'Look!' Lymaner was saying. He was dark, intense, and slightly pudgy. 'We have a responsibility to the underdwellers. We can't dump our c.r.a.p on them, take their sky away and make it rain all the time and expect them to like it. I tell you, there's going to be big trouble one day if we don't do something.'

The meagre light was gleaming off the blade of a knife on the table. McConnel couldn't drag his gaze away from it.

'We are doing something,' a blonde named Dara said. 'That's why we're here.'

With a slight jolt of surprise, McConnel realized that he had picked up the knife.

'We're here to come up with a report that absolves the Empire of all responsibility,' Lymaner snorted, casting a wary glance at McConnel. 'That's our job, isn't it, Professor?'

The heat was conspiring with the smell of the food and the crush of the crowd to make McConnel feel nauseous.

'd.a.m.n the stinking underdwellers,' he whispered. The students gazed un-easily at him. 'd.a.m.n the stinking underlife and d.a.m.n you all for caring more about them than about your fellow humans.'

McConnel glanced up at Lymaner.

And plunged the knife into the boy's eye.

The flitter was still powering down when Forrester jumped out onto the raft.

The smell inside was getting to be unbearable, despite the air-conditioning, but at least the woman had kept quiet for the journey, staring blankly out of the window without moving.

At least the station was still where they had left it. That was one small bonus.

'Shove her in a holding cell,' Forrester barked at Cwej, gesturing to one of the Adjudication securitybots to come over to help him.

'Why, where are you going?'34.

'May as well get this over with quickly. I'll break out a portable mindprobe from stores. If we can retrieve the killing from her recent memories for centcomp, we can get her convicted and sentenced before lunch. Since the victim's only an offworlder, there's no point dragging it out.'

'If she's guilty.'

Forrester turned to look at Cwej. He was gazing at her in all seriousness, his b.u.t.ton-bright eyes gleaming, his fur bristling.

'If?'

'We can't a.s.sume anything until we've seen the scan.'

'Yeah. Right. Dream on, kid.'

She strode off to the equipment truck and signed out a battered mind probe.

Lugging the machine over to the holding truck, she wondered how long Cwej's innocence was going to last.

The inside of the truck was small and bare of anything except a table and three plastic chairs. Cwej had sprayed a restraining suit over the woman.

The flexible foam encased her completely apart from her little, wizened face, making it impossible for her to hurt herself or her captors, or to move faster than a waddle. She looked to Forrester like a child's toy: soft, pliant and blank.

Forrester threw the mindprobe upon the table, folded up the screen and plugged the input contact and the hand-scanner into the jack-points.

The securitybot was standing beside Cwej. Coincidentally, it was another INITEC model. The RECORD light was flashing on its chest.

'Did you switch it on?' she asked Cwej, nodding towards the bot. He shook his head.

'No. Is it recording? Must have been left on by the last guys.'

'Slobs.' Forrester sat down. 'May as well start afresh,' she said, turning to the bot. 'Stop record.'

'Recording stopped,' the bot said.

The light remained winking.

'Stop record,' she repeated, louder.

'Recording stopped,' the bot repeated.

The light went out.

'Must be a malfunction,' she muttered. 'That's all we need.'

'These things aren't supposed to break down,' Cwej said. 'Mean time between failures is ten thousand years, according to the manuals.'

'Yeah, right. And Father Christmas lives on the fiftieth floor of my block.'

She raised her voice. 'Start record.'

The light began to flash again.

'Recording started,' said the bot.

'Have you got the spike?' she continued, turning to Cwej.35.

'The what?'

'The murder weapon?'

Cwej reached beneath his seat and retrieved a vacuum-sealed bag with the bloodied spike inside.

'Here.'

Forrester placed it on the table and waved the mindprobe's sensor over it, registering the item in its memory.

'All right, bring her over.'

While Cwej had manoeuvred the uncooperative but unresisting woman into one of the chairs, her arms and legs sticking out stiffly in the foam suit, Forrester attached the metal mindprobe contact to the centre of the woman's forehead.

'Ever used one of these?' she asked Cwej.

'Saw one in a lecture once,' he said.

'They always work perfectly in lectures, and never in real life. The early models needed so much power to read anything through the skull that they sometimes screwed around with the memories they were trying to read. These new ones are magic. Perfectly safe. Would you like to try it?'

He shook his head.

'Fine,' she continued, 'just asking. Now, I've scanned the murder weapon into the mindprobe. We should now be able to peel back her recent memories, looking for the last time she remembers seeing it.'

'Won't that be just now, when I pulled it out from beneath the seat?'

'Well done. Glad to see you're paying attention. I can then go back to the time before that '

'Just after we first arrived.'

'And scroll slowly backwards until we find the murder.'

'If she committed it.'

'Have it your own way, Academy boy. It's just a formality. We know she did it.'

Forrester's fingers danced across the controls. She had operated mindprobes so many times that the procedure was instinctive, automatic. If she had stopped to think what she was doing, she would have lost it.

'Okay,' she said. 'Let's boogie.'

She pressed the b.u.t.ton marked ENGAGE PROBE. Lights flashed on the body of the machine, and the woman's face creased into a slight frown.

The screen sprang to life with a fuzzy, distorted picture of the table and an empty chair. The mindprobe was on the table: Forrester was standing by the chair. From one side, Cwej's hand could just be seen holding the vacuum-sealed bag with the spike inside.

'That's the most recent occurrence,' Forrester said. 'Let's go back one.'36.

Her fingers danced again across the controls. The screen washed with static, then cleared to show a picture of the area where they had found the body. The body itself was off to one side, out of sight. The woman had been looking at the ground, down the smooth, metallic length of the bot as it restrained her.

The spike was held loosely in her hand.

'Let's skip back ten minutes,' Forrester said, holding down a b.u.t.ton. The picture jumped, and settled down to the same state.

'And again.'

The same.

'And again.'

Different. The hand holding the knife was slashing down again and again at a sluglike offworlder with a moist, grey body. Its thin, flexible limbs were raised to protect its face. A thin blue fluid was spurting from gashes in its limbs, its face, its body. The knife suddenly changed direction, coming in from the side and catching the victim unprepared. The blade cut right through its eyestalks. Blue fluid fountained down its body. Its tentacular fingers flailed briefly, uselessly, and it sank slowly to the ground.

'G.o.ddess!' Cwej exclaimed. 'That's gross.'

'That's life,' Forrester said. 'It's all recorded here. Soon as we feed the info into centcomp, this lady'll be for the chop.'

'What do you reckon she'll get?'

Forrester reached out towards the mindprobe. 'Murder? Mandatory brainwipe and indenture to a corporation for ten years.'

'Yeah, but look at her,' he protested. 'She's juiced up on something. Got to be: just look at her eyes.'

Her finger rested on the DISENGAGE PROBE b.u.t.ton.

'No excuse. Didn't they teach you anything in the Academy?' She looked at the underdweller's blank eyes. 'Strange, there's a lot of them around like this at the moment.'

'Like the Adjudicator Secular was saying?'

'Yeah. Been involved with quite a few myself. Ordinary people suddenly turning violent and killing friends, family, even total strangers. They all have that look. Like they just switched off. Sign of the times, I think.'

She pressed the b.u.t.ton.

The suspect suddenly jerked in her seat as if she was having a fit. One flailing padded arm caught Cwej across the cheek and sent him sprawling.

Forrester dived across the table, trying to tear the contact from the suspect's forehead, but the woman had toppled backwards in her chair, still thrashing her arms and legs. Cwej pulled himself up by the table leg. He and Forrester reached the suspect's side at the same time. Forrester went to pull the contact 37off, but her hand hesitated before it touched the wire. The suspect's eyes bulged slightly, then half closed. She sighed: a long final exhalation.

And died.

's.h.i.t,' Cwej breathed. 'That never happened in the lectures.'38.

Chapter 3.

'I'm Evan Claple and this is The Empire Today The Empire Today , on the spot, on and , on the spot, on and off the Earth. Today's headlines: drama during the invest.i.ture of a off the Earth. Today's headlines: drama during the invest.i.ture of a new baron at the Imperial Court orbiting Saturn as a courtier starts new baron at the Imperial Court orbiting Saturn as a courtier starts firing a plasma rifle towards the throne. Imperial Landsknechte firing a plasma rifle towards the throne. Imperial Landsknechte killed the courtier within moments, but have themselves since been killed the courtier within moments, but have themselves since been executed for their lapse on the direct orders of the Empress The question remains: how did the rifle get into the throne room? And today's executed for their lapse on the direct orders of the Empress The question remains: how did the rifle get into the throne room? And today's weather . . . ' weather . . . '

The end of the rope-ladder swept across the roof, blown by the wind.

Powerless Friendless gazed up at its length to the point where it vanished into the clouds. It was a long climb, especially for a gastropod, but he'd done it every day for five years. The ladder connected the wasteland where the old Sc.u.mble ship had crashed a waterlogged marsh now with the base of the INITEC building. It was one of the many ways that the underdwellers used to gain access to the riches of the promised land.

Powerless Friendless's acquaintances he didn't have friends because Hith didn't like company covered a range of professions. Some were thieves, some were beggars and some even had real jobs to which they commuted every day. There was always a call for cheap labour, even in a robot-rich economy. The standing joke in the undertown was that even bots had more rights than the underdwellers.

Powerless Friendless's position was somewhere between beggar and worker.

He busked in a plaza just outside the entrance to the offworld zoo. Always the same place. Force of habit. People still paid to hear live music.

Quickly Powerless Friendless swarmed up the rope, using the muscles in his basal foot and the adhesive properties of the mucus secreted by his skin to pull himself up. He tried not to look down at the receding marsh and the wreckage of the Sc.u.mble ship, but he couldn't help being aware of the irregular buildings and ca.n.a.ls of the Undertown appearing in wider and wider circles as he climbed. Tendrils of mist encircled his body. The weight of the hag'jat hag'jat and rucksack slung across his back pulled him down, but he struggled on. His pseudo-limbs were tiring, his lymph pump was beating fast, but he kept on going. The wind tugged at his fedora, but he kinked his eyestalks to hold it more firmly on. and rucksack slung across his back pulled him down, but he struggled on. His pseudo-limbs were tiring, his lymph pump was beating fast, but he kept on going. The wind tugged at his fedora, but he kinked his eyestalks to hold it more firmly on.39.

His mind began to wander. With a sudden shock, he found himself thinking about Waiting For Justice's bloodied body. He tried to pull his thoughts away, but the vision of his agonized face, not seen, but imagined, hung in front of Powerless Friendless as he climbed. Death was nothing new in the Undertown, but Powerless Friendless hated it when someone he knew was killed. It reminded him of No. Don't think about that. Anything but that.

He looked around in an effort to distract himself, and became aware that he had climbed up into the clouds without realizing. The rope ladder was suspended in nothingness. How long had he been going? Minutes? Hours? Days, perhaps? Above him, the curved undersides of the null-grav field generators appeared through the mist. Not far to go now. He counted off the rungs, one by one, as he laboured upwards and the hexagonal base of the tower came into view.

With a deep sigh, he heaved himself onto the ledge that ran around the bottom of the INITEC building and lay there, panting. He could feel his lymph pump thumping against his gut and, a fraction of a second later, the thud of his pulse in his eyestalks. He was getting too old for this game. He'd once been a lot fitter than he was now. Hadn't he?

Gradually his pulse returned to normal. He climbed to his foot, his muscles protesting, and slid around the ledge, looking for an open ventilation hatch.