“Come over here, kid.” Lazlo rapped on the carapace of the bug he was messing about with. “Leave the lovebirds alone—they’re both too hung over for manners. I’ll show you this one. Give you something to aspire to next season.”

Laughter. The little group of sprogs drifted in towards the invitation. I exchanged relieved glances with Kiyoka. Jadwiga patted my thigh and nestled her head on my shoulder. I glared across at Sylvie. Behind us, an address system cleared its throat.

“Gate release in five minutes, ladies and gentlemen. Check your tags.”

Whine of grav motors, minute scrape of poorly aligned rail runners. The gate lifted jerkily to the top of its twenty-metre run and the deComs trudged or rode, according to their finances, through the space beneath.

The livewire coiled and snaked back from the clean field our tags threw down, building itself into restless hedges over head height. We moved along a cleared path whose sides undulated like something out of a bad take dream.

Further out, the spider blocks shifted on their multiple haunches as they detected the approaching tag fields. When we got closer, they heaved their massive polyhedral bodies up off the cracked evercrete and scuttled aside in reverse imitation of their programmed block-and-crush function. I rode between them with wary attention. One night on Hun Home, I’d sat behind the fortifications of the Kwan Palace and listened to the screams as machines like these wiped out an entire assault wave of insurgent techninjas. For all their bulk and blind sluggishness, it hadn’t taken them very long.

Fifteen carefully negotiated minutes later, we cleared the beachhead’s defences and spilled untidily out into the streets of Drava. The dock surfacing gave way to rubble-strewn thoroughfares and sporadically intact apartment buildings averaging twenty storeys high. The style was Settlement-Years utilitarian standard—this close to the water, accommodation had been thrown up to serve the fledgling port, with little thought for aesthetics. Rows of small, recessed windows peered myopically out towards the sea. The raw evercrete walls were scarred from bombardment and worn from centuries of neglect. Bluish grey patches of lichen marked the places where the antibiotic sheathing had failed.

Overhead, watery sunlight was leaking through the cloud cover and filtering down into the silent streets ahead. A gusting wind blew in off the estuary, seeming to hurry us forward. I glanced back and saw the livewire and spider blocks reknit behind us like a healing wound.

“Better get on with it, I suppose.” Sylvie’s voice, at my shoulder. Orr had ridden the other bug up parallel and the command head was seated behind him, head weaving back and forth as if seeking a scent. “At least it’s not raining.”

She touched a control on the coms jacket she wore. Her voice leapt out in the quiet, reverberated off the deserted façades. The deComs turned at the sound, keyed up and expectant as a pack of hunting dogs.