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worrying about everything .’
    Soneka didn’t look convinced.
    ‘Come on,’ Bronzi rumbled. ‘That’s why the Geno Five-Two has survived this long. We fight smart, we always have. Brains have got us out of more scrapes than balls.’
    ‘In your case, I’d hardly trust either.’
    Bronzi winked. He wasn’t going to rise to the bait. He lashed up his haversack and swung it onto his shoulder.
    ‘Don’t go alone,’ Soneka said.
    ‘I won’t. I’ll take Dimi Shiban with me. I can trust him, and he knows how to handle himself if there’s an outbreak of stupid.’
    ‘Good. All right.’
    ‘Let’s be off, then,’ said Bronzi.
    T HE TRANSPORT K OSLOV provided was a Scarab-pattern carrier, a medium-sized armoured speeder with a troop hold for stowage and a stern-mounted auto turret. Its long, gently curved hull had been sprayed in a desert tan, but as it slid towards them out of the night on its powerful suspension fields, it looked like a desert phantom, cold and moonlight blue. The delivery crew dismounted, leaving the engines running. Medicae Ida loaded the wrapped body into the hold and made it secure.
    ‘I can provide a driver,’ Koslov offered.
    ‘No need,’ Bronzi replied, tossing his haversack in through the open hold hatch. ‘I can handle one of these babies.’
    ‘You’re infantry,’ Koslov said.
    ‘I’m a Renaissance man,’ Bronzi replied. ‘There are few things in this galaxy I can’t turn my hand to.’
    ‘And entirely mess up,’ Soneka said.
    Shiban ran up to join them out of the cold darkness. He was lugging a pack and a twin-barrelled las carbine.
    ‘What’s this about?’ he asked.
    ‘I’ll tell you once we’re moving,’ Bronzi said. ‘All secure, doc?’
    Medicae Ida jumped down from the hold and sealed the hatch behind her.
    ‘I’ve secured it in ice blocks, but it will deteriorate. Get it into stasis as quickly as you can.’
    ‘The organs?’
    ‘Individually packed in vacuum sealed bags in the hopper under the gurney.’
    ‘Thanks, doc,’ Bronzi smiled. Shiban was already climbing aboard through the cabin hatch.
    Bronzi looked back at Soneka. ‘I hate goodbyes,’ he said, ‘so fug off.’
    Soneka laughed. Bronzi turned away, and then swung back round to face Soneka. His face was solemn. ‘Look, Peto, there is one thing. One thing I just want to say.’
    ‘What is it, Hurt?’
    Bronzi looked him in the eyes, all seriousness. ‘Peto, have you got that money you owe me?’
    T HE SPEEDER KICKED up dust like a gauzy bridal train and slipped away into the cold desert night. Koslov, Ida and the noncombatants turned away and walked back into the post.
    Soneka stood out in the chilly darkness, under the enveloping cloak of the sky, and watched until all traces of the speeder had vanished into the endless black.
    T HEY RAN THE Scarab into the west, along the old trail, using only auspex and the low-light viewers wired to the dashboard. The viewers showed the world like a green moonscape, but they had only a one hundred and ten degree forward spread, so when Bronzi or Shiban turned their heads too far left or right, the ghostly view vanished in a wash of fizzle and telemetry junk.
    The Scarab coasted well, and made eighty kilometres per hour over the clearest terrain. Bronzi loved grav-effect transports, and always tried to secure them for his Jokers when dismount assaults were on the cards. He let Shiban drive for the first three hours, through the tipping point of midnight. The stars came out over the desert rim with a rare magnificence, heightened by their viewers.
    ‘You ever going to tell me what this is about?’ Shiban asked.
    ‘No,’ said Bronzi.
    T HREE HOURS BEFORE sunrise, Bronzi took the stick. The world ahead of him was a jumbled, fast-moving path of lime-cast furrows, with the occasional emerald crag looming for a moment before it was lost behind them. Shiban sat back, reclining in the shotgun seat, and took a pinch from his box. Then he played with the