still standing, and beginning to sprout grassy yellow flowers, but upon reaching the top of the hill they found it utterly clear of vegetation. Gorman skidded the vehicle to a stop and disengaged the drive.
'How long?' he asked.
'About a minute,' Crean replied.
'Let's take a look then,' he said, turning to Cormac, who opened the door.
They climbed out into a sultry evening, some local animal making a gobbling sound from downslope in a deadfall. Gorman nodded to a nearby stone promontory and led the way up to it. From here they could see the pattern of felled skarches spearing inland to where the Prador ship had crashed. The vessel was invisible behind the distant hills of detritus it had thrown up, but the work lights created a sunrise glow over there. Directly below them lay the military township, partially conjoined to the shore city, and beyond lay the sea, a couple of ships and some smaller boats visible upon it.
'The missile could be right here you know,' commented Travis.
'I doubt it,' said Gorman, 'but let's hope not.' He added, 'Here it comes.'
Even as he spoke a gravcar rose from the township, its navigation lights switching on as it accelerated up and out to the left of them. Almost immediately there came a flash down in the skarch wreckage perhaps two or three miles to their right, and a dim spot of light ascended, curved over, and began heading towards the car.
'Close,' said Gorman, 'but I win, I think.'
Something flickered and the missile briefly trailed a luminescent green cloud before, with a thunderclap, turning into a long cloud of fire.
'Laser,' commented Travis.
'Now the bet is on as to whether—'
There now came another thunderous crash to their right from the missile's launch site. Peering over there Cormac saw the ground seem to bubble up for a moment then erupt in a localized explosion.
'Rail-gun strike,' he said, just to try and feel part of all this.
'Exactly,' said Travis, turning to Gorman, 'which negates the bet.' He grinned crazily. 'You thought ECS would use a particle beam.'
Gorman shrugged. 'Fifty-fifty really, once the launcher was located outside of any populated areas.'
'And if it had been fired from the city?' Cormac enquired.
Gorman turned to him. 'We had squads decked-out in night gear ready to move in once the power supply in the grid area concerned was cut.'
Cormac nodded. They knew all this was going to happen and had been making bets on how it would happen, which all brought home to him that, though he was the fourth man in this Sparkind unit, he was not actually part of it yet.
'Let's go,' said Gorman.
They returned to the ATV to continue their journey to the makeshift spaceport on this world. As Cormac stepped inside the vehicle after the others, he pulled the stim-patch from his arm and discarded it, reclined his seat and was soon dozing fitfully, only coming fully awake an hour later as they arrived at their destination. Through the screen he saw a ship down on the acres of plasticrete: a lumpen vessel like a giant beetle, battle-scarred and old and with ramps down from which a row of gravtrucks were disembarking before rising into the air to fall into a precisely quadrate formation. The four departed the ATV and began heading towards this vessel.
'I would have liked to have bet on both the firing position of that launcher and the weapon deployed against it from orbit,' he commented to Gorman.
'Would you have won?' Gorman asked.
'Yes,' said Cormac. 'They would have wanted to be close to the city to fire the missile but not actually in the city where they could be located and apprehended. If they'd known we had anything up there capable of taking them out, they would not have fired at all. And a rail-gun strike was used because though it would kill whoever was near the launcher, it would leave evidence for investigation, whereas a particle beam strike would have incinerated everything… also the beam strike might well have started a fire in all that dead skarch wood, which would have required further resources to extinguish.'
'Good job we didn't include you,' said Gorman.
'Why didn't you include me?'
'There was no certainty you would be coming offworld with us until just ten minutes before we left—it seemed that the AIs were having some debate about that.'
'Why am I coming with you?'
'Two reasons,' Gorman replied. 'The first concerns our mission to capture Sheen. I've seen the analysis of everything that happened in there. You killed Pramer—without much hesitation it would seem.'
'And the second reason.'
'I'll leave Agent Spencer to tell you about that.'
Soon they were aboard the large shuttle and ensconced in one of its cabins with the Polity agent. The explanation was quite simple:
'Carl Thrace,' Spencer supplied.
The cabin was cramped and seemed as packed with equipment as Spencer's office down in the military encampment. The two Golem stood back against one wall while Gorman snagged the only free chair and Cormac sat on a plasmel crate which, by its label, contained fragmentation grenades. Cormac wondered if Spencer dragged around a collection of stuff like this wherever she went, or if she had merely taken a cabin previously vacated by another of her kind.
When no one else seemed inclined to ask, Cormac enquired, 'What about him?'
Spencer was sitting at a cluttered desk gazing at a screen, occasionally pressing buttons and manipulating a ball-control she held in her right hand. 'After searching through millions of hours of scan data the Hagren AI eventually managed to track his course from when he abandoned you in the Dramewood,' she said without looking up. 'The ATV delivered him to a rendezvous with an old hydrocar limousine—' Now she did look up. ' — driven by Sheen, who took him to a guest house in the old city. The data showed no sign of him leaving the guest house, but Sheen was kind enough to inform us that, as well as having syntheflesh patches for concealing weaponry, Carl has a whole kit for drastically altering his appearance. The AI checked its recordings and tracked everyone who left the hotel—all but one have been tracked down and eliminated from the search.' She now turned her screen towards them to show a portly individual with yellowish and slightly scaly skin, and mouth tendrils that wound into a large spadelike beard. He was clad in brown leather and wore leather trilby. 'He's calling himself Marcus Spengler now.'
'I'm still not quite sure why I'm here,' said Cormac.
Spencer eyed him for a moment. 'There was some discussion about whether to allow you to continue in the Sparkind. Though you have shown an aptitude for the job, your training is lacking. The powers that be were considering sending you for further training while the rest of your unit—' She flicked a glance at the other three. ' — took a vacation.'
'Damn,' said Gorman. 'What made 'em change their minds?'
The room lurched at that moment and a deep vibration shook the vessel they were aboard. There was no doubt it was now launching.
'My request changed their minds,' Spencer replied. 'My aim is to bring Carl Thrace down and I prefer to work with those whose methods I'm familiar with.' She glanced at Cormac. 'I wanted Cormac included for two reasons: having known Carl for two years he might well be able to identify him despite any disguise but, most importantly, Carl Thrace will recognise Cormac.'
'I take it Thrace has left Hagren?' suggested Travis.
'After leaving the guest house,' Spencer replied, 'he headed for the inland commercial spaceport and boarded a small but very fast light-cargo hauler.'
'Smugglers,' said Gorman.
Spencer nodded. 'Almost certainly, since that ship's destination seems to be the Graveyard.'
Gorman cursed, and well he might.
'Get some rest now,' said Spencer. 'We dock with the
'The
