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being covered by a writhe of veins across its surface.
     
    The revenant tilted his head one way, and the woody structure supporting one side of it turned soft and wet, and began to sink into exposed raw flesh. He then tilted his head the other way, and the crystal of his AI aug, still glittering with green light, was flooded with hair-like tendrils, and deformed itself against his head. Sucking back into itself the rods that connected down into his chest, the aug sank away into his skull, to become skinned over with bone and a sudden growth of veins, then muscles opening like summer flowers. The only sign that remained of it was a glint of green deep in the empty eye socket, but even this blinked out as, starting as a shiny black bead extruded into position, an eyeball expanded to fill the cavity.
     
    Skin formed first as a layer of clear slime, which grew opaque, began to knit, thickened and toughened, and conformed itself to the growing structures underneath. Briefly, it covered completely the new-grown eyeball, then split into lids that sprouted lashes. Brown hair then issued from the bare scalp, while the skull underneath still shifted and deformed, as if the head itself were having difficulties returning to its customary shape with all the extras it now contained. But eventually this settled down too. Now the man removed his hands from the water—no sign of those tendrils he had earlier extruded—and watched his fingernails grow. Eventually he stood, naked in the red moonlight, and looked around. On the horizon, he located the yellow-orange glow of city light—and began to walk towards it.
     
    * * * *
     
    2
     
     
    The modern surgical robot is an incredibly sophisticated machine. I am informed that this device wields laser scalpels and cauteries, cell welders and bone welders, ultrasound tumour killers and bone saws, micro tome shears, clamps of every shape and size, nerve shunts and blood filters . . . the list goes on and on and, depending on the surgery intended whole different arrays of instruments can be employed. Suffice to say that such a device can divide a body up into its component organs, keeping those organs alive separately, then put that same body back together again. The modern robot can also be telefactored to human or AI, can be raised to consciousness itself, as many now are in the more sophisticated centres of the Human Polity, or can run the programs necessary for just about any surgical procedure. This is all most admirable, and those, such as me, whose professions can be physically dangerous, should be grateful. I am grateful, but I have to wonder who was responsible for making this thing look, like the offspring of a chrome samurai and giant wood-louse. Was it the AIs again? Does this menacing appearance impel us to think twice about putting ourselves in the way of injury—to make hospital seem less attractive to us?
     
    - From How It Is by Gordon
     
     
    The telefactor unit, its scanning equipment extended and working frenetically—dishes spinning, holocorders and gas samplers operating, lasers strobing the area as they measured and were bounced off surfaces to gain spectral information—floated up to a ceiling seemingly interlaced with tree roots. Also surveying the interior of the bridge pod, Cormac remembered how, when he had been aboard the Occam Razor, the ship would shift its internal structure. This pod was moved around inside, and even extruded from, the hull. He had known then that the pod could be ejected. Obviously, while the Elysium mirrors had focused on the ship itself, this was what had happened, for the heat damage here was not so severe. Some quite combustible items had survived it.
     
    He observed a desiccated corpse resting upright against the back wall, and walked over to inspect it. The ripped interfaces poxing this corpse’s skin and the creamy glint of opaque nictitating membranes in the sunken eye sockets confirmed that he had found Tomalon, the captain of the