The Line of Polity Read Online Free PDF Page A

subjects, not of the work itself. The Polity does not prevent research into anything so long as it doesn't impinge upon another individual's rights."
    Skellor gestured to a nearby bench, upon which rested a completely sealed chainglass cylinder supported in a ceramal framework that seemed excessive for the task. Inside the cylinder lay a scattering of pinkish coralline objects.
    "Perhaps you should ask your superiors about research into items such as those," Skellor said, "should you survive."
    As Skellor turned away, something slammed into Cormac's back and bore him to the floor. Cormac shifted as he went down and fired three shots from under his armpit into the assailant behind him. The only response was a grating hiss — then he was hurtling through the air to crash down onto the equipment lying on one of the benches. The creature from the surgical table. After rolling from the bench, Cormac put three shots into the sharp double keel of its chest. The creature opened its three-cornered mouth and hissed again, as something pinkish welled up to fill the holes the shots had made — and it just kept advancing. This time Cormac shot it in the head, putting out some of those pinhead eyes, which paused it for all of a second or two before it caught hold of the bench, and hurled it to one side. Just then, there came a low sucking boom, and a wind suddenly dragged across the laboratory, towing pieces of cellophane and paper. Dome breach — a large one this time. Cormac leapt over the next bench, turned and concentrated his fire on one of the creature's leg joints. Four shots should have blown away enough of its knees to sever its lower leg, yet the limb clung on as rapidly expanding strands of the pinkish substance filled the gaping wounds.
    "Right, point taken," muttered Cormac, slapping the recall on his shuriken holster. Shuriken arrived as Cormac was backed up against the wall of the dome, emptying the last of his thin-gun's charge. It took the creature's head off on the first pass, hesitated when it just remained standing, then — with two hatcheting thumps — cut its torso in half at chest level, then curved back through to take away its legs.
    As Shuriken hovered and bobbed, whirring with irritation above the dismembered body, Cormac advanced for a closer look. There was no blood, just pink strands creeping across the floor between body parts, before freezing and fading to a bone white. He prodded at one of these strands with the toe of his boot, and it curled up briefly before shattering into glassy fragments.
    "Gant, where are you?"
    "Heading your way," came the immediate reply. "The shuttle's down and the unit's clearing up the stragglers."
    "There's two inside the dome here. I had Shuriken guarding them, but then I ran into a little trouble."
    "Gotcha."
    Cormac hit recall again, and held up his arm. Shuriken returned reluctantly to its holster, retracting its chainglass blades at the last moment before snicking itself away. Cormac stepped over his recently demised enemy and trotted over to where he had last seen Skellor. Beyond the surgical robot there was a hole in the wall of the dome, out of which gyred all the loose rubbish sucked from the laboratory. Cormac stepped through it and saw the shuttle — a U-shaped lander twenty metres long — resting at the edge of the encampment to the side where the autolaser tower had stood. A pulse-gun was firing intermittently from one of the shuttle's turrets, bringing down calloraptors that were coming in to see what all the excitement was about. Cormac walked on until the frame in his intensifier closed to a line, and then he peered at the ground. Lying in the dust was the small black button of a memplant — Skellor's implant, the one from which issued the tracer signal. Cormac could only suppose it had been removed some time earlier, and only now — because Skellor had realized what danger it represented — had it been discarded. He picked the object up, then surveyed