What do you see, Eddie? Molly said softly.

I see scorch marks on the walls from energy blasts, I said steadily. And a hell of a lot of bullet holes. A lot of fighting went on here, before they blew the place up and set fire to it. I wonder how much blood there is under all this mess. From all those who fell here I don t see any armoured bodies or enemy dead. Did they take them all with them when they left? I can see the enemy taking their own fallen, so as not to leave any clues as to their identity. But why take the Drood dead? I ve seen only one golden body so far. The place should be littered with them. And why was the armour melted like that? As though it had been hit by a nuclear blast?

Molly didn t say anything. She knew I wasn t talking to her.

I turned and went quickly back the way we d come, hurrying back to the front doorway and the armoured body lying there. I crouched down beside it, studying the gleaming golden surface thoughtfully. It was covered with great spiderwebs of cracks, as though from a series of unimaginable impacts. The golden metal had become scored and distorted in places, touched by some incredible heat. The arms were fused to the torso, the legs fused together. And yet the armour, as a whole, was still intact. They hadn t broken through to reach the man inside. I tapped the blank featureless mask with a single knuckle, and the sound was soft, flat, dead.

Can you override the torc? said Molly. Make the armour withdraw so we can see who this was?

No, I said. Only the wearer has control over his torc. Basic security measure, in case of capture.

Is there any chance he might be alive in there? Trapped, unconscious, maybe? The armour s damaged but it s still in one piece. It might have protected the wearer, preserved him.