She did not look up at him, did not let him see the tears that had left her cheeks wet. "What?"

"My dear-perhaps this is bad timing, but-"

"What?"

"We"re being attacked."

Denice looked up, saw him standing in the doorway looking at her.

"I"m sorry to interrupt," he said quietly, "but I thought you might want to know."

Trent"s Image fled through the orbital InfoNet.

It was a dangerous place at the best of times, and doubly so now, with DataWatch prepared for war. Trent knew he had no chance of getting back undetected; he hoped only that he could get back to his body at all.

He fled through a chained series of low-alt.i.tude comsats. The comsats spoke both to one another and to InfoNet communications relays on Earth. At no point did Trent consider going down to Earth; with no secured processors as a home base, he would be no better off than in the Orbital InfoNet.

Jump, and jump, and jump again-Trent found himself in a transfer node, a small observation area with excellent input attachments, poor output. Paths led away from the transfer node in eight directions.

The living Image of Trent the Uncatchable paused briefly, considered his options. Web angels closed in on him as he considered, as the borrowed processor cycles that the Image stole from its surroundings moved slowly by. Trent fired viruses and phages back in the direction he had come, paused long enough to clone himself into a dozen apparently functional ghosts, and sent the ghosts back after the viruses and phages.

Eight paths led outward.

Six were fixed maser; two of them were lasercable, routed to some other datas.p.a.ce inside the small satellite Trent inhabited. No aimable maser; a single aiming maser, anywhere along the line of his flight, would have given him the option of beamcasting the record of his conversation with Denice directly back to Halfway. Half the System would have intercepted it, but properly encoded it would have been no great danger.

And at least his body would have known what had transpired with Denice.

There were no good options; Trent disguised himself, sent ghosts out into the InfoNet through all eight available channels. Two ghosts were terminated instantly, and a third shortly after. Five channels left, and reports from the ghosts he had sent out along his back trail were not good: web angels would be on him within instants.

He had insufficient cycles to create true copies of himself; by the time a single clone had been twinned, the web angels would have destroyed him.

For the barest instant Trent knew despair.

The web angels were very close now.

He chose a channel at random out of the remaining five, and leapt upward.

Into eternity.

I think I napped for a bit.

When I awoke again I found Trent standing motionless at the great window, watching the empty field of stars. He stood unnaturally still, turned slightly away from me, for so long I wondered if he had fallen asleep on his feet; you can do that in low gee.

"Come on,"Trent whispered in a loud, harsh voice, the voice of a wizard prophesying. "Come on,you can do it." The moment the words were uttered Trent jerked as though he"d touched a live wire, shivered for a moment, and then shook his head. "d.a.m.n. Oh, d.a.m.n."

"Trent?"

He did not look at me, spoke very slowly indeed. "Neil. I"d-forgotten you were here. You should go get some sleep. You"ll need it tomorrow."

"What happened?"

"I lost myself inside a tiny little talk-to-me satellite. d.a.m.n thing must have been forty years old. c.r.a.ppy hardware like that shouldn"t be allowed in the InfoNet."

"Oh." I didn"t even know what losing yourself consisted of, but it felt as though something more were required. I said, "I"m very sorry."

Trent said distantly, "It"s okay." He looked out the great viewport, eyes unfocused, and if I live to be a hundred I doubt I will ever again see such naked pain on a human face, with clown paint or otherwise.

He looked for all the world like someone was grinding gla.s.s down onto the surface of his heart.

I had the good sense to keep my mouth shut.

When at length Trent turned to me his features were curiously empty. "Sorry about that. Ships heading toward the Chandler Estate, Reb ships probably. A woman I haven"t seen in seven years is in trouble over there. We talked all night." I did not think I imagined what he said as he left: "I wonder what she said."

- 13 -.

They ran through empty hallways to the garage. One of Chandler"s young servants met them on their way, wearing a p-suit and carrying another pair. The man handed one p-suit to Denice, the other to Robert, and vanished off down a side corridor.

Dvan was in the garage, already in his p-suit, helmet hooked loosely at his hip. He walked slowly around the sh.e.l.l of the semiballistic, checking for something, Denice was not certain what.

She spoke while squirming into her p-suit. "Who is it?"

Dvan"s voice boomed from the other side of the semiballistic. "Hard to say. Six ships, they"re not s.p.a.ce Force, they"re not PKF They"re going to have a fight to remember, getting through Estate defenses, but if they"re armed the way I"d have armed them, they-"

A rumble, the sound of distant thunder on a summer night, reached them. Dvan came back around the body of the semiballistic. "They will," Dvan finished. "Warhead," he added. "And close to the house, la.s.s, or we"d not have heard it."

"Where are we going?"

Dvan shrugged. "Elsewhere." He placed one gloved hand against the semiballistic"s airlock doorpad.

"If-"

Denice"s ears popped. A brief violent wind stormed around her, and then suddenly, as though of its own volition, the bulk of the semiballistic lifted itself free of the deck, tumbled gently and majestically to its side, away from the three of them, and plowed into the hull of the house. The shock of impact knocked Denice from her feet, down to the spinning hull.

It was abruptly difficult to breathe. Robert was ten meters away from her, shouting something strangely silent, pointing, and Denice looked upward- -atstars .

s.p.a.ce Force,Denice thought very clearly,has not recovered the laser cannon. Nothing but an X-laser cannon could have sliced away an entire corner of the house.

There was noair in her lungs.

For the first time in her life, Denice Castanaveras was possessed of the abrupt, absolutely certain conviction,I"m going to die. First step;put the helmet on. It was still in her hand, but she hadn"t practiced with it enough; she fumbled and dropped it. Another section of the house came free, glowing brilliant white at the edges, where the X-laser had touched it. Denice picked the helmet up, tried to put it on backward while red dots danced in front of her eyes. She realized her mistake, corrected it, got the helmet on in the correct direction. Her eyes were stinging and abruptly she could not see at all, not anything - Huge hands grasped her, an arm went around her chest, and the helmet settled into place around her with the gentlest ofclicks.

Air rushed in on her. With the air came a vast pain in her lungs, and then cramps; she doubled over on herself, curled herself up around a pain so great she could not imagine what it might be. She blinked, again and again, blinked the blood away from her eyes- The white glare of the explosion dazzled her eyes, even through the film of blood, for the very briefest instant; then her faceplate went completely black. The wave front, when it touched her, was no more than a gentle push.

Stars wheeled by over her head, and then the sun, then Earth, and then stars again.

She did not know how long the airplant in her suit was good for.

It hardly mattered; she did not know how long she had been floating, completely alone, in the depths of s.p.a.ce.

The only thing she was certain of was that she was going to die, and probably soon.

After a while the air in her suit got uncomfortably stuffy.

She could see Halfway, if she bothered to pay attention when it swung by. It did not look particularly interesting; noodles, she had heard somebody call it once. Pretty close.

The bright spark of a s.p.a.cecraft"s rockets appeared, now and again, in the area near her. They were, she thought, searching for her. She doubted they would find her; it would be difficult, in the midst of all the other debris from the Chandler Estate, to find anything so small as a person.

The spark grew brighter as Denice"s vision faded. She wondered if they would get here in time.

- 14 -.

n.o.body-I meann.o.body -cared.

s.p.a.ce Force had taken control of Halfway? It was fine by them.

Trent was right. Halfers accepted the story as given; most of them, busy monitoring the InfoNet for news about thereal story, s.p.a.ce Force"s attempt to recover the laser cannon, simply didn"t care that, instead of the usual Halfway Security, they had s.p.a.ce Force today, and maybe tomorrow. Most didn"t even ask, and the few who did ask accepted the story they were given without apparent question.

To the homebrews, downsiders are downsiders, regardless.

The rebels, mostly j.a.panese according to the reports on the Boards, were acquitting themselves much better than anybody had guessed; they"d repulsed two waves of Elite already. At least half the orbital cannon were under control of rebel forces. Reports of dead Elite were unconfirmed, but a pair of News-Board reporters claimed to have seen at least one.

We kept our heads down. Toward lunchtime a disturbance flared up out on the Edge; I took a pair of Trent"s s.p.a.ceFarers with me and went myself. We didn"t even have to crack heads; the simple fact that the Chief had shown up with a pair in s.p.a.ce Force blues, rather than one of the standard patrols, shocked them into something like sobriety. I lectured them briefly, snakechained the one who had started the trouble to the bar-a two-hour snake-and got out of there.

We were not far from my home; I told my s.p.a.ceFarers where we were going, and why; they called it in.

I heard Trent"s voice, saying "Go ahead," and the s.p.a.ceFarer nodded to me.

I didn"t take much. CU:40,000, in hard Collective gold, from the safe. If Jay had known I"d been stockpiling it, he"d probably have made me some d.a.m.n lecture about paranoia.

It all fit very neatly in one smallish briefcase. Downside it would be extremely heavy; now I just had to be careful how I moved it.

I was ready to leave when I remembered one of the things I"d heard about Trent the Uncatchable; he was a coffee junkie. Seven years he"d been out in the Belt; Earth-grown coffee is d.a.m.n rare out there. I had just under a kilo of S&W Colombian in the stasis field; about half a kilo of Jamaican Blue. I bagged them both, and went from room to room, simply looking at everything, committing my home to memory.

When I was done I turned out all the lights, and left the house unlocked.

I never saw it again.

That evening, after dinner, Trent and I sat and drank coffee together. He had an appointment with Sh.e.l.l for later that evening; she wanted to take another shot at convincing him to help her take down the InfoNet. I knew why he"d agreed to go, and it had nothing to do with the InfoNet.

He was still wearing his clown uniform-he was almost the only one who was; most of the rest of his people, except for the one really big clown who I suspected was Trent"s bodyguard, had changed into s.p.a.ce Force fatigues. He wore a laser rifle slung across his back. I felt vaguely disoriented by it all; not detached, but as though I moved through a world filled with so many fascinating, brightly colored things that I would never have time to understand them all.

Somewhere around my second and Trent"s fifty cup of coffee, I said, "What are you going to do with Marc?"

Trent seemed mildly surprised I"d asked. "Keep him confined until I leave. Why?"

"He must have known you were coming."

"Oh, of course," Trent conceded. "He didn"t know it wasme, mind you, just that some s.p.a.ceFarers were going to show. But I don"t trust the man. I"ve got CU:five million on my head; quite aside from the Credit, it"s occurred to him by now that giving the PKF my head would help him keep his job." Trent paused, added, "Anyway, after we"re gone, it gives him a much better alibi if he spent all his time in jail."

"I"m not coming with you."

Trent nodded, little white roses bobbing up and down with the movement of his cheeks. "Didn"t think so.

Your boss has a yacht in Bay D12. I"ll have it moved over to Lock Nine, and you can leave when we do.

I"ll program it for you if you like."

"I would; wrestling a HuskySled is about the limits of my competence. Can you have it drop me outside of Levittown, Pennsylvania?"

Trent paused. "Ah. Your hometown. Sure. If you get chased, I"ll send you in like a meteor. You"ll get very hot, and the yacht won"t ever lift again; but you"ll make ground a good fifteen minutes ahead of any pursuit you might pick up. If you don"t get pursued, which is possible given how confused things are outside right now, the yacht will drop gently, and you can park it wherever you like."

I nodded. "Thanks."

"No problem. I wish you well."

"Mind if I ask you a question?"

Trent said, "Why am I here?"

"No, I understand that. Protecting the InfoNet. But why didEddore want you here?"

Trent nodded. "Look at his options. He wants to retain power. To do that, he needs martial law. For that he needs a rebellion. So he has to make rebellion look attractive to the Rebs and Claw, while not allowing them any real chance at success. The Rebs think they need the InfoNet to go down; if they thunk they can"t send the InfoNet down, they don"t rise. Clear so far?"

His voice had the timbre of a trained singer; I felt that I could lose myself in the sound of his voice, in the gentle wash of the words.

"Neil?"

"Uh-yes. Clear so far."

"So the Rebs have to believe that they have a real shot at taking the InfoNet down. If Eddore goes to s.p.a.ce Forceor the PKF asks them to provide security for the Relay Station, the Rebs will know about it; there are Reb and Claw sympathizers in both organizations. So he needs a third party to protect the InfoNet, someone capable of protecting the InfoNet without the rebels being aware of it. That"s us.

We"re here to protect the Relay Station, until July the Fourth."

Trent"s features grew sharp in front of me, the tiny veins in his eyes bright red against the blue-white sclera. His clown outfit was made of cotton, of a very fine Crosshatch weave; his b.u.t.tons were wood, painted by hand with tiny white roses. I blinked hard. "But-why not tell the Rebs what you"re doing?

Why let this. .h.i.t them unawares?"

His voice echoed when he spoke. "They can"t win, Neil. The faster they lose, the better it is for everyone, including them. If they drag this thing out, it"s that much longer before things return to normal, that much longer before Obodi is dead and we can start to rebuild."

I don"t know how I knew this, but suddenly I did. "It bothers you," I said slowly, "that they"ve put a bounty on his head that"s greater than yours."

"Didhe walk through a wall? I don"t think so," Trent said conclusively.

"Itdoes bother you."

Trent eyed me with clear appraisal. "You don"t miss much."

"You"ll never know." The brown of his eyes was the color of old oak. A voice that was not mine was speaking to Trent, and I strained to make out the words. "I am the living eyes of Kayell"no, the Name Storytellers; chosen for my location, for my nearness to the center of events. I watch; I learn; I observe.