“Then what’s that black thing on your uniform?”

The uniformed man looked down at his front and ­finally showed confusion. “Sir, there’s nothing—”

He did not see the other musician wield the blackjack. He did feel blinding pain as the lead shot-filled weapon rapped down on his uniform cap, and that was the last he knew. His legs gave way and he thudded onto the carpeted floor of the elevator car.

The trumpeter tipped his hat at the unconscious ele­vator operator, then nodded at the sap-wielder. “Now. Take us up.”

The big man pocketed the sap. He took the car’s control handle. “He was telling the truth. You know whose building this is.”

“Yes.”

“So this car won’t go up past up eighty-nine. You know he has to be higher than that.”

“Yes. Take us up eighty-nine.” The trumpeter smiled and patted his instrument case. “Everything we need is in here. Trust me. Trust him.”

The big man grimaced, then set the car into motion.

Noriko tilted her head to the side, concentrating. “Rotorkite,” she announced. “Doc is here.”

The others listened. At first Harris could hear nothing but a constant, dull wash of noise—the faint remnants of street sound from a thousand feet below. Then he caught the sound that had alerted Noriko: a faint thup-thup-thup that began to grow louder. It sounded just like an incoming helicopter.

Noriko and Jean-Pierre were up in an instant, headed out through the nearest door in the wall; Harris and then Alastair followed. The door nearest the sofas opened into a dim, carpeted corridor, and Noriko and Jean-Pierre led the way to a nearby bank of elevators.

One elevator was already open. They piled into it, Jean-Pierre sliding shut first the gratelike outer door and then the matching inner door, pulling up on the handle that sent the elevator upward.

The elevator rose three stories into what had to be a hangar. It was enormous, taking up at least two building stories; the floor was concrete and splashed with oil. There were work-benches and tools, rolling carts, and what looked liked oversized car engines hanging from chains and pulleys. On one side of the big chamber was a strange carlike vehicle, a rounded lozenge forty feet long and ten wide; it rested on a series of struts with wheels at the bottom, and a large, irregular mass of what looked like tan sails lashed to the top.

Noriko headed over to a wall-mounted board of large mechanical switches and pushed one up.

There was an immediate grinding noise from overhead and the lights dimmed briefly. Then, slowly and ponderously, one large section of roof, directly over the flooring, began to open up. It was a huge door powered by mechanical hinges. Above it, Harris could see a widening stripe of nighttime sky, clouds reflecting the city lights below them. It had clouded up in the time since he was brought here. It was sprinkling, and a stray breeze tossed droplets of rain into their faces.

The thup-thup-thup grew louder. It took Harris a ­moment to spot its source: a vague, dark shape with tiny red and green lights glinting on its belly. It got bigger until light from the hangar bathed the underside.

It descended into the hangar, a diamond shape all in dark blue, with a helicopter-style rotor at either end. It was about as large as a Coast Guard rescue helicopter, but broader in the middle where the diamond shape was at its widest. It touched down on four wheels.

As the rotors spun down, Noriko returned the switch to its original position; the overhead door groaned and began to close again. On a narrow end of the helicopter—rotorkite? that’s what Noriko had called it—a gullwing door opened. A man climbed out and dropped to the hangar floor.

He was tall—taller even than Harris, the first man Harris had seen here who didn’t make him feel like some sort of Viking invader. He was broad-shouldered but ­otherwise built lean, and moved as gracefully as a dancer.

He wore loose-fitting dark slacks tucked into high leather boots, and was bundled into a waist-length coat of yellow leather worn over a white shirt with an elaborate frilled collar. As he turned toward Harris and the others, he tugged off a yellow leather helmet fitted with archaic glass goggles; out tumbled shoulder-length hair. Hair that was pure white, the precise white and softness of thick clouds. Hair that didn’t quite conceal the most sharply pointed ears Harris had yet seen.

His features were young, of a man perhaps thirty, but there was nothing youthful in his unsettling, pale blue eyes.

He saw Harris and stopped. With a trace of curiosity in his expression, he looked Harris over before turning to the other three.

“A guest,” Alastair said, gesturing at Harris. “You remem­ber guests, don’t you? We used to have them from time to time. Doc, this is Harris Greene, who wears blue so we don’t understand the name. Harris, this is your host, Doc—Doctor Desmond MaqqRee, founder of the Sidhe Foundation.” He pronounced it “She Foundation.”

Doc looked at Harris again, his lips moving a little; he appeared to be working out a problem. Finally, in a surprisingly deep and rich voice, he said, “Grace upon you, Harris, health and wealth, love and children, and on all your line.”

“Hi,” Harris said.

“High.” Doc wasn’t returning the greeting; he was puzzling it out. Alastair snickered at his obvious discomfiture.

It took twenty minutes, as Doc and Jean-Pierre checked the rotorkite from end to end, for Harris to repeat his story. Doc had him back up and go over several points and incidents; he paid special attention to Harris’ descrip­tions of the glorious blond man. They returned to the laboratory before the story was done. Doc was removing his pilot’s gear and settling on one of the sofas when Harris described the dwarf who’d thrown the concrete block. Doc looked over at Jean-Pierre.

The other man nodded grimly. “I’ve already shown him the picture. It was Angus Powrie.”

Doc returned his attention to Harris. “You mention a thing called a pannyfack.”

“Fanny pack.” Harris looked around for it but didn’t see it.

Jean-Pierre brought it up from behind his chair and tossed it to Doc. “It’s all there. One pocketbook crowded with paper treasury notes and draft-notes I don’t recognize, many cards all bearing the name of Gabriela Dono-hooey—”

“That’s Donohue.”

“Thank you, Harris, why don’t you and your friends learn to spell more sensibly?—including one of the drover licenses like Harris had, some coins, a small gnarled canister of ‘pepper spray,’ seasonings I suppose, and miscellaneous items. I also put Harris’ keys and clasp-knife in there.” As Harris groped his pocket, belatedly realizing that his things wouldn’t be in these pants anyway, Jean-Pierre smiled mockingly at him. “My apologies, Harris. I didn’t know whether or not you would want to come after me with that knife. I couldn’t risk it, once I noticed your knife’s special trait.”

Harris frowned at that. “What trait is that?”

Doc looked at him, then unzipped the main pocket of the fanny pack. He pulled out the lockback hunting knife Harris usually carried. He turned it over, looking at the wooden tang with its brass ends. “Unusual design, but I see nothing else strange about it.” Then his thumb brushed the back of the blade.

Doc hissed and involuntarily dropped the knife back into the pack. He put the last joint of his thumb into his mouth and looked curiously at Harris. Then he blew on his injured thumb, on the blister Harris saw rising there, and asked, “You carry a knife with a steel blade, Harris?”

“Sure. Why not?”

“Odd question. Because it will make you sick. Noriko at least has the sense to keep her steel fully sheathed when she’s not using it. You must touch that blade every time you put your hand in your pocket.”