Free Gridlinked by Neal Asher Page A

hesi-tandy.
    Pelter said nothing for a long moment as he stared at what remained of his sister. When he looked up, his expression was puzzled and vulnerable. 'I asked you where her head is,' he said.
    'How me fucking hell are we supposed to know?' Geneve snapped. 'It could be at the bottom of the ocean, in another otter. Whoever killed her could have taken it as a trophy!'
    Pelter's hand snapped out and Geneve screamed. Her boning knife spun through the air and she staggered back with both hands to a face now pouring blood. She slipped on intestines and fell. Pelter turned on Veltz.
    'Where's her head?' he shouted. He had a short, wide blade in his right hand. Yellowish fluid was seeping out round his optic link. Veltz moved back, though careful where he stepped, his boning knife held ready at his side.
    'You didn't have to do mat. Why'd you do that?' he said, ashamed of the whine that was coming into his voice.
    'Her head!' Pelter yelled, and he waved his right arm almost in dismissal. Veltz buckled. It felt like he had been punched in the stomach. Pelter's knife was imbedded up to its hilt in his guts. His legs went weak and he went down on his knees.
    'You took her fucking head!' Pelter raged at the sky. When he looked down again his expression had regained its avidity. Veltz tried to stand, but couldn't. He watched Pelter kicking at the spread offal, then striding over to pick up Geneve's boning knife. That Veltz knew what to expect was no comfort. The next high tide would take away what Pelter left there.
    As he carried the body of his sister to the Meercat Pelter looked up again. 'You're dead. You're a walking dead man.'
    His expression was flat and blank, and now the fluid ran clear from where his left eyelid was sealed to metal. Perhaps the fluid was tears.
    The Cereb runcible installation had, over a period of sixty years, turned into a small city. Originally there had been only the runcible itself, sitting inside a fifty-metre sphere of mirrored metal, which in turn was clamped between the curved grey monoliths of the runcible buffers and sealed under an airtight dome a quarter of a kilometre across. These constructions remained unchanged at the heart of the city. The city itself had grown up to cater for the huge transient populations of travellers. As a consequence of this, it mainly consisted of hotels, hypermarts and leisure facilities. There was little in the way of residential building. All of these buildings had at first been linked together with tunnels; now the areas between them were roofed over. The main building material used for this roofing was chain-glass, so to any visitor it appeared they had walked into a giant conservatory.
    Cormac stepped through the shimmer-shield airlock into a reception area hundreds of metres wide and floored with the cut stone of the moon. Walled off in the centre of this area were small groves of palm trees and other more exotic tropical plants. All around were shops, restaurants and more dubious leisure facilities. Some of the buildings were only a couple of storeys high. Those any higher than four storeys penetrated the diamond-patterned roof through which the Cheyne III sun glared down.
    'You will of course need to register your testimony,' said Blegg, as they set out across the stone floor.
    Cormac observed the slightly amused expression on Blegg's face. He considered commenting on the obvious implication, rejected it for a moment, then decided, What the hell?
    'Would this be because there's a chance I might not be coming back?' he asked.
    'That is a possibility, though I was thinking it would be an idea for the local police to deal with the cell here before it goes to ground.'
    'Very neat,' said Cormac. 'Best I pay a visit to the local constabulary.' He altered his course across the stone floor to a gap between buildings, and to a moving walkway beyond, but Blegg clamped a hand on his shoulder to stop him. Cormac turned and looked at him. Blegg seemed to have changed.