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side.   “Wait.   What the…”
    Carter paused for a heartbeat, two.   “Is that a…   Is that the Federate’s logo?   Is that our logo on that box?”
    Mason grabbed the edges of the lid, pulling hard.   With a creak and a flaking of carbon, the box opened.   There wasn’t much left inside, mostly melted metals, burnt plastics, some glass.
    “What is it?”   Mason let his optics kick over to thermal.   The innards of the box were cold, lifeless.   If it was Apsel tech, it had been burned out by whatever had happened here.
    “I can tell you what it isn’t.   It isn’t a reactor.”   She was humming again.
    “Sure,” said Mason.   “Back to my question: what is it?”
    “See if you can find a serial number.”
    “Come on, Carter.   Look at it.”
    She sighed.   “Fair enough.   Wait a moment.”
    Mason started to lift fragments out of the box.   His hand came up against a piece of metal, mostly intact.   He brushed a thumb against the carbon scoring on the side.   “Check this out.”   He held the metal at arm’s length, pointing the beam from the Tenko-Senshin at it.   The light picked out the Apsel logo, and the words APSEL FEDERATE — ATOMIC ENERGY DIVISION .
    “That’s —   it’s us.   You came here following a reactor signature, and you found a box of junk.   Junk we made.”   Carter sounded almost confused.
    “Maybe.”   Mason tossed the piece of metal back in the box.
    “We can burn it.”   Carter paused briefly.   “I’ve got the satellite online.”
    “For Chrissakes.   About time.   Can you kick off a strike?”
    “It seems the best way.”   Carter paused.   “Let me send this back up the line, see if they want to send a recovery team here.”
    “Like I said, there’s nothing to recover.   We’d be better of nuking the site from orbit and finding out which circus back at the ranch is screwing with us.   If I got sent out here to recover a, let’s call it an unauthorised reactor, right, but we’ve got another team in play?   Someone in logistics is getting fired.”
    “See, it’s that kind of commentary that keeps you in the field.”   Mason could hear the smile in Carter’s voice.   “Look, let me just clear it.   At least it’ll solve the problem around the paperwork.”
    “Paperwork?”
    “The homeless guys.”
    “Right.”   Mason started to pick his way back through the darkness.   “Carter, there’s something I don’t get.”
    “What’s that?”
    “The hallucinations?”
    “Yes.”
    “They’re real .”
    Her voice was wry.   “They wouldn’t be hallucinations anymore, would they?”
    “That’s not what I mean.”   Mason shuddered, thinking about the walking corpses, about a dead man from Nebraska named Smith.   “I just blasted a dead man’s corpse to pieces.   Or I thought it was a dead man.   The only thing left behind was an arm.   You saw it.   On the feed.”
    “Yeah.   I saw it.”
    “So — here’s the thing.   What did Specialist Smith see in me?   What made him and his buddies attack a syndicate man?   That’s not healthy behaviour, even without the rain.”
    “What am I, the Oracle of Delphi?   Come back in.   We’ll get you in the chair.”
    “I think it’s getting worse, Carter.   And I think it’s worse here .   At the centre of — whatever this is.   Whatever was in this box.”
    “You’ve done your job, Mason.   I’ll put this in the report.”
    “Good.”   He sighed.   “We don’t want this getting out.”
    “What getting out?”
    “Well — that’s the thing.   I don’t know.   But you can be damn sure some reporter would have a field day if they found Apsel equipment at the centre of…”   He trailed off.
    “I know.”   She laughed suddenly.   “It’s lucky.”
    “What’s lucky?”
    “That I’ve got the satellite back.   And…   Here we go.   I’m cleared for a strike.   Get yourself clear.”
    Mason pulled himself back up the