“Yeah, just like that.” There was a sour edge in Sylvie’s voice. Stood near the third bug with Orr for company, she was once again trying to make Jadwiga look like a living human being and the strain was showing. I wasn’t enjoying the process much myself—we’d got the dead deCom mounted on one of the bugs, but piloting the vehicle second-hand was beyond Sylvie’s control options, so Jad rode pillion behind me. It would have looked pretty strange if I’d got off while we waited and she’d stayed sitting there, so I stayed aboard too. Sylvie had the corpse drape one arm affectionately on my shoulder and left the other resting on my thigh. From time to time, Jadwiga’s head swivelled and her sunlensed features flexed in something approximating a grin. I tried to look casual about it.

“You don’t want to listen to Las,” Kiyoka advised me. “Not one in twenty sprogs is going to have what it takes to make Command. Sure, they could wire the stuff into your head, but you’d just go insane.”

“Yeah, like the skipper here.” Lazlo finished with the pannier, resealed it and wandered round to the other side.

“What happens,” said Kiyoka patiently. “You look for someone who can stand the heat and you form a co-op. Pool funds ‘til you can pay for them to get the hair plus basic plug-in for everybody else, and there you go. Brand new crew. What’re you looking at?”

This last to a young deCom who’d wandered over to stare enviously at the grav bugs and the equipment they mounted. He backed up a little at Kiyoka’s tone, but the hunger in his face stayed.

“Dracul line, right?” he said.

“That’s right.” Kiyoka rapped knuckles on the bug’s carapace. “Dracul Forty-One series, only three months off the Millsport factory lines and everything you heard about it is one hundred per cent true. Cloaked drives, internally mounted EMP and particle beam battery, fluid response shielding, integrated Nuhanovic smart systems. You name it, they built it in.”

Jadwiga twisted her head in the young deCom’s direction, and I guessed the dead mouth was trying on its grin again. Her hand moved off my shoulder and down my side. I shifted slightly in the seat.

“What’d it cost?” asked our new fan. Behind him, a small crowd of likeminded hardware enthusiasts was gathering.

“More than any of you’ll earn this year.” Kiyoka gestured airily. “Basic package starts at a hundred and twenty grand. And this is not the basic package.”

The young deCom took a couple of steps closer. “Can I—”

I speared him with a look. “No you can’t. I’m sitting on this one.”