Consider Phlebas

useful.'

'It isn't working, is it?' Unaha-Closp said. It kept pace with Horza, still facing him and backing through the air in front of him. 'That three-legged lunatic smashed the mass sensor on the pallet, and now we're blind; we're back to square one, aren't we?'

'No,' Horza said impatiently, 'we are not. We'll repair it. Now, how about doing something useful for a change?'

'For a change?' Unaha-Closp said with what sounded like feeling. 'For a change? You're forgetting who it was saved all your skins back in the tunnels when our cute little Idiran liaison officer over there started running amuck.'

'All right, drone,' Horza said through clenched teeth. 'I've said thank you. Now, why don't you take a look around the station, just in case there's anything to be seen.'

'Like Minds you can't spot on wasted suit mass sensors, for example? And what are you lot going to be doing while I'm doing that?'

'Resting,' Horza said. 'And thinking.' He stopped at Xoxarle and inspected the Idiran's bonds.

'Oh, great,' Unaha-Closp sneered. 'And a lot of good all your thinking has done-'

'For fuck's sake, Unaha-Closp,' Yalson said, sighing heavily, 'either go or stay, but shut up.'

'I see! Right!' Unaha-Closp drew away from them and rose in the air. 'I'll just go and lose myself, then! I should have-'

It was floating away as it spoke. Horza shouted over the drone's voice, 'Before you go, can you hear any alarms?'

'What?' Unaha-Closp came to a halt. Wubslin put a pained, studious expression on his face and looked around the station's bright walls, as though making an effort to hear above the frequencies his ears could sense.

Unaha-Closp was silent for a moment, then said, 'No. No alarms. I'm going now. I'll check out the other train. When I think you might be in a more amenable mood I'll come back.' It turned and sped off.

'Dorolow could have heard the alarms,' Aviger muttered, but nobody heard.

Wubslin looked up at the train, gleaming in the station lights, and like it, seemed to glow from within.

… what is this? is it light? do i imagine it? am i dying? is this what happens? am i dying now, so soon? i thought i had a while left and i don't deserve…

light! it is light!

I can see again!

Welded to the cold metal by his own dry blood, his body cracked and twisted, mutilated and dying, he opened his one good eye as far as he could. Mucus had dried on it, and he had to blink, trying to clear it.

His body was a dark and alien land of pain, a continent of torment.

… One eye left. One arm. A leg missing, just lopped off. One numb and paralysed, another broken (he tested to make sure, trying to move that limb; a pain like fire flashed through him, like a lightning flash over the shadowed country that was his body and his pain), and my face… my face…

He felt like a smashed insect, abandoned by some children after an afternoon's cruel play. They had thought he was dead, but he was not built the way they were. A few holes were nothing; an amputated limb… well, his blood did not gush like theirs when a leg or arm was removed (he remembered a recording of a human dissection), and for the warrior there was no shock; not like their poor soft, flesh-flabby systems. He had been shot in the face, but the beam or bullet had not penetrated through the internal keratin brain cover, or severed his nerves. Similarly, his eyes had been smashed, but the other side of his face was intact, and he could still see.

It was so bright. His sight cleared and he looked, without moving, at the station roof.

He could feel himself dying slowly; an internal knowledge which, again, they might not have had. He could feel the slow leak of his blood inside his body, sense the pressure build-up in his torso, and the faint oozing through cracks in his keratin. The remains of the suit would help him but not save him. He could feel his internal organs slowly shutting down: too many holes from one system to another. His stomach would never digest his last meal, and his anterior lung-sack, which normally held a reserve of hyperoxygenated blood for use when his body needed its last reserves of strength, was emptying, its precious fuel being squandered in the losing battle his body fought against the falling pressure of his blood.

Dying… I am dying… What difference whether it is in darkness or in light?

Great One, fallen comrades, children and mate… can you see me any better in this deeply buried, alien glare?

My name is Quayanorl, Great One, and-

The idea was brighter than the pain when he'd tried to move his shattered leg, brighter than the station's silent, staring glow.

They had said they were going to station seven.

It was the last thing he remembered, apart from the sight of one of them floating through the air towards him. That one must have shot him in the face; he couldn't remember it happening, but it made sense… Sent to make sure he was dead. But he was alive, and he had just had an idea. It was a long shot, even if he could get it to work, even if he could shift himself, even if it all worked… a long shot, in every sense… But it would be doing something; it would be a suitable end for a warrior, whatever happened. The pain would be worth it.

He moved quickly, before he could change his mind, knowing that there might be little time (if he wasn't already too late…). The pain seared through him like a sword.

From his broken, bloody mouth, a shout came.

Nobody heard. His shout echoed in the bright station. Then there was silence. His body throbbed with the aftershock of pain, but he could feel that he was free; the blood-weld was broken. He could move; in the light he could move.

Xoxarle, if you are still alive, I may soon have a little surprise for our friends…

'Drone?'

'What?'

'Horza wants to know what you're doing.' Yalson spoke into her helmet communicator, looking at the Changer.

'I'm searching this train; the one in the repair section. I would have said if I'd found anything, you know. Have you got that suit sensor working yet?'

Horza made a face at the helmet Yalson held on her knees; he reached over and switched off the communicator.

'It's right, though, isn't it?' Aviger said, sitting on the pallet. 'That one in your suit isn't working, is it?'

'There's some interference from the train's reactor,' Horza told the old man. 'That's all. We can deal with it.' Aviger didn't look convinced.

Horza opened a drink canister. He felt tired, drained. There was a sense of anti-climax now, having got the power on but not found the Mind. He cursed the broken mass sensor, and Xoxarle, and the Mind. He didn't know where the damn thing was, but he'd find it. Right now, though, he just wanted to sit and relax. He needed to give his thoughts time to collect. He rubbed his head where it had been bruised in the fire-fight in station six; it hurt, distantly, naggingly, inside. Nothing serious, but it would have been distracting if he hadn't been able to shut the pain off.

'Don't you think we should search this train now?' Wubslin said, gazing up hungrily at the shining curved bulk of it in front of them.

Horza smiled at the engineer's rapt expression. 'Yes, why not?' he said. 'On you go; take a look.' He nodded at the grinning Wubslin, who swallowed a last mouthful of food and grabbed his helmet.

'Right. Yeah. Might as well start now,' he said, and walked off quickly, past the motionless figure of Xoxarle, up the access ramp and into the train.

Balveda was standing with her back against the wall, her hands in her pockets. She smiled at Wubslin's retreating back as he disappeared into the train's interior.

'Are you going to let him drive that thing, Horza?' she asked.

'Somebody may have to,' Horza said. 'We'll need some sort of transport to take us round if we're going to look for the Mind.'