His chest and shoulders were those of a much taller man, swollen with muscle. His head was small and narrow, the features almost elfin. His eyes were slanted, the color of lilacs. He diverged far enough from the human somatotype to be considered a joker. Yet he carried no trace of the wild-card virus.

He wasn't a nat, either. He wasn't human at all.

"Hey, man." The voice came from the dark alley, a few feet away to his right: a sick-crow caw. The lilac eyes never wavered. He had no time for importunate groundlings. And if it was more than a panhandler

…

Seventeen months ago, a nat youth had attempted to mug him at gunpoint on a street much like this one. The youth was unduly confident in the superstitious terror in which the denizens of this vast, reeking, unaesthetic jumble of a city held their primitive firearms, or perhaps his confidence was chemically enhanced. He had been so little challenge that the man with lilac eyes had been merciful. There was a chance the boy had received medical attention in time to keep from bleeding to death after having his arm torn off at the shoulder.

"burg," the voice said, quieter now. "Durg at-Morakh. It's you, isn't it, man?"

He froze, turned slowly. The tall gaunt figure that shuffled toward him from blackness into mere darkness did not much resemble the owner of that voice as he remembered him. Still, the pale eyes of a being shaped by gene engineering and training to be the consummate bodyguard were not to be deceived by a few alterations in silhouette.

"Dr. Meadows." Durg performed a brief bow, accompanied by a hand gesture.

The taller man stood there in a posture of helplessness. Durg waited, legs braced, head up. He would maintain that pose all night or all week: awaiting orders.

"Uh, how's life, man?"

"My job as a stevedore provides adequate exercise. The pay affords me such comfort as this overly warm and insufficiently civilized world can provide." Thin lips smiled. "Should I require more funds, my coworkers are ever eager to wager on contests of strength and dexterity. Some of your people are dismally slow learners, lord. I would hope your own fortunes have changed for the better."

"No. Not really. Except-except I've found my little girl."

"I rejoice that the Little Mistress has been discovered. Does your government still hold her captive?"

"Yeah." Mark bit his lip and shuffled his feet. "I-I have to get her back. God only knows what she's going through."

"You mean, then, to employ force?"

Mark's gaze rummaged among the fissures in the pavement. He nodded. "You know I'm not comfortable with this kind of thing. But I'm desperate, man. I'm really strung out. I need to know, will you help me?"

"Does the sun yet shine on Avendrath Crag?"

"Beg pardon?"

"A Morakh saying, lord. So long as the sun of Takis shines, so long as the great rock of Avendrath shall stand-so long shall the loyalty of a Morakh run true."

"It'll mean breaking the law"

The elfin head tipped back, rang laughter like the pealing of a big silver bell. "I care as much for the laws of your kind as you care what legislation dogs might pass. Had you listened to me, you would have defied the law long since and fought to keep your daughter by force or stealth."

"I wasn't ready, man. I-I still believed in justice."

"Your world entertains many quaint superstitions. What now, my lord?"

"Now I'm gonna get Sprout back," Mark said. "Whatever it takes."

Bloat said he hated pity. His visitor pitied him, and he found it oddly pleasurable. What the man didn't feel was repugnance. That made all the difference.

"Dr. Meadows," he said, "welcome."

Mustelina and Andiron took their cue and left. Meadows stood blinking up at Bloat's bloatblack-slimy sides. "Thanks, uh, Governor. Like, to what do I owe the honor?"

You're dying to know what's become of your friend, Bloat thought, and couldn't help but giggle. The poor man. Should I tell you where he is?

"I understand you have a project in mind."

The tall man swallowed. Bloat heard him turn up the deception card and toss it away without hesitation, as if he were unused to its use. How rare that was.

"It's my daughter, Governor." He glanced at Kafka. "I have to get her back." With or without your permission. He didn't speak the words, but of course Bloat heard them.

"You don't need my permission," Bloat said, and tittered at the way Mark jumped to hear his own thoughts quoted. "But you have it. My blessings, even. More than that, Doctor. I want to offer my help."

"What-what do you mean, man?"

"You want to see if you can bring your friends back. Don't look so surprised, Doctor; you've got to know I can read your mind. I know what you need. You need certain drugs and a safe place to work. I can offer those things."

"What do you want from me?"

Bloat clucked. "My, my. The Last Hippie has gotten cynical."

"It's just the way the world works, man."

"Exactly. Dr. Meadows, you've felt the anger of the straight world-the anger and the fear. We've offered you shelter from it."

"Yeah, thanks, man, like I really appreciate-"

"Wait. That's understood. I want to make sure you understand that this can't last. The nats-the straights-won't let us defy them forever. They have to reassert their power. To destroy us for being different and daring to hold our heads up and not be ashamed."

Meadows nodded. "You think the Combine will move in on you. Makes sense."

"The Combine? Oh, you've been talking to K.C. Strange. Yes. We're inevitably going to be attacked, and we will fight. What I ask in exchange for my help is that you fight beside us when the time comes."

He read Meadows's hesitation and, stifled his own feelings of disappointed anger and I thought you would be different. "I know it's a big step. Asking you to cut yourself off completely from the nat world. But it's really a fait accompli, isn't it, Doctor? The straight world's rejected you. It's hunting you like a vicious animal. Do you really have anything left to lose?"

"No," Meadows said quietly. "Like, I guess not." He raised his head. "I'm with you, man."

Bloat giggled happily. "Marvelous! And now I have something-"

"Just one thing. When I get Sprout back, I have to find out what's happened to Tachyon. If he's in trouble, my friends and I will have to get him out. Then I'll, like, be happy to help you."

Uh-oh, Bloat thought. He switched in mid-sentence. "-something to ask you. What do you think of Hieronymous Bosch?"

Meadows's eyes lit. " I love him, man. He's my favorite. Him and M.C. Escher. And, uh, Peter Max."

When Mark had left, Kafka said, "You should have told him to go to Blaise for help hunting Tachyon. It would have been amusing."

Bloat's jellyfish sides heaved. The black ran glistening down. "I need them both," he said. "I need all the help I can get."

"You toyed with the notion of telling him, though, didn't you? About Tachyon."

"Blaise is-he's like a force of nature. I don't dare challenge him. He'll destroy us all. It's all I can do to get him to keep a lid on his taste for atrocity, and that's only here on my island."

Kafka produced clicking sounds with his chitinous joints. "Someday, Kafka. Someday we'll face down the nats and win. Then maybe Mark Meadows will hear a few things that'll raise his eyebrows. And then maybe Jumpin' Jack Flash will burn pretty Blaise fucking Andrieux down to a cinder. Someday."

"We're all secure here," K.C. Strange said. "Bloat's people are keeping the gawkers away."

Mark swallowed, nodded convulsively. He didn't look up from his work. "Ready in a minute, man. Don't rush me." The metal table was rickety, its washers rattling at every random gust that bulled its way into the fiberboard shack. The light from the alcohol lamp was thin and thready as a dying woman's pulse. Conditions were not ideal. But Mark in his way was an artist, who knew how to work around the limitations of his surroundings and his media. And this was a familiar task, even after so many months he didn't care to count. In the doing of it, he was even able to take a certain shelter: from thought, from demands the world and he laid upon him that he realized he in all likelihood could not fulfill. K. C. sat down and drew her knees under her chin. Her eyes glowed like coins in the lamplight as she watched Mark measure powder into glittering mounds of color.