Well, at least I’ve bought them a chance, Serrin thought grimly as he turned and ran. In his haste he didn’t hear the car engine revving in the distance. He never knew that she’d seen his face in a chance flash of light. He was unaware of what she would remember all her life.

Now some of the troopers were searching around, well-trained enough to hunt the source of something that could dissipate an elemental. Serrin’s leg throbbed viciously as he lurched toward where he thought they’d left the bike. The leg felt as if he’d been hamstrung with a meathook. Distantly he heard Geraint’s desperate cry to him, but the drain was beginning to take its toll and he could do no more than half-run, half-limp onto a riverbank that shouldn’t have been there. He just managed to crawl over it, hoping to find some cover where he could hide. A foul liquid bubbled up from his lungs, and his breath came in ragged gasps. He stumbled again and landed up to his neck in water and reeds.

The last thing Serrin saw before passing out was the river serpent. The thing was probably ten yards long. Rearing over him, the beast opened its powerfully muscular jaws to reveal its dagger-sharp teeth set in a huge, gaping maw as black as the entrance to hell.

10

Geraint retained enough self-control not to exceed the speed limit as he headed through Bar Hill’s dreary low-rise houses on the way back to Cambridge. His thoughts, however, raced furiously.

Serrin had vanished into the night. Geraint, meanwhile, had hordes of heavily armed Fuchi security guards rushing toward him, forcing him to take off on the elf’s bike, praying no copters were after him, too. It was bad enough that Serrin had disappeared. Now he also had the unexpected arrival of another group of raiders at the lab to disturb and confuse him.

Geraint turned everything over and over in his mind, trying to recall what he and Serrin had said and where they’d said it, wondering if their conversations had been bugged. No matter how many times he mentally replayed scenes, however, he couldn’t make any sense of it.

Entering the main sprawl zone north of Cambridge, Geraint realized that he couldn’t return to the hotel. He could hardly stroll through the front lobby with his clothes torn to ribbons and caked with mud. Even his famous sang froid wouldn’t let him get away with blithely leaving a muddy trail of wet clods on the carpet behind him. Hotel security was bound to make a discreet notification to the police, some of whom must certainly be special friends of Fuchi. Things could get supremely nasty. For the same reason, dumping the bike in the selfpark garage and heading straight for the elevator was a no-go. The attendant might see him, and there would be videoscans even there.

Rakk it all, he’d have to go back to London, which meant no motorway travel, not on a motorbike. Forty miles of back roads all the way to the outer orbital. Wonderful, he thought. I hope it hasn’t changed much since my student days. I haven’t driven along here in ten years.

Hitting the roads, Geraint had the impression they hadn’t been repaired in a decade, either. South of Royston he had the sense to turn off the main road and take a detour around the decaying sprawl suburbs. He saw the barricade and the lurking wrecker gang just in time. Had he continued straight on, he’d have already been dead meat.

Cursing his bad luck, Geraint now found himself in a warren of back streets. He slowed the bike while he tried to figure out where he was and where he was going. The street lights had been shot out long ago, and all he had was the weak light of the moon and his own dipped headlight. Realizing that he’d completely lost track of his direction, and had no idea how to get out of here, the hair began to rise at the back of his neck. One thing was certain, though; he had to keep moving. At one point he decided to turn around again, and was making a slow U-turn, when suddenly he saw before him a ragged group edging out of the shadows and blocking his path.

“Nice bike, term," a rough voice called. “Make you an offer!”

There were sniggers audible above the bike’s revving engine. The punk at the front of the pack was hefting a hunk of wood that looked like a railway tie. Some of those hanging further back were carrying rocks, more likely chunks of plascrete.

Geraint began to sweat. How am I going to get out of this one? he wondered desperately. A single hit would wing me. Then I’m off the bike. Then I’m down. Then I’m dead. Got no choice, I guess.

As the punks fanned out around and in front of him, he drew his pistol, hoping it was visible in the glare of his headlight. Their reactions said they saw it, but they were poor enough to have nothing to lose. They no doubt lost a member or two every week in a gang fight, so the prospect of losing a few more now probably didn’t terrify them much. Not if they saw a motorcycle and a gun as the prize to be won.

“Spare me that glop, you wankers!" Geraint made his voice tougher than he could possibly feel right there and then. “Bond and Carrington MC-40, armor-piercing rounds with high-reaction reload. Six of you die, maybe eight. I got a smartgun link, so you could even count to ten if you get unlucky.”

The rabble was shifting uneasily now, but they held their ground. Impasse. Then Geraint had a flash of inspiration.

“In about eight minutes the slint on my tail will come edging round the shadows here. Nice Toyota bike. A real banger. Why not wait for him instead? Set up a sweet little ambush. That way half of you don’t get splashed.

“And since you’ll be doing me a favor,” he added, revving the bike’s engine to make a dash for it, “1 think a little remuneration would be in order.”

He drew a wad of bills from his jacket. Thank the Bank of England for stubbornly refusing to accept that credsticks were the only way to do business these days. He flung the paper into the air, then watched as it fluttered down like a ticker tape parade of fifties and hundreds. The next instant he was scorching away from a dead stop as the snakeboys ran to grab what they could, some even dropping their improvised weapons in their urgency to stuff bank notes into their pockets.

Geraint crouched low over the handlebars and prayed to an obscure Welsh saint that nobody would throw a rock just for the hell of it.

He got lucky. Before the hour was out, he was standing in the service elevator of his apartment house, hoping that no one would see him coming out at penthouse level. Stripping off the jacket and trousers, he bundled them into his carryall and emerged from the elevator feigning a drunken stagger. Muddied nobles in armor jackets might worry security. Half-naked nobles lurching home in a state of terminal intoxication certainly would not.

Breathing heavily, he got the magkey into the lock and half-fell into the hallway, slamming the door behind him.

Time for a bath, coffee, and a good shot of GABA-interactive neuromodulator complex, Geraint promised himself, and it didn’t matter much in what order.

Imran was still in a state of shock, sitting on the tattered sofa staring emptily into space. When he and Rani returned home, they’d had to rouse a severely doped-up Sanjay to open the door. The place was a pigsty from Sanjay’s rolling with a wretched street girl he’d probably lured back to the house with the promise of opiate oblivion. Rani chased the girl out, barely giving her time to cover her scrawny, eczema-riddled body. Sanjay met Rani’s complaints of disgust with a mere shrug and a blank gaze from his heavily dilated pupils. But the mess gave her something on which to vent her anguish and frustration, and she felt a little calmer after making some tea and allowing herself a shot of the fierce, peppery spirit they kept for emergencies.