Chasing the Dragon by Justina Robson

furious. She took one last look at the
bleak little bolthole and then launched herself out of the door into the
fresh morning air.
    A hundred metres out she turned back, equipped a shell into her
right arm launcher, and watched the little missile streak a trail of
smoker's breath to the dim circle of the door before it exploded in
white-hot fire and chunks of rock. A plume of filthy smoke rolled up
and the black-stained stone went crashing down in white foam into the
high tide.
    Lila turned and made for Malachi's signal. She felt colder and emptier than she had ever been.

    The cause for concern became obvious before she even arrived. Malachi
was with some other agents on the beaches a few miles up the coast,
where the city gave way to empty land owned by the wealthiest individuals. Here lush forests covered the rolling hills and dips and islets,
giving way occasionally to designed glades or constructed grottoes,
waterfalls and other features that looked so natural but were anything
but. Even the beaches had been groomed, the sand whiter and finer, the
rock pools more interesting, the docks perfect, their chromed mooring
posts gleaming in the weak sunlight.
    The tide was just starting to go out. At a point midway along this
Gold Coast by the high-water mark the dark, whalelike body of a ship had been beached. The shape was unmistakable; it was a galleon with
three masts and a narrow, square tucked stern in which leaded
coloured glass still glowed. The masts were ruins, however, barely
stumps, and as she flew closer Lila identified the twenty-two rotted
and rusted guns at her portholes. She was waterlogged, as if she'd
crawled up from the bottom of the ocean, and on her sides her paintwork was worn away almost to nothing, although on the stern Lila
could just make out the picture of a blue ground and a golden deer.

    She landed twenty metres from the fluttering cordon ribbonshardly needed since the beach was private property-and walked
towards the cluster of agents standing on the hull's leeward side. The
sea was soft and quiet, the light brilliant on the waves, so much so that
it was difficult to make out the faint light the ship itself emitted. This
was noticeable to human eyes in dark shadow, as a faint gleaming on
the edges of things.
    Lila gave the whole object a wide berth and joined Malachi at the
edge of the group. Among them the stocky figure of Bentley stood
impassively, her face turned towards the sea.
    They knew, Lila thought to herself. Of course the machines all
knew everything that happened to their number. For a split second she
almost found herself moving forward to speak but then glanced at
Malachi and saw his amber eyes were frowning.
    "There's another one, several more ... farther down." He gestured
at the coastline.
    Lila watched with him as one of the human agents went forwards
under orders and poked the vessel with a stick. They all heard the tap.
    "Pretty damn solid for a ghost," she said.
    "You know what it is?" Malachi asked.
    "The Golden Hind," Lila replied. "But it's a wreck. Why?"
    Malachi folded his arms. He was wearing a camel coat that was too
heavy for the day but he still looked cold. "Don't know."
    The stick-poker came back looking grey and tense. "Feels funny,"

    he said, putting the rest of the team between him and the ship. Lila
looked back at the house this plot belonged to. It was snugged in
halfway up a steep hill, about a hundred metres from the water,
standing on long poles though it looked like most of it was cut into
the hill. Expansive, expensive, she thought, and caught the flash of
sunlight off a pair of high-power binoculars looking back at her.
    A man Lila didn't know came up to them and asked Malachi to
take a better look. "We need your kind of vision here," he said, nodded
to Lila as if she were just another colleague, and then looked back at
Malachi, his expression taut with discomfort.
    "Come with me," Mal said, so fast Lila almost