*I can help your AI read a range of false signatures but not all. This technology is cutting edge. It has not yet been superseded on my world.'

Roag turned to Avula, indicating the wounded trooper. *How was this man hurt?'

*The device was b.o.o.by-trapped, m'lord. It set off an intense heat flash.'

*But he is still alive.'

Avula was doubtful. *It was a non-lethal detonation.'

*The . . . ah . . . agent in question, Amba.s.sador, is flawed in this area,' Black said. *It is a weakness of hers that will see her undone.' He scanned the rooftops. *It is because of this Achilles' heel that your people are still alive.'

Roag regarded him a moment, then smiled. *How quaint.'

*My thoughts exactly.'

Avula whispered to Roag, causing the amba.s.sador's face to darken.

*It appears your rogue agent is not without quirks. A body has been discovered. The remains of one, I should say.'

Black knew a nanosecond of uncertainty.

*Unrelated, I a.s.sure you.'

Roag glanced at Avula. *In that case, let us resume the hunt, Olak.'

*Solid, Amba.s.sador. Real solid.'

As they moved off, the amba.s.sador fell into step beside Black. *You still think she is watching us?

*Indubitably, Amba.s.sador. She circled back to this point, set up the decoy, and then took up a less obvious and more problematic position. She is therefore still watching us.'

*And we cannot use this to our advantage?'

*Doubtful. She will antic.i.p.ate every move we make, every feint and counter feint.'

*Then how do we catch such a slippery fish?' demanded the amba.s.sador in mild exasperation.

*By forcing her to keep watching us - while we are on the move.'

*Ah, I see. Then she will have to keep moving also.'

*Making it more difficult for her to use static decoys.'

*Brilliant. Let us proceed.'

Black did not tell the amba.s.sador that Anneke would also find this tactic easy to counter. Nor did he bother mentioning that Anneke's main objective on Kanto was not to spy on its government or follow Black. No. She had far more important puzzles to solve, like finding the lost coordinates before Black did.

Yet the encounter suggested that Anneke did not yet know the second clue. If she knew, she would not be wasting time observing him.

Right now Anneke Longshadow wanted to know just one thing: did Black know ...?

One of the Envoy's talents was to remam stock still, frozen into an immobility that no mammalian creature could ever hope to reproduce, though many insects managed it effortlessly.

Another talent he possessed, and which even Black knew nothing of, was camouflage. Without his robe, the Envoy could alter the visual appearance of his body - even its topography - to match the background against which he lay or stood, or his general surroundings.

He had done both to slip away from the Kantorians. Or rather, he had simply slipped off his robe and *melted' into his background, allowing the Kantorians - and Black - to *slip away' from him. When they had gone, he donned his robe, pulling the cowl tightly over his head, and began to stalk Anneke Longshadow.

The chance meeting with her on the street had disturbed him. All his calculations, all his senses, had suggested no such meeting would occur. Black and Anneke did not, should not, meet until the final confrontation. The seemingly impossible had occurred.

This was both good and bad. The measurements of the caretakers, their sense-navigations of the manifold, the multi-layered multi-level nature of the universe, may be at fault - and they had not seen clearly; perhaps they were not meant to see clearly, an astounding thought. Their role as caretakers may be less significant than his leaders had suggested.

This was the *bad'.

The *good' was odder. Perhaps Anneke, or Black was more - much more - than the caretakers imagined; indeed, one of them might be outside the calculations.

But that was like saying *outside the universe' or *before time began'.

Nonsensical. Contradictory. Impossible.

But one thing that could be said of the caretakers as a species, was that they were all stark-raving mad. It was the nature of their gift as a species of Seers. How could they be otherwise?

The Envoy stopped and listened. Anneke was just ahead. His internal scanners had detected her biosign, her real one; his scanners were not as easily fooled as those of the Kantorians or even Black's. That didn't mean they were infallible, just different.

The Envoy inched closer. His family had been chosen for this mission - a mission that had consumed centuries and would no doubt consume more - because they were genetically and spiritually the sanest of the caretaker clans.

He had spotted her now, moving low across a rooftop one hundred metres below his position. Then she stopped, planting a device under the old stone parapet that bordered the roof edge.

The Envoy's hand rose into view, seven fingers gripping his blaster.

Black was aware that Anneke was on the rooftop. He was also aware that Riktar had managed the impossible, he had got *downwind' of Anneke and had found a shadow in her sensor landscape. Such shadows could be caused by interference, sometimes natural, usually technological. There were naturally occurring n-s.p.a.ce fissures: minute cracks in s.p.a.ce- time that leaked infinitesimal amounts of radiation, the kind that disrupted sensors and other modern devices.

But Black suddenly realised he did not want Riktar to shoot Anneke and he did not want the Kantorians to get hold of her unless he could get her off them. The likelihood of this was becoming remote. If his people failed to crack the code, Anneke's death would mean that he was at a dead end. It was better having someone he could either follow or steal from at some future date.

And Anneke in the hands of Roag might be worse. Who knew what the Kantorians would do with the lost coordinates, if they guessed their purpose.

He needed to do something, and fast.

*Amba.s.sador, I tire of this. On my world, we would obliterate the biological life within a specified cube of s.p.a.ce from orbit. Nice and neat.' He stopped short of admitting that with biosign signature technology, such weapons could distinguish between hostiles and friendly forces.

The amba.s.sador stared at him, only managing to regain his composure after a moment. Then he smiled crookedly. *That would certainly solve the problem.'

The man turned away. Black had no doubt he was furiously signalling Avula.

And, like clockwork, the attack came.

Unfortunately for Roag, Black had also been signalling his people.

The battle was over almost before it began. By the looks of it, Roag had been planning an attack on Black's people from the beginning. Black recognised at once that the attackers were dressed in the livery of a trading clan.

The small plaza suddenly filled with yelling, charging men and women. Black heard the hiss of pulse weapons and saw a man fall. There were cries and shouts, then the deadly battle began in earnest. Though his squad was outnumbered three to one, they fought back with determination, boldness, and a grim disregard for life that quickly daunted the attackers.

Within minutes, twenty-five of the attackers lay dead or wounded to only five of Black's guards. Black himself had accounted for four of the attackers, before the astonished eyes of the amba.s.sador. Black silently congratulated himself on having set Riktar after Anneke. His position on the rooftops had been fortuitous. Alas, according to his covert sensor, Riktar had not taken out the woman. Furthermore, Riktar's biosign had gone off the radar.

There was much blood and moaning. Black ordered his people to attend to the wounded - of both sides. It made good press and impressed the locals. He noted immediately that none of Roag's men had been killed in the fray.

Black also checked on Roag. *Amba.s.sador, are you hurt? Are you all right?'

Roag nodded, mopping his brow with a handkerchief. *I fear your presence has upset someone,' he said. *That man there is a rival arms dealer.'

Rival arms dealer rrry .foot, thought Black. These are trained Kantorian Secret Police or rrry name isn't Maximus Black. Not that it mattered. The fracas had distracted them from the hunt for Anneke. All well and good.

Except of course there would have to be an accounting for this exercise. Black's hand had been forced. He had shown what they were capable of, not only as a trained fighting team, but in terms of weaponry that they had kept concealed from the amba.s.sador.

And the slip about weapons that could annihilate human beings from s.p.a.ce but leave untouched private property.

Necessary, but unfortunate.

And all to save the life of his nemesis. Black sighed. How oddly his and Anneke's fates were intertwined. Which reminded him, where was that d.a.m.ned Envoy?

Oh, there he was. Standing there. Black frowned. He could not remember when the Envoy had reappeared or if he had been there during the recent fight. What was he up to, sneaking off like that?

Ambulances arrived as well as more military personnel. Black and his squad- minus the Envoy who had, once again, disappeared - were escorted back to their quarters, only their rooms seemed to have changed in their absence.

Black's new room looked much like a Kantorian prison cell.

BY any reckoning, Anneke should have died. She was planting a shaped explosive device directly above an energy conduit that snaked through the city, from which every home, office and governmental department drew power. The device was not powerful enough to kill anyone, but would send a laser spike into the conduit, slicing through it like a guillotine and initiating a feedback pulse that would disrupt every transformer within a kilometre.

Anneke had only planted a few, but she intended to sow many, many more.

If she got the chance.

She heard a tiny click and spun round, knowing it was too late. Even throwing herself to the side would make no difference. She knew this. Knew in the deepest part of herself that her time was up.

Then everything happened at once.

As she spun and dodged, twisting her head to see, a man came into view. Gun out, point blank range. The perfect kill shot. In the same instant in which she registered this, there was a furious flash of light.

A pulse beam enveloped the man. She heard two ka thunks. When the dazzle cleared from her eyes, the top half of the a.s.sa.s.sin's body was gone. The arms had thudded to the rooftop and now the legs and lower trunk folded up and collapsed.

Gun held in both hands on straightened arms, Anneke raked the nearby buildings, battlements, windows. Someone had saved her. But who? And why?

Was she next?

She didn't wait to find out. She dived into a forward break fall and rolled behind a stone wall, then crab-crawled away as fast as she could, keeping low.

In the commotion she managed to miss the battle in the square below; nor did she see the victor, Black and his people, marched away, at the centre of a military formation that looked suspiciously like a prisoner detail.

Anneke missed her first prearranged meeting with Pagin, but managed the next, keeping a low profile in between, though not so low that she did not notice the changes.

Qule was a dreary city. The things Anneke had seen since her arrival had both enraged her and made her heart break. Like all dictatorships, the regime on Kanto did not give a d.a.m.n for its populace, other than as a source of taxation and power and, when need arose, as cannon fodder.

Worse, Anneke noticed more patrols on the streets, more random ID checks, and three-person squads positioned at street corners. There was a sense of grim urgency, a kind of electricity that flowed through the streets of the capital city like a rising tide.

Something had happened at the highest levels, and she had a bad feeling about it.

*Where you been?' Pagin asked when they finally met.

His impatience should have been enough to warn Anneke, but it didn't. *I was delayed. Ran into an old friend.'

Pagin laughed. *I have acquaintances like that, too.'

*You? You're not old enough.'

He laughed at that as well then led her back to his bas.e.m.e.nt. The moment the door shut she was enveloped in an ixsin net. Having used them herself she stopped struggling immediately. Three bearded men emerged from the shadows.

Anneke stared at Pagin blankly through the matrix of energised netting. He looked away, muttering, *Not what you think. They just want to talk. Net is for their protection, not yours.'

Anneke eyed the men. One of them was a bear of a man, broad-shouldered, barrel-chested, with a bald bullet of a head despite the full beard. She guessed that the man's many skin piercings carried an array of sophisticated technology.

*On my world, we usually shake hands,' said Anneke.

*On my world,' said the bear, *we don't have such luxuries.'

Anneke nodded. *I've seen your world.'

*Are you friend or foe to the people of Kanto?'

*I am a friend to its people and foe to its rulers.'

*Who do you work for?

*The Regis Imperium Mentalis.'

*Ah, RIM. The fallen relic.' Anneke started. *Fallen?'

*Indeed. We hear there was another coup. RIM has collapsed. No one knows what is going on, but it has come as a sign. The outer systems have broken from the Federation. Kanto is rallying them, attacking nearby worlds and setting up garrisons there.' His face clouded. *Kanto means to spread its dark seed throughout the galaxy. It is now on a war footing.'

*And the Sentinels?'

The bear shrugged. *They have struck back with annihilating fury, but they are few and far away. They will not be here for a long time, or so the rumours say, and by then Kanto believes it will be the greater force.' He fell silent a moment, then said, *There are some who have considered disguising themselves as the Kantorian Secret Police and attacking the Sentinel Consulate. We wondered if that would bring them here more quickly. But they are unpredictable.'

*I'd drop that idea. They would see through the disguise in a second. And in the end, they may well be everybody's last hope.' She eyed the man frankly, sizing him up. *So where do you figure into this?'

*We fight when we can, sabotage, resist, survive . ..'

*An underground movement. Just what I was looking for. Do you have a name?'

*I am called Hugar. Pagin says you are Anneke Longshadow. He says he trusts you. Let me ask you something. Do you trust him?'