`We can see that fine,' Molly said.

`Mountain effect, as it narrows. Ground seems to get higher, more rocky, but it's an easy climb. Higher you climb, the lower the gravity. Sports up there. There's velodrome ring here.' He pointed.

`A what?' Case leaned forward.

`They race bicycles,' Molly said. `Low grav, high-traction tires, get up over a hundred kilos an hour.'

`This end doesn't concern us,' Armitage said with his usual utter seriousness.

`Shit,' Molly said, `I'm an avid cyclist.'

Riviera giggled.

Armitage walked to the opposite end of the projection. `This end does.' The interior detail of the hologram ended here, and the final segment of the spindle was empty. `This is the Villa Straylight. Steep climb out of gravity and every approach is kinked. There's a single entrance, here, dead center. Zero gravity.'

`What's inside, boss?' Riviera leaned forward, craning his neck. Four tiny figures glittered, near the tip of Armitage's finger. Armitage slapped at them as if they were gnats.

`Peter,' Armitage said, `you're going to be the first to find out. You'll arrange yourself an invitation. Once you're in, you see that Molly gets in.'

Case stared at the blankness that represented Straylight, remembering the Finn's story: Smith, Jimmy, the talking head, and the ninja.

`Details available?' Riviera asked. `I need to plan a wardrobe, you see.'

`Learn the streets,' Armitage said, returning to the center of the model. `Desiderata Street here. This is the Rue Jules Verne.'

Riviera rolled his eyes.

While Armitage recited the names of Freeside avenues, a dozen bright pustules rose on his nose, cheeks, and chin. Even Molly laughed.

Armitage paused, regarded them all with his cold empty eyes.

`Sorry,' Riviera said, and the sores flickered and vanished.

Case woke, late into the sleeping period, and became aware of Molly crouched beside him on the foam. He could feel her tension. He lay there confused. When she moved, the sheer speed of it stunned him. She was up and through the sheet of yellow plastic before he'd had time to realize she'd slashed it open.

`Don't you move, friend.'

Case rolled over and put his head through the rent in the plastic. `Wha...?'

`Shut up.'

`You th'~ one, mon,' said a Zion voice. `Cateye, call 'em, call 'em Steppin'~ Razor. I Maelcum, sister. Brothers wan'~ converse wi'~ you an'~ cowboy.'

`What brothers?'

`Founders, mon. Elders of Zion, ya know...'

`We open that hatch, the light'll wake bossman,' Case whispered.

`Make it special dark, now,' the man said. `Come. I an'~ I visit th'~ Founders.'

`You know how fast I can cut you, friend?'

`Don'~ stan'~ talkin'~, sister. Come.'

The two surviving Founders of Zion were old men, old with the accelerated aging that overtakes men who spend too many years outside the embrace of gravity. Their brown legs, brittle with calcium loss, looked fragile in the harsh glare of reflected sunlight. They floated in the center of a painted jungle of rainbow foliage, a lurid communal mural that completely covered the hull of the spherical chamber. The air was thick with resinous smoke.

`Steppin'~ Razor,' one said, as Molly drifted into the chamber. `Like unto a whippin'~ stick.'

`That is a story we have, sister,' said the other, `a religion story. We are glad you've come with Maelcum.'

`How come you don't talk the patois?' Molly asked.

`I came from Los Angeles,' the old man said. His dreadlocks were like a matted tree with branches the color of steel wool. `Long time ago, up the gravity well and out of Babylon. To lead the Tribes home. Now my brother likens you to Steppin'~ Razor.'

Molly extended her right hand and the blades flashed in the smoky air.

The other Founder laughed, his head thrown back. `Soon come, the Final Days... Voices. Voices cryin'~ inna wilderness, prophesyin'~ ruin unto Babylon...'

`Voices.' The Founder from Los Angeles was staring at Case. `We monitor many frequencies. We listen always. Came a voice, out of the babel of tongues, speaking to us. It played us a mighty dub.'

`Call 'em Winter Mute,' said the other, making it two words.

Case felt the skin crawl on his arms.

`The Mute talked to us,' the first Founder said. `The Mute said we are to help you.'

`When was this?' Case asked.

`Thirty hours prior you dockin'~ Zion.'

`You ever hear this voice before?'

`No,' said the man from Los Angeles, `and we are uncertain of its meaning. If these are Final Days, we must expect false prophets...'

`Listen,' Case said, `that's an AI, you know? Artificial intelligence. The music it played you, it probably just tapped your banks and cooked up whatever it thought you'd like to --'

`Babylon,' broke in the other Founder, `mothers many demon, I an'~ I know. Multitude horde!'

`What was that you called me, old man?' Molly asked.

`Steppin'~ Razor. An'~ you bring a scourge on Babylon, sister, on its darkest heart...'

`What kinda message the voice have?' Case asked.

`We were told to help you,' the other said, `that you might serve as a tool of Final Days.' His lined face was troubled. `We were told to send Maelcum with you, in his tug Garveyto the Babylon port of Freeside. And this we shall do.'

`Maelcum a rude boy,' said the other, `an'~ a righteous tug pilot.'

`But we have decided to send Aerol as well, in Babylon Rocker,to watch over Garvey.'

An awkward silence filled the dome.

`That's it?' Case asked. `You guys work for Armitage or what?'

`We rent you space,' said the Los Angeles Founder. `We have a certain involvement here with various traffics, and no regard for Babylon's law. Our law is the word of Jah. But this time, it may be, we have been mistaken.'

`Measure twice, cut once,' said the other, softly.

`Come on, Case,' Molly said. `Let's get back before the man figures out we're gone.'

`Maelcum will take you. Jah love, sister.'

The tug Marcus Garvey,a steel drum nine meters long and two in diameter, creaked and shuddered as Maelcum punched for a navigational burn. Splayed in his elastic g-web, Case watched the Zionite's muscular back through a haze of scopolamine. He'd taken the drug to blunt SAS nausea, but the stimulants the manufacturer included to counter the scop had no effect on his doctored system.

`How long's it gonna take us to make Freeside?' Molly asked from her web beside Maelcum's pilot module.

`Don be long now, m'seh dat.'

`You guys ever think in hours?'

`Sister, time, it be time, ya know wha mean? Dread,' and he shook his locks, `at control, mon, an'~ I an'~ I come a Freeside when I an'~ I come...'

`Case,' she said, `have you maybe done anything toward getting in touch with our pal from Berne? Like all that time you spent in Zion, plugged in with your lips moving?'

`Pal,' Case said, `sure. No. I haven't. But I got a funny story along those lines, left over from Istanbul.' He told her about the phones in the Hilton.

`Christ,' she said, `there goes a chance. How come you hung up?'

`Coulda been anybody,' he lied. `Just a chip... I dunno.' He shrugged.

`Not just 'cause you were scared, huh?'

He shrugged again.

`Do it now.'

`What?'

`Now. Anyway, talk to the Flatline about it.'

`I'm all doped,' he protested, but reached for the trodes. His deck and the Hosaka had been mounted behind Maelcum's module along with a very high-resolution Cray monitor.

He adjusted the trodes. Marcus Garveyhad been thrown together around an enormous old Russian air scrubber, a rectangular thing daubed with Rastafarian symbols, Lions of Zion and Black Star Liners, the reds and greens and yellows overlaying wordy decals in Cyrillic script. Someone had sprayed Maelcum's pilot gear a hot tropical pink, scraping most of the overspray off the screens and readouts with a razor blade. The gaskets around the airlock in the bow were festooned with semirigid globs and streamers of translucent caulk, like clumsy strands of imitation seaweed. He glanced past Maelcum's shoulder to the central screen and saw a docking display: the tug's path was a line of red dots, Freeside a segmented green circle. He watched the line extend itself, generating a new dot.