Not finding her gun, Rani grabbed at the aerosol can of ammonia complex as the people behind began to panic. ‘‘Mutaqua!” someone screamed. ‘‘We’re goners!"

It was eight feet away. In a blind panic, Rani pulled out the aerosol can and sprayed wildly before her, looking away from the thing. It was a crazy thing to do, but she was as terrified as everyone else.

A scream like someone burning alive exploded through the tunnel, half-deafening her, and then she heard a thunderous splash. Peering over the arm she had flung over her face in a vain attempt at protection. Rani saw the creature clutching at its face in horror as skin and membrane peeled away. Dripping folds of blood-soaked flesh hung limply from the mutant’s visage. It opened its mouth and howled in sheer agony. The flesh around its mouth tore like melted cheese, revealing gums and muscle beneath the strings of flesh.

By the time the mutant turned and began to thrash blindly down the tunnel away from them, bare bone was showing through what remained of its disintegrating face. It staggered a few paces before the massive body collapsed face-down into the churning sewage. The thing convulsed once or twice, tried to raise itself up on its fists, then slumped into the muck. It did not move again.

Rani held on to the can as if her life still depended upon it. She didn’t move a muscle either.

The leading ork was getting to his feet now, wiping muck off his face and hands. When he looked at her, it was with a very different expression than before.

At first he just stared, and Rani stared back. They remained so for a second, ripples of water from the monster’s final spasms lapping against their legs, their breath coming in shallow heaves. Then the ork bowed his head, and bent just a little from the waist.

"Life saves life saves life," he said simply. A gentle hubbub rose from the others. “You are more than you seem. This I do not forget." He spoke slowly, putting his whole being into the emphasis on the not. “Come now. We can talk later. We have business first. Nearly home.”

Indeed, it was not far. They went a few more yards, past the motionless body of the dead thing that had tried to ambush them, then came to the secret entrance leading to the caverns of the Undercity beyond.

"Where are we?"

Rani was astonished. After a couple of miles of progressively more disgusting sewer tunnels, and an unwanted soaking in sewer effluent, this cavern was clean, though bare and unmarked. The dusty, dank air was not so good, either, but one could live in such a place. Orks and dwarfs were using buckets of water to clean the filth off their boots.

"Old Civil Defense underground,” the leading ork said without looking up. "Hundred years old, maybe more. Abandoned them when they built deeper and bigger bunkers to save the nobles in case of a nuke attack. Good place. Easy to defend. Our home.” It was plain that they finally trusted Rani enough to give her some information. “Sometimes we get trouble with the Gleedens from the deeper tunnels, but they’re slim from all the dumpchutes down there, and we do business with the Ratskinks anyway. Keeps our patch safe.” She had no idea what Gleedens or Ratskinks were, but she didn’t like the sound of either one. This certainly was another world.

“The, um, mutaqua? Get many of them down here?” She tried to sound nonchalant.

The ork handed her a bucket and some rags. “Not many. They usually don’t make it up this far from the deeps. Mutated dzoo-noo-qua-no one knows how they got down here, but they’re motherrubbing dangerous. Don’t know what you have in that can, gopi, but it was tailor-made for the job.”

Rani merely nodded. She didn’t have any idea exactly what it was that had turned the mutaqua’s face to bloody jelly, either. In a sewer, it could hardly have been the ammonia. She wondered whether she’d grabbed a can of sornething else from the kitchen in her haste. At the back of her mind, a little plan was hatching about the fortune to be made selling the stuff to the population of the Undercity. She was just congratulating herself on her canny presence of mind when she realized these orks were not likely to be what you called rich. Oh well. That’d teach her to start thinking like her brothers.

A powerfully built dwarf came over and handed a black plastic package to the ork with whom she’d been talking. Whatever was inside slithered and squirmed a little. She knew better than to inquire about the contents.

“All right, peeps,” the ork said. “Kurak’s waiting. Let’s go. Fun-time’s over for the evening.”

She was suddenly aware that it was very late, and after the tension of dealing with Mohinder and the fighting of this night, her muscles were beginning to feel very heavy. Her eyelids drooped and it was a real effort to put one foot in front of the other as she walked along.

"Sorry, gopi, uh, sorry again. Hey, what’s your name?” The big ork grinned at her. She told him, and he said, “I’m Smeng. Yeah, Rani, we’re going to have to blindfold you now. Should have done it before, really. Make sure you don’t see what you shouldn’t. Nothing personal, you know.”

Without complaint she let them bind a thick, smelly cloth tightly across her eyes. As they marched her along, she was really too tired to try to figure out how far they’d gone, dimly thinking they might be back-tracking at some stage as guttural yells to sentinels got them past blocks and checks.

By the time they removed the blindfold, Rani was almost dead on her feet. She looked dazedly around at a large chamber with strange faded maps posted on the walls and dim lamps suspended in arrays along the ceiling. She blinked like a rabbit caught in the headlights of a car.

"We take a little juice off the electricity cables. Service ducts aren’t too far away. We do a little freelance rewiring from time to time.” Smeng grinned at her again. Maybe it was just the lateness and exhaustion, but she was beginning to like him a little.

“Rani, I got business to take care of." He held the black package protectively to his chest. “Got to figure out what to do with you, too. Sleep on it, huh?" He unlocked a side door and ushered her into a little four-bunked cell. She’d have slept in a radioactive bomb crater if he’d put a bed in it. She could hardly take another step.

Maybe it was the excitement of the night, maybe some premonition, maybe just exhaustion that kept her awake an extra few minutes after Smeng had locked her in. She struggled to pull off her befouled clothes, then snuggled under the gray blankets smelling of naphtha. She lay there awhile, her mind racing too fast for sleep. When she heard murmurs and saw the light grow brighter in the crack under the door, she draped the blanket around her and crept through the dark to listen.

There was laughter, a few chinking sounds that could only have been glasses or mugs brought together to seal some bargain, then the stray word caught here and there. She didn’t hear her own name mentioned, but she heard Smeng speaking and other higher-pitched voices raised in reply. One word, though, sliced through her confusion and fatigue to jolt her fully awake.

Pershinkin.

That gave her something to think about! Rani managed five seconds’ thought before her body told her she’d pass out on the floor if she didn’t get back into the bunk. She settled for the latter.

15

Francesca did not surface until nearly noon. Wrapped in one of Geraint’s terry bathrobes she stumbled out of the guest bedroom, rubbing her eyes like a child and then bumping into a china cabinet in the hall because she wasn’t looking. Smiling indulgently. Geraint took her elbow, steered her into the bathroom and showed her the control panel.