Joshua waved a sunny farewell to the girl and sat down at Melvyn’s table with a satisfied sigh. “Her name’s Kole, and she’s invited me to a party this evening.”

“I’m surprised she can hold back that long,” Melvyn muttered.

“I’m meeting her and her friends at tonight’s benefit gig, then they’re going on to a private bash at someone’s apartment.”

“A benefit gig?” Beaulieu questioned.

“Some local MF bands are getting together so they can raise money for Alkad Mzu’s legal costs, should she ever need to fight Confederation extradition warrants.”

“She’s becoming a bloody religion,” Melvyn said.

“Looks that way.” Joshua started counting the bottles on the table. “Come on, we need to get back to Lady Mac .” He slipped his arm under Melvyn’s shoulder and signalled Beaulieu to help. Between them, they got the drunk fusion specialist to his feet. Ashly and Sarha walked over from the bar. All four serjeants rose from their seats.

None of the agents moved. That would have been too blatant.

A pair of possessed walked into Bar KF-T. A man and woman, dressed in clothes which almost matched current fashions.

Joshua’s electronic warfare block datavised an alarm.

“Get down!” the four serjeants shouted in unison.

The threat-response program which had gone primary as soon as the alarm came on sent Joshua diving for cover amid the tables and chairs. He hit the floor, rolling expertly to absorb the impact. A couple of empty chairs went flying as his legs struck them. His crew was following him down; even Melvyn, though his alcohol-polluted nerves made him slower.

Screams broke out across the club as the serjeants drew their stubby machine guns. The agents were also moving, boosted muscles turning their actions into a blur.

Both the possessed gasped at the near-instantaneous reaction to their appearance. An unnerving number of weapons were lining up on them amid the chaos of a terrified and bewildered clientele.

“Freeze,” a quadriphonic voice ordered them.

They didn’t have functional neural nanonics to run combat programs, but instinct was almost as fast. Both of them started to raise their arms, white fire bursting from their fingertips.

Six machine guns, three semi-automatic pistols, and a carbine opened fire.

Joshua had never heard a chemical projectile weapon before. Ten of them shooting at once was louder than a fusion rocket exhaust. He slammed his hands over his ears. The fusillade couldn’t have lasted more than a couple of seconds. He risked raising his head.

Only the agents (there were actually six—Melvyn had missed one) and the serjeants were standing. Everyone else was on the floor, sprawled flat or curled up in fetal balls. Tables and chairs rolled and spun. The music and dance-floor holograms were still playing.

He heard several peculiar mechanical snicking sounds as fresh magazines were slammed into the guns.

Bullets had shredded the wall behind the possessed, chewing apart the composite panelling. Large splatters of blood covered the tattered splinters of composite. The two bodies—

Joshua squirmed at the sight. There wasn’t much left to identify as human. A nausea suppression program switched smoothly into primary mode, though that only stopped the physical symptoms.

Moans and cries rose over the music. Several people had been hit by ricochets.

“Joshua!”

It was Sarha. She had her hand clamped around Ashly’s left thigh. Blood was staining her fingers scarlet. “He’s been hit.”

The pilot was staring with a calm morbid interest at his wound. “Damn stupid thing.” He blinked in confusion.

“Ione,” Joshua shouted. “Medical nanonic.”

One of the serjeants took a package from its equipment belt. Beaulieu was slitting Ashly’s trouser fabric with a small metal blade that had slid out of her left wrist attachments. A dribble of grey-green fluid was leaking from a bullet hole in her brass breastplate.

“I say, do be careful,” Ashly murmured.

When the wound had been fully exposed, Sarha slapped the package over it.

“Let’s go,” Joshua said. “Beaulieu, take Melvyn. Sarha and I will handle Ashly. Ione, cover us.”

“Now wait a minute,” one of the agents said. Joshua recognized him as one of the heavyweights accompanying Pauline Webb. “You’re staying right here until the police arrive.”

It was a barman who had recovered fast enough to think of the financial possibilities that started recording the scene in a memory cell. Later that day and all through the night the news companies repeated it almost constantly. Six armed men in a shouting match with a young starship captain (later everyone realized it was Lagrange Calvert himself) and his crew. The captain saying that no one was going to prevent him from taking his injured friend to get proper treatment. And what authority have you got anyway? Four identical and disturbingly menacing cosmoniks stood between Calvert and the armed men. There was a short pause, then everyone’s guns seemed to disappear. The starship crew left the club, carrying their wounded with them.

Anchormen speculated long and loud on the possibility that the six armed men were in fact foreign intelligence agents. Rover reporters tried desperately to hunt them down, with no success.

The police officially confirmed that the two people shot dead by the agents had been possessed (though no details about how they knew for sure were forthcoming). Ayacucho’s governing council issued a statement urging everyone to remain calm. Total priority was given to search and identification procedures which were being put into operation to locate any further possessed in the asteroid. All citizens and residents were asked to cooperate fully.

There was no physical expression of panic, no angry mobs gathering in the biosphere cavern, or marches on the council chamber. People were too fearful of what might be lying in wait outside their apartment doors. Those companies and offices which had remained open started to wind down or conduct their businesses purely over the communications net; anything as long as personal contact was reduced. Parents took their children out of day clubs. Emergency services were brought up to full alert status. Company security staff were seconded to the police to help with the search.

By late afternoon several starships had been given official flight authorization by the council. Most of them were taking councillors, their families, and close aides away for conferences or defence negotiations with allies.

“And we can’t stop them,” Monica complained bitterly. She was sitting at the back of the office which the Edenists were using, sipping a mug of instant tea. There was little else for her to do now, which aggravated her intensely. All the ESA’s assets had been activated. None of them had any idea where Mzu was; few had even heard of Voi let alone any underground group the girl was connected with.

Locating Mzu was all down to the Edenist observation operation now, and the slender hope they would get a lucky break.

“She has not embarked on any starship,” Samuel said. “We are sure of that. Both axial chambers have been under constant observation, and not just by us. Nobody who comes within twenty-five per cent of Mzu’s height and mass has passed into the spaceports without being positively identified.”

“Yes yes,” Monica said irritably.

“If we don’t find her in another four hours we are going to withdraw from Ayacucho.”

She’d known it was coming, but that didn’t make it any easier. “That bad?”

“Yes. I’m afraid so.” He had just finished watching another possession through a spider in one of the residential sections. It was the apartment of an ordinary family of five, doing as they’d been advised, staying at home and not allowing anyone else in. Until the police arrived. All three officers were possessed; and after seven minutes so were the family. “We estimate eight per cent of the population has been possessed now. With everyone isolated and sitting tight, it is becoming easier for them to spread. They have taken over the police force in its entirety.”