'Point made,' said the Emperor.

'There is only one Sun in the universe,' said Dom.

They watched him struggle with his thoughts.

'It's simple,' he said, and looked perplexedly at their expressions, 'there are plenty of stars, but the real Sun, the red bright thing is intelligent life.'

It was tantalizingly close. He saw through them and beyond the room, into the cosmospolitan world of the fifty-two known races, and inside that, snug as the yolk in the egg, the world of the Jokers on the dark side of the Sun.

He wondered if the knowledge was being fed into his mind, and decided against it. He could provide too clear a chain of reasoning. All the loose ends tied up neatly, just like in a good probability math equation.

He had thought his father went knowingly to his death, as a good probability mathemagician should do. But his father had also been going to ...

He heard a damp sizzle. Someone said: 'This really is too bad.' Someone was standing in the doorway.

Ways frowned into the muzzle of his molecule stripper and stepped further into the room.

'Good evening, Your Eminence, and assembled gentry. Now, at this point someone usually makes an impassioned call for the guard.'

The walls disappeared. Three guards fired at Ways simultaneously, and disappeared in clouds of light dust.

'The essence of the molecule stripper is the little matrix engine which can, in very rare circumstances, arc over and reverse the field,' said Ways. 'I believe that just happened.'

The Emperor recovered first. He poured out more wine, proffered the glass to Ways, and smiled thinly.

'Would you explain how you got in?' he said. 'I must review our alarm system.'

'Certainly. I brought my ship down on the terrace. I expect most of your alarms failed.'

'You are lucky,' said Ptarmigan mildly.

'I was built so. You made me, in fact.'

'Ah yes. Luck as an electronic faculty. I remember supervising the plans myself. What a pity we didn't think of incorporating some kind of switch.'

'It wouldn't have worked,' said Ways. 'But enough of this chitter-chatter. How can I kill Dom Sabalos, who is invulnerable? If I dropped a rock on his head Brownian motion would contrive to knock it off course.'

Sharli swung her koto. It flashed towards Ways' chest and collapsed like tinfoil. She stared at it in disbelief.

'Don't worry,' he said. 'A statistically-possible chance can happen to anyone. Excuse me.' He drew a simple United Spies official-issue assassination gun and fired at Dom again.

The bullet stopped in mid-air and boiled.

A faint tremor ran round the universe.

'Molecular resistance,' said Ways. 'Damn.' He sat down on the mat and took up the glass of wine. He smiled at them, and gestured with the stripper.

'There must be a hundred more ships up there,' he said. 'Phnobic, drosk, Creap, Spooner, Pod. All watching this place and each other. How many planets in this system, your Eminence?'

'Since the First Sirian Bank shot out of his orbit and into interspace, I expect there are now six,' said Ptarmigan.

'Correct. The Bank is now in orbit forty million miles out beyond - what's the name of your outermost world?'

'Far Out,' said Tarli.

'So you see, everyone feels a burning interest in Dom's moves during the next few days. Me too. The arrangements have been modified slightly. We are all going to Jokers World.'

He waved them into silence. 'Dom and I are lucky. He is protected - by the Jokers, it is believed - while my luck is genuine silicon-chip certain. However, I am afraid the rest of you aren't lucky. Do I make my point? The terms 'hostage' and 'kill' are unsavoury, and therefore I will not use them . . . '

A mechanical bat wheeled into the dusk as they trooped across the terrace. Ways' little ship was there. It was small, small enough to have its shape dictated by the single matrix engine it contained. A saddle for the pilot and a frame for the auxiliary equipment were wrapped over the front of the coil, and landing gear was simply welded on to the engine housing. It was a machine for getting from place to place with the minimum of comfort and the maximum of efficiency - and it was fast. It had no name.

Dom climbed into the saddle, closed the transparent housing and inspected the controls. Ways' voice with its final instructions was muffled by the plastic.

'Let us be quite clear. Should I lose contact with you, or should you make any improper move, I shall be forced to take steps. Wait for us in orbit.'

The ship lifted smoothly. Once out of atmosphere Dom could survey most of the Tau Ceti system on the tiny scanner screen. The ships showed up as blue pinpoints. A long way out was something else - the scanner kept flickering from red to blue as the Class Two brain built into it tried to decide whether it was a ship or a world. As Dom watched, the blip disappeared. The Bank had ducked into interspace. Dom remembered seeing the huge matrix engine in one of the caverns. It wouldn't take much to float a planet.

Ten minutes later the Drunk With Infinity was a bright star over Laoth's terminator. Ways had chosen a good ship. Dom set up the co-ordinates he had been given on the matrix computer and sighed.

The jump was short, lasting barely half an hour subjective time. It ended in the middle of a fleet.

Ways said: 'Open up the communicator circuits.'

He saw the main cabin of the Drunk, with the hostages standing mutely in the middle of the floor. Most were, at least. Joan I was being supported, and Isaac was sprawled on the floor.

Ways walked into the field of view. 'I've run into a little pocket of resistance,' he said. 'Don't let that worry you.'

'What's the fleet for?' said Dom.

'Company. Who knows if we may have to fight, survey, or merely land on a dead world?'

Dom laughed hysterically in the tiny cabin, and stopped only when he saw Ig cowering away on the control panel and gazing at him in wide-eyed terror.

'You're fools, ' he told the communicator. 'You think I will lead you to a planet?'

The scene of the Drunk flickered out, and another face looked at him. It was thin, topped off by a mop of black hair, and had unmistakably been born on Earth.

'I am sorry about this,' it said. 'My name is Franz Asman, of the Joker Institute. This is our fleet. Ways is our tool.'

'Earthman, eh?' said Dom. 'That means you don't really think the threat of reprisals is enough to stop me running away. An Earthman would let his grandmother fry if he saw any personal profit in it.'

'Sadhim preserve us from interworld animosity,' said Asman wearily. 'As a matter of fact, you know, I've been studying you for some time. There's a staff of two hundred at the Institute who have been studying you for some time, too. We know exactly what you will do in any given situation, and in this one you won't run.'

'Studying me?' Behind Asman's head he could see vague figures, in front of a long panel covered with intricate patterns of coloured lines.

'This is our job. Do you know what an astrologer was?'

'Sure,' said Dom. 'I was born under O'Brien the Hunter.'

'We are the new astrologers. We evaluate—'

—by the mathemagic of probability, sifting through the population of the galaxy to find those whose probability profile matched the theoretical one for the discoverer of Jokers World. That particular profile had been in existence for some time. For no known reason questions relating to Jokers World usually became nonsense when rendered into p-math, but it was possible, just possible, to make up an equation from the outlines round the logical holes.

Then it meant sifting again. That had not been difficult. There were only three potential discoverers this year. One was a phnobic monk, the other a three-month-old girl on Third Eye. Both had been killed easily.