***

Capetown Station

Graves was tired.

The biopsy had come back. The outlook was bleak. "Inoperable."

So much energy devoted to killing machines and medical science was still almost infantile.

The pills made him tired and forgetful. There was so much work to do. So much talking. So much thinking. He hid it well.

In the dark, alone at night, he wondered why he had devoted his life to the work. It had cost him his family, his health, his friends, his career. All the honours he had were worthless. Often in despair he wondered if the work would fail, and humanity everywhere would be erased completely.

Would any of his efforts matter? What was the point?

He watched a yellow star's irridescent light through the rings of Ferosa.

He thought of the waves on the shore on Baden-Baden, and the jungles of Gaia.
He thought of the slave-pits of Malta.
He thought of Wes Cutter and his farm on Houston.
He thought of Silas Stix murdering prisoners with his bare hands.
He thought of Harvey Blackwater fading into involuntary and premature drug-induced dementia on Cambridge.

He thought maybe he needed a vacation.

Memories I

The Destruction of the LNS Revere

This I will never forget

Within three minutes from the time that she was struck all that remained of the cruiser was bits of burning wreckage.

It is difficult to describe my sensations during the minute or so following the explosions. I was spun round with great rapidity and swirled about in an alarming manner.

I closed tightly both eyes.

My mind was functioning normally. I can recollect that I had quite decided that I was going to die. And though I cannot justly claim to being more courageous than anyone else, it is curious that having made up my mind that my life would shortly be over, I was not the least bit afraid.

I can give no reason. I was young, sixteen at that time, having declared a false age on enlistment, and naturally I had no overwhelming desire to provide provender for the great void.

That fact, however, was of no importance, as the vaccum stretched around.

Glancing at my HUD of my spacesuit, the alert was flashing. My oxygen was low. Large numbers of dead floated close by me.

The burning wreck was a red glow that filled my view. I watched the harriers as they shot the few pods that had escaped.

I could hear nothing. I remember I felt cold.

Memories II

Assault on Hill 378



A letter I never posted

Memories III

The Battle Of Red Moon Pass



from my diary

"November 16th

The fighting in the Karxgh Mountains, thanks to the difficulties of the ground and the severity of the season, demanded the greatest effort and suffering of which our Army was ever capable.

Those who have not taken part in it can have no idea of what a human being is capable. The resources of vital energy accumulated in our organism are simply prodigious."

Memories IV

Special Operation AXH782 - Slaver fortress on Formosa III



How I Got This Scar

At first the ground was broken and afforded cover for our short sharp dashes. We then came to a rock wall at the foot of the plateau with a gap about four yards wide.

A dozen younger recruits made for the gap, unheeding the advice of the older men to stay in cover. Soon that gap was a heap of dead and dying. There was a mass-driver trained on it.

We reached the plateua's south face, where we were met with a hail of sniper fire. An officer rallied us and gave the order to ready for close-quarter assault. Upwards we went, but not a sign of the enemy. They had hidden themselves.

Officers being wiped out and not knowing where the enemy really were, our attack fizzled out. A staff officer shouted something unintelligible, which someone said was the order to retire.

The survivors walked slowly back, puzzled and baffled. They had attained nothing, and had not even seen the fortress. We lost half the battalion in that wild attack.

Tired and worn out, we waited in the heat. The air-con on my helmet was broken. I could barely breathe.

Something seemed to sting my leg. I found a shrapnel fragment had ploughed a shallow groove down the fleshy part of my thigh. My leg began to pain me, so I hobbled along to a medical station.

A long queue of wounded men were waiting to be dressed, whilst a crowd of thirst-maddened unwounded were crowding round a supply transport. Despairing of medical aid, I begged a field dressing and dressed my wound. Poorly.

* * *

* * *

The Professor was finishing his report on Graves' surgery.



"Ze procedure went fine. But ze new organzs vere in danger of beink rejected. For a few zecondz, it looked like he might ztay kaput."

The assembled Guildmasters exchanged looks of what could easily be interpreted as disappointment.

"Our specialists quickly ztabilized him but he vas pretty zhaken up ven zey told him about ze nature of zer procedure."

An image flashed onto the screen behind him.



"Az you can see, ze Nomad cells are radickally different from ze human vuns. But it is remarkable vot vun can do vith der right tools, ja? His recovery has been remarkable. It is of course possible zat zere may der side-effects, but you can't make der strudle vithout peeling der few apples as mein mother used to say, ja?"

He laughed, embarrassingly loud and a litle too manically.

"Now of course, der cells require der energy source for der regneratiove prozezzez to work properly, so ve haf made ein little pace-maker of sortz for Herr Graves."

The image changed.



"It must be monitored at all times."

De Virgo spoke first.

"And where is he now?"