For a moment, it got him a blank look. Then the confusion cleared from her porcelain face. Ah, right.

Culture gap. No, I' m not talking about losers the way you people do. I mean losers in the trade-off. Some win, some lose, the wheel goes ' round. That kind of thing."

You people?" He tried to hide the hurt. What do you mean, you people?"

You know, guys like you." She gestured impatiently. Old Americans, heart-landers. From the Republic."

Oh, okay. But look, Carmen." He al owed himself a superior smile. We' re not the old Americans, that' s the Union, that sell-out eastern scum, all their UN-loving pals. The Confederated Republic is the New America. We' re the Phoenix rising, Carm."

Right."

I mean, uhm," he stumbled again, looking for language that wouldn' t offend. Look, I know probably you didn' t go to a church the same way I always did, guess for you it was some kind of temple or something, but in the end it' s the same thing, right?" Pleased with himself for the way he' d eased out from under Pastor Wil iam' s unremitting hellfire and One True Christ ranting, seen a better light in the succession of more moderate churches he' d had to make do with over the last couple of years. I mean whatever you call God, if you accept that God as your guiding principle the way the Republic does, then any nation that does that has to succeed, right? Has to rise up in the end, no matter what Satan does to lay snares in our path."

Ren looked at him thoughtfully. Are you real y a, uh, a Christian?"

Yes, ma' am."

So you belie- "

Her phone blipped at them. She fished it out and put it to her ear.

Yeah?" Features tautening, the way he' d seen it that morning when the news about the humidity loop came through. Got it. Be right there."

She snapped the phone off again.

Ward," she said. He' s back, and he' s pretty fucking pissed off."

Pretty pissed off was about right. Scott could hear Ward' s bellowing through the metal walls of the con room while they were still at the far end of the corridor. He followed Ren along the narrow space, hurrying to keep up with her curiously long, rapid strides. He would have tried to get ahead of her, to go first in case Nocera was still behaving like an asshole, but there was no room to pass, and anyway...

The door sliced back to admit them. Ward' s rage boiled out, suddenly on ful audio. Scott was used to the sound, but this time he thought there was an edge on the voice he hadn' t heard before, something that went well beyond anger.

... the fucking point of all this planning if we' re- "

He shut up as he saw them. Ulysses Ward was a big, bearish man, muscular from the constant sub-aqua and surface swimming time the business demanded, balding in a way you didn' t see so much of on this side of the fenceline. He flushed when he got angry, as he was now, and he punctuated his speech with aggressive motion of limbs and head. Scott had never seen him actually hit anyone, but he often gave the impression that it wasn' t entirely out of the question. Nocera, perhaps wisely, had given him center stage in the con room, and he stood there now, fists clenched.

We' re back," said Ren superfluously.

So I fucking see." Ward seemed to notice Scott for the first time. You, get down to the sub dock and take a look at the air scrubbers on Lastman. Felt like I was breathing farts and fumes the last hour back, I nearly fucking had to surface it got so bad."

For about half a second, before he spotted the idiocy of it, Scott thought about refusing to leave Ren until Ward had calmed down. He swallowed instead, said: Might be a compatibility problem, all that software we took out of, uh, Fell 8 was- "

Ward pinned him with a glare. And can you fix that for me if it is?"

Well, no, but- "

No, that' s right. Because I didn' t fucking hire you as a software specialist. So why don' t you get the fuck down there like I asked you to and take a fucking look at what you can fucking fix for me. All right?

Simple enough for you?"

Scott looked at him, knowing he was flushing. Breathed in hard, nodded on clenched teeth and lips pulled tight.

Good, then why are you still standing here?"

Scott wheeled about and plunged back into the corridor, fury rising through him like heat. One more month, he promised himself silently. One more fucking month, and out. Before today, he' d thought Ward was okay, he' d thought the man was an American. Guy lost his temper now and then, but what real man didn' t. Point was, he knew where the lines were. But now, talking that way, treating Scott like he was some just-over-the-fence liability who' d fucked up when al the time it was Scott had been warning Ward that if you were going to cannibalize plug-ins from one sub to another, you couldn' t just expect that the systems would fall in love with each other without you ran a whole slew of up-to-date compatibility patches.

He was on the stairs down to the dock when he became aware that something had changed fractionally in the light in the corridor behind him.

He stopped on the first step, looked back.

Saw a tall figure advancing down the passageway from the other end, darkening the view along the narrow perspectives as it passed under each overhead bulb and got between Scott and the light source.

This guy really was tall, and big with it, and advancing with inexorable calm. Someone not used to being stopped, someone who must not have liked the signs all over the topside offices that asked you to buzz and take a seat while you waited, one of our staff will be with you shortly, must instead have decided to just come down anyway and find whatever he was looking for.

Scott lifted an arm and waved.

Uh, hey," he cal ed.

The figure gave no indication that it had seen or heard him. It moved steadily along the corridor toward the con room door, seemed to be wearing a long coat and had one hand held stiffly down inside the folds of the garment- And suddenly, out of nowhere, a lever tipped over in Scott' s guts. Something was wrong. This was trouble.

He hopped off the step and jogged back up the corridor, toward the newcomer. He didn' t call out again; there was no point. He knew from experience how voices boomed and echoed in the metal confines of the corridor- this guy had heard him well enough. And yes, there was definitely something in that coat-shrouded hand, he saw the way the material wrapped stiffly around it. He dropped the jog, kicked into a sprint.

They met at the door. Scott' s sprint died, puddled right out of him. What he had to say dried up in his mouth. He gaped.

It was the face. His mind seemed to gibber it. It was the face, the face.

Right out of the End Times comics they gave out every fourth Sunday in church, the ones the little kids got nightmares over and the older kids had to earn with red ticks in Pastor Wil iam' s Book of Deeds. It was the same hollow-cheeked privation and clamped mouth, the long, untidy hair hanging past the hard-angled bones of cheeks and jaw, the same burning eyes- The Gaze of Judgment. Right out of Volume II Issue 63.

His knees trembled. His mouth worked. He couldn' t- The door hummed- he' d never noticed the noise before now- and slid back. Voices within, still angry.

The coat swirled, the stranger' s right arm came free, came up swinging. Something hit Scott in the side of the head and he stumbled, went down in an awkward, twisted-limb sprawl. Lightning switched through his head, left sparks and a wow-and-flutter effect in his ears. The Gaze lit on him briefly, then swung away again, left and into the opened con room. The stranger stepped through.

Yells erupted. Nocera and Ward, almost in unison. This is private fucking property, asshole, what do you- "

A sudden silence that sang above the numbness in his head where he' d been hit. Then Ward again, raw disbelief.

You? What the fuck are you doing in here? What- "

Deep, soft cough- a sound he knew from somewhere.

And the screaming started.

Scott felt the sound wring sweat from his pores, turn his skin shivery-ticklish with horror. Like the time Aaron got his arm trapped in the teeth of Dougie Straker' s rock breaker, exactly the same feeling- the sound of agony, of damage so massive it ripped register and recognition out of the voice that made it, left only a flayed shriek of denial that could have belonged to anyone and almost anything.

Carmen!

Scott flailed about. Panic for her got him to his knees, got him to his feet. He felt blood trickling in his hair.

He stumbled and almost fell, braced himself on the edge of the door just as it started to slide closed again. The mechanism trembled against his grip a moment, then gave and sank back to full open. Scott shoved himself upright and staggered through.

He had time for one flash-burned glimpse.

Blood, everywhere, the siren color of it shocked onto the consoles and wall, what looked like a couple of fistfuls of offal from the discount end of a butcher' s counter drip-sliding down the screens. Nocera was down, face turned awkwardly sideways, eyes open, cheek pressed hard to the ill-swept, dusty floor as if he were listening for rats in the understructure. More blood, a broad, wine-dark puddle of it leaking out around his midriff, tongues of the stuff twisting out through the scattered dust. Over his body, Ren and the stranger wrestled for a squat-barreled weapon- Scott made the match with the soft impact he' d heard, one of the Cressi sharkpunch guns from the cabinet upstairs. Supposed to be locked, he was always telling Ward that, but- Ward lay on his back beyond.

More blood again, the big man thrashing and slithering in it, clutching, Scott saw with numb horror, at a raw red hole where his belly had been. Shredded tissue hung in ropes out of him, was clotted on the floor and smeared on his fingers like some red-stained cake mix he' d stuck his hands into. Ward' s mouth was a gaping pink tunnel- you could see right down to the molars and a trembling whitish yellow tongue- and the screams came up out of it in sickening waves. His eyes clawed onto Scott as he stood in the doorway, nailed him there. Wide and pleading, crazy with pain, Scott couldn' t know whether his boss knew him or not. He made to throw himself forward into the fray, threw up instead, with punishing, gut-wrenching force. Vomit splattered in Nocera' s pooling blood.

Carmen yelled, desperate.

Cough of the sharkpunch.

Another impact, this time in his neck below the ear. He grabbed for something, anything. The floor came up. Blood and vomit, warm and wet in his face as he hit. He tried to get his mouth closed or twisted clear, failed in the attempt. The hot acid stink and taste- his stomach flipped again, weakly. His legs flexed like a crippled insect' s. Vision dimming out on a pool of red and flecks of yel ow-white. He groped after a prayer, fumbled it, couldn' t get his mouth to work, made a handful of scrabbling words in his head- Our Father... deliver me not...

And black.

CHAPTER 7.

B y evening, the news was all bad.

Genetic trace turned up a human occupant aboard Horkan' s Pride unaccounted for by any of the scattered corpses. It wasn' t hard to separate out the trace: it came with the full suite of modifications grouped loosely under the popular umbrella term variant thirteen. Or as Coyle had put it, a fucking twist.

They had a manhunt on their hands.

Recovered audiovid remained stubbornly the least filled section of the investigation model. There were scant fragments of satellite footage, from platforms busy about other business and nowhere near overhead. A weather monitor geo-synched to Hawaii had taken some angled peripheral interest when Horkan' s Pride dumped itself into the Pacific, and the Rim' s military systems had registered the incursion while the ship was still in the upper atmosphere, but abandoned close interest as the COLIN dataheads passed on what they knew. Horkan' s Pride had jettisoned its reactor as part of the emergency reentry protocols, carried no weapons, and was plotted to land harmlessly in the ocean. One of the milsats watched the ship complete the promised trajectory and then promptly went back to watching troop movements in Nevada.

None of the recovered footage showed any sign of an attempted pickup prior to the arrival of the coastal crews. Nor were there any helpful images of a lonely figure casting itself into the ocean. None of it was conclusive, even enhanced as far as state-of-the-art optics allowed, but neither did any of it provide anything approaching a useful lead.

They had a manhunt on their hands, and nowhere to start.

In the hotel, Sevgi sat and ate with Norton, food she didn' t want and conversation she wasn' t up to. The restaurant' s romantic low-lighting scheme felt like darkness crowding her eyes at the edges. The syn had crashed, definitively.

How do you feel about this?" Norton asked her as she picked disinterestedly at an octopus salad.

How do you think?"

It was deflection, something- yeah, the only fucking thing- she' d learned from the department-paid counseling sessions after Ethan and the rest of the shit came down. The specialist had sat across the room from her, smiling gently and pushing back every question she' d asked him with the same infuriating elicitation techniques. After a while, she started to do the same thing to him. Not helpful, she supposed, but it had brought the sessions to a rapid close, which was what she wanted. I can' t help you if you won' t help me, he' d said at the end, an edge of anger finally awake in his soporific, patient voice. He was missing the point. She didn' t want to be helped. She wanted to do damage, gashed red, bleeding, and screaming damage to all and any of the bland facets of social restraint that meshed her about like spiderweb.

Nicholson' s probably going to kick," Norton said quietly. He' l say you' re conflicted."

Yeah."

Not enjoying your octopus, then?"

I' m not hungry."

Norton sighed. You know we can let this one go if you want, Sev. Tsai' s guys don' t want us here anyway, and RimSec would just love the chance to flex its secessional muscle. If this guy didn' t drown in the Pacific, he' s on their land now. Added to which, the fact he' s a thirteen pretty much makes it an UNGLA matter. Why don' t we just step back and let the UN and the Rim fight it out for jurisdiction."

No fucking way." Sevgi tossed her chopsticks onto the plate. She sat back. I didn' t join COLIN for an easy ride, Tom. I needed the money is all. And this is as good a way to earn it as busting black-market Marstech or chasing cultists away from the racks. Did you fucking see what he did to those bodies?

Helena Larsen had a fucking life waiting for her when she got home. This is the first worthwhile thing I' ve done in over two years. This is ours."

Norton looked at her in silence for a moment. Nodded. Al right. I' ll have Tsai upload the CSI files to COLIN New York. That should take the ambiguity out of the situation. What do you want to do about Coyle and Rovayo?"

Retain them. Joint task force, indispensable local law enforcement support." She found energy for a grin. Should play wel with the Rim media. COLIN fucks up and spills one of their transports into the Pacific, West Coast cops ride to the rescue. It' ll open some doors for us."

And save us some legwork."

Well, there' s that. You know the Bay Area pretty well, right? Got a sister here?"

Norton sipped at his wine. Sister-in-law. Brother moved over here about fifteen years ago, he' s a special asylums coordinator with the Human Cost Foundation. You know, screening, social integration program. But it' s probably her you heard me talking about. Megan. We, uh, we get on pretty well."

You going to see them while we' re here?"

Maybe." Norton frowned into his drink. How much of this are we going to let the media have?"

Sevgi yawned. Don' t know. See how it goes. If you' re talking about the variant thirteen thing, I vote we keep a lid on it."

If I' m talking about the variant thirteen thing? Gee, I don' t know, do you think I could be? This is me, Sev. Do you think you could drop the say-what casual act for a while?"

She stared off into the gloom of the restaurant. Her eye caught on an underlit motion ad from the fifties- some nanotech dream of change, a ripple of green and blue marches across Martian red to the horizon, a bright new sun rises in synchrony.

It' l be enough to make him out a stowaway and a criminal," she said carefully. Say that he murdered members of the crew, keep the details back to screen out al the crank calls we' re going to pul down.

Bad enough that he' s back from Mars. Telling them he' s a thirteen as well is just asking for trouble. You saw the way Coyle reacted. Remember Sundersen last year? We don' t need another Abomination Among Us panic on our hands."

You think they' d go that way again? After the spanking they al got from the Press Ethics Commission?"

Sevgi shrugged. The media likes panic. It boosts viewing."

Are we going to give race type?"

If and when Organic Trace get it for us. Why?"

I' m wondering," Norton said softly, if he' s Chinese."

Sevgi thought about it for a moment. Yeah. There' s that. Don' t want a replay of Zhang fever. That shit was fucking awful. Least with Sundersen, no one died."

Apart from Sundersen."

You know what I mean. You ever see that lynching footage? They made us watch it in school." Sevgi brushed fingertips to her temples. I can still see it in here like it was fucking yesterday."

Bad times."