M01 1 <#FLOB:M01\>Hooves clattered, muffled on the driveway.

M01 2 Men on horses loomed through the now-driving snow, huddled in M01 3 cloaks and hats; the sharp lines of musket barrels jutting up from M01 4 their silhouettes.

M01 5 The White Crow narrowed her eyes. Grey bulks emerged against M01 6 the pale clouds. A horse and rider; another; two more. One. Two. M01 7 And three more horses, each with two riders tandem on the back.

M01 8 "Yeah." Cynicism in her tone, that Hazelrigg clearly M01 9 heard, and a prepared knowledge. "So where's the rest of M01 10 them ..."

M01 11 She brushed her wrist across her eyes, clearing wet flakes. M01 12 Automatically, despite the absence of belt and blade, she tucked M01 13 her sword-hand up into the opposite armpit, flexing fingers for M01 14 warmth and readiness.

M01 15 "Madam!"

M01 16 The leading rider attempted to rein in a big dapple mare. The M01 17 beast dropped her head between her shoulders as soon as the grip on M01 18 the rein slackened.

M01 19 Horse-breath huffed, clouding the raw air. The White Crow M01 20 stepped forward and touched a hand to the horse's M01 21 foam-rimmed nostrils.

M01 22 "Are you their captain? You're killing this M01 23 animal!"

M01 24 A boot passed within inches of her face as the man swung down M01 25 from the horse. Snow chalked his felt coat and tricorne hat.

M01 26 "Madam, I apologize. We gambled with the weather and M01 27 lost. The beasts suffer as we do."

M01 28 He took off his hat. Oddly brilliant eyes gazed down from a M01 29 lined face. Snow settled into the glossy brown curls of his M01 30 full-bottomed periwig. A man perhaps forty: riding some M01 31 eighteen stone, and well over six feet tall.

M01 32 "I have the honour to command this free company of M01 33 gentlemen-mercenaries." Hat in one hand, the mare's reins M01 34 in the other, he contrived to sweep a passable low bow.

M01 35 Her gaze went over his bent back. The other riders sat slumped M01 36 in the driving cold particles of ice. One gelding whickered.

M01 37 "Are you the lady of the house, madam?"

M01 38 Under the coat, faded lace showed at his throat. A scabbarded M01 39 sword clinked. Snow crusted on scuffed boots. His strong, M01 40 large-featured face contrasted sharply with the curled wig M01 41 and lace.

M01 42 The White Crow stood bareheaded, ignoring the snow soaking M01 43 through her hair and cold on her scalp. "I'll show you the M01 44 road to the next estate."

M01 45 "Madam, earlier this morning I had the honour to give M01 46 your residence - distantly visible as it was before this confounded M01 47 snow - as a rendezvous for the remainder of my company. They will M01 48 arrive here soon."

M01 49 "How many is the remainder?"

M01 50 The big man turned his head, calculating horses and riders M01 51 present. "Enough, madam."

M01 52 "We'll send them on after you."

M01 53 One deep-cuffed hand moved to rest on his hip. He squinted up M01 54 at the house eaves through the snow. "I'll wager not. You M01 55 can hardly muster more than ten men, I think; and not so many M01 56 experts with arms. Madam, it pains me to be impolite. I swear it M01 57 does. You have food and shelter, my company stand in need, and I M01 58 have business here."

M01 59 She met his brightly dangerous eyes, hearing equally compounded M01 60 bluster and humour.

M01 61 The White Crow lifted her head, looking round at the circle of M01 62 riders: hard and weary faces visible under the brims of plumed M01 63 hats. She shook the cloak back from her shoulder. Cold cut through M01 64 her body.

M01 65 "It isn't as if I haven't stood in your shoes, captain. M01 66 But no."

M01 67 Without shivering, without faltering, she raised her warmed M01 68 hand and sketched a complex sign on the air.

M01 69 A rose-and-gold luminescence tinged her fingers, brilliant M01 70 against the falling snow. Where her hand passed, air coalesced and M01 71 tingled: shone the colour of the absent sun. Ground thrummed M01 72 underfoot.

M01 73 Snow like a handful of thrown gravel stung her jaw. The M01 74 temperature plummetted. Air contracted: blasting icily across the M01 75 riders, ripping at hats and cloaks, numbing hands. A musket M01 76 clattered to the cobbles. Men swore.

M01 77 A watery light emanated from no clear point, unless it was the M01 78 hands of the White Crow. The little dappled shadows of the snow M01 79 flocked to her feet. Blue shadows on white snow.

M01 80 The whiteness rose and flowed about her ankles, warm as fur. M01 81 She cast the colour of bone and ivory, dipping her hands to skim M01 82 and touch the wind-devils of snowflakes. Wind-devils that whirled M01 83 out, hardened, began to become solid ...

M01 84 The shapes of great snow leopards prowled across the yard. Blue M01 85 patterns their pelts, shimmers over muscle and ligament, shadows M01 86 their great jaws, and sits in their eyes of flowers. The colour of M01 87 bone is cold in their mouths.

M01 88 One brown gelding screamed. Its head jerked up and pulled the M01 89 reins from a dismounted mercenary's hand, and its forefeet rose, M01 90 hung pawing; and the bugling scream ripped out as it backed, M01 91 jostled, and half-reared again. The other horses began to back and M01 92 fret.

M01 93 The White Crow paused with one hand halfway to her dagger. She M01 94 drew no confirming blood.

M01 95 "Madam!"

M01 96 Still holding the mercenary captain's gaze, his face blue-white M01 97 in the sudden freeze, she all but completed the air-drawn M01 98 hieroglyph, then dropped her hand to the dapple mare's neck.

M01 99 Potential predators faded into greyness. The exhausted horse M01 100 whickered and raised her head.

M01 101 Snow ran into water around the White Crow's boots. M01 102 Yard-cobbles gleamed. Sudden warmth breathed into their M01 103 faces.

M01 104 "Magia!" The captain swore.

M01 105 A horse clattered back. One sword among the group snicked back M01 106 into its scabbard. She heard startled whispers.

M01 107 "My name is White Crow. Master-Physician Valentine M01 108 White Crow, of the Invisible College. Now. If we don't have M01 109 muskets, I suspect you don't have magia. Probably we could M01 110 discuss this in a civilized manner."

M01 111 The man's gaze went past her. The White Crow took two steps M01 112 back before she glanced over her shoulder.

M01 113 "Excuse me." Three skidding steps took her M01 114 across the wet stone. She grabbed the Lord-Architect's fat arm as M01 115 he walked into the yard. "Casaubon! What in damnation do M01 116 you think you're - "

M01 117 "CALMADY!"

M01 118 The White Crow fingered her cold ear, a pained expression on M01 119 her face. "'Calmady'?"

M01 120 The Lord-Architect, beaming, lumbered between horses and riders M01 121 to enfold the mercenary captain in an ursine embrace. "Rot M01 122 it! Pollexfen Calmady!"

M01 123 Captain Pollexfen Calmady studied the hole in the heel of his M01 124 stocking. He eased down in the wing-armed kitchen chair, one boot M01 125 still on, sinking his chin into the yards of lace swathing his M01 126 throat. "That's luck. Death and damnation, but it M01 127 is!"

M01 128 The heat to the oven fireplace beat against him.

M01 129 "Post sentries, Captain?"

M01 130 "Post lookouts for Bevil, death take him." M01 131 Calmady shut his eyes. The gentlemen-mercenary's footsteps M01 132 departed.

M01 133 "Messire Captain."

M01 134 Without moving anything else, he opened his eyes. Half a dozen M01 135 mercenaries, in various stated of disarray, lounged in the great M01 136 fireplace. A pale snowlight shone on the kitchen's whitewashed M01 137 vaults. He smelled salt bacon, herbs, and sawdust.

M01 138 A red-headed woman of perhaps thirty sat with one hip up on the M01 139 scrubbed table. She watched him with tawny-red eyes.

M01 140 "Messire Captain, I want some answers."

M01 141 "Apply to your husband for them, madam. I confess M01 142 myself so exhausted, I couldn't plead my case, were I before the M01 143 Lord Chief Justice herself."

M01 144 "Try."

M01 145 Slowly, he finished unbuttoning his frieze coat, letting it M01 146 fall open. Melting snow crusted his scarlet silk breeches and the M01 147 embroidered hem of his scarlet waistcoat. He sighed.

M01 148 "Calmady of Calmady," he rumbled. "That M01 149 is my lord Gadsbury; that is Lord Rule; over there you'll find M01 150 Lady Arbella Lacey, Sir John Hay, Margrave Linebaugh, the Countess M01 151 of ... but they have manners enough to introduce M01 152 themselves."

M01 153 He saw the woman's mouth tighten.

M01 154 Lord Rule, black periwig somewhat wetly draggled, swept the M01 155 plumed hat from his head and made an exquisite bow. M01 156 "Servant, ma'am."

M01 157 "Likewise, madam, likewise." Bess, Lady M01 158 Winslow, flashed paste rings, whirling a lace kerchief in a M01 159 flourish. She stretched one silk-breeched leg to the fire, hand M01 160 casually resting over the larger of its patches.

M01 161 "I don't like gentlemen-mercenaries." The M01 162 woman's mouth remained tight. "I don't like your particular M01 163 brand of noble brutality."

M01 164 "As Physician-magus, madam, you're at liberty to M01 165 dislike what you please." Pollexfen Calmady watched snow M01 166 light glint off the last remaining gold rings on his large fingers. M01 167 "Were you both scholar and soldier, as some of your College M01 168 are, we should find a less cold welcome."

M01 169 "I am - I have been a Scholar-Soldier. As for the M01 170 present, your welcome depends solely on your conduct in my M01 171 house."

M01 172 She slipped from the table to stand on the stone flags, hands M01 173 cupping elbows, looking at him with her head cocked to one side. He M01 174 let her hostility slide by him. He leaned forward, smothered in the M01 175 riding-coat, to pull off his other boot; failed, and snapped M01 176 fingers for Gadsbury. The stocky man knelt and dug his fingers into M01 177 leather, mud, and slush.

M01 178 "Any sign of him, Gadsbury?"

M01 179 "Not yet, Captain." The boot jerked free.

M01 180 "Boy's a damn fool."

M01 181 Gadsbury grunted agreement, rising. "Anyone who doesn't M01 182 make it through this soon, isn't going to make it at M01 183 all."

M01 184 Cold blasted through the cracks of the kitchen door. A few M01 185 particles of snow dusted the floor. Calmady rested his foot down, M01 186 wincing as the stocking-hole let bare skin touch the flagstones. M01 187 Beyond the snow-pasted glass, a blizzard whirled. The wind's M01 188 buffets echoed through the kitchens.

M01 189 "Light the lanterns." The red-haired woman M01 190 signalled to a clutch of country-dressed men and women whom Calmady M01 191 assumed to be the servants, and turned back to him. M01 192 "Messire Captain, you - "

M01 193 Thunderous bangs rattled the kitchen door.

M01 194 Lord Rule, having applied his eye to the crack, wiped sleet M01 195 from his face and wig and unbarred the door. It clanged open. A M01 196 cluster of figures stumbled in, shedding cloaks, shouting. Calmady M01 197 sat straighter in the chair. As they saw him, they quietened.

M01 198 "Captain -"

M01 199 "Report first -"

M01 200 "- Captain!"

M01 201 A familiar gangling figure pushed his way forward to the M01 202 fireplace, swept off his triple-plumed hat and bowed to Calmady, M01 203 scattering snow over flagstones and Bess, Lady Winslow, M01 204 impartially. The woman-mercenary swore. The boy pushed his long, M01 205 yellow curls out of his face.

M01 206 "Father - Captain, I mean - we did it!"

M01 207 Lieutenant Bevil beamed with a sixteen-year-old's enthusiasm. M01 208 The tip of his sharp nose shone red in his cold-mottled face, and a M01 209 drop of moisture hung from it. He fumbled, stripping off lacework M01 210 gloves from practically unprotected hands. "No trouble! My M01 211 lord Thompson, be so kind as to show the captain."

M01 212 Calmady turned his head. The Physician-magus, caught in M01 213 mid-speech, shut her mouth and leaned up against the inglenook wall M01 214 in silence. Their cloaks shed, in blue and scarlet and orange silks M01 215 and brocades the gentlemen-mercenaries crowded close. The boy M01 216 pulled his torn lace cuffs into more splendid falls. The high folds M01 217 of his cravat, soaked, subsided onto his azure-silk shoulders.

M01 218 "Here!" he proclaimed.

M01 219 Enthusiastically, Thompson and Arbella Lacey spilled the M01 220 contents of four hessian sacks onto the kitchen floor. A dozen M01 221 shirts, two patched doublets, odd pairs of hose, and innumerable M01 222 sheets piled up. Calmady met the boy's pale blue eyes.

M01 223 "Bevil ..."

M01 224 "You said we needed material to patch our uniforms M01 225 with. We ambushed Captain Sforza's troop. We stole their laundry! M01 226 It's perfect." Doubt crossed his raw features. M01 227 "Someone's going to have to wash it first ..."

M01 228 Very still, Calmady looked down at the heap of dirty M01 229 clothes.

M01 230 "I have a message." Bevil frowned with effort. M01 231 "From Captain Huizinga. He's holed up on the other side of M01 232 the moor. He says, would we mind returning the cow we stole from M01 233 them. Their troop doesn't have any milk. He says he'll exchange her M01 234 for two hens - but one of them isn't a good layer."

M01 235 Loud argument broke out: Gadsbury staggering to his feet to M01 236 proclaim the value of the bargain, Hay contradicting; others on M01 237 their knees, sorting through the clothes-pile. Pollexfen Calmady M01 238 sat motionless.

M01 239 "Captain."

M01 240 He turned his head and met the red-headed woman's gaze. M01 241 Prepared to challenge at the merest hint of a smile, and (for all M01 242 his exhaustion) to draw sword on a magus if this particular one M01 243 should chance to laugh.

M01 244 With equal parts gravity and courtesy, the woman said: M01 245 "I came down to bring you a message, messire Captain. M01 246 M01 247 M02 1 <#FLOB:M02\>I have a facility with metre, sir, which all envy - M02 2 peers and my betters, sir, as a matter of fact. And I also have a M02 3 certain gift for spontaneous versification, of sorts. In M02 4 Trollon, elegant and slow, dwelled Amarine Goodool, famed for his M02 5 costume and his wit. To friends so valuable was he, they even saved M02 6 his - "

M02 7 "And I am called the Rose and travel upon a quest for M02 8 vengeance. My journey has taken me through more than one M02 9 realm."

M02 10 "Aha!" said Amarine Goodool. "You have followed M02 11 the megaflow! You have broken down the walls between the realms! M02 12 You have crossed the invisible barriers of the multiverse! And you, M02 13 sir? You, my pale friend? What skills have you?"

M02 14 "At home, in my own quiet town, I had some reputation M02 15 as a conjurer and philosopher," said Elric meekly.

M02 16 "Well, well, sir, but you would not be with this M02 17 company if you had not something to offer. Your philosophy, M02 18 perhaps, is of an unusual sort?"

M02 19 "Fairly conventional, sir, I would say."

M02 20 "Nonetheless, sir. Nonetheless. You have a horse. M02 21 Please enter. And be welcome to Trollon. I think it very likely you M02 22 will find yourselves amongst fellow spirits here. We are all a M02 23 little odd in Trollon!" And he raised his head in a M02 24 friendly bray.

M02 25 Now he led them through the skirts of the village, into a musty M02 26 darkness lit by dim lamps so that first it was possible to perceive M02 27 only the vaguest of shapes. It was as if they had entered a vast M02 28 stable, with row upon row of stalls disappearing into the distance. M02 29 Elric smelled horses and human sweat and as they passed up a M02 30 central aisle he could look down the rows and see the glistening M02 31 backs of men, women and adolescents, leaning hard against poles M02 32 reaching to their chests and pushing the huge edifice forward, inch M02 33 by inch. Elsewhere horses were harnessed in ranks, also, trudging M02 34 on heavy hoofs as they hauled at the thick ropes attached to the M02 35 roof beams.

M02 36 "Leave your horses with the lad," said Amarine M02 37 Goodool, indicating a ragged youth who held out his hand for a M02 38 small coin and grinned with pleasure at the value of what he M02 39 received. "You'll be given receipts and so on. You'll be at M02 40 ease for at least a couple of seasons to be sure. Or, if you are M02 41 otherwise successful, forever. Like myself. Of course," he M02 42 lowered his tone as he swung up a wooden stairway, "there M02 43 are other responsibilities one must accept."

M02 44 The long staircase led them, spiral by spiral, to the surface M02 45 until they clambered out into a nondescript narrow sidestreet from M02 46 whose open windows people looked idly down without breaking their M02 47 conversation. It was a picture of such ordinariness that it M02 48 contrasted all the more with the scenes below.

M02 49 "Are those people down there slaves, sir?" M02 50 Wheldrake had to know.

M02 51 "Slaves! By no means! They are free gypsy souls, like M02 52 myself. Free to wander the great highway that spans the world, to M02 53 breathe the air of liberty. They merely take their turn at the M02 54 marching boards, as most of us must for some time in their lives. M02 55 They perform a civic duty, sir."

M02 56 "And should they not wish to perform such M02 57 duty?" asked Elric quietly.

M02 58 "Ah, well, sir, I can see that you are indeed a M02 59 philosopher. Such obstrusities are beyond me, I fear, sir. But M02 60 there are people in Trollon who would be only too pleased to debate M02 61 such abstractions." He patted Elric amiably upon the M02 62 shoulder. "Indeed, I can think of more than one friend of M02 63 mine who will gladly welcome you."

M02 64 "A prosperous place, this Trollon." The Rose M02 65 looked through the gaps in the buildings to where similar villages M02 66 moved at a similar pace.

M02 67 "Well, we like to preserve certain standards, madam. I M02 68 will arrange for your receipts."

M02 69 "I do not think we plan to trade our horses M02 70 here," said Elric. "We need to travel on as soon as M02 71 possible."

M02 72 "And travel you shall, sir. Travel, after all, is in M02 73 our blood. But we must put your horses to work. Or, sir," M02 74 he uttered a little snigger, "we shall not be travelling M02 75 far at all, eh?"

M02 76 Again a glance from the Rose stilled Elric's retort. But he was M02 77 growing increasingly impatient as he thought of his dead father and M02 78 the threat which hung over them both.

M02 79 "We are only too happy to accept your M02 80 hospitality," said the Rose diplomatically. "Are we M02 81 the only people to join Trollon in recent days?"

M02 82 "Did you have friends come ahead of you, M02 83 lady?"

M02 84 "Three sisters, perhaps?" suggested M02 85 Wheldrake.

M02 86 "Three sisters?" He shook his head. "I M02 87 should have known if I had seen them, sir. But I will send enquiry M02 88 of our neighbouring villages. Meanwhile, if you are hungry, I shall M02 89 be only too happy to loan you a few credits. We have some wonderful M02 90 restaurants in Trollon."

M02 91 It was clear that there was little poverty in Trollon. The M02 92 paint was fresh and the glass sparkling, while the streets were M02 93 neat and clean as anything Elric had ever seen.

M02 94 "It seems all the squalor and hardship is kept out of M02 95 sight below," whispered Wheldrake. "I shall be glad M02 96 to leave this place, Prince Elric."

M02 97 "We might find ourselves in difficulties when we decide M02 98 to end our stay." The Rose was careful not to be overheard. M02 99 "Do they plan to make slaves of us, like those poor M02 100 wretches down there?"

M02 101 "I would guess they have no immediate intention of M02 102 sending us to their marching boards," said Elric, M02 103 "but I have no doubt they want us for our muscles and our M02 104 horses as much as for our company. I do not intend to remain long M02 105 in this place if I cannot quickly discover some clue to what I M02 106 seek. I have little time." His old arrogance was returning. M02 107 His old impatience.

M02 108 He tried to quell them, as signs of the disease which had led M02 109 to his present dilemma. He hated his own blood, his sorcery, his M02 110 reliance upon his runesword, or other extraordinary means of M02 111 sustenance. And when Amarine Goodool brought them into the village M02 112 square (complete with shops and public buildings and houses of M02 113 evident age) to meet a committee of welcome, Elric was less than M02 114 warm, though he knew that lies, hypocrisy and deception were the M02 115 order of the moment. His attempt to smile did not bring any M02 116 answering gaiety.

M02 117 "Gweetings, gweetings," cried an apparition in M02 118 green, with a little pointed beard and a hat threatening to engulf M02 119 his entire head and half his body. "On behalf of the M02 120 Twollon weins-men and -morts, may we vawda yoah eeks with joy. Or, M02 121 in the common speech, you must considah us all, now your bwothahs M02 122 and sistahs. My name is Filigwip Nant and I wun the theatwicals M02 123 ..." Whereupon he proceeded to introduce a miscellaneous M02 124 group of people with odd-sounding names, peculiar accents and M02 125 unnatural complexions whose appearance seemed to fill Wheldrake M02 126 with horrified recognition. "It could be the Putney Fine M02 127 Arts Society," he murmured, "or worse, the Surbiton M02 128 Poetasters - I have been a reluctant guest of them both, and many M02 129 more. Ilkley, as I recall, was the worst ..." and he lapsed M02 130 into his own gloomy contemplations as, with a smile no more M02 131 convincing than the albino's, he suffered the roll-call of M02 132 parochial fame, until he opened his little beak to a sky still M02 133 filled with cloud and spray and began a kind of protective M02 134 declamation which had him surrounded at once by green, black and M02 135 purple velvet, by rustling brocade and romantic lace, by the scent M02 136 of a hundred garden flowers and herbs, by the gypsy literati. And M02 137 borne away.

M02 138 The Rose and Elric also had their share of temporary acolytes. M02 139 This was clearly a village of some wealth, which yearned for M02 140 novelty.

M02 141 "We're very cosmopolitan, you know, in Trollon. Like M02 142 most of the 'diddicoyim' (ha, ha) villages, we are now almost M02 143 wholly made up from outsiders. I, myself, am an outsider. From M02 144 another Realm, you know. From Heeshigrowinaaz, actually. Are you M02 145 familiar - ?" A middle-aged woman with an elaborate wit and M02 146 considerable paint linked her bangled arm in Elric's. "I'm M02 147 Parapha Foz. My husband's Barraban Foz, of course. Isn't it M02 148 boring?"

M02 149 "I have the feeling," said the Rose in an M02 150 undertone as she went by with her own burden of enthusiasts, M02 151 "that this is to be the greatest ordeal of them all M02 152 ..."

M02 153 But it seemed to Elric that she was also amused, especially by M02 154 his own expression.

M02 155 And he bowed, with graceful irony, to the inevitable.

M02 156 There followed a number of initiating rituals with which Elric M02 157 was unfamiliar, but which Wheldrake dreaded as being all too M02 158 familiar, and the Rose accepted, as if she, too, had once known M02 159 such experiences better.

M02 160 There were meals and speeches and performances, tours of the M02 161 oldest and quaintest parts of the village, small lectures on its M02 162 history and its architecture and how wonderfully it had been M02 163 restored until Elric, brooding always on his father's stolen soul, M02 164 wished that they would turn into something with which he could more M02 165 easily contend - like the hopping, slittering, drooling monsters of M02 166 Chaos or some unreasonable demi-god. He had rarely wished so M02 167 longingly to draw his sword and let it silence this melange of M02 168 prejudice, semi-ignorance, snobbery and received opinion, of loud, M02 169 superior voices so thoroughly reassured by all they met and read, M02 170 that they believed themselves confidently, unvulnerably, totally in M02 171 control of reality ...

M02 172 And all the while Elric thought of the poor souls below, M02 173 pressing their bodies against the marching boards and sending this M02 174 village, in concert with all the other free gypsy villages, in its M02 175 relentless progress, inch by inch, around the world.

M02 176 Unused to gaining the information he required by any means less M02 177 direct than torture, Elric left it to the Rose to glean whatever M02 178 she could and eventually, when they were alone together, Wheldrake M02 179 having been taken as a trophy to sport at some dinner, she relaxed M02 180 into a mood of satisfaction. They had been given adjoining rooms in M02 181 what they were assured was the best inn of its sort in any of the M02 182 second-rank villages. Tomorrow, they were told, they would be shown M02 183 what apartments were available to them.

M02 184 "We have survived this first day well, I M02 185 think," she said, sitting on a chest to remove her doeskin M02 186 boots. "We have proven interesting enough to them so that M02 187 we still have our lives, relative liberty and, more important now, M02 188 I think, our swords ..."

M02 189 "You mistrust them thoroughly, then?" The M02 190 albino looked curiously at the Rose as she shook out her pale M02 191 red-gold hair and peeled off her brown jerkin to reveal a blouse of M02 192 dark yellow. "I have never encountered such folk M02 193 before."

M02 194 "Save that they are drawn from every part of the M02 195 multiverse, they are very much of a type I left behind me long ago M02 196 and like poor Wheldrake hoped never to encounter again. The sisters M02 197 reached the Gypsy Nation less than a week before we did. The woman M02 198 who told me this had it from a woman she knows in the next village. M02 199 The sisters, however, were accepted by a village of the forward M02 200 rank."

M02 201 "And we can find them there?" Elric knew so M02 202 much relief he only then realized how desperate he had become.

M02 203 "Not so easily. We have no invitation to visit the M02 204 village. There are forms to be observed before we can receive such M02 205 an invitation. However, I also learned that Gaynor is here, though M02 206 he disappeared almost immediately and no one has any notion of his M02 207 whereabouts."

M02 208 "He has not left the Nation?"

M02 209 "I gather that is not easily done, even by the likes of M02 210 Gaynor." There was suddenly an extra bitterness to her M02 211 voice.

M02 212 "It is forbidden?"

M02 213 "Nothing," she echoed sardonically, "is M02 214 forbidden in the Gypsy Nation. Unless," she added, M02 215 "it is change of any kind!"

M02 216 "Then why was the boy killed?"

M02 217 "They tell me they know nothing about it. They told me M02 218 they thought I was probably mistaken. They said they felt it was M02 219 morbid to study the garbage heaps and think one saw things lurking M02 220 in them. M02 221 M02 222 M03 1 <#FLOB:M03\>"Her friends leave them there," Dorthy M03 2 said. "There must be a vein out to sea somewhere. Inshore, M03 3 it's all metamorphosite."

M03 4 "I was hoping to see the shadow dancers," Robot M03 5 said. "But the people at the station said they were further M03 6 west."

M03 7 "If you're fishing, you might see them."

M03 8 "To be honest, I joined the boat a day ago, and I fly M03 9 back the day after tomorrow. You heard about the M03 10 expedition?"

M03 11 "No, and I'm not going to look in your head to find out M03 12 what it is. Those days are more or less over, for me. My daughter M03 13 probably knows, though. She's something, Robot. A natural Talent, M03 14 the first. No training to bring it out, and no implant to regulate M03 15 it. She does that herself. I've turned down a double lifetime's M03 16 worth of credit from the Elysium Kamali-Silver Institute for M03 17 exclusive rights to her."

M03 18 Robot shifted his zithsa-hide boots - already cracked and M03 19 salt-stained - as the child surfaced right at the lip of M03 20 the slab and added another glittering pebble to her small cairn. M03 21 Hair was pasted in knives to her forehead. Then she dived again, M03 22 bare rump flashing as she effortlessly shimmied down through the M03 23 clear water.

M03 24 Robot said, "I didn't know what you were doing here. I M03 25 heard about the times you went back to Earth, those semi-covert M03 26 diplomatic missions. But that was all ... Partly why I came, M03 27 Dorthy. To catch up. Been a long time. Six years."

M03 28 "And partly something else. What are you up to, Robot? M03 29 You've changed."

M03 30 "I'm not as crazy as I was, you mean." He M03 31 grinned. "I wrote a substitute for Machine. Dumb as a box M03 32 of rocks, but he keeps me steady. You've changed, too. You're not M03 33 so ... well, driven."

M03 34 "I've grown up. She helps me. We live here, and learn M03 35 marine biology together, and help out as best we can with the M03 36 shadow dancer programme."

M03 37 "And stir up trouble on Earth."

M03 38 "That's not how it is at all."

M03 39 He grinned. "Yeah, I know that. You haven't quite lost M03 40 all your edges, I see."

M03 41 "The revolution will come of itself, Robot. We don't M03 42 need to do anything to encourage it but tell the truth. The M03 43 Witnesses can't hold on for ever. Mustn't. Because every second M03 44 that passes the hypervelocity star is seventeen thousand klicks M03 45 nearer to wrecking the solar system. Twelve hundred years seems a M03 46 long time, but there are billions of people on Earth. It will be M03 47 the greatest and most difficult evacuation in history, but it must M03 48 be done."

M03 49 They talked about the Witnesses and the slowly growing M03 50 resistance to their rule, and Dorthy's missions to contact M03 51 clandestine governments that had survived fifty years of Witness M03 52 rule. She too was a witness: at last she was free to tell the story M03 53 of the Alea and the angels and the secret history of the Universe M03 54 to anyone who would listen. And they talked about the problems of M03 55 hatching and rearing to adulthood the shadow dancer cysts the M03 56 crab-things had carried, of trying to alter their biochemistry so M03 57 that, like the killer whales that were for now the shadow dancers' M03 58 surrogate bodies, they could live in the oceans of Iemanja. The M03 59 shadow dancers had problems adjusting to the strange streamlined M03 60 bodies of killer whales.

M03 61 "You could try manta rays," Robot suggested.

M03 62 "Not enough cranial capacity."

M03 63 "Not even with hardwiring? But I guess you've already M03 64 thought of stuff like that. It's good to see you've found a place, M03 65 a career."

M03 66 "My life has never been normal, Robot. I brought a lot M03 67 of trouble on myself fighting against that instead of accepting it. M03 68 Rejoicing in it, even. I was a nasty piece of work, when I was M03 69 younger, I'd cut you open as soon as look at you. This, now, is as M03 70 normal as it ever will be, I think. Teaching half-million-year-old M03 71 alien ghosts to use killer whale bodies, watching my daughter grow M03 72 into something wild and strange and wonderful."

M03 73 "She still doesn't have a name."

M03 74 "She's had a dozen this year alone. But she doesn't M03 75 have one at the moment." Dorthy watched as the girl swam M03 76 through deep dappled shadow amongst boulders at the bottom of the M03 77 pool. Her tireless mermaid. "She frightens me sometimes, M03 78 Robot. She knows that, and tries to comfort me. But still, she M03 79 frightens me. We were all changed, but she was changed most of all. M03 80 And not just because she could speak from birth. They've heavy M03 81 weaponry out at the marine station, not all of it to keep off hive M03 82 sharks. I do wonder what she will grow into, this daughter of M03 83 mine."

M03 84 "I've been thinking about that, too." Robot M03 85 said, "amongst other things." He had an arch, M03 86 almost Mephistophelean air about him, not at all the wild M03 87 despairing young man Dorthy had known and loved all those nights M03 88 when they'd been fugitives on Earth. He crossed his elegant boots, M03 89 brushed at the puffed sleeves of his raw silk shirt, leaned back on M03 90 both elbows. "You know that I was closer to the angels than M03 91 anyone else, except perhaps Talbeck Barlstilkin's bonded servant. M03 92 I've been thinking about that a lot. Especially since Little M03 93 Machine took up residence."

M03 94 "And you've come to certain conclusions. You want my M03 95 opinions about them."

M03 96 "I do keep forgetting about your Talent."

M03 97 "Oh, Robot, I don't need what's left of my Talent to M03 98 tell me you're up to something."

M03 99 "Did you ever wonder what the angels are? What they M03 100 really are?"

M03 101 "Changelings. Thinking creatures once like us, or like M03 102 the shadow dancers, or the Alea. Creatures of flesh and blood who'd M03 103 turned themselves into something else. Pure thought, Gunasekra once M03 104 said. He liked that idea. Living on like the dead people who were M03 105 read into computer dumps before the Interregnum. But with their M03 106 animas." Dorthy smiled. "You don't think that at M03 107 all."

M03 108 Robot said, "Perhaps their masters are like that. But I M03 109 don't think the angels are. You know that they only ever spoke M03 110 through me or Machine, or through Talbeck's servant."

M03 111 "They spoke to me, when they took me wherever it was, M03 112 so that I could speak to that combat pilot."

M03 113 "Suzy Falcon."

M03 114 "Yes. And they spoke to Abel Gunasekra too, I suppose M03 115 ... I wonder if they still do?"

M03 116 "They could speak to you because you were all inside my M03 117 dream. When the angels first took us, Suzy and me, I was put to M03 118 dreaming the, well, metaphor I suppose. The interzone between the M03 119 strange virtual reality of the angels and our own perceptions. M03 120 Meanwhile, Suzy thought she was talking to me, but she was really M03 121 talking to Machine. And Machine was closer to the angels than me, M03 122 that's why he went a little crazy, I think. That and the neuter M03 123 female."

M03 124 "You mean, the angels were machines? Serving something M03 125 else?"

M03 126 "What's a machine, Dorthy? Something to do work. A M03 127 lever, an orchestra, a combat singleship, a subroutine in a M03 128 circuit. I think that's what the angels were. Subroutines at the M03 129 interface. We never saw their masters at all. They were too far M03 130 from us. To try and talk to them would have been like trying to M03 131 stand inside a star."

M03 132 Out in the middle of the pool, Dorthy's daughter surfaced with M03 133 a cry of triumph. Then she was swimming strongly to the side. M03 134 "Another!" she cried, and tossed her prize to her M03 135 mother before heaving herself onto the slab of rocks, gasping like M03 136 a beached seal.

M03 137 Dorthy turned the quartz-veined pebble over in her fingers; M03 138 handed it across to Robot.

M03 139 "Pretty," he said. "You've found a M03 140 whole bunch, huh? The shadow dancers find things like this for M03 141 you?"

M03 142 The little girl shrugged and stretched out on her belly, M03 143 resting her sleek wet head on her mother's bare feet. She closed M03 144 her eyes and seemed to instantly relax into sleep.

M03 145 "The crab-things bring them," Dorthy said. M03 146 "Rub your thumb over it. Go on."

M03 147 Robot did, then frowned and transferred it to his prosthetic M03 148 hand, turning it round and round brushing it with fine sensory M03 149 wires that extruded from the joints of the elongated fingers. M03 150 "Engraving," he said. "So small, so dense M03 151 ...Does it mean anything?"

M03 152 Dorthy wiggled her toes under the weight of her daughter's M03 153 head. "You know, don't you? Only you won't say. Like a lot M03 154 of things."

M03 155 "Do you know who the angels' real masters M03 156 were?" Robot asked. "I bet you do. I think I do, M03 157 too. I knew them, once, like you."

M03 158 Dorthy said "She won't tell you whether she knows or M03 159 not. And if she knows, she won't tell you what she M03 160 knows."

M03 161 "I'll tell her what I know, then. Or what I think I M03 162 know."

M03 163 "So that's why you came here, really. To ask her. It's M03 164 been tried, Robot. Many times."

M03 165 "To see her, to see you. Those were fine times we had, M03 166 on Earth. Kingman Seven. I guess it hasn't changed."

M03 167 "I remember the cold, and the rain. And you getting M03 168 drunk a lot. And don't try and get around me, Robot."

M03 169 He smiled. He shrugged. He said, "I came to tell you a M03 170 couple of things, too."

M03 171 "That the angels were only machines, only subroutines. M03 172 Servants to something else. You figured this out by M03 173 yourself?"

M03 174 "They told me some of it. I just took a while to M03 175 understand. A while, and with some help from Little Machine. It was M03 176 all inside my head, but we needed to write our own algorithms to be M03 177 able to read it. 'In the realm of light there is no time.' No M03 178 future, no past, not as we understand it. Just this eternal now, M03 179 eternal light. If there is a God, that's what She must be like, M03 180 outside our time, outside clocks, outside entropy. Eternal and M03 181 unchanging, like a standing wave at the horizon of a black hole. M03 182 I've been hanging out with physicists lately. Been trying to think M03 183 their way." Robot grinned crookedly and tapped the left M03 184 side of his head. "Little Machine, he understands a whole M03 185 lot better than I do. We manage."

M03 186 "So that's why we came out when we did, fifty years in M03 187 the future." "That's something else I want to tell M03 188 you about."

M03 189 They talked on, while out beyond the rise where the house M03 190 stood, the huge soft orange sun sank towards the horizon. The child M03 191 seemed to sleep on; although Dorthy knew that she was not asleep, M03 192 or not as anyone would understand it.

M03 193 Robot tried to explain the history that had been dumped in his M03 194 head, past and future mixed up. There had only been one real M03 195 intelligence in the Universe, just as the weak anthropic principle M03 196 had proposed all along. Everything, hundreds of billions of M03 197 galaxies, each with their three or four hundred billions stars, had M03 198 been necessary, just enough room, for this one species to evolve M03 199 intelligence. Only it had happened early on, at a time when the M03 200 galaxies were still close together; or perhaps even earlier, in the M03 201 era before galaxies, the era of supermassive stars and black hole M03 202 formation, the era when most of the Universe's light had been M03 203 created. A time when the Universe was only a few hundred million M03 204 years old, a few hundred million light years in diameter. Had to M03 205 have been that early, because the masters of the angels had been M03 206 all through the Universe, Robot said, living in the centre of every M03 207 galaxy. He thought that perhaps they had lived somehow in the M03 208 accretion discs of black holes, or maybe at the event horizon M03 209 itself, nourished by the welter of Hawking radiation, virtual M03 210 particles that crossed into this Universe while their M03 211 antiparticles, that should have been born and died with them, M03 212 stayed trapped inside the singularity.

M03 213 "I think I was shown what they looked like, but I can't M03 214 remember it. Couldn't understand it, maybe, so it didn't stay with M03 215 me. But I don't think they were like us, or the Alea, or the shadow M03 216 dancers. That's what my physics friends say, too: the Universe that M03 217 young, there wasn't time for carbon-based life to have got much M03 218 past the bacterial stage, if that." M03 219 M04 1 <#FLOB:M04\>IAN LEE

M04 2 Once Upon a Time in the Park

M04 3 Once upon a time in the Park there used to be quite a lot of M04 4 equestrianism. And almost every day there was natation in the M04 5 serpentine lake. On the paths and even on the grass itself there M04 6 was perambulation of both a directed and an undirected kind. And M04 7 bicyclists of different ages and levels of fitness were allowed to M04 8 pedal to work along the road by the lake. On a handful of summer M04 9 days, after noon and ices at the lakeside pagoda café, there was a M04 10 display of human heliotropism. More often, there was scope for M04 11 pluviometry. It was all very constitutional.

M04 12 Athleticism was tolerated in its place, alongside a little M04 13 ornithology or urban archaeology. Joggers who were guests at nearby M04 14 hotels puffed and panted away the excesses of the night before or M04 15 the night to come. There were team joggers, too, running for Rugby M04 16 practices or, in the case of the posse of squaddies from the Royal M04 17 barracks, sometimes even for punishment. The fattest and most unfit M04 18 amongst them would pant red-faced and sweaty at a great distance M04 19 behind the leaders. Tubby tubs of blubber rub-a-dubbing along. It M04 20 was all very British.

M04 21 On occasion I used to see Prince and Princess Malcolm out for a M04 22 morning ride, he looking more and more like George V with each M04 23 passing season, she remote like a snow-capped Alpine summit atop an M04 24 eighteen-hand chestnut mare. They were always accompanied by some M04 25 anonymous bodyguard and sometimes by a lesser royal; for instance, M04 26 Lady Antonia Doesntmatter, daughter of Princess Margot, or the Duke M04 27 of Hargood or Avon or one of those other ones who tries to do an M04 28 ordinary job in the City.

M04 29 Squadrons of cavalry, too, some mornings. And on less M04 30 auspicious days, I would see commoner mortals walking the face of M04 31 the Earth. Lord Harrington, for instance, or Norman St John Paul M04 32 Stevens or Sir Roy Geldhough out for a jog before a tough morning's M04 33 creativity. I know how he must have been feeling. There was a M04 34 wonderful absence of vehicles, save the odd Panda or a grocery M04 35 delivery to the café or the restaurant.

M04 36 When I used to cycle through the Park myself, I found all this M04 37 uniquely reassuring. Everyone knew his place, you see. There was M04 38 the illusion of democracy and freedom as the compartments were M04 39 somehow orchestrated into a picturesque heterogeneity that carried M04 40 to threat of republicanism.

M04 41 For Ron, the chargehand gardener, however, the essence of the M04 42 Park had always been to serve the King through the medium of M04 43 horticulture. Although the public was allowed in, they were always M04 44 there on sufferance: they could pass through, they could even stay M04 45 awhile for a picnic or other recreation but visitors they would M04 46 remain. They were not encouraged to stay overnight. When M04 47 horticulture was extended to include the new techniques of M04 48 bioengineering, this was seen by Roy as a cause for rejoicing, as M04 49 the scope for service was thereby increased. The area of the Park M04 50 given over to 'projects' could be increased and the public's access M04 51 could be more tightly controlled. The notion grew within Ron that M04 52 the real purpose of the Park could be pursued with increased M04 53 efficiency and thoroughness and that extraneous activities of the M04 54 Park could be reduced, curtailed, limited and finally M04 55 eradicated.

M04 56 At that time, when I was still a free agent, most things in the M04 57 Park were still natural. The greatest exception was the deckchairs. M04 58 These, in their bioengineered form, so closely mimicked the look of M04 59 their natural prototypes that at twenty paces one could not tell M04 60 the difference. They grazed upon the sloping sward. But whereas one M04 61 might have taken such a description as metaphorical, even poetic, M04 62 it was now no more than a slightly quaint description of reality. M04 63 Indeed, they moved so very slowly, nibbled so minutely and M04 64 collected payment with such delicacy and tact as would surely M04 65 convert any but most hardened naturetarian to the benefits of M04 66 bio-improvement. The natural geese, on the other hand, still messed M04 67 up the road with excrement of tourist bread and cheese. Ron had not M04 68 yet perfected the Goose-guano beetle he was working on to clear up M04 69 after them.

M04 70 But Ron was not looking to introduce change precipitately. As a M04 71 gardener, he took his cue from the pace of the natural world. While M04 72 by no means a haystalk-chewer, he did nevertheless maintain a M04 73 strong sense of the need for change to be evolutionary and for the M04 74 strategic plan of the Park's development to include the timescales M04 75 not only of the marigold and daffodil, but also those of the oak. M04 76 And though he found to his satisfaction that he was extremely adept M04 77 in all the new bioengineering techniques, he was not tempted to M04 78 introduce too many new species too fast or to micromanage the M04 79 lifestyles of all the plants and creatures in his charge.

M04 80 Ron particularly loved his rose garden. The rose beds were set M04 81 in an area of lawn fenced off behind low railings at the eastern M04 82 end of the Park. They were meticulously tended and packed with such M04 83 an exquisitely balanced stock that from June to September they M04 84 presented a picture of loveliness that would bring gasps of wonder M04 85 and delight from all who looked upon them. In the early evening the M04 86 sweet perfume of La Reine Victoria and the Duke of Windsor (for M04 87 sentimental reasons Ron favoured the heavily fragrant old roses and M04 88 floribundas with distinguished names) would hang so sweetly in the M04 89 air that even the surliest jogger or transiting alcoholic would M04 90 slow his pace to drink in the beneficent aroma.

M04 91 Looking back, I can fix the turning point of both my life and M04 92 Ron's to the very second. The carriages from the Palace were making M04 93 their fortnightly exercise along the main road through the Park and M04 94 for once the Lord Chamberlain of the Household had decided to M04 95 accompany them in order to take the air. It was a fine morning M04 96 after heavy overnight rain and there was a slight breeze from the M04 97 east. On passing the rose garden the Lord Chamberlain became aware M04 98 of the heavenly aroma and called for his carriage to halt. The M04 99 black horses stood stock still, plumes of breath visible in the M04 100 cool morning air, the black shiny carriage with the Royal coat of M04 101 arms standing behind them like a hearse.

M04 102 As it happened, Ron was walking almost exactly opposite the M04 103 carriage as it stopped and the whole following scene took place as M04 104 neatly as though choreographed for a formula TV drama. The Lord M04 105 Chamberlain addressed Ron directly, seeking to know who was M04 106 responsible for the roses. Having discovered that the answer was M04 107 standing before him, he immediately ordered that six dozen of the M04 108 choicest and most scented blooms should be delivered to the Palace M04 109 that very morning.

M04 110 At that same moment I was cycling along, minding my own M04 111 business (more or less but had allowed my attention to become M04 112 distracted by the sight of the Lord Chamberlain, who was tall, M04 113 distinguished and wearing a black morning coat, in conversation M04 114 with Ron, who was round-shouldered, shifty and had his overalls M04 115 held up with a tie.

M04 116 Some days in the Park, when the tarmac is wet and the sun is M04 117 still low in the morning sky, the glare from the road is so intense M04 118 that one cannot see where one is going at all. On this particular M04 119 day, thus distracted and blinded from all the normal sensory M04 120 contact and control, and at the very moment the Lord Chamberlain M04 121 was ordering the six dozen roses for His Majesty, I crashed into a M04 122 Panificio Siciliano bakery lorry, which was intent on delivery to M04 123 the lakeside restaurant and coming along on the wrong side of the M04 124 road. I was killed outright.

M04 125 The postillion of the Royal landau, unfortunately, was M04 126 listening to a personal stereo and remained unaware of my plight, M04 127 which was beyond the scope of his peripheral vision. The Lord M04 128 Chamberlain's senses were fully occupied with the roses and Ron's M04 129 were fully occupied with the Lord Chamberlain. The bakery driver, M04 130 who had a part-time job in the Paddington mafia and didn't want to M04 131 get involved with the police, made an extraordinarily rapid M04 132 assessment of his situation and then scooped up my body and my M04 133 bicycle and threw it into the back of his lorry along with the big M04 134 brown paper sacks of French sticks. An hour later, unobserved, he M04 135 left my remains in some rhododendron bushes behind a statue M04 136 dedicated to the cavalry of the Empire, which is were Ron found me M04 137 late that afternoon.

M04 138 One thing you have to admire about Ron is his farsightedness. M04 139 He had already , within hours, realised that a special relationship M04 140 with the Lord Chamberlain of the Household and a contract to supply M04 141 roses could well be the opportunity of a lifetime. Somehow Ron knew M04 142 that, like the inexorable burgeoning of a wigwam of sweet peas, M04 143 this opportunity would grow and grow but would need food and M04 144 attention if it was to survive. He knew that his empire was going M04 145 to expand and that he would need more resources of all practical M04 146 kinds. When he came across my body, still fresh, and the discarded M04 147 bicycle, still oiled, he knew that an evening's work in the M04 148 laboratory could produce something very useful at almost no M04 149 cost.

M04 150 I was never heard of again. Work thought I was ill, home M04 151 thought I was just staying late at the office or had gone somewhere M04 152 for a drink or someone's leaving or birthday party. By the time I M04 153 was reported missing - late the next morning - there was no M04 154 evidence of where I had gone at all.

M04 155 For many weeks life in the Park showed no discernible change. M04 156 As I went round with Ron about his business, helping him carry M04 157 manure for the roses, I became more familiar with the range of life M04 158 within the Park. Ron would talk to me about it; he knew that he had M04 159 restored some sentience to my creaking frame, though to this day I M04 160 cannot be sure whether he knew how much. He spoke as though he were M04 161 speaking to himself and it was thus that I became aware of his M04 162 deepest fears and longings. I also, of course, without volition and M04 163 therefore without guilt, became his accomplice.

M04 164 The mornings remained quiet, even stately, and very British, M04 165 the riders, the swimmers, walkers, tramps, soldiers and occasional M04 166 celebrities acknowledging each other's presence with the barest M04 167 nods of recognition, each wrapped in his or her own private M04 168 communion with nature. Later in the day, the swarms of tourists M04 169 would invade, running, littering, sprawling, and trampling without M04 170 though beyond immediate gratification of base desires. The stench M04 171 of decayed meat began to float from the franchised hot-dog and M04 172 burger cabins. Ron would become more and more irritable as the day M04 173 went on, as his scum formed on the surface of his beloved Park, as M04 174 the deckchairs were abused, as people who were really no better M04 175 than common peasants would use the rides for sand fights or even M04 176 open defecation.

M04 177 By the early evening on a warm summer day the scene by the M04 178 serpentine lake would metamorphose again from the morning's M04 179 Britishness into a Byzanmtine phantasmagoria. Half close you eyes M04 180 and you could imagine yourself on the corniche at Abu Dhabi. M04 181 Swarthy faces and flashing eyes and wrists patrolled the lakeside M04 182 drag. There were sheikhs and princes (at least Ron said they were) M04 183 and lofty Bedu, leavened with darker faces and crinkly hair from M04 184 Zanzibar or the smaller, wirier shopkeeper class from Gujerat via M04 185 Dubai. Ron had learned the distinctions of caste like a true M04 186 phylum/species-trained horticulturist. Away to the west and M04 187 north-east the jewellery and perfume counters of Selfridges and M04 188 Harrods lay in ruins. Back here men in white shoes and bracelets, M04 189 neck chains and open-necked shirts would parade with the M04 190 nonchalance of the very rich. Behind them, wrapped dolls waddled in M04 191 black, faces beaked. Other dolls adopted a different style, M04 192 brightly coloured in silks and taffeta that fluoresced in the early M04 193 evening sun. M04 194 M05 1 <#Flob:M05\>SONNIE'S EDGE

M05 2 P.F.Hamilton

M05 3 I LEANT on Cloudborne's starboard rail as we left the Fens M05 4 Archipelago behind and sailed into the calm, mud-thickened water of M05 5 Peterborough's harbour basin. My reflection wavered languidly on M05 6 the coffee coloured surface, shot through with the sun's polarised M05 7 dazzle flecks: a twenty-two year old girl with a blonde bob M05 8 hairstyle, wearing a sleeveless black t-shirt and olive-green M05 9 bermuda shorts, feet crammed into fraying white pumps. The face M05 10 wasn't bad, Jacob had rebuilt it to give me the prominent cheek M05 11 bones I'd always wanted as a teenager. Maybe it wasn't as M05 12 expressive as it should've been, but the gentle swell made it hard M05 13 to tell.

M05 14 Salt air crashed with the dry gamey breath of the city, a M05 15 coarse jaded brew, baked by the steel noon sun overhead. The smell M05 16 slipped down easy, like a tonic. It spoke of hustling, of fear and M05 17 pain. City and People are almost a state of mind to me, I feed off M05 18 them, knowing what they want, supplying it.

M05 19 Post-Warming life is dull, repetitive; it is time holding its M05 20 breath. One day, our gene-tailored plants will replenish the ozone, M05 21 and the frosts are going to return to crisp the land; when they do M05 22 life will quicken. But meantime, we idle by. It's an era in which M05 23 excitement can command high prices. Excitement, that's how me and M05 24 the rest of Sonnie's Predators suckle money. And we've brought a M05 25 slice to Peterborough. Tonight, there's going to be a fight.

M05 26 Biestie-Baiting: the all-time blood-sport; spectacularly gory, M05 27 ultra-emotive, addictive, and always lethal. It's new and it's M05 28 happening. And Sonnie's Pedators are one nova-hot team. Seventeen M05 29 straight wins. We've got Baiter groupies strung out from the Orkney M05 30 isles down to Cornwall.

M05 31 I was lucky, plugging in at level one, when all the rage was M05 32 modifying rottweilers and dobermans with fang implants and razor M05 33 claws.

M05 34 Karran and Jacob were the team's nucleus, loaded with grade M05 35 fourteen bioware Technique. They'd skipped out of their M05 36 agricultural combine, blued with its restrictive, quasi-religious M05 37 hierarchy. Bating was the only financially viable alternative for M05 38 their talent, other than opting straight into another combine.

M05 39 Ivrina had just started helping them with gene splices when I M05 40 arrived, a drifter with little ambition, but enough sense to M05 41 realise this was different, something I could immerse myself M05 42 in, maybe even make a go of.

M05 43 Wes joined seven months later, loaded with hardware Technique, M05 44 an essential addition to a sport whose sophistication was M05 45 increasing on a near-daily basis. He maintained the clone vats, M05 46 lightware cores, and Khanivore's life support pod, plus a thousand M05 47 miscellaneous units. And all of us took basic grade seamanship Buds M05 48 to crew Cloudborne.

M05 49 We were doing all right, Jac's Banshees, as we were known back M05 50 then, battling hard for cult status. A good win ratio, notching M05 51 sixty per cent, scored us a long cool fix of brash optimism. Jac's M05 52 Banshees were going to make it. The purse money was enough to keep M05 53 us independent, the old poor but proud kick; the majority of Baiter M05 54 teams are syndicate backed, even the Rose parties field a few on M05 55 the sly.

M05 56 Then I had my mishap, and we acquired our killer edge.

M05 57 I heard Cloudborne's membrane sail rustle softly behind M05 58 me. Jacob was using his affinity link with the ship's bioware M05 59 processors, ordering the photosynthetic sheet to furl itself; M05 60 reducing our speed as the water traffic built up around us.

M05 61 The port's fleet of fishing smacks were outbound, cruising down M05 62 the deep water channel to the Wash. Two dozen square-rig M05 63 merchantmen were anchored in a loose circle round the ruins of M05 64 Peterborough's cathedral. Only the walls remained, sagging M05 65 dangerously, chocolate-mud tide marks leeching to the lower stones. M05 66 Smaller trading junks, of the kind that plough the runs between the M05 67 Archipelago and the mainland, swarmed across the basin like flies M05 68 around an Afghan meat stall.

M05 69 The bustle was fun to watch, the boats chirpy; I'm a landgirl, M05 70 born and bred, I have the same sort of dumb mesmerism for the sea M05 71 as any five year old. And deep water doesn't scare me, not any M05 72 more.

M05 73 The berth with Dicko, Peterborough's Baiting arena promoter, M05 74 had booked for us was in an older part of the harbour, quieter; the M05 75 quay was wooden, standing on thick clustered pile stilts. Wes and I M05 76 hopped the gap as Cloudborne drew alongside, and busied M05 77 ourselves securing her cables to big iron rings. Karran dropped the M05 78 plank and stepped ashore, setting a wide panama hat over her ruff M05 79 of titian hair. Ivrina followed, wearing just a halter top and M05 80 sawn-off jeans, UV-proofing had turned her skin a rich cinnamon. M05 81 Wes snaked an arm protectively round her waist as she stood M05 82 sniffing the air.

M05 83 "So how's the vibes, Sonnie?" Karran asked.

M05 84 They all paused, even Jacob on deck. If a Baiting team's M05 85 fighter hasn't got the right bounce, then you just pack up and go M05 86 straight home. For all their ingenuity and technical back-up, the M05 87 rest of the team play no part in the bout. It's all down to me.

M05 88 "Riding high," I told them. "Wrap it up in M05 89 five minutes." There'd only been one time when we'd docked M05 90 that I'd doubted; up in Newcastle, a bout against King Panther. M05 91 It'd wound up a bitch of a scrap, Khanivore was cut up pretty bad. M05 92 Even then, I'd won. The stuff Baiter legends are made of.

M05 93 Ivrina paunched a fist into her palm. "Atta M05 94 girl." She looked peppery, spoiling for trouble. Anyone M05 95 would think she was going to boost Khanivore. She certainly had the M05 96 right fire; but whether she'd have the nerve to go for my special M05 97 brand of killer edge I don't know.

M05 98 It turned out that Dicko was a smooth organiser. A pleasant M05 99 surprise; some bouts we've wondered if we'd actually get there on M05 100 the day. But we were still plugging Cloudborne's nutrient M05 101 couplings into the quay's leaky arteries when his waggon rolled up. M05 102 It was a covered flatbed, pulled by two beautiful black M05 103 stallions.

M05 104 There were eight roadies from the arena to load Khanivore's M05 105 life support pod, muscle-augments, looking like Mr Universe dolls M05 106 someone had over-inflated. Jacob bossed them, his round beefy face M05 107 sweating as the opaque glassy cylinder was hoisted out of the M05 108 forward hold, along with his ancillary modules. He does the M05 109 surgical work, stitching our beastie together from the components M05 110 Ivrina and Karran grow in the vats. I don't know why he frets so; M05 111 more than any of us, he knows how tough Khaniovore's hide is.

M05 112 Jacob rode on the wagon with the driver, the rest of us M05 113 followed in a couple of rickshaws. It took us nearly an hour to M05 114 drive the two miles to the arena. Peterborough was wickedly M05 115 overcrowded, pedestrians and cyclists wedged tight; dense-packed M05 116 buildings, new and ancient, a random collage of styles, their M05 117 facades smothered in a patina of jet-black solar panels and emerald M05 118 precipitator leaves. When the polar melt flooded the Fens, the city M05 119 was swamped by refugees. Now those families are into their third M05 120 generation; they haven't got anywhere to go, not with the sea M05 121 lapping their heels. Only cults, communes, and co-ops have the cash M05 122 for coral seeds to grow islands out in the Archipelago-government M05 123 doesn't. Peterborough is a microcosm of modern England, constructed M05 124 and force grown; a propagator of extremes, of wealth and poverty, M05 125 spice and despair. I liked it.

M05 126 The arena had started life as a vast tubing warehouse before M05 127 Dicko set up shop. He kept the corrugated panel shell, stripping M05 128 out the auto-stack machinery, then grew a polyp pit in the M05 129 centre-circular, fifteen yards in diameter, with a four-yard-high M05 130 wall, its floor was roughened for traction. It was completely M05 131 surrounded by amphitheatre seating, simple concentric circles of M05 132 wooden plank benches straddling a spiderwork of rusty scaffolding. M05 133 The top row was twenty yards above the cracked, dusty concrete M05 134 floor, nearly scraping the condensation-slicked roof panelling. M05 135 Looking at the rickety lash-up made me glad I wasn't a M05 136 spectator.

M05 137 Our green room was the warehouse supervisor's office. The M05 138 roadies grunted Khanivore's life support pod into place on a set of M05 139 heavy wood trestles. They creaked, but held.

M05 140 Ivrina and I started taping black polythene over the grime M05 141 crusted windows, Wes mated the ancillary modules with the arena's M05 142 power supply, five two-metre square solar panels pinned to the M05 143 roof.

M05 144 Jacob came in smiling broadly. "The odds are nine to M05 145 two in favour. I put five grand on us. Reckon you can handle that, M05 146 Sonnie?"

M05 147 "The Urban Gorgons have just acquired one dead M05 148 beastie," I said.

M05 149 "My girl," Wes said proudly, slapping my M05 150 shoulder. The words cut deep. Wes and I had been an inseparable M05 151 pair for ten months, right up until my mishap. Now he and Ivrina M05 152 were rocking the ship each night. I didn't hold it against him, not M05 153 consciously anyway. But seeing them walking along, arms entwined, M05 154 necking, laughing, that left me cold.

M05 155 Two hours before the bout Dicko showed up. He was a dignified M05 156 old man, tall and thin, with bushy silvery hair, a slightly stiff M05 157 walk. His garb was strictly last century: light grey suit with slim M05 158 lapels, a white shirt with small maroon bow tie. There was a girl M05 159 in tow, mid-teens and nicely proportioned, sweet-faced, too; a M05 160 fluff cloud of curly chestnut hair framing a composed demure M05 161 expression. She wore a simple square-necked lemon-yellow dress with M05 162 a long skirt. I felt sorry for her. But it's and ancient story, I M05 163 get to see it countless times at each bout. At least it told me all M05 164 I wanted to know about Dicko and his cultivated genteel mannerisms. M05 165 Mr. Front.

M05 166 One of the roadies closed the door behind him, cutting off the M05 167 sounds of conversation from the main hall, a buzzing PA. Dicko gave M05 168 me and the other girls a shallow bow, and handed an envelope to M05 169 Jacob.

M05 170 "Your appearance fee."

M05 171 The envelope disappeared into Jacob's sleeveless leather M05 172 jacket.

M05 173 Delicate silver eyebrow lifted. "You are not going to M05 174 count it?"

M05 175 "Your reputation is good," Jacob told him. M05 176 "You're a prop, top notch. That's the word."

M05 177 "How very kind. And you, too, are well M05 178 recommended."

M05 179 I listened to him and the rest of the team swapping nonsense. I M05 180 didn't like it, he was intruding. Some teams like to party M05 181 pre-bout, some trash and re-trash tactics. Me, I like a bit of M05 182 peace and quiet to zen myself up; friends who'll talk if I want, M05 183 who know when to keep quiet. I jittered about, wait-tension making M05 184 my skin crawl. Every time I glanced at the girl her eyes M05 185 dropped.

M05 186 "I wonder if I might take a peek at Khanivore?" M05 187 Dicko asked.

M05 188 The others swivelled en masse to consult me.

M05 189 "Sure thing," I said. After the old boy had M05 190 seen it maybe he'd scoot. You can't really shunt someone out of M05 191 their own turf.

M05 192 We clustered round the life support pod, except for the girl. M05 193 Wes turned down the opacity. Dicko's face hardened into grim M05 194 appreciation, a corpse grin. It chilled me down.

M05 195 Khanivore is three yards high; roughly hominoid, in that it has M05 196 two trunk-like legs and a barrel torso, albeit encased in a black M05 197 segmented exoskeleton. After that things get a little out of M05 198 kilter. The top of the torso sprouts five armoured tentacles, two M05 199 of them ending in pincers. They were curled up to fit into the pod, M05 200 nesting boa constrictors. There was a thick, ten-inch, prehensile M05 201 neck supporting a nightmare head. Sculpted from bone that'd been M05 202 polished to a black chrome gleam, half of it a shark-snout jaw with M05 203 a double row of teeth; deep creases and circular recesses hid and M05 204 protected sensor organs.

M05 205 Dicko reached out and touched the life support pod M05 206 reverentially. "Excellent," he whispered, then: M05 207 "I want you to take a dive."

M05 208 There was a moment of dark silence.

M05 209 "Do what?" Karran squeaked.

M05 210 Dicko beamed his dead smile straight at her. "A dive. M05 211 You'll be well paid, double the winning purse, ten thousand M05 212 guineas. That should go a long way to easing the strain on an M05 213 amateur team like you. We can even discuss some future M05 214 dates."

M05 215 M06 1 <#FLOB:M06/>STAR OF EPSILON

M06 2 by Eric Brown

M06 3 Paris was in again, a hundred years on: '68 found me on the M06 4 left bank, playing to crowds in 'The Blue Shift' M06 5 slouchbar. I blitzed 'em with cosmic visions. I sub-circuited M06 6 direct, employed slo-mo, ra-ta-tat shots, even visual cut-ups, in M06 7 homage. Goddard and Burroughs were back in, too,. Had to do with M06 8 nostalgia, the harking back to supposedly better times. Hell... M06 9 Didn't I know that? Wasn't I cashing in on the fact that we all M06 10 live a lie? Wasn't I giving the crowds what they wanted 'cos they'd M06 11 never get it otherwise?

M06 12 I met her after a night performance.

M06 13 "The Blue Shift" was the scene that month.

M06 14 It wasn't just the drugs they pumped but the live acts, I liked M06 15 to think. I alternated nights with a cute fifteen year-old M06 16 sado-masochist on sensitized feedback. It wasn't my kick, but M06 17 off-nights I'd sneak downstairs and jack-in. And jack-out again, M06 18 fast. Three minutes was all I could take of this kid - my M06 19 opposition. The management had it sussed. They played us M06 20 counterpoint: one night this weird little girl giving out M06 21 intimations of death and id-gris-lies like no kid should, and the M06 22 next old Abe Santana with his visions of Nirvana-thru-flux, the M06 23 glories of the space-lanes.

M06 24 The girl intrigued me. The neon-glitz out front billed her as M06 25 Jo, and that was enough to pull the freaks. Her act was simple. On M06 26 stage a sudden spotlight found a small cross-legged figure in a M06 27 Pierrot suit, white-powdered face a paragon of melancholy M06 28 complete with stylised tear. She'd come on easy at first, slipping M06 29 fear sub-lim at the slouched crowd. Her head was shaven, but a M06 30 tangle of leads snaking from her cortical-implant gave her the M06 31 aspect of a par-shorn medusa. The leads went down inside her suit M06 32 and into the stage, coming out by the cushions. Freaks jacked-in M06 33 and got fear first, subtle unease. Then the kid shifted her M06 34 position, sitting now with outstretched legs together, arms M06 35 stanchioned behind her, palms down. The nursery pose contradicted M06 36 the horror coming down the leads, the hindbrain terror of M06 37 mortality. She tapped into us and found our fear of death and gave M06 38 it back, redoubled - turning us to stone.

M06 39 First time I jacked-in I wondered how she did this, what magic M06 40 she worked to show us that which we tried to deny, even to M06 41 ourselves. So the next night I stayed with it a while longer, and I M06 42 found out. Little Jo was dying. She was fifteen and she'd never see M06 43 sixteen and the gut-kick I experienced when I realised this was M06 44 zero compared with her angst. That's when I jacked-out, sickened, M06 45 left and got loaded and tried to forget.

M06 46 Over the next few weeks I was lured back again and again. I M06 47 knew what I wanted: not the orgasm of terror the rest of the crowd M06 48 got high on, but the futile reassurance that Jo was not really M06 49 dying, that her performance was just a death-analogue recorded from M06 50 some terminal patient, encoded in Jo's computer and used cynically M06 51 to thrill.

M06 52 But the more I experienced her act, the more I knew I was M06 53 dreaming. Jo was dying, okay. She gave out death and when the M06 54 audience were convinced that they were dying she reversed the feed M06 55 and drank it back, and you could almost hear the gasp of her soul M06 56 as its need was quenched. The kid's in love with death, I told M06 57 myself, as if hoping this might ease my heartache: perhaps, if she M06 58 was, then I could pity her a little less...

M06 59 Then one time I stayed in for ten minutes, and I found out the M06 60 truth. The only reason she reversed the feed was to take from the M06 61 crowd the knowledge that they too would some day die, to reassure M06 62 herself that she was not alone in the dying process we all call M06 63 living.

M06 64 That ten minutes was the last I took. I avoided the club on my M06 65 night off. I couldn't go near the place and those freaks in there - M06 66 I thought many a time over a drink in some darkened, nondescript M06 67 bar - they stayed jacked-in for hours! And that brought me back to M06 68 what I was running from, the fear of death and the terrible M06 69 realisation that Jo was plugged into that weltschmerz for the M06 70 rest of her life...

M06 71 And my act?

M06 72 How many of the crowd who freaked out on Jo's came to mine? M06 73 Their diametric content would suggest none, but I hoped some people M06 74 needed antidote.

M06 75 I'd start simple. I'd give them the experience of an Engineman M06 76 emerging from the flux; the elusive ghost of rapture that haunted M06 77 his mind; the drone of auxiliary burners; the knowledge that we M06 78 were lighting into the Nilakantha Stardrift on a mission of rescue. M06 79 Then I'd hold this sensory input under and come in with the M06 80 voice-over:

M06 81 "Fifty years ago I mind-pushed Bigships for the M06 82 Canterbury Line..."

M06 83 I'd take them at hyper-c through the Nada-continuum, coming out M06 84 places they'd only dreamed about or seen in travel brochures. Black M06 85 holes were a favourite, and I took them on a tour of a giant M06 86 nicknamed Calcutta, courting disaster on the hazardous M06 87 event-horizon, the Bigship a surfer on the math of M06 88 Einstein-Fernandez physics. Then I'd sling the 'ship at a M06 89 blistering tangent off across uncharted space, on the trail of new M06 90 and more wondrous adventure... The main theme was always wonder - M06 91 the hint of Nirvana that every Engineman experiences in the M06 92 flux.

M06 93 My customers left satisfied, uplifted.

M06 94 Then one night after her performance Jo was stretchered off M06 95 comatose, and I didn't know whether to feel relief that at last she M06 96 had died, or sadness at the passing of someone I had hardly known. M06 97 Later her manager told me that Jo was fine, she'd recover. Would I M06 98 fill in for her this week? And I said yes, relieved that I might M06 99 have the opportunity to get to know her, after all, and hating M06 100 myself because of that.

M06 101 We're quark-harvesting a long, long way from Earth. I step from M06 102 the flux-tank, as we are coasting now. I look through the M06 103 viewscreen, behold the sweeping sickle sponsors reaping fiery M06 104 quarks. The 'aft scene is even more spectacular, a panoramic M06 105 miracle. The converted energy is fired from the Bigship in blinding M06 106 c-velocity bolts, streaking away on a multi-billion light year bend M06 107 that describes the inner curve of the universe. And I'm moved M06 108 almost to tears, along with my audience, though for different M06 109 reasons.

M06 110 For a long time after the performance I sat yogi-fashion. The M06 111 crowd cheered and applauded, then moved back to the bar or out into M06 112 the night. And I was ashamed, like a preacher who has convinced his M06 113 congregation but does not himself believe.

M06 114 Technicians dismantled the rig, unplugged me and wound in the M06 115 leads. A few tourists tried to get to me, to say how much they'd M06 116 enjoyed the performance. They were stopped by the heavies, who knew M06 117 how low I left after my act.

M06 118 The club never closed, but trade hit a low around four in the M06 119 morning. I was still there then, in the darkness of the stage, M06 120 thinking back and regretting the events of all those years ago, the M06 121 pretence of the present. A few junkies slouched at the bar, getting M06 122 their fix jugularwise.

M06 123 As I sat, a kid crawled from a cushioned bunker between the bar M06 124 and the stage. She headed my way on all fours, galumphing over M06 125 cushions and the wraparound membranes in the floor. I assumed she M06 126 was a fan who wanted to rap about how it was to flux on the M06 127 Bigships...

M06 128 She climbed aboard the stage and sat before me cross-legged, M06 129 like a mirror-image of myself. She had long black hair, too M06 130 luxuriant for a kid her age, too sensual.

M06 131 "I loved our performance," she said in a husky M06 132 voice which, like her hair, belonged to a thirty year-old.

M06 133 She had a triangular, coffee-brown face and large green eyes. M06 134 She should have been a nice-looking kid, but there was some M06 135 disunity in the planes of her cheeks which made her almost M06 136 ugly.

M06 137 "Hey," I said, weary. "Go home. Get some M06 138 sleep."

M06 139 A flash of emerald anger. "I said I liked your M06 140 show."

M06 141 "And I said-"

M06 142 "Abe," she smiled, serious. "I know M06 143 you want to flux again....

M06 144 I looked at her, guarded. She had it wrong, but only just.

M06 145 So I said, "How...?"

M06 146 She grinned at me. "I experienced your show good, Abe. M06 147 Your need was in there. Those fools might not have read it, but I M06 148 did."

M06 149 Then I saw the teflon protuberance at the base of her skull. I M06 150 lifted a tress of hair, fingered sockets worn smooth through M06 151 use.

M06 152 "Who are you?" I whispered

M06 153 "I'm just another German-Turk from Dusseldorf," M06 154 she shrugged, "with a taste for sick M06 155 theatrics."

M06 156 I smiled and shook my head.

M06 157 "You still don't recognise? How about if I wore a M06 158 Pierrot suit and a big tear," she said, M06 159 "here".

M06 160 "Jo?"

M06 161 "Jodie Schimelmann."

M06 162 I felt a tremor inside. This was the kid who'd rocked me with M06 163 haunting visions of death. She was fifteen years-old and she'd M06 164 stared oblivion in the face and she was still here.

M06 165 I'd be ninety in a month and I felt a burning sense of shame at M06 166 the injustice. M06 167 "I need your help", she said.

M06 168 I shook my head. "How can I possibly help M06 169 you?"

M06 170 So she told me she was dying.

M06 171 Until six months ago Jodie worked in the spaceyards at Orly. M06 172 She was a flux-monkey, an engineer whose job it was to crawl inside M06 173 the exhaust ventricles of Bigships and carry out repairs on the M06 174 auxiliary burners. It was hard work, but she didn't complain; she M06 175 lived well and saved enough creds to send home to her mother in M06 176 Germany.

M06 177 Then one check-up she was found to have contracted some M06 178 complicated virus that had lodged as spores in the flux-vent of a M06 179 Bigship she had worked on. She was given a year to live, paid off M06 180 and discharged. Jodie was rotting inside with some alien analogue M06 181 of carcinoma that had attacked her marrow, lymph glands and M06 182 trachea... It was a miracle she was still alive and active, but she M06 183 loaded herself with analgesics every day and went on fighting.

M06 184 The disease explained her voice, of course, and the fact that M06 185 she wore a wig. Ironic that that which was killing her also gave M06 186 her the appearance of someone much older, while in her head she had M06 187 matured as well.

M06 188 I said, "Isn't there a cure?"

M06 189 "Yeah, sure there is. But a cure costs creds, Abe. And M06 190 not even my pay off was enough."

M06 191 I recalled her words. "How can I help you?"

M06 192 "I need creds. I want the cure. I also want to be M06 193 beautiful."

M06 194 I laughed.

M06 195 Then she realised how funny that was and she laughed too.

M06 196 "See that beautiful woman at the bar?" she M06 197 asked. "The one zonked on jugular-juice and out of M06 198 it."

M06 199 "So?"

M06 200 "So she's dead ugly - honest."

M06 201 "I thought you just said she was M06 202 beautiful?"

M06 203 Jo smiled. "You ever seen her here before?"

M06 204 "She doesn't come in here when I'm on. I'd recognise M06 205 her."

M06 206 "Yeah? Ever noticed an old woman, maybe a hundred and M06 207 fifty? All bags and wrinkles? It's the same woman. She has the M06 208 latest sub-dermal capillary electro-cosmetics. What you see there M06 209 is a clever light show, a laser display to deceive the eye into M06 210 beholding beauty. I want one."

M06 211 "But you aren't ugly, Jo."

M06 212 "I'm not beautiful."

M06 213 "So you want me to get you the creds to buy this M06 214 device?" I said. I thought I saw her logic. She was almost M06 215 terrified by her physical deterioration as she was by her thought M06 216 of her death, and she wanted to die looking good.

M06 217 She nodded. "That and a cure. I want to live, and M06 218 I want looks. Think I'm greedy?"

M06 219 I shrugged. "Why live a lie?" I asked her, M06 220 hypocritical.

M06 221 "I want both, and you can help me get M06 222 them."

M06 223 So I asked, "How?"

M06 224