of the crewmembers, has been infected with the Melding Plague and needs immediate surgical assistance. As he walks through the ship, he notices he is being followed by a spectral, ghostlike figure, which disappears as he turns on the lights. Despite this, he goes ahead and carries out the operation, only to have the mysterious figure reappear before him. As he removes the last implant from Janos's visual cortex, he is accidentally informed by Katia that he is the one being operated on. The "ghost" was an error caused by the plague also affecting the ship's computer, killing Katia as she informs him of this. He is permanently blinded by the surgery and is unable to recreate the simulation, killing the low-quality copy he does create. The ship, which was carrying refugees from Yellowstone to Earth, cannot slow down in time and instead has to move to Sky's Edge. "Grafenwalder's Bestiary" This story is set on Chasm City, sometime after the Melding Plague. In this story we also get to meet Dr. Trintignant, one of the main characters of the Novella Diamond Dogs. Grafenwalder is a collector of specimens of alien animals and freak human creations, having them on display in his bestiary. He is especially searching for a Denizen, one of the bio-engineered creatures from the Demarchist society on ancient Europa. Some Ultras arrange for him to get a hamadryad, a very rare animal native to the planet Sky's Edge. When they reveal another collector, Ursula Goodglass, has also got one, he bribes them to kill hers. Later, when Goodglass is showing it off, he reveals that it is in fact dead. Although he is temporarily ahead in the constant competition between animal collectors with his living hamadryad, Goodglass catches up by unveiling the living nervous system of Dr Trintignant. She offers him the choice of killing him or letting him continue to suffer. He chooses the latter. Grafenwalder plans revenge, but is unsure what to do. An Ultra called Rifugio arrives and promises to bring him a Denizen. He provides samples of its DNA, which appear to match Grafenwalder's templates for Denizen DNA. The purchase takes place, but Grafenwalder is unable to detect any sign of intelligence in the Denizen. It is exceptionally strong, but cannot talk and cannot communicate. When Grafenwalder presents it with buttons, it only presses the one that produces food. To make matters worse,