A line of bollards marked the square’s legal limits, twenty or thirty of the low mushroom shapes running along a line of dark paving that seemed to mark the top of the short flight of stairs that led down to the canal. A handful of people were sitting there, mostly in ones and twos, some staring toward the distant stage, more looking out toward the water or toward the smaller canal that formed part of the square’s southern edge. Lioe glanced around again, and seated herself on the bollard nearest the fountain. She could see well enough, could see all the likely approaches, from the waterbus stops on the canals or from the nearest helipad, and at least she could be relatively comfortable. Besides, I don’t think she’s coming.

Lioe tugged her jacket closed against the wind. It wasn’t cold, but it had picked up even in the half hour since she’d left Ransome’s loft, was blowing steadily now, from the south and east. The air smelled odd, of salt and thunder, and the children’s shouts fell flat in the heavy air. She glanced over her shoulder toward the mouth of the Inland Water, saw only the housetops on the far side of the canal. The last forecast she had seen had predicted the storm would strike around midnight, and she looked around again for a street broker. To her surprise–the brokers had seemed to be everywhere for a while–there were none of the bright red‑and‑white umbrellas in sight.

Music sounded from under the stage, distorted by distance and wind and the thick air. Lioe rose to her feet with the others, and saw the first of the puppets move out onto the platform. It was a massive construct, maybe two and a half meters tall, and nearly as broad; fans unfurled from what should have been the shoulders, and a crest of bronze feathers rose from the stylized head. More of the feathers appeared below the fans, and wings parted to reveal several small, white‑painted faces. They were set slightly askew, Lioe saw, and jagged cracks ran down their centers, detouring around the long noses. As she watched, the first of them split open, revealing an animal shape too small to recognize. Intrigued, Lioe moved toward the platform, circling south toward the smaller canal, where the crowd was thinner, to try to get a better view. It was a bird, or something with delicate, arching wings and a glittering, peacock‑blue body. She edged farther into the crowd as the second face split, revealing what seemed to be a model of the local solar system, and the entire assemblage leaned sideways, elevating the fans and turning the feathered crest into an almost architectural arch. There was a person inside that structure, Lioe realized suddenly, a single human being at the center of the spines and wings and the delicately made creatures; each precisely controlled movement set changes flowing through the puppet’s outer layers. But what did it mean? It was not like any puppet she’d ever seen, or even imagined, and she stood staring, trying to puzzle out a story, some purpose, from the complex metamorphosis.

“Na Lioe?”

The voice was unfamiliar, but polite. She turned to face a thin, plainly dressed man with a plain, unmemorable face.

“It is Na Lioe, isn’t it?”

Lioe nodded. “Yes.” She kept her voice and face discouraging, but the man nodded anyway.

“I thought it must be you. Roscha said you’d be here. She asked me to tell you, she’s running late.” He gestured toward the street that led away from the square, running along the edge of the smaller canal. “She said she’d meet you at the Mad Monkey, instead of here.”

Lioe glanced down the street–the sign was there, all right, a grinning, contorted holoimage dancing above a doorway at the far end of the street, where the canal turned left, away from the street itself–and looked back at the stranger. He was dressed like a docker, all right–dressed much like Roscha herself, for that matter, dockers’ trousers and a plain vest under a loose, unbelted jacket. “When?”

The man shrugged, looked sideways as though to call up his chronometer. “She said she’d be there at fifteen‑thirty–by the sixteenth hour at the latest.”

Lioe glanced sideways herself, saw the numbers flash into existence against the dark paving: almost sixteen hundred already. “Thanks a lot,” she said, and the man nodded.

“No problem.” He turned away, already looking for a better vantage point among the crowd.

Lioe watched him go, wondering just who he was. He looked vaguely familiar– maybe someone from Shadows, she thought, and looked back at the stage. The puppet seemed to be melting into the platform, dozens of indistinguishable little mechanisms churning frantically around its edges. The operator was doing the splits within the confining mechanism. The crowd murmured, sounding both awed and approving. I must have missed something, Lioe thought. I don’t understand at all. She looked again toward the Mad Monkey, wondering if Roscha was there yet, and if she could get food and/or drink. The sign looked like a bar’s, the monkey dancing in the air, very bright in the shadowed street. And even if it isn’t, it might be more fun than watching the puppets. Mechanical perfection palls after a few minutes, in my opinion. She eased her way out of the crowd, and started down the narrow street.

She had not traveled more than a dozen meters before she realized that she was being followed by a nondescript man who looked like another docker. She glanced back, wondering if she could turn back toward the square, slip between the back of the stage platform and the storefronts that defined the square, and saw a second person detach himself from the knot of people beside the curtain that screened the back of the stage, effectively cutting off her escape. She swore under her breath, wishing that she were armed–wishing that she’d carried even a pilot’s tool‑knife–and with an effort kept herself from looking around wildly. They were between her and the fringes of the crowd; she could shout, but none of the people watching the puppet show could reach her before the two men did. I’ll pretend I haven’t seen them, she decided, keep walking and hope I can get to the Monkey before them–if that’s safe. The man who said he was from Roscha, he must’ve been one of them, set this up… She shoved her hand into her pocket, closed her fist over thin air so that it made what she hoped would look like a dangerous bulge, and kept walking. I’ll try the Mad Monkey, and then the cross street, and if it comes to it, I’m not carrying much cash and it’s not a good place for rape–

A third man stepped out of a doorway ahead of her, hands deep in the pockets of his jacket. Lioe stopped, took an instinctive step sideways and back, toward the edge of the canal.

“Na Lioe,” the third man said. “There’s someone who wants to see you.”

“Like hell,” Lioe answered. She drew breath to scream, and the man freed his hand from his jacket, displayed a palmgun.

“Yell and I’ll shoot.”

Lioe released her breath cautiously, glanced back toward the square. Sure enough, the two strangers–and a third, the man who had spoken to her about Roscha–were coming toward her, blocking her escape in that direction. She took another step toward the canal, turning so that she could see all of them. “What do you want?”

“There’s someone who wants to talk to you,” the leader said again. “If you come quietly, no one will get hurt.”

Lioe took another slow step backward, toward the canal edge, so that she stood barely half a meter from the bank. She could swim, that had been bullied into her in Foster Services, but the current was fast, and the far bank was not distant enough to offer an escape. “Not likely,” she said aloud, fighting for time. “Come any closer, and I’ll scream–and if you shoot me, nobody’s going to be talking to me.”

There was a little silence, and a quick exchange of glances, and then the leader raised his palmgun. “Last chance. Come quietly, or I will shoot.”