‘There can be no meaningful dialogue between us while this continues,’ said the sector AI. ‘Would you ever consider trade with us if it was our habit to use Prador carapaces as receptacles in which to take our ablutions?’

The concerted reply from the gathered Prador was both amused and angry. The Warden noted an open message sent by one of its fellow AIs to its homeworld, informing certain high-ranking humans to ‘lose the decorative bathroom suites’, and the brief discussion that followed would perhaps have shocked some humans who considered AIs to be without humour.

They settled down, though, when the speaker standing out in front of the Prador addressed the sector AI. ‘Would you deprive us of our hands?’ asked the male human blank on their behalf.

‘You had hands before you encountered humankind,’ replied the Golem, ‘and your own cyber technologies could provide you with hands more efficient than those of human blanks. In truth it has become only a matter of status amongst you.’

After a long pause came the concerted reply through their speaker. ‘We must discuss this.’

Humans, Golem and AIs together watched while Prador shifted about like huge draughts on some unseen board. A couple of shimmering fields flickered into existence and there came the stuttering crackle of a single railgun. One Prador, surrounded by its children, and attended by more blanks than most of its contemporaries, hissed out a bubbling scream and crashed to the hardpan as its AG cut out. Control units on its outer carapace detonated, and that carapace deformed and cracked, flinging fine sprays of dark fluid across the salt.

Railguns now opened up again, and blanks and second-children exploded into a mess of shell, flesh and numerous legs. By now the humans where hazed behind projected fields, and autoguns were spidering out of the heavy-lifter and up its sides to get an open field of fire on the assembled Prador. A single first-child ran gibbering towards these screens, until a missile hit it from behind and the explosion separated upper carapace from lower. Its lower half ran on for a little while longer, perhaps not yet realizing it was dead, then it keeled over like an unbalanced pedestal table. Before the human side could feel sufficiently threatened by this violence, the speaker blank held up a hand and spoke, his voice amplified all around.

‘The discussion is ended. We now feel we can negotiate,’ he said.

* * * *