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‘Flee!’ he shouted at Mira.

But she was riveted by his clumsy movements and obvious desperation. She saw his ill-fitting torn uniform. Who is he? Why does he help us?

‘Please go!’ he cried again. ‘Do not trust him.’

As Latourn dragged Mira into the connection matrix, the uninjured guard grappled with the inept dissident and ripped the visor from his face.

Mianos gasped. ‘Thales! What in Kant’s name are you doing—’

‘You would imprison this woman as you did Villon? As you did me?’ The young man’s voice was impassioned. Wild.

The guard caught the dissident’s arm and jerked it hard behind his shoulder, twisting it to dislocation point.

The dissident roared with fury rather than with pain. His shouted words became incoherent angry sobs.

Mira’s heart beat harder at his distress, but Latourn showed no such concern. He was pounding at the egress scale.

Mira stayed where she was in the centre of the connection matrix. ‘Help him,’ she said.

Latourn stared back at her, incredulous. ‘No,’ he barked.

‘Insignia will not open the egress scale until I tell her,’ Mira told him.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Help the dissident and I will instruct Insignia to open it.’

Latourn’s eyes widened. ‘Capo said not to go with you—she said you were loco.’

Rast had said that? Mira kept her expression impassive. Perhaps she was. ‘You are a fighter. So fight for me.’

Latourn made an infuriated noise. He unbuckled the belt around his fellalo and plunged back through the matrix into the other ship’s link chamber.

Mira followed him.

The uninjured guard thrust the dissident aside roughly, bent swiftly to retrieve his weapon from the floor and turned it on Latourn. But the dissident threw himself against him, spoiling his aim before he fell sprawling.

In a deft, quick move Latourn looped his belt around the guard’s throat and twisted hard, snapping the man’s neck. He pulled the dissident upright and tossed him from the link chamber into the matrix. He landed almost at Mira’s feet.

Mira ran to the egress scale. Open for us, she instructed the biozoon.

The scale peeled back and she scrambled through first. A moment later the dissident followed with Latourn behind him.

Insignia’s presence filled her. She felt stronger and lighter. Thank you.

Then Rast had her, pulling her to her feet by her throat, shaking her into the present.

‘Whatisit!’ The mercenary demanded. ‘What’s happening? And who the fuck is this?’

Mira peeled Rast’s fingers from around her neck. Pushing back her disordered wimple she glanced down and saw the dissident’s face clearly for the first time. She did not think she had ever seen a more beautiful man.

Insignia, break away from the other ship. She looked back at Rast. ‘I really do not know.’

JO-JO RASTEROVICH

‘You’re the God-Discoverer.’

‘Some call me that,’ said Jo-Jo.

‘I’m Loker.’ The round, sweaty man shot out his hand. ‘My H-M picked up your heat signature.’

Jo-Jo shook Loker’s hand. Then he turned in the tight confines of the small cluttered bridge and nodded his thanks to the scruffy glassy-eyed kid seated in the immersion sink.

‘Tell me, what was the God-Discoverer doing floating around tethered to a station lug? Shouldn’t you be toastin’ your naked backside on a beach somewhere?’

‘Bad Timing’s got no manners,’ said Jo-Jo in a noncommittal manner. ‘Am obliged to you for picking us up, though, seeing as you’ve already got a fair load.’ They’d climbed over the bodies of ‘esques and aliens in the corridors of the Savvy’s ventilated section.

‘Yeah. Too many. We’re thinking of going for a scrap-shift. Get these people off my ship as soon as I can.’

‘Scrapshift?’

‘Can’t see much in the way of alternatives. Maglev is working to the outstations but there ain’t nothing out there but a bunch of satellites and some demounts on one of the moons. If we don’t go while scrapshift is still working we might get stuck here. I only got a week’s food left, and that’s for a crew of ten. No knowing what those ginkos will do, either. Or how long until help comes.’

Jo-Jo