“Right, then,” she said, trying to convince herself. “I’ll take that option. I’ll call Oscar.”

Laril smiled weakly. “That’s my Araminta. Would you like me to call him for you?”

She nodded. “Please. I’m too scared to access the unisphere.”

“All right. Have you got a code for him?”

“Yes.” She started typing it in.

“That’s good. I’ll make-”

The image on the screen broke apart into a hash of blue and red static.

“Laril!” she gasped.

The static swirled, then formed bright green letters: Araminta, please access this.

She scuttled backward across the floor. “No,” she gasped. “No, what is this? What’s happening?”

“Araminta,” the node’s speaker said. It was a female voice, composed and authoritative. “This is a shotgun message into Chobamba’s cybersphere. All nodes will receive it and broadcast it to every address code; it will also be held in storage until purged, which should take a while. Hopefully that gives it long enough to reach you somehow. I am not aiming it at you directly, because I don’t know precisely where you are. Living Dream has discovered you are on Chobamba, but they haven’t yet determined your exact position. Don’t use the gaiafield again; they have very sophisticated tracking routines in the confluence nests. Several teams of combat-enriched operatives are working on finding you, the same type of people responsible for the Bodant Park massacre. You must leave immediately. I’d advise you to use the route you took to get there. It is relatively safe. Do not hesitate. Time is now a critical factor. Please know, there are people working to help you. The Commonwealth Navy is capable of protecting you. Ask for their aid. Go now.”

Araminta stared at the node in disbelief; the green lettering remained on the screen, casting a pale glow across the darkened chalet. “Oh, sweet Ozzie!” It came out in a pitiful squeal. They know I’m here. Everyone knows I’m here. The woman was right; she had to leave. But it would take hours to reach the start of the path out in the desert. She looked around the chalet as her initial panic tipped over into desperation, seeing everything she’d bought, the gear that was essential for a trek along the paths between worlds. It was heavy. She could hardly run carrying it all with her, certainly not that far. Then she glanced at the Smoky James wrappers, which she hadn’t got around to putting in the trash chute, and an idea formed.

Smoky James was good. Araminta had to admit that. It was three o’clock in the morning, and they took only twenty minutes to deliver the pizza and fries with a flask of coffee. The contraption Ranto was riding as he pulled up in front of Araminta’s chalet was something she’d never seen before-an absurdly primitive three-wheeled bike of some kind, presumably the great-great-granddaddy of a modern trike pod. It didn’t look safe, with a leather saddle seat slung in the center of an open black carbon frame that had its fair share of repair patches, like epoxy bandages swelling the struts. The axle-drive wheels were connected to the frame on long magnetic suspension dampers, which didn’t quite seem to match. Ranto was steering it manually with a set of chrome-orange handlebars. With a sinking heart, Araminta guessed this was necessity rather than preference. It wasn’t going to have any kind of smart technology ready to assume the driving and navigation functions.

He clambered off and pulled the pizza carton out of a big pannier behind the saddle.

Finally, she thought, a plus point. That’ll hold all my gear.

“Here you go,” he said with the kind of miserabalist cheer exclusive to night-shift workers on very basic pay.

Araminta was fairly sure Ranto didn’t have an Advancer heritage. Too many spots on his glum teenage face, his long nose made sure he wasn’t handsome, and even though he was already tall, he was still growing, producing long gangling arms and legs from a torso that seemed oddly thin. From her point of view that was good; he wouldn’t have macrocellular clusters. He couldn’t connect directly to the unisphere.

Araminta took the carton from him. “Thanks.” She held up her cash coin. “How much for the bike-thing?”

Ranto’s slightly awkward smile turned to incredulity. “What?”

“How much?”

“It’s my bike,” he protested.

“I know that. I need it.”

“Why?”

“That’s not important. I just need it. Now.”

“I can’t sell my bike! I fixed it up myself.”

“It’s yours, so you can sell it. And it’s a seller’s market. You’ll never get another chance like this.”

He looked from her to the bike, then back again. Araminta was sure she could hear his brain working, little cogs clicking around under unaccustomed stress. His cheeks colored.

“You could buy a new one,” she said with gentle encouragement. For a moment she visualized Ranto riding around on some massive glowing scarlet sports bike with floating wheels. Come on, focus! If he didn’t want to part with it, there were unarmed combat routines in her lacuna she could use, loaded a long time ago when the whole divorce mess started and she had to go into districts of Colwyn City that had a bad rep. She really didn’t want to. For a start, she didn’t quite trust them, or herself. Besides, hitting someone like Ranto was just naked cruelty. But I will. If I have to. This is far more important than his pride. She brought the lacuna index up into her exovision, ready to access the routine.

“Five thousand Chobamba francs,” Ranto announced nervously. “I couldn’t let it go for anything less.”

“Deal.” Araminta shoved her cash card toward him.

“Really?” Her immediate agreement startled him.

“Yes.” She authorized the money.

Ranto blinked in surprise as his own card registered the transfer. Then he grinned. It made him look quite endearing.

Araminta slung her backpack into the open pannier and turned back to the dazed teenager. “How do I drive it?” she asked.

It took a couple of minutes on the broad road outside the StarSide Motel, with Ranto running about after her shouting instructions as his long arms waved frantically, but Araminta soon got the hang of it. The handlebars had a manual throttle and brake activator. She really had to concentrate on using the brake; all her life she’d driven vehicles with automatic braking. After the first couple of semi-disasters she began to overcompensate, which nearly flung her forward out of the saddle.

“Doesn’t it have any safety systems?” she yelled at Ranto as she curved around again.

He shrugged. “Drive safe,” he suggested.

After another three practice circuits on the street she did just that and set off for the one road out of Miledeep Water. Ranto waved goodbye. She could see that in the little mirrors sticking up from the handlebars. There was no three-sixty sensor coverage-actually, there were no sensors. His lanky frame was backdropped by the green-lit motel reception building, one hand held up and an expression of mild regret on his face.

Araminta concentrated on the route out of Miledeep Water, retracing her walk in not a day before. The bike’s headlight produced a wide fan of pink-tinged light across the road ahead. It was okayish, but she couldn’t see much outside of its beam, and the streetlights grew farther apart as the road climbed the crater wall. She quickly activated every biononic optical enrichment she had, bringing analysis and image resolution programs on line to help. The resulting vision was a lot better, taking away her total dependence on the headlight.

Once the last building was behind her, and she hadn’t fallen off or crashed, and nothing mechanically disastrous had happened, she eased the throttle up, and her speed increased. The axle motors were quite smooth, and the suspension kept her a lot more stable than she’d expected. It was just the wind that was a problem, flapping her fleece about and stinging her eyes. She really should have worn glasses of some kind. There was a pair of big shades in her backpack, but somehow she preferred the discomfort to stopping and fishing them out. The unknown woman’s blanket warning on the unisphere had unnerved her.