He got out an interrogative "Wh…" but could choose no defining final consonant.

"Now you know—" the spider in the middle extinguished: the tall redhead dropped one freckled hand from the chains looping neck to belly—"damn well you ain't supposed to be up there." His face was flat, his nose wide as a pug's, his lips overted, his eyes like brown eggshells set with tarnished gold coins. His other hand, freckles blurred in pale hair, held a foot of pipe.

"I wasn't climbing in."

"Shit," came out of the newt on the left in a black accent much heavier than the redhead's.

"Sure you weren't," the redhead said. His skin, deep tan, was galaxied with freckles. Hair and beard were curly as a handful of pennies. "Yeah, sure. I just bet you weren't." He swung the pipe, snapping his arm at the arc's end: neckchains rattled. "You better get down from there, boy."

He vaulted, landed with one hand still on the crates.

The redhead swung again: the flanking apparitions came closer, swaying. "Yeah, you better jump!"

"All right, I'm down. Okay—?"

The scorpion laughed, swung, stepped.

The chained boot mashed the corner of the notebook into the mulch. The other tore the newspaper's corner.

"Hey, come on—!"

He pictured himself lunging forward. But stayed still… till he saw that the pipe, next swing, was going to catch him on the hip—was lunging forward.

"Watch it! He's got his orchid on…!"

He slashed with his bladed hand; the scorpion dodged back; newt and beetle spun. He had no idea where they were under their aspects. He jammed his fist at the scaly simulation — his fist went through and connected jaw-staggeringly hard with something. He slashed with his blades at the retreating beetle. The spider rushed him. He staggered in rattling lights. A hand caught him against the cheek. Blinking, he saw a second, sudden black face go out under newt scales. Then, something struck his head.

"Hey, he cut you, Spitt, man!" That was the heavy black accent, very far away. "Oh, hey, wow, Spitt! He really cut you. Spitt, you all right?"

He wasn't all right. He was falling down a black hole.

"The mother fucker! I'm going to get him for that—"

He hit bottom.

Pawing across that leafy bottom, he finally found the remnants of a thought: His orchid had been hanging from his waist. No time had he reached down to—

"Are… you all right?"

— slip his roughened fingers into the harness, fasten the collar about his knobby wrist…

Someone shook him by the shoulder. His hand gouged moist leaves. The other was suspended. He opened his eye.

Evening struck the side of his head so hard he was nauseated.

"Young man, are you all right?"

He opened his eyes again. The throbbing twilight concentrated on one quarter of his head. He pushed himself up.

The man, in blue serge, sat back on his heels. "Mr Fenster, I think he's conscious!"

A little ways away, a black man in a sports shirt stood at the clearing's edge.

"Don't you think we should take him inside? Look at his head."

"No, I don't think we should." The black put his hands in the pockets of his slacks.

He shook his head — only once, because it hurt that much.

"Were you attacked, young man?"

He said, "Yes," very thickly. A nod would have made it cynical, but he didn't dare.

The white collar between the serge lapels was knotted with an extraordinarily thin tie. White temples, below grey hair: the man had an accent that was disturbingly near British. He picked up the notebook. (The newspaper slid off onto the leaves.) "Is this yours?"

Another thick, "Yes."

"Are you a student? It's terrible, people attacking people right out in the open like this. Terrible!"

"I think we'd better get inside," the black man said. "They'll be waiting for us."

"Just a minute!" came out with surprising authority. The gentleman helped him to sitting position. "Mr Fenster, I really think we should take this poor young man inside. Mr Calkins can't possibly object. This is something of an exceptional circumstance."

Fenster took dark brown hands from his pockets and came over. "I'm afraid it isn't exceptional. We've checked, now come on back inside."

With surprising strength Fenster tugged him to his feet. His right temple exploded three times en route. He grabbed the side of his head. There was crisp blood in his hair; and wet blood in his sideburn.

"Can you stand up?" Fenster asked.

"Yes." The word was dough in his mouth. "Ah… thanks for my—" he almost shook his head again, but remembered—"my notebook."

The man in the tie looked sincerely perplexed. With a very white hand, he touched his shoulder. "You're sure you're all right?"

"Yes," automatically. Then, "Could I get some water?"

"Certainly," and then to Fenster. "We can certainly take him inside for a glass of water."

"No—" Fenster spoke with impatient resignation— "we can't take him inside for a glass of water." It ended with set jaw, small muscles there defined in the dark skin. "Roger is very strict. You'll just have to put up with it. Please, let's go back in."

The white man — fifty-five? sixty? — finally took a breath. "I'm…" Then he just turned away.

Fenster — forty? forty-five? — said, "This isn't a good neighborhood to be in, young fellow. I'd get back downtown as fast as I could. Sorry about all this."

"That's all right," he got out. "I'm okay."

"I really am sorry." Fenster hurried after the older gentleman.

He watched them reach the corner, turn. He raised his caged hand, looked at it between the blades. Was that why they had…? He looked back toward the street.

His head gave a gratuitous throb.

He collected the paper and the notebook, mumbling profanity, and walked out.

They'd apparently gone back through the gate. Motherfucker. Motherfuckers, he thought. The gloom was denser now. He began to wonder how long he'd been away from the park. Four or five hours? His head hurt a pot. And it was getting dark.

Also it looked like rain… But the air was dry and neutral.

Brisbain South had just become Brisbain North when he saw, a block away, three people run from one side of the avenue to the other.

They were too far to see if they wore chains around their necks. Still, he was overcome with gooseflesh. He stopped with his hand on the side of a lamp post. (The globe was an inverted crown of ragged glass points, about the smaller, ragged collar of the bulb.) He felt his shoulders pull involuntarily together. He looked at the darkening sky. And the terror of the vandal-wrecked city assailed him: His heart pounded.

His armpits grew slippery.

Breathing hard, he sat with his back to the post's base.

He took the pen from his pocket and began to click the point. (He hadn't put the orchid on…?) After a moment, he stopped to take the weapon from his wrist and put it through his belt loop again: moving armed through the streets might be provocative…?

He looked around again, opened his notebook, turned quickly past "Brisbain" to a clean page, halfway or more through.

"Charcoal," he wrote down, in small letters, "like the bodies of burnt beetles, heaped below the glittering black wall of the house on the far corner." He bit at his lip, and wrote on: "The wet sharpness of incinerated upholstery cut the general gritty stink of the street. From the rayed hole in the cellar window a grey eel of smoke wound across the sidewalk, dispersed before" at which point he crossed out the last two words and substituted, "vaporized at the gutter. Through another window," and crossed out window, "still intact, something flickered. This single burning building in the midst of dozens of other whole buildings was," stopped and began to write all over again: