Anneke eyed the boy, still looking sheepish. Although he had just led her into a trap, she realised she still trusted him.

She nodded. Pagin looked relieved.

*Then put this on and come with us.'

He neutralised the net and handed her a hood. She looked at it and sighed, pulling it on. It could have been worse - neural blindfolds could cause permanent retinal damage.

When it came off, nearly one hour and several subterranean kilometres later, she was in a brightly lit room filled with communication and surveillance devices. She blinked in the light, staring around, seeing basic shielding and, in one corner, an n-s.p.a.ce receiver. She looked at Pagin with raised eyebrows.

He shrugged, as if to say, I didn't know you that well back then.

She removed a small device from her belt and gave it to Hugar. *If you interface that with your shield generator, it will enhance its effectiveness. It will cause random overlapping of fields, minimising any blind spots showing up.'

Momentarily puzzled, Hugar handed the device to a techie who immediately started a.n.a.lysing it.

*I thank you,' said Hugar. *But one gift deserves another. Pagin says you are seeking something.'

Without giving too much away, Anneke explained that what she was searching for had been lost long ago, and that if the *other side' found it first the galaxy would suffer greatly.

*And what will you do with it when you find it?

*Hide it. Or maybe destroy it. That way n.o.body can use it.'

Huger nodded thoughtfully. He ordered a meal and while they ate, a courier was sent to collect the commercial package fromJosh. Anneke had a.s.sured him that it would seem innocent to the Kantorian jump-gate scanners and censors.

When the courier returned, Anneke downloaded the message into Hugar's computers and decrypted it. Josh had solved the final clue, though it was still only a pointer, like the one that had led to the statue of General Constantine on Arcadia.

But her face darkened as she studied the message's self-sealing algorithm. It had been tampered with. She turned to the courier.

*You came straight here?' He nodded. Anneke turned to Hugar. *Is the timing for his journey right? Could he have been knocked out for a short period?' Hugar shook his head. *There is no missing time. Besides, a second courier followed him. Standard practice.'

Pensive, Anneke chewed her lip.

*Is there a problem?'

*This message has been intercepted and copied. I can only presume that Mr Brown has gotten his hands on it.'

*Is it then compromised?'

*No. It will take him some time to crack the encryption, but not forever. I must move quickly.'

Hugar held up his hand, motioning her back to her seat. *Olak Maxus, or Mr Brown, as you call him, has been placed under house arrest, along with all his people. I daresay this will slow him down.'

Anneke shook her head. *No. He will upload the encrypted message to his ship. Once he cracks it, he'll break out.' just like that? The Kantorian Secret Police are not children.'

*I'm afraid that compared to Mr Brown, they might as well be. When he is ready, he will move.'

*Then we will help you. What do you need?'

*Riddlers.'

*Pardon?'

*The final clue is in the form of a riddle.' Anneke read aloud from the message. "'The eye of the needle is smaller than small, yet the big shall pa.s.s where the little shall not". That's interesting. The first clue also mentioned an eye, does that mean something?' she wondered. She read out the clue again. It meant nothing to her. No doubt it was context-specific, tied to its location and its original milieu. Now long gone perhaps.

*The eye of the needle,' she mused aloud.

*Something very small. Yet it allows the big to pa.s.s. Not the other way around. Great. I like the easy ones. I don't suppose you have a needle lying around in public somewhere, do you?' she asked Hugar. That's when she noticed the big man laughing quietly. Her heart leapt. *You know what this means, don't you?'

He shook his head. *No. But we do have a needle, only it's not a needle.'

Just what I needed,' said Anneke. *More riddles.'

They went in after dark, camouflaged, skin darkened, each equipped with shields enhanced by replicated versions of Anneke's shield enhancer. Pagin led the way.

Anneke had questioned the wisdom of bringing the youth, but Hugar pointed out that no one knew the byways and back ways of the city like Pagin.

*Besides,' said Hugar, *the boy has senses beyond those the rest of us possess. Call it instinct or hunch, I don't care, but he has saved my life many times. When he tells you to duck, my advice is: duck.'

Anneke had given Pagin a strange look after hearing this and the boy had grinned back at her. He did not know that Anneke had a similar extrasensory talent. It made her feel closer to the boy. And more protective.

Which made him complain.

*I don't need all this stuff,' he said when she hitched a belt, containing a miniature shield generator, around his waist.

*You don't need to keep breathing either, but it's not a bad idea.'

He fidgeted and looked to Hugar for help, but he backed away, grinning. One didn't get between a mother hen and her chick.

*Last time I'm saving his life!' muttered Pagin. They entered the building's bas.e.m.e.nt via an old stone sewer system. It was not a pleasant journey. Anneke had a thing about rodents, especially ones almost a metre in length, with bucktooth incisors the size of her thumb. But fortunately, they vaporised as easily as their small off-world cousins.

Well, nearly as easily.

The building they were in was the Trade Commission, the same one Black had visited when he arrived in Qule.

Pagin led Anneke and a squad of six to the main control room. Here, Anneke neutralised two sleepy guards, knocking them out with a soporific gas so they would not remember being rendered unconscious.

She then hacked into the security system, fed false loops into the surveillance devices, and blocked the alarm network so that it could not go off even if it wanted to.

Hugar was impressed.

*You have done this before,' he said.

*Many times. On many worlds. Okay. We're done here. Lead the way to the "needle".'

They pa.s.sed through the room with the tapestries. Their bright colours and rich sequences caught Anneke's attention. Hugar whispered that they were very old, possibly pre-Empire.

Anneke examined the images through her night iris, ramping up the magnification. She saw the ancient blood and something else. The sequence that Black had spotted. Despite Hugar's whispered exhortation that they must not tarry there, Anneke squatted down and examined the row of scenes in detail.

*There is blood here,' she said. *Is it new or part of the original?'

*It is nearly as old as the tapestry, from an ancient cataclysmic battle. Or so they say. But we must go, Anneke.'

*Right.' Anneke quickly took a sample of tapestry containing blood and tucked it away. Then she followed Hugar out of the chamber and through a series of great colonnaded halls.

Finally, they stopped outside a reinforced metal door, secured with old-fashioned locks as well as intruder electronics.

Anneke made short work of the electronics while Pagin set to work on the padlocks. It took a while, but finally the last lock clicked open.

Inside was a room that dwarfed all the others and which seemed open to the sky. Hugar said a transparent plastisteel skylight, reinforced with force fields, formed the ceiling.

All that this elaborate security protected was a large rock, the size of a small house. It sat on a low dais. A railing had been constructed around it and carpet encircled it, as if visitors came to gawk at it.

*It's a meteor,' said Anneke. *Or part of an asteroid.'

Anneke noted a lack of atmospheric melting of the surface. It was not a meteorite. She stared at it, her heart sinking. The lump of stone looked as much like a needle as an elephant looked like a cat. *Okay. Where's the needle?'

*You are looking at it,' said Hugar, seeming to enjoy himself *Of course I am,' said Anneke. *You know, I'm starting to think maybe we're not on the same wavelength after all.'

*This obelisk was found floating in s.p.a.ce by traders over three thousand years ago, on one of the first missions. The travellers nearly did not come back.'

*And your point is?'

*It was found in the region of s.p.a.ce known as the Needles. And it has been called the Needle ever since.' He rested a hand on it, reverentially it seemed.

*As you know, that area of s.p.a.ce is anomalous. It is so intense and chaotic a region it disrupts star drives and jump-gates, making navigation almost impossible.'

Anneke tilted her head in thought. *That's because it's filled with -' She broke off, performing a quick scan of the rock. *N-s.p.a.ce radiation! The rock still bears traces, though they're very small.' She frowned.

*So the "needle" emits n-s.p.a.ce radiation, which is a by-product of all star drives, jump-gate technology, and various other devices, even these shields we're wean.ng. *

Hugar was nodding.

* "The eye of the needle is smaller than small, yet the big shall pa.s.s where the little shall not",' Anneke quoted. *Okay. N-s.p.a.ce radiation particles are smaller than small. That's clear enough. But it allows the big to pa.s.s and not the small -?'

Pagin said, *Star drives are pretty big, aren't they?' Anneke started. *You're right. I was looking for something more complicated. There may be something tiny on this world that n-s.p.a.ce radiation blocks. Or kills.'

*Plankton. Or rather, the equivalent of Terran plankton.'

*What?'

*There is a species utterly unique to Kanto. An airborne plankton. It is an essential part of the food chain, one of the primary photo synthesisers. Yet it is also a problem. It knocks out machinery, invades electronics, and corrodes wiring. So it is both a boon and a bane, one we can't live with and cannot live without.'

*How apt,' said Anneke, thinking of the hidden weapon caches that the lost coordinates supposedly led to. *And?'

*The plankton is robust, as we have learned to our sorrow. Yet one thing destroys it without effort,' Pagin said.

Anneke clicked her fingers. *N-s.p.a.ce radiation.'

*Yes. To this radiation, the plankton is extremely fragile.'

*That means it can never be taken off-world. It could never survive transportation in a s.p.a.ceship or through a Dyson jump-gate!'

*That is true.'

Anneke pulled out an e-pad, got Hugar to enter the plankton's proper name, then hacked into the databank of the Central Qule Museum. Within moments, she had a complete a.n.a.lysis and description of the plankton on her e-pad.

An idea was forming. The plankton was small, all right, but maybe there was something smaller.

She turned back to the meteor, degaussing it, then sweeping it with a deflector field. *I've removed the last traces of the radiation. Just in case Brown comes this way.'

*You can do that?'

*Only where it exists m trace amounts. Okay. Time to go.'

Just then, the clear plastisteel ceiling above them exploded into fragments and a dozen figures dropped down from the sky on rappeller fields.

Brown had arrived.

BLACK and his attack group hit the ground, rolling. Land, roll and fire. Oddly enough, they weren't getting any takedowns. Anneke must have enhanced the shields of the locals. How thoughtful of her.

*Rotate harmonics!' he yelled.

Anneke had, of course, antic.i.p.ated this and pulled her crew back behind the great lump of sky rock, covering a nice exit. It occurred to Black he'd been precipitous in bursting in like this, but once in a while you needed to do something dramatic.

A pulse beam winged him. His shield crackled into life, absorbing the lethal energy and storing it in the shield batteries to be reused later. In return, he blew off a chunk of meteor to fall squarely on the leg of the man who shot at him. Not very sophisticated, but effective. It would slow down Anneke's retreat. Anneke would never leave a wounded comrade for the enemy to take. It just wasn't done in some quarters.

The air filled with hissing pulse beams, the stink of reeker fire, and the shouts of fighting men and women, some wounded.

Fenster, a short squat man, surprisingly fast on his feet, sidled up to Black while keeping his head down. He had replaced Riktar as head of Black's security detail.

*She's getting them out the back exit. You want me to take a squad and cut her off?'

Before Black could answer they heard sirens and whistles in the distance. The Kantorian police were coming. They wouldn't be pleased with Black since not only had he broken out of their prison, he had practically razed the place - and a number of KSP operatives - to the ground.

There was a point being made here - and that was that n.o.boqy locked up Maximus Black and got away with it. A life lesson everyone should learn.

*On second thought,' said Black, *why don't we retreat. Have you scanned the meteor?'

Fenster nodded. *Redd.i.c.k took care of that. Got a sample as well. Or it got him. Shrapnel. Embedded in his leg.'

*Now that's dedication. Okay. We're done here.' As the police poured in through the main entrance, Black's people rappelled out vertically, returning the way they had arrived.

Black had what he needed. Doubly so, since he still did not want Anneke Longshadow dead. He might yet need her.

They pulled back to a safe house, which the Envoy, during one of his disappearances, had set up at cost. Inside, two techies were busy finishing a simple jump-gate.

Black sent Redd.i.c.k, who was limping slightly, up to his flagship with the samples and the readouts from the meteor. Then the jump-gate was recalibrated and the Envoy, after a shielded conference with Black, also departed.