The soldiers gripped their beam rifles and looked uncertainly at their commander. Sweat gleamed on their faces; their hands clutching the rifles were white-knuckled. Jamil guessed that every one of them was wondering what he or she would do if the order to shoot were given.

They were, after all, trained killers.

The lieutenant was bright. He wasn't about to gun down humans on his own initiative. He was talking to headquarters. The conversation didn't last long. Jamil could tell by the man's grim expression what the order was going to be.

"Platoon, fire!"

The soldiers shifted uneasily.

"Begging your pardon, sir," said one, "but we could set our weapons on stun...."

The lieutenant hesitated. He'd been offered a way out.

"I'll check with headquarters," he said, and began speaking into his comm.

A moment's silence. An expression of surprise contorted the lieutenant's face.

"He did? Is that for certain? Well, I'll be d.a.m.ned. Where the h.e.l.l does that leave us? Yeah, with our a.s.ses hanging out." The lieutenant was not pleased. "Platoon, stand down."

The soldiers, looking vastly relieved, lowered the beam rifles.

Trella was clutching Jamil's hand so tightly he doubted if he'd ever be able to straighten his fingers.

"Did we win?" she asked in dazed tones.

"Yes," he said quietly, and he did not bother to add that they'd won for the moment but that any second things could still fall apart.

They had won. And even if they eventually lost, their victory could never be taken from them.

CHAPTER 40.

Nos amis, les enemis.

Our friends, the enemy.

Pierre-Jean de Beranger, Chansons de Dr. Beranger.

Xris laid low during the next two days. He reported to the laundry at the usual hour, did his work, gave no one any trouble. When work was finished, he went back to his cell and stayed there. He avoided the gym, dropped out of his cla.s.s. He ate in the dining hall with the others, but he ate in silence, keeping his gaze on his plate, ignoring the talk around him.

Slovenski had been released from the hospital. The big man's table was four behind Xris's. Slovenski never pa.s.sed him but that he slowed down and either made some crude remark about "cybos," dumped hot coffee in Xris's lap, or spit in his food. The inmates and the guards watched with interest, knowing that a fight was inevitable and that it was probably going to be to the death. Bets were being placed, the odds changing daily. The smart money was on Slovenski as being a known commodity, but the cyborg had a loyal following.

Xris was going to disappoint them. He didn't think Montieth would toss him into solitary again; Mr. Trevor would see to that. But Xris was leaving nothing to chance.

By the time Friday came around, Xris was in line for Model Prisoner of the Year. The odds on him had dropped to almost nothing, as word went through the cellblocks that beneath the steel beat a heart of plastic. Even Xris's cell mates were starting to feel a little ashamed of him.

Xris wasn't interested. He felt almost sorry for Slovenski, who was going to a lot of trouble all for nothing. This tune tonight, Xris would be out of herea"either that or he'd be dead, which amounted to the same thing. Slovenski would have to find someone else to intimidate.

Xris saw Becking, Mair, and Macdonald at dinner that evening. They exchanged glances. Macdonald nodded his head once. They were ready.

Xris returned to his cell after dinner, hoping for some distraction, some interesting conversation, or maybe a game of bridge. Anything to take his mind off the clock. But his cell mates were subdued and unhappy, in no mood to play games. They'd just received vids from their families that day and apparently the brochures hadn't mentioned anything about homesickness. Malcolm talked about his little girl, but only briefly, then he went to take a walk in the rain. The other two lay on their bunks and stared at the ceiling.

And then it was lights out. And that was the worst. Three hours to go, three hours of nothing to do but lie in the darkness and think about everything that could go wrong.

Xris stared up at the ceiling and played a game with himself to keep his mind occupied. He tried to hold out for exactly thirty minutes before he checked his watch. If he made it, he gave himself a point. If not, he deducted a point. By the time midnight crawled around, he was ahead of himself, three for two.

His cell mates were sleeping soundly, very soundly; not surprising, since Quong had thoughtfully included a vial of Raoul's bedtime "relaxant" as part of Xris's equipment. Xris had slipped the powder into their drinks at dinner. Nothing short of a bomb blast would have wakened them, and perhaps not even that.

Xris looked at his watch. 0100. A clear win.

He slid quietly out of bed, pulled on his black sweatpants. He put on his jacket, drew the hood up over his head. Wadding up his extra clothes, he arranged them on the bed, covered them with the blanket. The guards made a bed check every night at 0200, probably one reason Amadi had selected that particular time. The guards never looked too closely, didn't bother with heat-sensors as did their counterparts on Sandusky's Rock. Xris hoped the clothes dummy would keep them happy. If not, if they discovered he was gone, by that time he planned to be long gone.

He moved noiselessly across the floor, keeping watch on the ceiling-mounted vidcam. It would be sheer bad luck if the guard on duty tonight happened to spot him moving around his cell, but if that happened, the cam would suddenly start to swivel.

The vidcam didn't move. It stared fixedly at the center of the room, completely bored.

Avoiding its gla.s.sy-eyed gaze, Xris sidled around the wall until he reached the cell door. He had already removed from his leg another of Quong's blessed devicesa"a small metal tube about thirty centimeters in length with a b.u.t.ton at one end and three metal filaments protruding from the other. Although somewhat cruder, the device was essentially the same type the guards used to override the controls. It would open the door for him and, according to his research, it would do so by bypa.s.sing the locking system. The cell door would think it was still shut and therefore, if it worked as he hoped it would, the device would not set off the alarm.

Activating his night vision, Xris inserted the three metal filaments into the minuscule s.p.a.ce between the keypad b.u.t.ton on the lock and the lock's cover. He touched the b.u.t.ton on the end of the tube and waited for the red light on the keypad to turn green.

The light remained red. Xris noticed his hand was shaking. He forced himself to calm down, made a concentrated effort to hold the device steady.

Still red.

"d.a.m.n it, Quong!" he muttered. "I don't have time to screw around! Why the h.e.l.l won't this work?"

Dr. Quong was not there to answer, leaving Xris to his own devices. He removed the filaments, carefully slid them in again, touched the b.u.t.ton.

The light was red.

"f.u.c.k!"

Xris glanced over his shoulder at the vidcam. It had not moved. He turned back just in time to see the light switch to green. He tensed, waited for the alarm.

Nothing but snores broke the silence.

"Sorry, Doc."

Removing the device, Xris replaced it in his leg compartment, closed the cover, rolled down his pants leg. He touched zero on the number pad and the cell door slid open. Xris slipped out, padded soft-footed down the corridor. He had only one obstacle to pa.s.s, and that was the night guard in the cellblock's central command post.

The guards were generally far more interested in their vidscreens than in monitoring the various consoles that provided them with views of nothing more exciting than a bunch of slumbering prisoners. But the sight of one of those prisoners trotting gleefully out the cellblock's front door would be enough to wrench the guard from even the most exciting soccer game.

Crouched in the shadows, Xris popped open his leg compartment, withdrew a small wooden tube and one of four wooden darts. He was extremely careful to touch the darts only with his cybernetic hand, because the tips had been soaked in another one of Raoul's slumber-time concoctions and Xris had no desire to take an unexpected snooze.

The guarda"a nice, fat guarda"sat at the desk, intent on his vid, which was showing the galactic heavyweight boxing match. His broad back was turned toward Xris. A vast expanse of bare neck protruding from the uniform collar provided an excellent target.

Much to the amus.e.m.e.nt of his cell mates, Xris had spent the last few days practicing shooting dried peas (salvaged from dinner) out of a straw at a bull's-eye drawn on the wall. Xris was not as proficient as the Little One in the use of a blowgun, but Xris eventually perfected his skills so that he could hit the target four times out of five. And the target he had been using was smaller than the guard's pudgy neck.

He placed the dart in the tube, brought the tube to his lips, and drew in a deep breath.

The clenched fist came out of nowhere, smashed into his jaw, slammed his head back against the concrete wall. He slid to the floor and lay there, stunned and dazed, as much from the shock of the unexpected blow as from the pain of the blow itself.

Strong hands grabbed the front of his sweatshirt, hauled him to his feet. Slovenski's little squinty eyes glinted in the lights of the security cams. Before Xris could regain his senses long enough to react, Slovenski's huge fist rammed into Xris's midriff.

Xris doubled over in agony. He knew that Slovenski was probably going to kill him, knew that he should make some attempt to defend himself, but right now breathing was his prime objective.

The noise of thumping and groaning had attracted the guard's attention. A real live fight was infinitely more interesting than a televised one. The guard stood up, peered out into the shadows.

"What the h.e.l.l isa""

"Go back to your vid," Slovenski growled. "This ain't none of your concern."

Xris tried to stand up. Slovenski slammed his head back against the wall. Grabbing hold of a handful of Xris's jacket, Slovenski picked him up and heaved him over his shoulder, as if Xris were nothing more than a sack of laundry. Xris's head and arms dangled down Slovenski's muscle-bound back. Slovenski had one enormous arm clamped tightly around Xris's legs in front.

Slovenski eyed the guard menacingly. "I'm going to finish this outside. You plan on interfering?"

The guard shrugged, sat down. "h.e.l.l, it's none of my business."

"You never saw me," Slovenski said.

"Never saw a thing," the guard agreed, and went back to his vid.

Slovenski carried Xris out into the night. The rain had stopped, finally. The air was cool, reviving. Xris let himself go limp and flaccid, feigning unconsciousness. In order to start up where he'd left off, Slovenski would have to set his victim down on the ground. Xris's only chance against this monster was the element of surprise.

Slovenski strolled the grounds with as much confidence as if he had taken over ownership from the previous management. Reaching a clump of ornamental shrubbery that provided a haven of shadow from the bright security lights, he stopped. To Xris's astonishment, Slovenski lowered him to the ground as gently as any gorilla mother.

"You okay, Cyboy?" Slovenski sounded worried. "I didn't mean to hit you so hard."

"Huh?"

Xris sat up and stared at his attacker, tried desperately to bring Slovenskia"a black shape against the flood of security lightsa"into focus. Another problem with his optic systems! Not surprising, considering the force of the blows he'd sustained. Not only was his infrared sight gone, but he was seeing two of everything. Which, in Slovenski's case, was not pleasant.

"Hey, Cyboy," said Slovenski softly, "just lay there and groan, would you? A guard's coming."

Baffled and confused, wondering if maybe some really important wires in his brain had shorted out and were causing him to hallucinate, Xris was only too happy to lie on the ground, press his aching cheek into the cool, wet gra.s.s, and groan obligingly.

The guard's footsteps crunched past on the gravel. Either the guard didn't see Slovenski, who was standing over Xris his fists doubled, or the guard had developed convenient night blindness.

When the guard was gone, Slovenski knelt down beside Xris and placed a hand tenderly on his good shoulder. "Here. Let me help you up. Are you gonna be able to make it all right, Cyboy? I'm real sorry I hit you so hard. Sometimes I don't know my own strength."

"Yeah, I'm okay," said Xris, putting his hand to his swelling jaw. He didn't particularly appreciate Slovenski's commiseration.

"You sure? 'Cause I gotta go. At least now"a"Slovenski grinneda""if you come up missing during bed check, no one'll bother to look for you until morning. Good luck, Cyboy."

Slovenski sauntered off.

Xris stood up, tried again to focus his eyes, but couldn't manage. He took a few steps, felt completely disoriented. He couldn't walk a straight line. He opened his arm, again initiated the emergency system-wide diagnostic and repair program. He waited with as much patience as he could manage. Picking out one tree that looked to him like two trees, he stared at it and slowly, slowly, a fraction of a centimeter at a time, the two trees merged into one tree again. He waited a few moments, but the infrared vision and augmented vision and other enhancements didn't return.

Xris shrugged. He had been downgraded to a normal human being, he'd live with it. As for Slovenski, Xris gave up on that. He thought maybe he was starting to see the whole picture, but it was fuzzy and was going to take a lot longer to come into focus than the trees. He didn't have time to waste worrying about it.

Nursing his aching jaw and his bruised ribsa"real parts of him that only time would heala"Xris hugged the shadows and began the long trek across the compound to the golf course.

CHAPTER 41.

I am escaped with the skin of my teeth.

The Bible, Job 19:20.

Snakes on the golf course. "Snakes!" said Mashahiro Ito, alarmed.

Xris started, turned to stare.

His partner, his deceased partner, was walking along at his side. Short, slender, straight black hair, dark, slanted eyes, and infectious smilea"it was Ito, all right.

"You know how I hate snakes, Xris." Ito was grumbling and peering closely into every shadow. "Did you see something wriggle? Over there?"

Xris shook his head.

"I guess not. Must have been a stick. Say, Xris, you don't mind if I tag along on this one, do you?"

"No," said Xris after a moment's thought. "You've got a right to be here."

"Thanks, Xris," Ito said softly. "I appreciate it."

Xris nodded.

Ito said nothing more, and neither did Xris, who was searching for the power grid junction box. But from that moment on, he was conscious of his former partner at his side.

The low, squat square shape of the pro shop came into view, silhouetted against the stars. A fence separated the golf course from the jungle. Spotlights mounted on the fence illuminated the golf course. From the air, it would be seen as a black, vast expanse surrounded by lightsa"the ideal landing pad.

The lights gleamed off the sleek sides of multibarreled lascannons, snug in their turrets. If Xris couldn't shut down the electrical system that fed those cannons, Harry and his s.p.a.ceplane would rain down on the golf course in little bits of charred flesh and metal. Xris looked at the bright LED lights of his watch for at least the forty-seventh time in as many minutes. 0130. Half an hour to go. Too soon for the Hung leaders to be here, but Xris risked a whispered call anyhow.

"Macdonald!"

No answer.

Xris removed the fleshfoam from the index finger of his cybernetic hand. He touched a tiny switch, switched on a beam of light. Flashing the light around, he repeated his call, just to make certain. When there was still no answer, he continued his search for the junction box.