In the night he smashed the bottle and brought the jagged end to his neck, and held it there a couple of minutes. He felt the jagged knife-edge of gla.s.s grazing his skin, but he knew that this was futile. He didn't have the strength to do it. He didn't care enough to end it. He lowered his arm and let the broken bottle roll away. It was over. He was already dead. He would just lie here till the final fragments faded into the night.

Hours pa.s.sed. He became aware of some soft sounds, faraway creaks and squeaks. He thought of rats and devil rats and the other creatures that inhabited the darker corners of the plex, and then the door to the room slowly swung inward.

A pair of dark figures appeared in the doorway, silhouetted by the deeper black of the hall. One looked small and seemed curved like a female. The other one had the heavy build of a big male, big enough even for an ork. "I knew I would find you here."

What the frag ... The voice was Piper's. Slowly, Rico sat up, shifting his Jikku eyes to low-light to better scan the doorway. To his astonishment, he saw Piper standing there, and Shank. They looked battered and b.l.o.o.d.y, but they were standing there alive. Rico struggled to speak He couldn't manage anything coherent He couldn't believe what he was seeing.

"One short sleep past and we recycle endlessly, jefe," Piper said softly. "And I'm going to prove it to you, my love, but first you must let me kiss you."

She shifted closer, smiling warmly.

Her eyes glowed a fiery red.

40.

The chopper settled lightly onto the aeropad atop Fuchi Tower Five. By then, Gordon Ito was up, out of his seat and waiting at the front of the pa.s.senger compartment. His deputy director, executive aid, and exec sec all scurried to shut down notebook comps and close briefcases. His personal bodyguard simply rose and moved to stand beside him.

The moment the hatch was open, the steps lowered, Gordon strode down to the aeropad and across to the rooftop lounge. He moved briskly, but did not rush. He had something he wanted to attend to immediately, but that did not call for haste. Nothing could, in Gordon's view. Haste made waste, and in hisposition, hasty decisions and actions most often promised to result in disaster.

The elevator delivered him twenty stories down to his office suite. Moments later, he stepped into his private office. The tea lady delivered tea. Gordon lit a Platinum Select cigarette, then took up his tea and spent three minutes staring out the wall of windows behind his desk, considering how to proceed.

The decision made, he returned to his desk and brought up the telecom. In another moment the Fuchi logo, veiled by a black triangle, filled the screen. "Mr. Ito."

"Mr. Xiao."

"Konichiwa."

"Konichiwa."

"What brings you to my screen this evening, Gordon?"

"I've just had some intelligence handed to me. I thought you might find it interesting. I'm told that Ansell Surikov and Marena Farris have been recruited by Maas Intertech."

"Yes, I'm aware of that, Gordon."

"Were you planning to do anything about it?"

"I think not."

Gordon forced himself to pause a moment. Xiao's reaction was too complacent even for a man who demonstrated practically no emotion. Something had to be up. "You took the lead on this. You specifically ordered me to lay off Farris and Surikov. Now they're both with Intertech. That's going to improve Kuze Nihon's position in at least one or two key technological areas. And you don't want to do anything about it?"

"It is not necessary, Gordon."

"I'll remind you that Surikov is a leading light in bio-technical research."

"Maas Intertech does not have Surikov."

Gordon sat back in his chair, took a drag on his cigarette, and considered. His intelligence couldn't be wrong, it came straight from the source. That meant Xiao had to be wrong, or lying-or did it? "Then who do they have?"

"They are back to square one, Gordon."

Gordon hesitated an instant, then said, "You sonov-ab.i.t.c.h."

"Yes," Xiao replied. "I fear I've done it to them again." Xiao had set them up-Maas Intertech, everyone. Gordon included. "How did you do it? Obviously, you fabricated another impostor. But you didn't do it the way I did it. You'd never use someone else's trick."

Two moments of silence, then the display screen blanked, the connection broken.

b.a.s.t.a.r.d.

Epilogue.

Racc.o.o.n was clever.

His paws were cunning hands. He could break open any trap and escape any danger, whether in forest or city, mountain or subterranean tunnel.'But that did not make him perfect, not hardly. Or untouchable. Or fearless. Or certain of his own motives. Not as far as Bandit could see.

He had managed to avoid injury when the van turned over. He had managed to avoid being shot by any of the dozens of guns which had raked the street with bullets. He hadn't, however, quite managed to avoid being singed by the fiery explosion that had turned the van into a smoky inferno. Neither had he wasted any time removing himself from that fog-laden street of death.

His ways were Racc.o.o.n's ways, and Racc.o.o.n did not fight when so obviously outnumbered. It did not seem sensible to Bandit that anyone in such a situation would stand and fight, or do anything except run.

Or was he kidding himself?

It was not often that such troubling thoughts followed him to his medicine lodge. This was his private place, his alone place. Here, in this tenement bas.e.m.e.nt, he had gathered the trinkets and fetishes and ritual materials of the ways of magic. Here, in this dark little room, he had survived the ordeal that had given him his first true taste of the deeper truths of metamagic. The problems of the outside world, the mundane world, seemed strange and alien in this place, as if they did not belong.

Now, he looked down at the flute lying in his lap, then lifted-it to his mouth and slowly, quietly, began to play. He didn't worry about playing any particular song or certain special notes. He let the music flow from within. He let something other than his rational mind decide how the song should sound.

In a while, be became aware that he was no longer alone. The Old Man had come again.

Bandit turned to find him sitting cross-legged right behind him. The Old Man looked vaguely Asian, but his thin gray hair flowed down over bis shoulders and everything he wore appeared made of natural leather, brown leather, tan, like native people used to wear long before the Awakening, with necklaces and beadsand bones. Bandit turned to sit facing him. They watched each other for a long time.

Was this Racc.o.o.n in some human guise or merely a spirit that had chosen to serve as his guide?

Bandit wondered. The Old Man's voice was as dry as sand and as creaky as old wooden boards. Yet there was a power, vibrant and strong, beneath the scratchy, sometimes wavering old voice.

"So," the Old Man said. "What do you want? You called me. You must want something."

"I don't know," Bandit said, frowning. "I'm troubled." The Old Man shrugged very slightly. "I have no answers. I'm just an old man."

"You're wise."

"Sure, that's what you think, I'm old and wise. I must have all the answers." The Old Man nodded, faintly. "Maybe you're wrong. If I ever had any answers, I probably forgot them. A long time ago. Before you were even born."

"There must be something you can tell me."

Another silence pa.s.sed, then the Old Man said, "I could tell you a lot of things. Old people can talk for hours. A long time ago I heard two people talking. I think they came from across a great ocean. One kept asking questions and the other one kept trying to answer. How many fish are there in the pond? one asked.

The other one didn't know. He tried to guess. What he didn't seem to understand was that there was no answer. Maybe there aren't any answers at all, except the ones you find for yourself."

"What about truth?"

The Old Man shrugged again. "Truth is one of those things. Everyone sees it their own way. You're a shaman.

You should know that better than anyone. Ask twenty magicians the truth about magic. How many answers do you get?"

"At least twenty."

"I could tell you a lot of things, if I could remember, but what would it mean? What things mean to you is what counts. What are your answers? What do they say about you? Where do they lead you? What kind of shaman does that make you? Things like that. How do you like my answer so far?"

"I'm not sure."

"That's probably good. I'm an old man. I've had time to work things out. You're still pretty young. You should have questions. Things you're not sure about. I've made my peace with mother planet. You haven't.

Maybe you haven't even started yet."

"I don't know what you mean."

The Old Man frowned. "Maybe you've been spending too much time in the city. I guess you haven't paid much attention. That's understandable. It can be hard to think in the city. What I mean is the planet's our mother. It's simple enough. You understand. You just haven't thought about it much. Everything comes from the Earth. Without her we're just so many unlikely ideas floating around in empty s.p.a.ce. Without the Earth, we're all dead."

"Maybe I should attune myself with the Earth. With nature."

"You tell me. You're a shaman. You've attuned yourself with spell foci so you could do better magic.

What about nature? What about the Earth?"

"How do I do this?"

"You're a shaman. You tell me."

"Maybe I should go to the wilderness."

"If you think so. The wilderness is part of the Earth. I don't think anybody can argue that." The Old Man paused, then said, "Maybe I'm not being clear. All I'm saying is that maybe you know the city so well that you've forgotten something. Something important."

Bandit considered. "The city is part of nature, too."

"I don't think anybody can argue that."

"Is, that what you meant to tell me?"

"I guess that's part of it."

"What am I missing?"

"What good would it do to tell you what I think? I could be wrong. If I said the wrong thing, or if you took it wrong, you might waste a lot of time chasing after bad ideas. Why should I have that on my conscience? You're the one asking all the questions. You think you're missing something. What do you think you're missing?"

"It could be anything."

"You're right. If that's what you think. Maybe that's your answer. Me, I'm thinking of something specific. I'll give you a hint. You decide if it means anything.""Okay."

"What's in the city?"

"People."

"What about them?"

Bandit frowned and exhaled heavily, and looked at his flute. The flute gave him his answer. It forced him to see it. "People are part of nature, too."

"I don't think anybody can argue that."

"Maybe I've been around so many people for so long I forgot about that. There's a lot of people in the city. It's easy to tune them out. Maybe I wanted to tune them out. Maybe I had to tune them out to concentrate on the magic. To learn. To grow."

"Maybe that's your answer."

"Maybe I should tune people in."

"It's an idea," the Old Man agreed. "The one thing I'm sure about is that people are part of the world just like every other living thing. I don't see how you can be in tune with nature without being in tune with people too. It's okay to go to the wilderness. Go wherever you want. Nature is everywhere. It infuses everything, surrounds everything. Just don't forget about people. You know what I mean. It's obvious."

Bandit nodded.

"If you want to know nature, you have to experience nature, not just the parts of the world you like.

You have to hear the cry of the hawk as it dives down to kill a mouse. You have to hear the roar of the tigress when one of her cubs comes up missing. You have to listen to the murmuring of the mountain stream, the hiss of the snake, the death-cry of the prairie dog, the croaking of the frog, the rustle of leaves, the whisper of the wind. You have to hear the voice of the Earth, no matter what form it takes.

Maybe every form it takes. And I guess you have to listen to people, too. They're part of the Earth."

Bandit nodded. "You're right."

"I'm an old man. I just listen to things you say and tell you my opinion, I could be all wrong. What you think is what matters."

"I think I must attune myself to people."

"Then that's your answer."

An answer, yes, but not the whole answer. Bandit thought about that a while, then said, "I wish I could have done more. I wish ... I wish I could have helped my friends."

"Your friends the runners."

Bandit nodded.