"Best Mohsin could do, Sach.” lmran’s smile flashed in the green light from the dashboard. "Hey Rani, you got Chenka’s little helper there?" Next to him, his sister retrieved a plastic ziplock filled with little packets. She broke the seal and handed around the crinkled paper sachets of brown dust.

“What do we do? Swallow it or snort the stuff’?” Sachin asked.

“Probably supposed to make tea with it," Aqib muttered and they all laughed, remembering the old woman and her notorious teas. Rani had suffered from a bellyache all day after leaving Chenka’s filthy flat in the tenement high above the Stepney squats and rat warrens. The stench of urine and ammonia had been worse than ever.

"Swallow it," Rani advised. "And I’ve got some instant energy to go with it." She passed around the rice-paper wrapped sugar and coconut balls, lurid with yellow coloring. But they were syrupy and moist, and they helped get the chokingly dry dust down their throats.

They were into Cambridge when the herbal high began to hit them. Even Aqib’s brown cybereyes, a real status symbol among them, seemed to shine a little brighter now.

"I’ve got cotton mouth," Imran complained as he ground his teeth. "We got anything? I’d even take green tea.”

It was a problem Rani had anticipated. She opened the seal on a guava drink, an expensive luxury which had set her back plenty because it boasted real fruit and not the usual array of artificial flavorings. Perhaps it did, too, she thought with surprise as she gulped down some of the warm but welcome fluid. The men were complaining for their turns, so she passed the bottle over her shoulder to Sachin. Then she resumed her tight grip on what claimed to be a Bond and Carrington pistol in her lap. It was probably as genuine as a tridjock’s smile, but the barrel was clean and smooth and the trigger mechanism had seemed fluent when she’d practiced with it. Now, though, it was armed with live ammunition and with that she had not practiced.

This sure better work out, she thought grimly. It seemed a lot of dosh just to throw a scare into somebody by taking a few potshots at him, then legging it back home in a hurry.

She was starting to have a very bad feeling about all this.

Geraint had called Serrin from the rail station, arranging to meet at a pub on the north side of town. Serrin arrived just at half past seven but didn’t immediately spot Geraint. The nobleman looked very different dressed in nondescript baggy clothing instead of a designer suit, but he wasn’t conspicuous, especially the way he sat quaffing a pint of ale like any local.

“How do you know about a place like this?” the mage asked.

Geraint looked mildly offended. “I spent three years as a student in Cambridge, old friend, and I did manage to mis-spend some of my youth in moderately disreputable places. It’s a pity the old laserball machine’s gone, though. I fancied dumping a few quid into it for old times’ sake.”

Geraint laughed softly and his expression changed to one Serrin could not quite identify. “I had my one and only experience as a boytoy here,” the nobleman said. "I was twenty, she was thirty-one, and I used to take her home from the fish and chip shop over the road. That’s gone, too, of course. Take a guess-it’s a burger joint now. I suppose that’s because the few fish left in the North Sea are so polluted with chemicals and sewage sludge that the price of decent cod is something wicked these days.”

Serrin looked quizzicafly at Geraint. “I can’t imagine you with someone from a fish and chip shop.”

“She used to call in here after work on the weekends. There was a serial rapist around at the time and most of us were on escort duty. One time she decided to stay in my rooms, which were just down the road. She was engaged to some fellow in the air force, but really just for the sake of the kids from her first marriage. Security for her declining years, I suppose. He was posted out all over the place, but one day he flew in and they got married there and then. I sometimes wonder what became of her. You know how it goes.”

Geraint sat remembering, hands clasped together under his chin. Serrin allowed him a few moments, then turned the talk back to more pressing matters. ‘‘What did you get?” He’d seen the battered cloth carryall, which did the job of keeping its contents shapeless most effectively.

“Let’s go for a ride. I don’t imagine the walls have ears, but best not to take any chances.”

They drained their glasses and signaled to pay the ork barmaid, who didn’t look at Serrin any too kindly. The mage guessed that elves of more exalted lineage than his might be none too popular, with their airs and graces, in a pub like this. In her eyes he would probably be tarred with the same brush. Revealing himself as an American could easily make matters worse, so he only nodded when Geraint said. “Thank you.” Reaching the door, Serrin and Geraint carefully gave way to a bunch of local fenland orks shouldering their way into the bar.

They skirted away from the side road well before coming to the old farms area, careful to give it a wide berth. The land here was too polluted from the outflow of the Stinkfens to be officially considered habitable, but squatters would surely be about. Serrin detoured south and east before circling back to the highway; the sound of a bike engine might well draw some of the squatters out for a look. A road bike was worth a lot of barter to people that poor. It wasn’t likely they had much in the way of weapons, perhaps only knives and stones, but an old shotgun was also a possibility. Serrin switched the headlight off, and let the bike coast over the sodden, barren fields. He got as close to the edge of the fens as he dared, then began to loop back westward. After crossing the road, he parked the bike beside a dead tree stump, laying it flat to the ground.

"We’ll head for that rise," the mage said, pointing to a gentle curve in the distance.

“Get the armor vest on. You got your Ingram? I managed to pick up some armor-piercing for it." Geraint handed Serrin the clip and a small vial.

“Here’s something useful from the chemistry set. Crush the vial if you have to start firing. Inhale the stuff. But don’t do it if you’ve got a troll less than ten feet away because it’ll blow your brain out your ears and you won’t be able to see a thing for a few seconds. Do it while he’s two hundred yards away. With this stuff your hands won’t tremble if you do have to start shooting. And if you have to run, it’ll get you moving faster than a cheetah with a red chili enema. Even with that leg of yours. And when I tell you to run, you damn well better. Don’t shoot unless we’re getting out. Use whatever magic you’ve got to defend us just before I start shooting. I’ll tell you when.

“Got all that?”

Serrin was impressed by the authority in Geraint’s voice. This was a very different man from the boy who’d panicked on the streets of San Francisco. The elf slipped the vial into his pocket, deciding this wasn’t the moment to challenge Geraint on his use of drugs.

“Good.” The Welshman wasn’t waiting for a reply. “Next item. Take this.” He handed Serrin a lacquered canister topped with a ring-pull. “Use this when we move out. Three seconds after you pull the ring, you’ll get smoke cover, which will scrag IR into the bargain. Just dump the thing on the ground behind us.” Geraint was adding the folding stock to a customized sniper rifle as he spoke. Serrin thought it looked like the MA 2100, but the thing was glinting with add-ons. He’d been on runs with a lot more firepower than this, but this Welshman was beginning to look like the real thing.