He raised both arms and blocked Gobleka. Gobleka was bigger than him and much stronger. He elbowed Eisenhorn’s block aside and punched him in the jaw. Eisenhorn staggered a few steps, inadvertently stepping on Davinch’s splayed fingers. Davinch was down on his hands and knees, trying to recover. He yelled in pain as Eisenhorn’s iron-shod boot crunched across his hand.

Eisenhorn turned and kicked Davinch in the rump, throwing him flat on the deck in Gobleka’s path. Gobleka vaulted the fallen man deftly and came at Eisenhorn again. With his hands cuffed, Eisenhorn could only upper-block to one side or the other. Gobleka feinted a punch from the left then kicked hard with his right foot. The kick hit Eisenhorn in the hip, but his bracing armature took most of the force. Eisenhorn swung his fists at Gobleka, but the man leaned out of the swing, then lunged in and caught the chain of Eisenhorn’s cuffs with his left hand. He wrenched Eisenhorn’s hands and arms down and to the side. Eisenhorn had no choice but to twist away, exposing his neck to the injector Gobleka was stabbing in with his other hand.

There was no point fighting Gobleka’s haul on the cuff-chain. Eisenhorn went with it instead, allowing himself to be dragged down. He ducked into the stabbing motion and rammed his shoulder into Gobleka’s chest.

Gobleka stumbled backwards, cursing. He had dropped the injector. He reached for it. Eisenhorn kicked it further along the deck.

‘Is this it?’ Gobleka taunted him angrily. ‘Is this the trick you were going to pull? The stunt you were waiting to play?’

‘Seems to be working,’ growled Eisenhorn.

Gobleka sprang at him. Eisenhorn blocked again with both forearms, then swung his fists together hard. He caught Gobleka’s bearded jaw and knocked him sideways across the platform. Gobleka crashed into the bank of cogitators. A screen smashed. Data-slates tumbled to the deck.

‘Frigging help me, you idiot!’ Gobleka yelled at Davinch.

Davinch was getting up. His nose and lips were a mangled mask of blood. He spat, drawing one of his laspistols.

‘Don’t kill him,’ Gobleka ordered.

The tattooed man cursed aloud and went for Eisenhorn. He twisted the laspistol in his grip and began to beat at Eisenhorn with the weapon’s butt. Eisenhorn tried to evade. He raised his chained fists to deflect the blows. Davinch kept hitting. Eisenhorn ducked low and hooked the cuff-chain around Davinch’s elbow. Eisenhorn locked his fingers and swung, throwing Davinch off his feet.

He landed hard. Eisenhorn kicked him to keep him down and unlaced his fingers, freeing his cuffed hands from the man’s arm. But Gobleka had grabbed him from behind. He had the injector again.