"Something sure has stirred them up," he said. "Wonder what?"

The answer came with a flash and a bang that struck Grayson like a blow to the chest, leaving him momentarily breathless. Across the avenue from where Tor and Grayson crouched, a storefront exploded like a geyser of flame, brick, glass, stone, and black smoke. People were screaming, and above the shrieks and yells came the measured rumble of heavy machinery in motion.

Grayson knew that sound. He squirmed forward on his stomach until he could peer around the corner of the sheltering building and look up the street. What he had heard was a Marauder,twelve meters tall and massively armored, hung with weapons that gave it a lumbering, top-heavy look. Grayson knew from experience that that machine was anything but clumsy.

He saw the stylized, slit-eyed emblem brightly painted on the heat-seared metal of the left leg and knew that this was the black-and-gray-painted machine that had killed his father.

A fascination born of sick horror gripped him, held him frozen there at the mouth of the alley. Almost in slow motion, the armored monster straightened slightly, then brought its right arm up as though pointing. Recessed in the swollen bulk of the forearm were a pair of the 'Mech's primary weapons, a medium laser and the massive bore of a particle cannon.

The laser flashed blue-white, a brilliant pulse that shrieked and ionized the air in its wake. The beam struck the APC, setting aflame the Guardsmen who had been clinging to its hull. Grayson squeezed his eyes shut against the blinding light, but still saw the afterimage of a Guards officer writhing in the carrier's hatch as the steel around him blossomed into a fireball.

A chain of staccato cracks carried above the roar of flame and crumbling buildings. The Marauder'sautocannon, a tree-sized barrel mounted across the 'Mech's left shoulder, was spewing 120 mm high-explosive destruction in three-round bursts that shattered the street behind the burning carrier, and transformed clumps of running green uniforms into bloodied shreds of rag. The smoke roiling down from the APC was acrid and black, and it stank of oil and charred flesh.

Grayson felt a hand on his shoulder, tugging, insistent. "Grayson!" We've got to get clear!" C'mon!" But, eyes locked on the Marauder,Grayson couldn't move. The 'Mech took one huge step, then another, pausing after each step as though testing the fooling. Fire flickered around its crab's head from the ineffectual shoulder-portable missiles and lasers of the city's unarmored defenders. Grayson found himself willing the Sarghad fighters to concentrate their fire, to seek out the vital nexuses of control circuits and servoactuators that might — might! — give them a slim chance of bringing the giant down. There was one such nexus where the legs joined the body, under that flat head. If they could just work together...

The giant brushed through the fire, unconcerned. Destruction boiled in its path as it sprayed the avenue and its buildings with flashing beams of energy.

"Grayson!" Tor's scream penetrated his numbed senses, brought him back to the scene at hand and the gagging stench of the burning vehicle. He shook himself, turned, and looked into Tor's wild eyes.

"Grayson, we've got to get out of here!"

He allowed himself to be pulled to his feet, then began running with clumsy strides back down the alley and away from the monster. Behind him, the 'Mech collided with the buildings at the alley mouth, and the fall of brick and stone sent debris skittering along the ground in front of them.

Grayson followed Tor through the twists and turns of Sarghad's alleys, and the sounds of cannon fire and falling buildings began to recede behind them. Tor stopped and fell back against the wall, his chest heaving as he caught his breath.

"Where now?" Grayson asked, his mind still numb. He was willing to be led, to let the decisions be made by another.

"I don't know. I'm a stranger here too, remember?"

"I... I know a place we might be able to go." Grayson thought of Berenir the Merchant, knowing the man would not be pleased to see him again, and less so if he brought along another offworlder to hide. "I know some people, but they may not be able to help us."

"We're going to have to find a way to get up to the port." Tor looked thoughtfully in its direction. Across the roofs of low, single-storied warehouses, they could just make out the port's control tower as a tiny white saucer perched on a narrow column. And just beyond, they glimpsed the bulk of the upper third of Tor's ship.

"Are you thinking of getting your ship back?"

Tor shook his head. "No... no way. We'd never get near her, not now."

"Then why the port?"

"Because ships’ll be coming in, sooner or later." Pain clouded the freighter pilot's face. "And because I have three men three... three friends. I've got to get them out, somehow."

"You can't fight THAT alone!" The sounds of fresh skirmishing broke out somewhere behind them, followed by a series of explosions.

"Maybe not. But these pirates aren't going to stay here forever. Now that they've attacked, they'll pull out, take their loot, slaves, and captured 'Mechs and haul for Oberon... or wherever. They can't stay here, not against a whole planet Besides, how can they be sure House Steiner won't send a punitive expedition back to ram this planet down their throats."

"My Lance..."

"Maybe," Tor said thoughtfully. "Though, from what I've heard, your friends were pretty badly shot up. The point is, traders'll be coming in. Hell, even my friends with Mailai might come in to see what happened to their investment. I want to be at the port when they do, and I mean to have my people with me. And don't forget my ship is out at the jump point, with twelve more of my men aboard." Tor shook his head fiercely. "I can't just let them go!"

Grayson thought of the small community of Techs and laborers quartered at one end of the spaceport. "Maybe you could get a job at the port, and find a way to help your people that way. I don't know how you'd go about getting your ship back, though."

"Neither do I, lad. Neither do I." The pain was back in Tor's face. Grayson wondered if he was feeling guilt at having abandoned his crew, or was simply afraid that they'd already been put to death. The other man seemed to give himself a shake.

"No matter what, we'll have to eat and find a way to blend in with the natives."

Yes, thought Grayson, they'd need a place to stay, a place to wait, while he figured out a way to bring down the plotters who had killed his father. Only then would he think about how to get off this forbidding world.

The battle sounds had ceased now, leaving the city unnaturally quiet. Grayson looked in all directions, orienting himself. "Let's go visit my friends. Berenir is a merchant, with contacts off-planet and at the spaceport. Maybe he can get us jobs. At least, he might have some ideas about what we should do."

"Where is he?"

"Third Street of the Merchants. This way." Grayson took the lead as they walked, but his thoughts turned back to the Marauderastride the street, and the memory of his father's death. That Marauderhad ambushed Durant Carlyle after Carlyle's lighter Phoenix Hawkhad been badly damaged in a hopeless duel with the hidden weapons mounted on the Invidious'DropShip. His father had never had a chance.

New energy was replacing the lassitude that had paralyzed Graysons spirit since he'd regained consciousness in Berenir's house. For the first time, he felt a goal, a purpose to keep him going. He would burn that killer 'Mech, or die in the attempt. The need for vengeance was like a hunger driving him on through the twisiting streets of Sarghad as panicked civilians and disorganized squads of Guards and Militia streamed past him. Although he didn't yet know how, he vowed to destroy that Marauderand the human who rode in it.