"I was about to say, Time to quit," Roxanny said. "But lets follow Wembleth. Right behind him, Luis. No short cuts. I think hes right; we shouldnt get high enough to be shot at either. And dont get too close."

"Stet," Louis muttered. "No point in being right there when something cremates the poor bastard."

The scars of blasting led Wembleth around the curve of the corridor, then rose up a wall. He couldnt follow on foot. He waved the flycycle down and climbed up between them. He pointed past Louiss ear. "There, high up."

The blast trail had broken through, high up. Louis looked around Wembleth at Roxanny. She shrugged.

There wasnt any cover. Louis took the flycycle straight up and through and let it fall. A beam — not a laser, a jet of plasma — fired at the hole after theyd dropped below it, and followed them all the way down to cower in a maze of ramps. The wall collapsed under its fury, a dozen meters too high to harm the flycycle.

They were deep inside the faux mountain. This interior cavity was mostly empty space laced with a maze of ramps of Brobdingnagian size. Louis wondered if it had been intended as a training ground for warriors. If that, it was other things too. As Roxanny had guessed, there were wonders. Here was a line of crude machines floating by magnetic or gravitic levitation. There, light rays in a haze of dust bent through a scintillating focus. There were guns or instrument packages mounted where ramps crossed. They all looked ruined by heat.

Louis was tempted to stray off the path of destruction. Roxanny was right, a lot of guns had been shot to pieces here… but he could still feel sensors seeking him. Later?

He floated across a broken ramp to a blackened flight of steps. It was fatuous to suppose that a death trap wouldnt repeat, yet Roxannys optimism seemed to be working. A projectile weapon rained bits of metal on them, but the sonic shield diverted them all until Louis could drift the flycycle under a ramp. He left the path to veer around a fallen wall. Something exploded in a glare of light; the sound barely reached them.

"Wait," Wembleth said. "Whats that?"

It was a war zone lit up like a holoflick ad. Rubble like a stack of pancakes slumped in the glare, soggy but not quite molten. It had been one of Tunesmiths service stacks. An attack laser on a wall high above them bathed the rubble in pearl-white light. As they approached, it burned out.

The stack still glowed white hot, and black at the top. Those float plates wouldnt fly after treatment like that. The stepping disk at its tip -

Hold that thought. "End of the trail," Louis said.

Roxanny said, "Yah. Id say this is what weve been following, and Id say it was armed. Down there — " She pointed at the foot of the stack. "What do you see?"

"More melted machinery." A glitter of lenses. "Laser cannon?"

"A weapons and shield package. It sat like a cap on that, that tower. It must have shot up everything that attacked it—"

"All but one, Roxanny. That last weapon got it."

"That last weapon just burned out ten seconds ago! Everything thats tried to hurt us is damaged. Luis, Wembleth, we have here a perfect chance to go exploring!"

That seemed a little too fortuitous to be credible. "You say burned out. What if its just sputtering?"

"Your point?"

"Go home now. Stick to the path, but photograph everything. Work our way back. Study what weve got. Show it to Proserpina if we cant solve it ourselves—"

"Luis, what does any of that get us?"

"Might get us another way in," Louis said. "Roxanny, have you got a better idea?"

"Get out and look around. Luis, if were on foot, well look like breeders. We are breeders. I dont think the defenses will fire at a breeder on foot," Roxanny Gauthier said.

"Breeders are naked. Get naked?"

"Youre already naked."

"And youre already schitz." Louis turned the flycycle and started back. That last plasma beam had burned a nice big hole in the wall. It ran to floor level. Theyd be safer leaving than theyd been coming in.

Wembleth gripped his shoulder. "Look. Plants."

Far above their heads, greenery dripped over the edges of a ramp. It did seem a funny place for a garden.

"We know a way out," Louis insisted. "One."

Roxanny too was gripping his arm. Her voice was soothing. "Whats biting you, Luis? Look, this ramp is as wide as a racing freeway. Just take us straight up. If something attacks, we fall back to here, and thats back on the safe path. Stet? Go straight up."

The ramps had no railings. Louis didnt say so. Roxanny saw him as a coward, and somehow he couldnt stand that. He lifted the flycycle straight up.

Nothing fired on them.

A green jungle spilled over both sides of the upper ramp.

Roxanny said, "The guns wont fire on crops either. This was the Penultimates food supply."

"You dont know any of that. Youre betting three lives!"

"ARM detectives do that, Luis. This is our last chance to learn anything without Proserpina learning it too. And Proserpina is not my superior officer! Take us there, Luis."

"The jungle?"

"Yah."

He started to turn, and something found them.

The sonic fold rang like a great bell, and kept ringing. Louis shouted against the sound. He turned off the lift motor, and Roxanny had better be right! The flycycle dropped. In midair he passed out.

From the moment it came in view of the Citadel, the mag ship was observed. Proserpina worked to muffle the wavelengths reflecting from the ship. As they neared the mountain, something got through: projectiles stuttered toward the mag ship, then veered away. Light blasted up at them and also veered. Hanuman kept flying. It was all he could do while Proserpina fought the ship.

His path wasnt in doubt. He hoped Tec Gauthier had followed the chain of chewed landscape. Even if she had, she could still be dead in a hundred ways, and her companions too.

He asked. "Do they live?"

Proserpina didnt answer. Her fields delicately plucked a section of wall away. There was an inner wall, and she plucked that away too. Light flared and was gone. Hanuman was looking at something like a beehive. Proserpina took them in.

There were strong arms around Louis, easing him down to a flat surface. Everything hurt.

He was familiar with this pain: the injuries hed been healing from, plus a whack on his jaw and a ringing in his ears. He opened his eyes. Roxanny was lifting Wembleth into the forward seat. Blood ran from Wembleths nose and ears.

She shouted. "You awake?" He could barely hear her. "Here, help me with this." She lifted him into position. She was trying to hook Wembleth into the medical systems. "We had crash fields," she said, "but he didnt. He might have broken his back or his neck. Look, hes got a nosebleed."

"So do you," he shouted.

She looked at him. "So do you. I guess thats the sonics. Tanj, is he dead?"

Louis, with Roxanny supporting him, finished mating Wembleth to the medical system. Readouts flickered on. "Hes alive," Louis said. "Trauma all the futz over his body. Hell feel like me when he wakes up."

"Its feeding him boosterspice, isnt it?"

That ancient trademark — "Yah. Hes never had boosterspice before. I think hes old, Roxanny. Hell eat up the whole supply."

"Tanj. That would have been my boosterspice supply. All right, Luis, put your hands on the controls."

"We cant fly in this position. We should get into seats."

"I know." She set his hands on the flight stick and the keypad. She turned on the lift. Then she pushed him hard in the chest. He flew backward into space.

He fell two meters onto rock. A sea of pain washed over him. He couldnt breathe. He saw the flycycle lift, and pause.