Janer glanced at Erlin to see how she was responding to this - she with her opinion of people searching for ‘miracles’. Her expression gave nothing away so he returned his attention to Ron.

‘What did you do in the war?’ Janer asked, parodying himself at the gaucheness of the question, and then wishing he’d kept his mouth shut once he saw Ron’s expression.

‘I was in a unit fighting out of the Cheyne outer systems. War drones and cyber-boosted troopers. We ran sabotage missions into their shipyards and the barracks where they kept their human-blank troopers. It was all a long time ago.’

Janer was fascinated, but he could see that, as far as Ron was concerned, it was not long enough ago. He glanced at Erlin, hoping that she might have something to ask, but Erlin was gazing out to sea with a slightly lost expression on her face.

‘Do you mind saying anything more about it?’ Janer eventually asked.

‘I do mind,’ said Ron, ending the conversation.

* * * *

Shib stared down at Nolan, and then abruptly holstered his gun. Why hadn’t he reacted faster? And why hadn’t Nolan’s shots brought that bastard down? Just then, Svan, Tors, and Dime came crashing out of the dingle, searching for someone to shoot.

‘You missed him,’ Svan stated.

Shib glared at her and gestured to Nolan.

‘She hit him four times. He simply shot her through the head and climbed on his scooter. He just wouldn’t go down,’ he said.

Svan stared at Tors. He shrugged - and, in reply to that, she shook her head slowly, then walked over to the prostrate Nolan. She stooped and picked up the laser carbine. After inspecting it for a moment, she threw it to Shib, who caught it with a snap of his hand. Svan then gazed around at all of them.

‘I would have thought,’ she said slowly, ‘that the repetition of events over the last seven centuries would have been enough to inform you about Sable Keech. Well, apparently not.’ She studied each of them. ‘Do you know how many Batians have died trying to complete the contract on him? No? Neither do I, but I do know that the total is more than fifty - and very probably for much the same reasons.’ She pointed at the carbine Shib held. ‘That was set on the basic kill level. Keech is a heavy-world reification. He may appear fragile, but you have to remember he has heavy-world bones internally strengthened to take cybermotors.’ She walked over to Shib and pulled a small black box from his belt and held it up.