Calliope sighed. Was this any way to spend a Sunday? If she couldn't get any voluntary help from the telecom company, she'd need a judge's order to get anything. How could she get that without opening herself up to a bulk scorch from the captain, or maybe even a formal inquiry?

She'd try a little persuasion on the provider and see what happened. Another weekend day shot to hell. Well, it was better than cleaning.

And what if she did somehow get an address? Wait until Monday?

Stan's line rang for a long time. When it finally answered, the face that greeted her was a monster's, powder-blue, with insect eyes and long antennae.

"Christ!" she said, startled.

"Stanley Chan is not home," the thing said doomfully. "He has left the planet."

"Kidnapped!" said another bug-eyed mask, shoving its way into view. "Kidnapped by aliens!"

Now Calliope could see Man sitting on the couch, pretending to be tied up while his nephews recorded the message. He waved his hands, bound by what looked like the belt of a bathrobe. "Sorry, everybody! I'm being taken to another planet," he called. "Or the zoo. Or something."

"Into space, to be tortured," said the first monster, rubbing his hands in anticipation.

"Message," hissed the second.

"Oh, yeah. If you want to leave a message, go ahead. But it won't do Mr. Chan any good, because he'll be on our home planet, being like utterly tortured to death."

Calliope left a message asking the prisoner to call back when he got home. Even if her partner was no longer in the galaxy, and she was about to waste her Sunday trying to track down a meaningless detail from a closed case, she didn't want to lose touch with him entirely.

NETFEED/DOC/GAME: IEN, Hr. 17 (En, NAm)—"TICK TICK TICK"

(visual: contestant in flames)

VO: The season-ending episode of the popular game show, in which twelve contestants are given mystery injections and have to wait a week for the results. Ten are harmless, and the contestants win only the home version of the game. One injection creates the famous "Wild Credits" logo on the winner's skin, signifying that he or she has won a million Swiss credits. The twelfth contestant—a designation the show has now made famous—spontaneously combusts. The fun comes in watching what the contestants do during the seven-day countdown as they wait to discover their fate on live television at week's end. This final episode of the season ends last week's contest, and also provides a retrospective of some of the most touching and outrageous moments from earlier shows.

The priest with the dull eyes set the ivory box down on the stone beside Paul. One corner pressed into his skin as the priest opened it and began carefully to remove a collection of bronze knives and other objects not so immediately classifiable.

"Here is the malefactor, O gods,"

Userhotep chanted,

"The one whose mouth is closed against you as a

door is shut."

Paul tried desperately to concentrate on the drone of the priest's voice, the flickering lamplight as it splashed and ebbed along the ceiling, even the smirking god-mask of Robert Wells—anything but what was going to happen.

As the dead-eyed man bent toward him, a polished crescent of bronze shining in his fingers like a tiny moon, Paul tensed his muscles, then jerked his torso to one side, stretching the ropes until they creaked. The knife made only a shallow cut, which nevertheless left a stripe of agony along his rib cage. Paul's breast heaved with the effort but he had bought himself only a few seconds. Userhotep shot him a look of contempt, then prepared to cut again.

"It's really rather pointless, Mr. Jonas," said Robert Wells. "All this struggling. Why don't you just be a good sport?"

Staring at the hateful yellow face, Paul felt his mouth fill with acid rage and despair. Something burned into his side like a white-hot flame and a scream forced its way out of him like an animal fleeing its lair.

"The sooner you relax and stop fighting, the sooner we can break down that hypnotic block." Wells' voice floated to him from what seemed a great distance. "Then the pain will stop."

"You bastard," Paul sobbed. The shadows in the room seemed to be coming alive. Something was moving behind Wells, a widening angle of black.

The kheri-heb priest suddenly dropped his knife. Even before it clinked on the stone floor the torturer had staggered back from the butcher block, waving at his face. He was being swarmed by something Paul could not quite see, a moving cloud of pale shapes.

"Master," the priest shrieked, "save me!"

But something had grabbed Wells, too: Paul could just see him from the corner of his eye, a tall, bandaged figure struggling with something small and hairy that gripped his leg like a dog. Wells was cursing in shock and pain, flailing at his attacker. Then other shapes poured into the room. People shouted. The torches fluttered so that the shadows, which moments earlier had been so still, began to leap along the walls. Everything seemed to expand and waver.

Now Wells was wrestling with a dark-haired figure almost his own size. As they rolled on the floor together a flash of electrical light turned the world blue for a painful instant. Paul strained his head upward from the stone, trying to blink away the effects of the explosive glare.

What's happening. . . ? was all he had time to think, then Userhotep rose up beside him, still screaming, another knife in his hand and his face acrawl with squirming shapes. The priest fell across the altar, smashing Paul's head back against the stone and filling his head with blackness.

His limbs, now free, were on fire, and his heart felt like a motor working on bad fuel. His head felt worse. Somebody was under each of his arms, holding him up.

"My God, he's all wet—he's bleeding. . . !"

Paul recognized Martine's voice with a rush of gratitude. He tried to open his eyes but they were full of something salty that burned. "Shallow. . . ." he gasped, struggling unsuccessfully to support his own weight with his legs. The returning circulation felt like a swarm of murderously stinging ants. "Shallow cuts. They only . . . started. . . ."

"Don't talk," ordered Florimel from his other side. "Save your strength. We'll help you, but we have to get moving."

"I never thought I would see the yellow-faced one like this." This was a voice Paul did not know, deep and hoarse; it came from somewhere close to the ground, as though its owner were kneeling. "Look at him wiggle like a worm on a hot rock." The laugh was gleeful. "That is a powerful spell you hold in your hand, fellow."

"Just want out, me," Paul heard T4b say. The boy sounded as breathless as if he had just run a marathon. "Before that sayee lo killer come looking for us."

"Should we finish him off?" Florimel asked, and for a moment, in his pain and confused exhaustion, Paul thought his friends were planning to put him out of his misery.

"Look, look!" a tiny, high-pitched voice said almost inside his ear. "All blood! You fall down, mister? Look like zoomflier ripscrape, huh?"

"What the hell is going on?" Paul moaned. "What happened?"

"You speak lightly of finishing off Ptah," said the hoarse voice, going on as if Paul had not spoken, "but I must tell you that to kill a god changes the shape of heaven—especially one so important as the Lord of the White Walls."

"Wells is not our enemy," Martine said. "The real monster is coming—he might be here at any moment."

The voice by Paul's knees snorted. "If your enemy is our new lord and master Anubis," he said, "then you don't need any other enemies. If he catches us he will crush you—and me, too—like dust beneath his black heels."