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  ‘Dragon, this is Ian Cormac. Why are you here?’

  The whining increased in volume. Cormac continued, dredging his memory of their last encounter.

  ‘To be human is to be mortal. Do you play chess? I know you like games, Dragon, though you do have a tendency to cheat.’

  The whining ceased.

  Aiden said, ‘Hubris reports the scanning of the surface has ceased.’

  ‘I think you attracted its attention,’ said Carn, without relish. ‘Its surface is moving.’

  Cormac looked and saw ripples spreading. A curved line cut the surface, and the ripples concentrated around it. The line thickened, dark as old blood. It was a split.

  ‘Get us out of here, now!’

  Aiden jerked up on the joystick, just as pseudopods exploded from Dragon in a giant grey fumarole. Acceleration knocked Thorn and Carn to the floor. Cormac caught a glimpse of a giant cobralike head swerving towards the shuttle. There was a thump. The shuttle slewed sideways. Then they were away, and the fountain of pseudopods was falling back to the surface of Dragon.

  Cormac looked round and saw Carn and Thorn dragging themselves over to their seats. He, too, strapped himself in.

  ‘It’s coming,’ said Aiden. He looked at the readings on the instrument panel. Then he looked again. ‘Accelerating at eight Gs.’

  ‘Jesus!’ said Carn.

  ‘Everybody strapped in?’ asked Aiden.

  ‘Give me one fucking second!’ Carn shouted.

  With his hand poised over a lever to one side of the joystick, Aiden glanced back. After a moment he nodded and turned back to the screen.

  ‘Acceleration,’ he said, and then he hit the boosters.

  Cormac thumped back in his seat so hard he was sure he contacted its framework. Something not tied down went crashing into the back of the shuttle. He heard Carn swearing monotonously before running out of breath. It was as if something was trying to drag the flesh off his bones. He could just see the instrument panel, greying out as he watched it.

  ‘Ten . . . Gs . . .’ he managed, then blacked out.

  * * *

  ‘You broke my fucking arm,’ was Carn’s protest—and the first thing Cormac heard as he came to. He felt as if someone had gone over him with a lawn roller while he was lying on a cobbled street. It took him a moment to pull himself together. He tried to blink away the lights that were fizzing at the edge of his vision. Ahead of the shuttle he saw the doors to the Hubris’s shuttle bay opening.

  ‘How far behind?’ he said, when he was sure he could speak properly.

  ‘About three minutes,’ said Aiden.

  The shimmer-shield touched the nose of the wing, then slid back over it as if they were entering a vertical pool. It engulfed and passed the cockpit in an expanding circle, and they were into the bay. Aiden fired the front and side retros to slow and turn them. As they came to the centre of the bay floor, the cockpit was facing the shimmer-shield. Gravity came on and eased them down. The shuttle settled with a clunk.

  ‘Stay in the shuttle, and secure shuttle for impact,’ came Hubris’s voice from the panel. Red lights were flashing in the shuttle bay. Aiden’s hands ran over touch-pads, his fingers a blur. Cormac felt the dull thuds of the grabs coming up out of the floor and taking hold of the shuttle.

  Hubris now spoke the words it was probably voicing throughout the ship. ‘Secure for impact. Secure for impact. All personnel to emergency modules.’ Cormac felt the shuttle vibrating, and a glance through the shuttle-bay windows confirmed that Hubris was accelerating. The view of Samarkand slid from the portals to the shimmer-shield, then quickly past. The irised door closed across the shield, then heavier armoured shutters slid in from the sides. Armoured shutters also closed across the portals.

  ‘Impact in three minutes and fifty seconds. Mark. Correction. Impact in two minutes thirty seconds. Mark. Secure for impact.’

  Cormac glanced at the rear-view screen. All of the internal shuttle-bay doors were closed now. An armoured shield had closed off the entrance to the drop-shaft.

  ‘Impact imminent! Impact imminent!’

  Cormac braced himself against his seat. This was going to be bad. People were going to get hurt.

  It was worse.

  The sound was like a giant gong being struck—and cracking. Cormac felt as if his skull had just broken and his guts had been pushed back past his spine. He heard the scream of metal being wrenched and twisted, then snapping. The grabs had broken. The shuttle left the bay floor and hit the doors. The impact threw Cormac against his straps. He felt blood spraying from his nose. Blackness threatened, withdrew, threatened again. He shook his head and saw blood dripping on the screen in front of him. The chainglass cockpit had not broken, of course, but it had been shoved back into the body of the shuttle. The shuttle itself was resting at an angle against the bay doors. But that was not the end of it. He could hear a wrenching tortured sound working its way through the ship as, like a great bubble, it sought to regain its spherical shape.

  ‘Oh shit oh shit oh shit . . .’

  Cormac looked back up at Carn, who was hanging belted in his seat, clutching his broken arm. Thorn hung next to him, unconscious, blood dripping from his mouth. Aiden was the first to move. He unclipped his harness, dropped down to the screen, then shoved his hands into the distorted metal to one side of it. Somehow he got the required leverage, and kicked down with legs like hydraulic rams. Cormac was not quite sure he believed what he was seeing. The screen moved forwards with a crash. Two more kicks and it hinged away, on the distorted metal to one side of it, like a domed lid. Aiden immediately hauled himself up and over the flight console, and then across his seat to reach Carn. As Cormac freed himself, he winced at the feel of broken ribs moving in his chest. Very carefully, he lowered himself down from the shuttle. There he took hold of Carn, whom Aiden lowered to him with a single grip on the collar of his coldsuit. Thorn came next. Soon all four of them were safely on the shuttle-bay floor. Using the shuttle medical kit, Aiden splinted Carn’s arm and injected painkillers. Thorn came to and vomited. Cormac just sat and clutched his own head.

  ‘Emergency personnel to sector three, with fire retardants. Automatic systems out. All hull breaches temporarily sealed. All drop-shafts inoperative. Sector one closed to all personnel until coolant leaks traced and repaired . . .’

  The list went on and on, yet there was no word of what had happened to Dragon.

  ‘Hubris, what’s going on? What’s Dragon doing?’

  The list continued to be recited by subsystem while Hubris spoke to them in the shuttle bay.

  ‘Dragon has taken hold of this ship with its pseudopodia. It is dragging us back to Samarkand. I have had to close down engines because of coolant leaks. All attempts to remove the pseudopodia have failed. I do not wish to resort to energy weapons at this range.’

  There was a thump, and the entire ship shuddered. The shuttle groaned, then slid to the bay floor with a crash.

  ‘What the hell?’ pleaded Carn.

  Hubris said, ‘Dragon is attempting to gain entrance to the shuttle bay. I suggest you abandon this section and head for the communal area.’

  As one, they turned to stare at the shuttle-bay doors. They were creaking, flexing.

  ‘I have temporarily engaged drop-shaft one,’ said Hubris.

  They headed there as the armoured shielding slid away from the shaft. Carn went first, and was wafted up to the communal area. Thorn went next. Cormac turned and watched as the bay doors were slowly wrenched to one side. The shimmer-shield was out, but there was no danger from vacuum at that moment. Beyond the door was a wall of scaled flesh. And all down the edge of the door appeared pseudopods like blue-tipped fingers.

  ‘Is it after me?’ Cormac asked.

  ‘We go,’ said Aiden.

  They stepped into the drop-shaft.

  * * *

  They gathered in the recreation room: Cormac, Aiden, Thorn, Mika, Chaline, and some of the technicians and crew. Cormac saw t
hat one of the technicians was holding a bloody cloth to his head. Another was sitting holding his ribs. He wondered how many more had been hurt.

  Hubris showed them the scene in the shuttle bay. The external doors were wide open now and pseudopodia were flooding the bay in a landslide of flesh, their cobra heads feeling along the walls like the fingers of a blind man.

  ‘Intruder defence mechanisms online—’

  ‘No,’ said Cormac, ‘belay that. Put me through to the shuttle bay.’

  ‘You are through. Intruder defence systems offline.’

  ‘Dragon, why have you attacked this ship?’

  He had a horrible feeling that he knew the answer; that he had just pissed it off and that it was after him. He somehow doubted, that being the case, that there was anything that could prevent him from being found.

  ‘It’s concentrating on the drop-shaft door now,’ said Chaline. ‘Stress readings are up.’

  Hubris said, ‘Unauthorized access to information banks. Information being downloaded from shuttle-bay area.’

  ‘What the hell?’ said Chaline.

  On the screen they could see that a pseudopod had attached itself to one of the wall consoles.

  ‘Getting the layout of the ship, probably, and anything else of interest,’ suggested Cormac.

  They watched as the drop-shaft door crumpled and broke and the pseudopods flooded through.

  ‘They have entry,’ said Chaline unnecessarily.

  ‘Perhaps it mistook Hubris for a she-dragon,’ said Thorn. There was a giggle from behind him that soon petered out.

  Cormac ignored the comment and stared at the screen, his hopes growing. The pseudopods were going down the shaft—away from them—not coming up it. Suddenly he knew what Dragon wanted.

  ‘Hubris, what is the status of the dracomen?’

  ‘They were unhurt in the incident, but have since undergone changes.’

  The screen flicked to reveal the interior of the isolation chamber. The two dracomen were lying on the floor, curled in the foetal position. They had excreted some kind of fluid that had sealed them in cauls, so they appeared newborn. Cormac knew they were making ready to go back, but should he let Dragon have them? Would they make bargaining counters? He had to try, else Dragon might just take its dracomen and disappear.

  ‘Dragon, if you persist in this action, the dracomen will be destroyed. We will—’

  The ship shuddered again. There was a loud crash over the intercom.

  ‘Pseudopods just took out the door next to Isolation,’ said Hubris. ‘Do you wish the dracomen destroyed?’

  The screen flicked again to show the scene outside the isolation chamber. Pseudopods filled the area and were pushing at the armoured shutters over the viewing window. A voice, which Cormac recognized of old, came over the intercom.

  ‘Bluff, Ian Cormac, is for those without strength. You will not destroy what is mine, for if you do, I will crush this ship.’

  Dragon . . .

  ‘The dracomen are in a sealed chamber . . . all I want is some answers. Why were they here? What happen—’

  ‘You have limited choices. Open this sealed chamber, or I will simply remove it from your ship. To do so I will need to open out some areas . . .’

  Dragon was right.

  ‘Hubris, open the isolation chamber,’ Cormac said quickly.

  The shutters slid aside and the pseudopods burst through the window. They were in, then out, in a moment, and the dracomen were lost in the mass of writhing flesh.

  ‘Pulling back to the drop-shaft,’ said Chaline, though they could all see that for themselves. ‘Hubris, what seal do we have if Dragon disengages?’

  ‘Have seals for drop-shaft ready,’ replied the AI.

  Scene by scene, the screen showed pseudopods being drawn back. One view showed the seals sliding into the drop-shaft behind it like great coins. In the shuttle bay the pods slid back into the fleshy wall beyond. The ship shuddered.

  ‘Dragon disengaging.’

  They all felt the explosion of air leaving the shuttle bay. The great sphere of Dragon drew away. Along with other debris, the shuttle followed it into vacuum.

  ‘Dragon disengaged.’

  ‘Cento . . .’ said Aiden.

  ‘We’ll get the shuttle back,’ said Chaline.

  On emergency drives, Hubris limped back into orbit around Samarkand.

  * * *

  ‘Dragon didn’t know all that was going on,’ said Mika as she repaired Cormac’s ribs.

  He did not want to see what she was doing to him. He had seen quite enough blood and ripped-open bodies in his time not to be squeamish, but as always it was a different matter when it was your own blood and your own open body. The nerve-blocker on the back of his neck had, after adjustment, numbed him from the armpits downwards. But, as was always the case with such operations, he could faintly feel the tuggings and certainly hear the sounds. Cormac had wanted to just strap his ribs up and avoid this, but Mika had insisted because he was in danger of getting a punctured lung. He glanced aside at the pipes leading into the remote lung, and again experienced that weird feeling of disconnection. The blocker had shut off some of his autonomies, and his heart and lungs were on hold.

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  Cormac’s voice sounded exactly the same to him, even though it issued from a mechanical larynx, much like that of a Golem, operating on the shunted nerve impulses from the nerve-blocker. The object was stuck on his shoulder with a skin-stick pad. It had the appearance of a large snail shell made of blue metal, and fixed sideways to a coin of perspex in which small lights glinted.

  ‘Well, the dracomen are part of it. I would speculate they were something like remote probes or agents. It wanted them back for debriefing.’

  There was a thump in his chest, then a sticky squelching sound.

  ‘It could have just asked,’ said Carn from where he sat rubbing at his arm above his silvered hand. The technician was studying Cormac’s open chest with great interest.

  ‘I think you’re right,’ Cormac said to Mika. ‘It was almost as if it was frantically searching the planet for them, and when it didn’t find them there it turned its attention to us and grabbed them as quickly as it could.’

  ‘Desperately,’ added Mika.

  ‘I don’t know. Certainly without any regard for human life. We were lucky Hubris could take that kind of punishment.’

  He fell silent. At least, most of them were lucky. Mika had been dealing with various injuries for some twenty hours now. Three of the crew were in life-support canisters, awaiting return to civilization. They might survive, though they would then be spending a long time in a regrowth tank. One of the runcible technicians had not been even that lucky; her head had been crushed to pulp when one of the runcible components had shifted and caught her against a wall.

  ‘Did Chaline have anything to say?’ he asked her.

  ‘Repairs are well under way, but she’s not happy about the delays. She’s becoming very single-minded about her runcible.’

  Mika stepped back from him with her gloved hands held up and away from her white coat. The gloves were quite bloody. She looked up at the screen above where Carn was sitting. This screen showed a scanned image of Cormac’s chest. He had only looked at it once.

  ‘Aiden?’ he asked.

  ‘He retrieved the shuttle. Cento’s been stored . . . so has the shuttle; it’s beyond repair. They’re getting another one out of storage as soon as the shuttle bay has been repaired. Chaline was panicking about the heavy-lifter, but it was undamaged.’

  She stepped close and started manipulating things in his chest again.

  ‘Heavy-lifter?’

  ‘In storage . . . one heavy-lifter and four minishuttles. Chaline needs the lifter to take down the runcible.’

  ‘Oh . . . seems we might be all right . . .’

  Mika did not immediately reply. Cormac felt more movement, then heard the low drone of the bone welder. He glanced down at th
at moment and wished he hadn’t. From his solar plexus upwards, the skin and muscle of his chest had been peeled back. Mika had a finger shoved through a hole between two obviously broken ribs and was running the tip of the welder along the break. Cormac could smell something strangely dusty. Calcium particles had escaped the electrostatic process that was laying them down in the breaks.

  ‘We are, I suppose,’ said Mika, standing back again to view her work. ‘But Hubris is going to be here some time. It needs parts brought from Minostra, and they’ll have to come through the runcible. Not until then will it be able to leave orbit.’ She placed the head of the welder back in its sterilizing holder and pushed the wheeled unit a little way back from the table. ‘Cellweld Inc.’ was the wording of the logo on this device, which was a silvered box on top of a wheeled trolley. A touch-console was mounted in the top of the box, and from the side of it issued a skein of pipes and cables. These terminated in a head that could take any of the racked adaptors stored underneath the box. Mika selected something that looked like a small glass spade. ‘I’ve clamped the breaks just to give some support to the welds. I don’t suppose you’ll be resting for a while yet. The clamps will take a year to dissolve; plenty of time for your ribs to completely heal. I’ve dealt with most of the internal tissue damage. I’ll seal you up now.’

  Why was it, Cormac wondered, that doctors so relished telling you exactly what they were doing?

  The welder droned and there were horrible sucking sounds in his chest. The tugging felt like what an errant child feels when its mother pulls on its coat.

  ‘There, all done,’ said Mika after what seemed an age. ‘I’ve put a couple of analgesic tabs in, and they’ll dissolve over the next few days. There might be the odd twinge, but you’ll be all right now.’ Behind her he saw the tubes of the remote lung clear of blood and felt the small tugs as she detached each of them. He did not get time to feel any lack of oxygen, for she reached immediately for the back of his neck. Feeling returned suddenly. There was no fading in, no pins and needles; his body just turned back on. He took a gasping breath and the sound of his heart was a sudden thunder.