“Suggest you call the police,” the SIsubroutine said.

Her mouth twisted into a groan of frustration. “I can’t. That’s why I decompressed you. I need help.”

“Do you have a weapon?”

“No. Find out if there are any on board.”

“No weapons listed on ship’s manifest.”

“Can you infiltrate kaos software into the killer’s wetwired armaments?”

“No kaos files in my directory.”

“Crap. What do I do?”

“Suggest you leave the ship.”

For a moment she considered it. The tributary wasn’t a problem; she could certainly swim to shore, or take a lifeboat. Then she’d be alone in the jungle. Kilometers from anywhere. Possibly alone in the jungle. If she jumped over the rail people would see her. The captain would stop. Dorian would come after her through the trees.

“Think of something else,” she instructed.

“Review enabled. Available processing capacity will not run comparative escape option routines at optimum level.”

Mellanie was rapidly losing faith in the SIsubroutine. This wasn’t going to be like Armstrong City where it hovered around her like a guardian angel. I need a weapon, something that’ll give me a chance. That same calm she’d had when she dealt with Jaycee had returned, blocking out everything else around her. There actually was one place on board that might have something she could use. She just had to get to it. God alone knew where Dorian would be lurking. He was certainly a class above the kind of street thugs that had been sent after Paul Cramley. A compliment of sorts.

Mellanie walked calmly to the stairs that led belowdeck. Surely he won’t shoot me in public? But there was no telling. Kazimir McFoster had been in the middle of LA Galactic, for heaven’s sake.

“Can you detect any encrypted local communications?” she asked the SIsubroutine.

“No. The captain has ordered an assessment of the onboard net to see why the boat functions have dropped to emergency default mode. The diagnostic software is interfering with my comparative option routines.”

“I might be able to get a weapon. Incorporate that possibility into your review.”

“What kind of weapon?”

“I don’t know. Nothing very powerful.”

“Complying.”

“And keep watching for encrypted traffic. I want to know where he is.”

The restaurant was crammed with passengers having their meal; long queues snaked back across the floor space from the buffet bars. With all her sensor inserts active, Mellanie couldn’t detect any of the power signatures that would indicate active wetwiring. She took the stairs down to the casino deck. There were only a few devout gamblers here; most of the tables were deserted, which wasn’t what she wanted. Warm air gusted up the stairwell from the third deck. Mellanie hurried down to the club. “Give me a floor plan,” she told the SIsubroutine. “Is there any escape route? Can I get to the lifeboats?”

“Canceling comparative escape option analysis.”

Mellanie clenched her teeth in anger. Then the boat’s schematics flipped up into her virtual vision.

“Lifeboat access is available on all decks,” the SIsubroutine said.

“Can I launch one without the bridge crew knowing?”

“I can block a launch alert.”

“Great.”

“Resuming comparative escape option analysis.”

At the bottom of the stairs a holographic sign flickered like a faulty strobe telling her that the hermaphrodite dance troupe Death by Orgy would be starting their first performance in twenty minutes. This was definitely what she was looking for. Heavy rock music thumped at her as soon as she went through the screened entrance, loud enough to make her bones vibrate. The club was packed solid and absurdly dim. Holosparks flittered through the air like perverted comets, providing the only flashes of illumination as they circled around the denizens writhing on the minute dance floor. She had to switch her retinal inserts to full light amplification mode to see where she was going.

The club sprang into gray-green focus. Fetish gear was in the majority. Semiorganic costumes offered up strangely modified genitalia as she slithered through the menagerie of bizarreos. Additional limbs were popular, several had infant-sized hands grafted on around the crotch area. Specialist cellular reprofiling had produced a lot of animalisms; furry arms groped at lines of teats, pointed ears twitched as they were licked by serpentine tongues, lustful smiles revealed sharp fangs.

In her white girlie clothes Mellanie felt like some virgin sacrifice on her way to the altar. Everyone looked at her as if they were sharing that thought.

Her inserts were picking up a lot of power sources inside the club, most of them too small for her to use, batteries for kinky toys. She needed the real S&M crowd to have any chance of success.

They were up at the bar, a cluster of large bodies clad in black straps, shiny chains, and hoods. Kaspar Murdo was also there, standing at one end, dressed in Spanish Inquisitor robes, with rusted iron chains around his neck, dangling a variety of medieval instruments.

Mellanie detected the largest power source in the club, her virtual vision locking the position in blue brackets, fortunately at the opposite end of the bar from Murdo. It was a cattle prod, one of many items hanging from the thick leather belt of a bizarreo femfeline. Her head had sleek black fur coming down to her eyebrow line, where her modified glistening red-brown nose jutted forward; long whiskers were rooted at the side of the slit nostrils. She wore a tight sleeveless black leather costume that showed off furry arms and legs. A long tail flicked casually from side to side as she talked to two other cat girls with more restrained modifications and a loosely chained boy slave in a toga with a worried expression on his face.

Mellanie shoved herself in front of the femfeline. “I need to borrow your cattle prod,” she shouted against the pounding rock track.

The femfeline yowled at a volume that rose effortlessly above the music. She brought an arm up and extended her paw fingers in front of Mellanie’s face. The polished onyx claws that had replaced her fingertips clicked out, their points a centimeter from Mellanie’s eyes. “Kitty says lick my litter clean, sweetie bitch.”

Her companions mewled their laughter.

Someone with formidable wetwiring, all of it activated, came through the club’s screened entrance.

“No time,” Mellanie said. She froze. Specks of silver appeared on her arms and face, as if she were sweating mercury. The blooms spread rapidly, obscuring her skin. Software flooded out of her, taking control of the organic circuitry that administered the femfeline’s adaptations.

The femfeline gave a start as her own tail snaked up and wrapped itself around her neck. It tightened. Her claws retracted.

“I’m taking the cattle prod,” Mellanie announced, and snatched it from the belt clip.

The femfeline smiled in excitement. “Yes, mistress, I’ll be a good kitty for you.” Her tongue licked out, a long obscenely flexible cord of wet flesh. “Hurry back.”

Mellanie pushed hard through the packed bodies, creating a wave of commotion. Behind her, Dorian caught it and began to thread his way toward her.

“Can you remove the safety controls on the cattle prod?” she asked the SIsubroutine. “There’s a lot of power in it. If I could use it in one burst it should be lethal.”

“Canceling comparative escape option analysis. Reviewing cattle prod systems.”

Mellanie reached the screened doorway at the side of the stage. “Open it,” she ordered.

The door slid aside. The corridor behind it was lined with small private cabins. She could hear moans, some of pleasure, some of pain. A whip made a loud crack. Someone screamed. There was snarling.

“Cattle prod safety systems bypassed. Battery discharge rate set to unlimited.”

She looked around frantically as the door slid shut behind her. Most of the cabins were occupied. There was a single emergency evacuation hatch at the far end. “How can I hit him with it? He’ll never let me get close.”