his sister's headless body. They then pull the deranged golem, Mr. Crane, out of storage and escape from Cheyne III on a smuggling ship piloted by Jarvellis. Although Pelter intends to press on to Samarkand, he first makes port at Huma to pick up the necessary weaponry. They find many of the inhabitants on Huma wearing a new type of aug created by a company known as DragonCorp, and Pelter and his crew are all outfitted with them, except for Stanton. While the new aug feeds Pelter additional information about Cormac, he finds it battling with his old one. The Pelter gang is soon acquired and tracked by a group of ECS agents; Pelter and his crew take out the agents one-by-one, including their golem Twenty agent — who is no match for the golem Twenty-five Mr. Crane. Communicating directly with Dragon through his new aug, Pelter is told that he will find Cormac on Viridian. Back on Viridian, Cormac makes his way to the Magadar forest, the last known coordinates of Maker, taking a small group of planetary regulars with him. Pelter and his crew glide down to Viridian in a chameleonware dropship, evading the notice of the Viridian AI. Pelter determines Cormac's location by bribing some members of the planetary army. A protracted battle then takes place in the forest; Cormac's crew kills Pelter's crew, the golems Cento and Aiden take out Mr. Crane, and Cormac drills a hole through Pelter's head with his thin-gun. Able to focus on Maker, he detonates a CTD, forcing Maker back toward the Viridian Runcible. Cormac passes through first, deliberately damaging the Samarkand Runcible buffers with a proton weapon, and after flying out of range observes the obliteration of the Samarkand Runcible as the Maker presumably passes through. There is no explanation as to the Maker, its origins or motivations. There is no explanation as to why the Maker followed Cormac and crew through the Runcible or why Cormac damaged the new runcible on Samarkand. Not finished, Cormac takes a dracoman to the Hubris, seals him in an isolation chamber, and leaves orbit. Infuriated, Dragon follows, attacks the ship, and pulls the chamber out. After putting distance between the Hubris and Dragon, Cormac presses a button, igniting the CTD stored in the chamber, taking out Dragon. Maker then comes through the Runcible for real, and congratulates Cormac on finding the true saboteur