'It's a challenge,' said Dom.

'Suits me.' The security man raised his stunner until it was level with the phnobe's face. The phnobe blinked impassively.

Samhedi fired. It was a low-intensity beam, just enough to stun. The phnobe fell backwards like a sapling.

'And that's my—'

Dom had disappeared. A knife took the stunner and two fingers from the man's hand. He gaped, and looked up at the ring of blank, large-eyed faces...

Isaac helped the two of them through a small rear window as the noise in the jasca rose suddenly. They darted across the road just ahead of two flatcars laden with security men.

'The stupid ge c k,' said Dom, 'Oh Chel, the stupid ge c k!'

'Intelligence is humanity's prime ssurvival trait, therefore it iss as well that those who don't sshow it be weeded out,' said Hrsh-Hgn, philosophically.

'Where to now, chief?' said Isaac, 'Round here it's beginning to look like Whole Erse on Slain Patrick's Eve.'

'Great-great-grandfather was occasionally less than honest in his business dealings. There's a private yacht at the spacefield. It's there for use if any high ranking Sabalos feels the need for a—a—'

'An impromptu vacation?' suggested Hrsh-Hgn.

The universe was divided into two parts, separated by a five centimetre shell of monomolecular steel. On the inner side was the interior of the luxury yacht One Jump Ahead, superbly outfitted for one passenger but badly cramped for three, one of whom was metal and another was smelling of swamp water.

On the other side was the rest of the universe, composed almost entirely of nothing with a trace of hydrogen. There were also the inhabited planets of Human-Creapii space.

There was Terra Novae, metal-rich and dynamically technological. Third Eye, forested from tundra to mangrove swamps, where the wind sang eerily in the trees and the humans were more alien even than phnobes, and talked with their minds and eyes. On Eggplant the vegetarians were ferocious, and had to be. On the drosk's world of Quaducquakucckuaquekekecqac visiting humans picked uneasily at the horribly familiar food and were thankful that drosks were too well mannered to do more than look hungrily at guests. There was Laoth, where the only living things were human beings - yet birds flew and the brooks were full of fish...

On every world hot enough to boil water one of the sub-races of Creapii clustered. In the deceptive emptiness of space swam the sundogs and the race called The Pod. And there was The First Sirian Bank...

'Sixteen,' said Isaac.

'This is a distrustful universe in which we live, certainly,' said Hrsh-Hgn.

Ig, with the ease of one who had lived in zero-g all his life, floated around a bulkhead with another struggling body in his mouth. It looked vaguely like a grasshopper, and had in fact quite a sophisticated copy of an insect brain - but rather better than insect ears.

Dom turned from the viewscreen. 'Old Korodore really had this ship bugged,' he said, 'Look for pinheads, too.'

From orbit Widdershins was grey-blue and big, studded with strips of cloud. The dawn terminator was nudging Tau City. A grey cloud hung over it.

The drive cabin was small and apparently full of elbows. Isaac sat hunched up in the pilot couch. He looked up.

'I have your grandmother on the line, chief. Are you in?'

'Does she sound angry?'

'No, very cool.'

'Chel, that's even worse.' He switched on the intercom.

'I have got very little to say to you, Dom, except to remind you of your duty to the planet. Doesn't it mean anything to you? You may be killed.'

Dom took a deep breath. 'I may be killed anyway. At least there's no false sense of security here.'

'Fool! You are just seizing the chance to jaunt off on an idiot quest. And incidentally, there's a shape-war brewing down here. Half a squad of guards have been slaughtered in the buruku. The one at Tau City is on fire—'

'Samhedi took his men in with stunners. You know guns are against all phnobic law.'

There was a pause. Dom glanced at the screen. The pall over Tau City had grown. As he watched, a point well to the west of the City suddenly flashed into a streak of blinding light. The sunlight had reached the Joker Tower.

'That was ... foolish,' said Joan slowly, 'Nevertheless, officers of the Board are entitled to some respect. I'm declaring a State of Emergency. A ship will pick you up within the hour.'

Dom cut the connection and spun round to Hrsh-Hgn.

'Can you get through to the leader of all the burukus ? The Servant of the Pillar, isn't it?

'You know not what you assk. However—'

In three minutes Dom was looking at a screen holding the image of a small, lightly built phnobe, wearing a silver collar. A female? Phnobes were generally reticent about their sex.

'On behalf of the Board,' he said, 'What may we do to repair this grievous hurt?'

The Servant hissed. 'The soil of the buruku has been disgraced.' Dom nodded. The buruku was covered to a depth of several inches with Phnobic soil, specially transported.

'We could replace it,' he said.

They haggled. Finally Dom concluded the conversation with a suitable expression of regard and said: 'It'll cost us several hundred thousand standards in haulage charges alone.'

'Can you authorize Board expenditure?'

'Board expenditure nothing. It'll come out of the Sabalos personal account.' He sat back, suddenly tired.

'There is another problem,' said Isaac from his seat. 'Like, where are we going? And how are we going to get there?'

'Hrsh?'

The phnobe pinched his nose. 'The First Sirian Bank would make a good starting point. According to legend he was created by the Jokers.'

'Oh. I hadn't heard that. And he's my Godfather.'

'Well, it issn't true. He iss at least three billion yearss old, ass far as he knows.'

Isaac whistled. There was something on the deep radar, drifting purposely towards the ship.

'It's a sundog, touting for business,' said Dom. 'There's our passage to Sirius.'

'Count me out!' shrieked the phnobe, 'I'm not travelling on one of thosse animalss! I thought this sship had an interspace matrix!'

'It had,' said Isaac calmly, 'It probably worked real good in Dom's great-great-grandfather's day but now the settings are all anyhow. Fancy ending up inside a star? Think of the loss to letters.'

'Very well then. But under sstrong protesst.'

Twenty minutes later a shadow eclipsed the stars. The sundog stopped a few hundred metres from the ship, a fat lozenge flashing like a beacon as it turned slowly in the sunlight.

Isaac peered into the scope.

'It has orange, purple and yellow markings, boss, with a black band across the yellow.'

Dom sighed with relief. Not all sundogs were friendly, or bright enough to realize what would follow if they forgot themselves and engulfed a small spaceship.

'That will be the one who calls itself Abramelin-lincoln-stroke-Enobarbous-stroke-50.3-Eno-barbous-McMirmidom,' he said. 'He's okay. He does haulage work for us.'

A thought stole unbidden into his head.

Hullo, spaceman. You wish to travel, maybe ?

'Please take us to the First Sirian Bank.'

Price for journey: seventeen standards.

The ship bucked slightly as the sundog reached out and enveloped it in a pseudofield. The giant semi-animal rotated slowly to face the actinic blue star, inasmuch as a sundog had a face.

'This is undignified,' moaned Hrsh-Hgn, 'Carried by a dog like so much freight.'