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restaurant is located inside the worm and, if Bourdain is really here, that’s where you and I need to go too.’
    ‘Bourdain,’ Remembrance echoed, ‘inside a monster’s gullet?’
    ‘A monster which, if provoked, will rapidly close up and consume every living thing currently inside it,’ Honeydew concluded. ‘Which means anyone and everything entering it has to do so extremely slowly, quietly and carefully’
    Remembrance glanced towards the mounted gun turrets, once he realized Honeydew was not, in fact, joking. He suddenly understood the real reason for the defences.
    ‘The turrets . . . ?’
    ‘One grenade tossed just outside the entrance would be enough to trigger a deadly gustatory reaction,’ Honeydew affirmed. ‘You can sometimes see the creature’s internal gullet-tentacles snatching at the smaller organisms it plays host to. Not,’ Honeydew added hastily, ‘that this has ever presented a problem to larger-bodied organisms such as ourselves. The artillery is there to safeguard it from attack.’
    Suspicion, mixed with horror, bloomed in Remembrance’s mind. ‘So you’ve gone in there before?’
    ‘Don’t start making any accusations. Yes, my work means I’ve had to deal with the human owners here. They have to provide us with reassurance that they won’t admit any Bandati clientele.’
    ‘They’re lying, then.’
    ‘Of course they are. They’re aliens, and their ways are not ours. But I know this mountain well – younger Bandati still like to blimp up here just to jump from the highest points, and then try and free- fall all the way down to the city.’ Honey dew spoke with undisguised nostalgia. ‘All extremely dangerous, of course.’
    They started moving in the direction of the cave entrance. Honeydew’s own security squad had already secured the gun platforms, and twitched their wings in greeting as they drew nearer.
    ‘Any other fascinating little tidbits I should know?’ asked Remembrance.
    ‘Just be aware that it’s very, very easy to upset a maul-worm.’
    Moist, warm air filtered out through the mouth of the cave before getting drawn back in. ‘And what if Bourdain resists arrest?’ Remembrance asked in an appalled tone. ‘Just give up because this . . . worm might eat us? What kind of lunatic would ever enter such a place?’
    ‘Someone with a distinctly jaded palate, I should say. You really might have avoided all this if you’d just let us know what you were up to.’
    The cave’s interior was unpleasantly warm and dank. ‘There’s no other way out of here, am I right?’
    Honeydew merely nodded in affirmation.
    ‘Then he’ll risk death by resisting arrest. Frankly, I can think of a lot of ways I’d rather go.’
    ‘Maybe he would rather die than be taken back to the Consortium.’
    ‘Bourdain?’ Remembrance clicked in amusement. ‘That’s unlikely. I’ve dealt with him in the past, and I know he’s not nearly that brave.’
    Remembrance had indeed spent some time undercover on Bourdain’s Rock, posing as a black marketeer. He’d managed to gather damning evidence – but then the Rock itself had been destroyed, along with much of his evidence, and Bourdain himself had fled to Bandati-controlled space.
    ‘Yet brave enough to set foot in here.’
    ‘Bravery doesn’t come into it. I’ve been in human establishments called mog parlours that aren’t so different. They’re the kind of places where the clientele never talk about what or who they’ve seen and heard. If we were ever going to track down Bourdain, it was always going to be in someplace like this.’
    They had paused for a few moments before properly entering, but now, as if by some unspoken mutual decision, they walked determinedly further inside the cave. Remembrance let Honey dew take the lead, having been here before. The very thought gave him a pang of disgust, even though he knew the security agent must have had perfectly legitimate reasons for doing so.
    As Remembrance brushed