Durg stood a discreet distance down the road, keeping watch. A rose-gray Toyota Corolla had been parked there since yesterday, all full of blankets and nonperishable food and stuffed toys for Sprout, to ensure they began the crosscountry leg of their escape as clean as possible.

"Blaise did this?" he repeated wonderingly. "Blaise." K. C. repeated.

He shook his head. "He tried to do something to mejump me, I guess. Why, man? You were his-his lady. I was his friend!" He bit his lip. "It wasn't because we="

She laughed, winced. "He was through with me. He… hated you. Thought you were… threat. Tell you his dirty secret, babe… mine too. He has his grand-"

He pressed a finger to her lips. "Cool it. No time for that now" It was cold as hell out here on this long-forgotten county road, and his breath came in puffs of fog. He didn't notice. "We're away from the city. You gotta let us take you to a hospital. Nobody'll recognize you."

Her fingernails dug into his arm through the thin cotton of his Brooks Brothers shirt with a strength he didn't think she still had. "No! Ahh!"

She clung, eyes shut, until the pain spasm passed. "No," she said again, a whisper now. "Don't give me up to the Combine."

"Nobody's looking for you, babe. We'll tell 'em you got shot when somebody tried to rape you-"

She was shaking her head, slowly, as if each movement tore her further open. "No. I'm wanted. Hospitals, pigs… all part of the Combine. Too late, anyway-I'm… about out of air time." Her eyes came all the way open and looked way back in his. "I'd rather die free than live in a cage."

"You don't have to die."

"No," she said, and her voice was clear. " I don't."

She reached up and grabbed his head with both hands. Mark cried out in alarm as blood welled up around the edges of the tape Durg had wound around her chest, almost black in the orange dusklight. She pulled his face close to hers. Her eyes held his like pins through a butterfly's wings.

"I don't have to die." The blood-froth static was back now, and her voice was sinking under it. "I'm a… jumper, remember? I don't have to-go down with this ship. But I can't touch the alien. I won't touch the baby. And you-"

She forced her shoulders up off the mottled blanket, forced her mouth to his. " I love you, Mark," she said, falling back. Her eyes met his again. "Remember… me…"

Something passed behind his eyes as the light went out of hers. And then her blood was on his mouth, and she was dead.

The three shots were startlingly loud. They seemed to race clear to the horizon, where a thin scum of day's last light lay like self-luminous chemical waste, and rebound in a heartbeat.

The smell of gasoline from the station wagon's ruptured tank crowded Mark's nostrils as Durg slowly lowered the 10-mm. Mark held the highway flare before his skinny chest desperate-hard for just one moment, so the tendons stood out on the back of his hand. Then he pulled the tab. "Good-bye, K.C.," he said. "Rest easy, babe." He tossed the hissing magenta spark into the dark pool spreading below the vehicle.

It went up in a rush and a shout of yellow flame.

Mark stood there staring until the heat got so intense that even Sprout backed up, tugging her daddy's hand with gentle insistence. He stayed put. Durg took hold of the back of his shirt and drew him irresistibly back until his eyebrows were in no danger of crisping.

"It is done," the alien said. "We must leave before someone comes to investigate the fire."

They walked to the Toy, soles crunching quietly in the cinder berm.

Mark unlocked and opened the passenger door, then walked to the other side. Durg awaited him.

"The bike we stashed for you is still all right?" Mark asked.

The alien nodded. "You intend to leave me, then," he said flatly.

"We talked about this before, man. The three of us together are, like, just too distinctive."

The fine narrow head nodded. "Indeed. But later… may I not join you?"

Mark felt tears crowding his eyes again. I thought I'd run out of those.

"No, man. I'm sorry. I've put you through too much already."

"It is what I am made for."

"No. I can't. People can't own people, man. It doesn't work that way here." Like a man breaking through a membrane wall, Mark abruptly leaned forward and wrapped scarecrow arms briefly around Durg's shoulders. It was like hugging a statue. "Don't be so sad. It's freedom, man. It's the greatest thing in the world."

"It is for you."

Sprout hugged the Morakh. He smiled then, and hugged her back. She and Mark climbed into the car.

"Look, man," Mark said out the window, "maybe you should, like, try the Rox. I can't go back, not with Blaise there. But it's me Blaise is mad at, you were just like incidental. Talk to Bloat. He can help keep Blaise off your back if he tries to come down on you, and you can help him out like I was supposed to. Do that, yeah. The Rox."

"Do you so order me, lord?"

Compassion struggled with principle in Mark. As it sometimes should, compassion won. "Yes," he said, not meeting the lilac eyes. "I so order it."

Durg stepped back. "I thank you, lord."

"Good-bye, man, I'll never forget you."

"Nor I you," said Durg at-Morakh.

The Toyota rolled away through crackling gravel. Sprout leaned out the window and waved.

Mark looked back himself, once, as the tires took the cracked, neglected blacktop. For a flicker, he thought he saw something glistening on the alien's high cheek. But it had to be a trick of the light from K.C.'s pyre.

Sprout began to sing a song, something of her own, with words that made sense only to her. The road curved. The alien and the burning car were wiped from sight, and nothing remained but a glow in the sky that gradually faded as the Toyota pulled west for California and freedom. Eventually it was gone.

The Temptation of Hieronymus Bloat

V

He was a lacuna in the fabric of the mindvoices. A vacuum. A null.

I'd never encountered a mindshield like this one. It was a hard round shell that I couldn't quite grasp. Tachyon's mind might have been that way once, but her mind powers were now weak and diffuse. Blaise's shields, as I knew, were erratic and poor, emotions dribbling around and underneath them. But this one… He had to be an ace, and I don't like aces. I had Kafka send Shroud, File, and Video to meet Charon at the docks.

Video came back a little ahead of the others with images that disturbed me: Our intruder was a man about five feet tall and oddly wide, moving too fast for a mere human and lifting the front end of a jeep as easily as someone picking up a pencil. "He says his name's Doug Morkle. Says he's a Takisian, being hunted by the Combine. The demo's supposed to prove to you that he is who he says he is. He wants refuge. He also wants to meet Blaise."

A little stab of fright shuddered through me, setting off an avalanche of bloatblack. They were walking in the front door now, the Takisian between Shroud and File, neither of whom looked to be so much guarding Morkle as hoping that if he made a move, he'd go for the other. Looking at Morkle, I had no doubt that he could disable both of them before they could move to stop him.

But what I couldn't do was read his thoughts. Their absence roared in my head. I didn't realized just how much I depended on that hearing-I felt like someone suddenly deaf. The Takisian, already a threat from a simple physical standpoint, was more frightening because of that.

"Why is he here, Governor?" Kafka whispered to me as Morkle came across the lobby. The man didn't glance at the lush tapestries, the gorgeous expanse of the Temptation, the new paint and gilt, or the stained-glass windows that were slowly transforming this place into a palace. None of that seemed to matter to him. He stared up at me. Pale eyes. Lavender eyes.