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plastic spatulas he could use as splints, a drug injector and drugs that carried all sorts of warnings and disclaimers, as well as a couple of saline kits. As he tossed them into the trolley, the read-out quickly dropped towards zero. Glancing round he noticed that most of the people here were probably not Cheyne III residents. The people who bought such supplies were either seasoned runcible travellers or the crews or single owners of spaceships. When he had finished he hurriedly left the shop. The trolley went with him.
    Outside the shop was an arcade with walled flowerbeds running down its middle. The perfume issuing from the blooms was almost sickly in its intensity. Above, the street was roofed over, from the tops of the arcology buildings on either side, with hexagons of pink glass. Below this hung globular security drones on thick power cables. None of these seemed to be paying him attention. As he walked to the end of the arcade, past the many shops, cafes and arched entrances to leisure complexes, Stanton kept a wary eye out for other watchers. He saw none, however. The people here were oblivious to him, so intent were they on hedonistic pursuits. Soon he stepped from the arcology onto a ground-level AGC park. Amethyst gravel crunched underfoot and numerous AGCs were parked in single bays in a labyrinth bounded by squat conifer hedges with foliage more blue than green. When he reached their stolen AGC Stanton peered inside. Pelter was still unconscious, the drug patches and his injuries having finally taken their toll. Stanton opened the driver's door and quickly tossed his purchases onto the seat. The trolley spat his change into its tray, and waited.
    'Keep it,' Stanton said, and the trolley rolled off almost jauntily.
    First his own injury. Inside the car Stanton loaded the injector, rolled up his sleeve, and applied the device to his forearm. In seconds that arm was just a cold, numb lump. With his other hand he pulled it from his pocket and laboriously splinted it. For good measure he slapped another patch on the bicep. Once he was sure that broken bone could not move, he reached across and turned Pelter's head towards him. He hissed between his teeth at what he was seeing, and reached for the can of synthiskin. When he finished covering that side of the Separatist's head, he pulled the patches from the man's neck and applied a stick-on dressing over the whole mess. Nothing more he could do about it, really. Pelter needed some serious reconstruction. This done, Stanton stabbed the tube from one of the saline packets into a vein in Pelter's lower arm, tilted it until the air bubbled up out of the pipe to the surface of the saline, and then squeezed the packet to inject the liquid. When that packet was empty he stuck the other one to the roof of the AGC, connected up a long tube and stabbed that in too. He shot a cocktail of drugs the manufacturers would have warned against directly into Pelter's throat. Within a minute the man gasped, opened his eyes and sat forwards.
    'How long?' he croaked.
    'About an hour,' Stanton told him.
    'Well, get moving. We may already be too late.'
    Pelter studied the drip and the tube, and anger flashed across his features. He seemed about to tear the tube out, but then the anger faded and he sat back.
    'That was risky, John,' he said.
    Stanton nodded as he engaged power, then lifted the cup control of the car. With a deep hum it rose into the air. He thumbed the guide ball in the cup and the vehicle slid forwards over the park. Pelter was silent for a moment. When he spoke again it was through gritted teeth.
    'We'll have to be ready to move quick. Even if the withdrawal isn't refused, a Polity AI'll be on it soon after,' he said
    Stanton nodded again. The pain was returning to his arm and he wanted it bone-welded sooner rather than later. He thumbed the ball further forward and swung the AGC fast round the edge of the arcology. Here. The arcade was just a side-shoot from the main