hadn’t seen her in fifteen years. Her short hair was just beginning to lose its depth of colour, but she still looked good. He could see the tiny zigzag scar above the left-hand side of her mouth, and the trace of the other scar on her forehead. Both were old now, faded, like memories. She wore the uniform of a Magistratum marshal. Beside her, he felt ancient.

‘I heard you retired,’ he said.

‘Didn’t suit me,’ she said. ‘The division was understaffed so I took reassignment.’

‘Tycho City?’

She shook her head.

‘Unkara Province. Up north.’

He nodded, as if that meant something.

‘Still a silly bastard, I see,’ she said. ‘When someone knocks on your door, you don’t run away and attack them with eagles.’

‘You do out here,’ said Drusher.

She raised her eyebrows. ‘Why are you living like this, Valentin? In this dump. Alone.’

‘Well, odd as it may sound, there is very little in the way of paid work available for a highly qualified magos biologis on Gershom,’ he said. ‘A fact that I have wrestled with for, let me see now, thirty-four years, and a detail I wish I had been aware of when, as a young man with splendid prospects, I took the commission to do a survey of the planet’s indigenous fauna, and ended up stuck here for the rest of my–’

‘Don’t start,’ she said.

He opened his mouth to carry on, but saw the look on her face. It was a self-pitying rant she’d heard from him too many times. He cleared his throat.

‘It also appears from experience,’ he said, less emphatically, ‘that I do not make for sparkling company, and so an isolated existence is better for everyone. Someone once told me I’d be happier alone. Or that I’d make others happier if I was alone. I don’t recall precisely. There was a lot of shouting and door-slamming.’

Macks sighed and looked away.

‘Did you train that eagle?’

Drusher glanced around. The younger, blond man was sitting on a bench in the corner. He was holding a dressing to the gashes on his cheek and neck.

‘It was a sea raptor,’ said Drusher.

‘What?’ asked the blond man.

‘A sea raptor. Not an eagle. Gortus gortus gershomi.’

‘Uh-huh,’ said the man. ‘I asked if you trained it.’

‘No.’

‘Then… a control implant of some kind?’

‘No.’

‘Is he psykana?’ asked the bald man. He was suddenly standing in the doorway behind Drusher.

‘No, he’s not,’ said Macks.