AnyKaat's weapon had power enough for three more shots. Just enough. "Somebody comes along, you don't act like that won't work. Point it at them and make them get down on their belly. Then stick them with this." She gave AnyKaat the longest blade she had collected. "Don't hesitate. We got no friends around here."

"What about the guys, Jo?"

"They're dead."

"Where you going?"

"In there. I'll be back."

The shadows were taking control of the ruins when Crash Gutsyke lumped his froggish shape into sight.

Shike and Five had dressed their wounds but moved slowly. Cable said, "Here comes Fuckup Charlie."

Five said, "That was some class you showed us out there, Crash."

Gutsyke's third of a meter of tongue lashed the air. "You never told me they had guns."

"We didn't know. I did tell you they were pros and they wouldn't be easy. From what I saw they could have taken you apart without the guns."

Gutsyke's tongue hit the air again. "About them guns you was going to pay us off with..."

"You didn't do the job. We took the three that are gone. There are two more out there."

"Give me them guns and we'll finish it."

"No. Finish it, you'll get the guns."

Gutsyke's tongue came out again. He was scared. "I had sixteen men this morning. Now I got three counting me. Word gets around, I'm a dead man. I got enemies."

"We all have enemies. You want the equalizer, take out those women."

Gutsyke tongued the air steadily.

Four moved slowly in the darkness, concentrating on the men Crash had brought to back his play. The rearguard had moved up a little but was not close enough to be a factor. The other two...

Gutsyke said, "You don't hand them over now, I'll take them."

Five chuckled. "You were right, Crash. You're a dead man."

Four took the backing pair with a burst, then put one into Gutsyke's spine...

... as two bolts ripped out of the darkness, striking Shike and Five.

Shit! That damned Lieutenant.

The third bolt hit her as she brought her weapon around. It was maybe half power. It hurt like hell but it did not put her down. She let the fucker have all thirty-eight rounds left in the hairsplitter.

— 95 —

Five months after Lieutenant Klass left, Seeker was satisfied that his charge could travel. He approached Blessed Tregesser uncertainly, fearing he could not make his need understood, fearing it would be denied.

The humans surprised him. They spared one of their ships to take him to another system, where they chartered a Volgodon Navigation Traveler for a direct passage to M. Meddinia. They even sent along people to ease friction with the authorities.

The Volgodon Traveler reached M. Meddinia without incident. The old station was almost completely automated, which made for slow handling of what little traffic there was. Sixteen hours passed before Seeker and Amber Soul began their descent to the homeworld she did not remember. Their station's one shuttle was ancient and quirky and slow, but utterly dependable.

The companions sent by House Tregesser were not themselves strictly human. They were products of Lupo Provik's secret lab, expendable artifact operatives. A condition of the Traveler's charter required it to stay at station till it verified the arrival on-planet of its passengers.

As the shuttle entered atmosphere the station's fusion plant went berserk. Its Q blew. The electromagnetic pulse triggered a device that set off a similar disaster in the Traveler's power plant.

That double blast vaporized me Traveler and seventy percent of the station.

Lupo Provik had kept his word—while making sure an alien who knew too much would not get back into circulation.

— 96 —

Six months after VII Gemina's fleet directive, twelve Guardships were involved, six beyond the Rim. At Starbase Tulsa new construction proceeded at capacity, concentrating on fighters and riders.

The methane breathers had not anticipated the utter ferocity of the onslaught, nor the suddenness with which it would come. In the seventh month they regained their balance enough to launch a limited counterstrike.

Six battle groups penetrated Canon space. Four thousand years of Outsider incursions made them predictable. The fleet was ready.

A group headed for Starbase found a Guardship waiting off the Barbican, supported by a quadruple complement of secondaries.

A group for D. Zimplica broke off the Web into a tunnel of death maintained by secondaries ferried in earlier.

Of the six groups only one succeeded. Only a few ships survived to scurry home.

— 97 —

Jo crawled out of the ruins the next morning, squandering her reserves in order to reach AnyKaat before she passed out again.

She made it.

"What the hell happened, Jo? You're all torn to shit."

"Ricochets. She never hit me solid."

"Could have fooled me. She? Who?"

"Provik's girlfriend. They were the other two. I got them all. We're safe."

AnyKaat laughed sickly. "Right. Two women shot to hell in a place where women are bitches and bitches are commercial property."

Jo did not argue. "Can you walk? They had a lot of good stuff. If we don't grab it, somebody else will. And maybe use it on us."

"I'll manage."

She did. The stuff was there. But what had become of the bodies?

— 98 —

When they brought Four in, she still had not recovered physically or mentally. The family, now including Seven, Eight, Nine, and Ten, and a new Three, took her information in an update and tried to remove her pain.

Afterward, Two told Lupo, "Blessed will be upset about Shike getting shot up."

"That was the risk he took, sending him out. But he'll patch up. I've seen Troqwai fix worse."

"You want to send someone to see if that AnyKaat woman survived?"

"No. If she did, she won't last. What we need to worry about is Four's trauma."

Two winced. No one would say it, or even wanted to think it, but the family had to decide if Four had been too badly damaged to be taken back. The meld had been agony. Four was convinced her ineptitude had killed Three and Five.

Two said, "It would have to be unanimous."

However much it might hurt, Lupo could not imagine his family being less than unanimous about anything.

— 99 —

WarAvocat felt old and tired. Was it time to step down?

VII Gemina had fortress-busting down to a mechanical routine. But each new system threw up a more hysterical defense. Nowadays he needed another two Guardships backing him.

He stared at a viewscreen showing a fortress he meant to kill. It was the biggest yet. And only one of five. The system was a sector capital.

VII Gemina came to rest with respect to its target. "Project the tube," WarAvocat directed.

Screen generators strained to produce a shaped field. Twelve modified riders moved into the expanding bubble, feeding it with their own shaped-shield generators till it expanded into a tunnel with its small end firmly against the fortress's screen.

"Loose the Hellspinners."

Hellspinners preferred the path of least resistance.

The Twist Masters cut loose. Hellspinners tumbled down the funnel and collided with the enemy screen. They gnawed through. After the Hellspinners splattered the fortress for several minutes WarAvocat introduced a pulse into their flow. Axial cannon CT shells flew. After those opened a pathway, thermonuclears followed, killing the fortress's shield.

WarAvocat moved to the next fortress. The other Guardships finished the first with their Hellspinners.