Hub voiced a sneering chuckle. "She got the drop on you, sec man...you didn't have no time to do nothin'."

Very quietly but very firmly, Kane said, "You know that's not true, Zit."

The woman didn't respond, but Kane guessed the kind of thoughts wheeling through her mind as she considered the implications of granting him a limited benefit of the doubt. He couldn't blame her for distrusting him. His own work with the Cerberus exiles kept him in a shadow world of danger and eternal suspicion, of sudden crisis and alarm, where human beings died in a covert war that ranged from the sands of the Black Gobi to the utter remoteness of a forgotten colony on Mars.

"How about letting me turn around," Kane suggested, "so I can explain?"

A moment of uncomfortable silence stretched between Zit and Hub before the woman said, "Do it slow."

Hub started to utter a protest, keeping Kane pinned against the wall, but Zit snapped sternly, "Let him go."The woman was obviously the dominant one of the pair, but Kane wasn't sure if that was good or bad for him. Hub released him and stepped back. Kane pushed himself away from the wall, making sure to keep his hands visible.

Hub was a brawny man with tousled brown hair, !

wearing a gray zippered coverall. His heavy-jowled face was dark with beard stubble. What appeared to be a gun barrel protruded from the crook his left elbow, as if he were trying to give the impression he held a shotgun and his right hand supported the stock.

Like Hub, Zit wore a ragged one-piece garment. She was as skinny as a piece of cordwood and appeared to be in her forties, which probably made her closer to thirty. Life was short and hard in the Out-lands. She nodded to his forearm. "If you ain't a Mag, where'd you get a Mag blaster?"

"Took it off one I killed," he replied casually. "Out Montana way. A triple-coldheart b.a.s.t.a.r.d named Kane."

"Bulls.h.i.t," Hub grated. "Never heard of him."

Kane ignored the comment. "What are you two doing here?"

"We live here," Zit replied. "Leastways, we tried to live here afore the night-gaunts showed up."

"Night-gaunts?"

Zit inhaled a shuddery breath. "Black monsters with no faces led by a demon queen. They been huntin'

and chillin' us for the last month."

"Us?" Kane inquired. On the fringes of his awareness, he became aware that the distant tolling of the bell had established a rhythm, one that sounded vaguely familiar. He couldn't afford to have his attention diverted, so he ignored the sound.

The woman indicated Hub with a jerk of her head. "We're Farers...we staked out this ville about a year ago and been workin' it."

' 'No sign of muties?''

Hub answered flatly, "No sign of n.o.body...until the night-gaunts showed up."

"Where'd they come from?" Kane asked.

Hub started to gesture with one arm but contented himself with a backward tilt of his head. "From the dome, we think. We don't know for sure. Too busy hidin'."

"You're hiding pretty close," Kane pointed out Zit forced a laugh, but it had no real humor in it. "Figured they wouldn't look for us in their own backyard."

The woman's face suddenly hardened. "Now what are you doin' here? I can tell you ain't a Farer nor aRoamer, neither."

"Yeah," Hub muttered suspiciously. "You know anything about that f.u.c.kin' bell?"

Kane started to voice a denial, but when Hub mentioned the bell, he listened to its rhythm. After a few seconds, he recognized the dot-dash pattern as spelling out: "Grant is here. Come to the church. Grant is here." He couldn't suppress the grin that spread across his face.

"What's so f.u.c.kin' funny?" Hub demanded.

' 'As a matter of fact, I do know something about the bell. Is there a church anywhere around?"

"Yeah," Zit answered. "Just across the lot."

"A friend of mine is ringing the bell. If we can get over there and hook up with him, we may be able to do something about these night-gaunts of yours."

"No!" Hub's harsh voice punched against Kane's eardrums. "We're not goin' anywhere. I think we should chill you and take your blaster."

Kane favored him with an icy stare. In an unin-flected tone, he said, "I'd prefer you think that course of action over."

An ugly grin of superiority curled Hub's lips. "Two of us. You're outgunned."

"There may be two of you, but I'm betting I'm not outgunned."

Hub snarled wordlessly and took a menacing step forward, poking the barrel of his blaster hard into the pit of Kane's stomach. "You want to bet your life on that, a.s.shole?"

Kane back fisted the barrel away with his right hand, and sprang forward to head b.u.t.t the man in the face. Zit's voice rose in a frightened shout as Hub staggered against the wall. A length of dark pipe clattered to the floor as he lifted both hands to staunch the flow of blood from his nose and split lips. Pivoting on his right foot, Kane kicked his left leg up so the toe of his boot caught the underside of the long barrel in Zit's hand, sending the weapon spinning upward.

Kane flexed his wrist tendons and the electric motor droned, but the Sin Eater didn't pop into his hand.

The big man shambled erect. Baring blood-filmed teeth, Hub roared in rage and started toward him, reaching for his throat.

As Kane stepped back, the holster's actuator's finally slapped his Sin Eater into his hand. Rather than shooting Hub, he chopped at his left hand with the flat of the frame. He heard the crunching of knuckles, but the man was already in so much pain from a broken nose and split lips that the blow was hardly more than a twinge. He pounded a right into Kane's body, just below the heart.

Kane swallowed a grunt of pain and staggered against the edge of the propped-open door. Hub rushed for him, and Kane rolled aside, grabbing a handful of coveralls and using his momentum to pitch him out the door. The man's hands flew instinctively out to catch himself, but Kane kicked his feet out from under him.He fell facefirst to the ground and before he could rise, Kane crashed the barrel of his Sin Eater against the back of skull with an ugly crack of bone colliding with metal. Hub's body seemed to turn to rubber and collapsed bonelessly on the wet ground.

Kane whirled as Zit charged out of the building. Unlike Hub, she wasn't running a bluff with a piece of pipe. Her blaster was real, even if it was home forged. She shrieked, "You chilled my sweet Hub!"

He wanted to point out to her that it would require a h.e.l.l of a lot more than a blow on the head to chill her sweet Hub, but she didn't give him the opportunity. The explosion that erupted from the muzzle of the gun wasn't quite as loud as a bomb going off, but it didn't miss by much. Kane felt his eardrums compressed by the concussion and his body shook to the jolt. A tongue of flame and a blinding ball of smoke gouted from the bore.

DOMI AUTOMATICALLY DROPPED into a crouch atop the slab of concrete as the cries of fear grew louder. She ignored the bell, focusing on the closer sounds. Her Combat Master came out of its holster in a smooth practiced motion and she held it in a double-handed grip, her left hand cupping her right.

Several voices shouted at once, men, women, children or a combination. It was hard to say. Within seconds a group of figures came into view from around a heap of vine-covered bricks. Panting and stumbling along was a quartet of outlanders.-She was able to see one woman, a girl really, among them.

She kept looking fearfully over her shoulder, and the weak sunlight reflected off something on the side of her neck. The distance was too great for Domi to ascertain what it was.

It was instantly obvious that the ragged people were terrified and in the last stages of exhaustion. They were followed around the pile of bricks by two more figures. Domi's heart skipped a beat and then began to thud frantically. At first glance, it appeared the outlanders were prodded along by thin black shadows with no faces.

She realized a moment later the pursuers were attired in one-piece uniforms of such a deep black it almost looked as if they wore shadows. But it was their faces, or rather their lack of faces, that caught her eye. In their hands were rods with little silver k.n.o.bs that flashed at the tips.

The woman tripped over a piece of stone and dropped to her hands and knees, her head bowed and her shoulders quaking as if she were trying to be sick.

One of the shadow men poked with her with the silver-tipped baton. The woman didn't move. She didn't make any attempt to struggle as she was heaved upright, standing between the two faceless men who each held her by an arm.

Moving on impulse, almost without thought, Domi leveled her handblaster and swiftly brought the shadow man on the woman's left into target acquisition. Fifty yards was long range for a hand-blaster, but she had made more difficult shots. When the ebony figure was framed within the Combat Master's sights, she adjusted for elevation and windage, then she squeezed the trigger three times.

The big automatic blaster bucked in her hands, sending out booming shock waves of ear-shattering sound. The first .45-caliber bullet hit the man directly in the center of his featureless face. He catapulted backward, releasing the woman, who dived to safety.The second round struck the other shadow man in the torso, tearing through the black skin amid a spouting of blood. He went over backward. The third shot ricocheted off the pile of bricks with a keening whine and a spray of red dust.

The outlanders scattered, running in all directions. Only the girl remained, gazing in Domi's direction, her eyes big and shocked in her hollow-cheeked face. Domi felt a pang of pity for her, knowing she'd spend her young life in a struggle just to exist or, if she went to one of the villes, in s.e.xual servitude to a Pit boss. Once she was worn out or lost her appeal, she'd be killed or thrown out with the rest of the refuse.

It didn't happen to Domi, but only because she'd struck first.

The girl climbed to her feet, gathering a ratty blanket around her shoulders. Domi watched her scuttle away into the ruins. She had no inclination to run after the girl to try to convince her she was a friend. Nor was she inclined to climb down from her perch and examine the faceless corpses. Although she knew they were men in suits, they awakened in her a superst.i.tious dread, rekindling old folk tales told around campfires about soul-stealing demons, gibbering ghosts and night-gaunts. As she recalled, those were the worst. They never spoke or laughed and never smiled, because they had no faces at all to smile with.

"Stupe," Domi muttered, embarra.s.sed by her regression to childish fears. She returned her attention and energy to climbing the pile of rubble. She dug her lingers into narrow niches and pulled herself nimbly upward, bracing herself with footholds. She climbed recklessly, clawing and kicking her way up.

When Domi reached the summit, she chinned herself up to stretch out on the three-foot-wide slab and catch her breath. Her fingers were sore and she ma.s.saged them. From her vantage point, she surveyed the rains. The fields of devastation stretched almost out of sight. The few structures still recognizable as buildings rose at the skyline, then collapsed with ragged abruptness. She slowly became aware that the tolling of the bell sounded strange, as if it were sounding a signal. Shading her sensitive eyes with her hands, she looked around, trying to pinpoint its source.

Far in the distance the steeple of a church pointed like a finger above the roofs of buildings that still stood. Domi unhooked her binoculars from her belt and brought them to her eyes, focusing on the structure. She saw the outline of a man inside the cupola, vigorously pulling and pushing the bell back and forth, but he did so in a jerky, mannered way. When the outline shifted position, she recognized his broad shoulders.

Domi had no idea why Grant was ringing a church bell, but she knew it wasn't a whim on his part. He was about as whimsical as an incend grenade. She was fairly certain it had to do with an attempt to find Kane and Brigid. Lowering her binoculars, Domi removed the transTComm from her belt, knowing in advance he would try to upbraid her for leaving the Sandcat when he'd ordered her to stay put. Silently, she rehea.r.s.ed her response. It wasn't a difficult speech to memorize since it consisted of only two words.

Chapter 9

Because of the racket of the bell, Grant didn't im- ; mediately hear the trilling of the trans-comm. If he hadn't paused to rest his arms after swinging the heavy metal sh.e.l.l back and forth for the past five minutes, he wouldn't have heard it at all.

His eardrums still vibrating with the echoes of the : gonging, he barely recognized Domi's voice when he opened the comm channel. As it was, he didn't catch most of what she said. "Repeat," he growled i into the transceiver. "I didn't hear you." I "I said," she replied a touch impatiently, "what are you doing with that d.a.m.n bell?" I Grant's hearing recovered sufficiently so he no- f ticed the lack of static over the frequency. "I'm I signaling in Morse code. If Brigid and Kane are

anywhere near, they'll hear it." I A sudden notion occurred to him and he demanded, ' 'How did you know I was ringing the bell? j Where are you?" I Her response was silky with amused triumph. "Look to your right."

i Grant did so and saw nothing but acres of debris. "I don't see anything," he said darkly.

"You'll have to use your binoculars. I should've mentioned that."

Unclipping them from his belt, he put them to his eyes and scanned the ruins. "Up a little," she suggested.

"You're getting warmer."

He did as she said and glimpsed a slight, distant figure standing atop a hillock of rubble, waving an arm.

For a moment Grant experienced a surge of rage that the girl had disobeyed his order to stay with the Sandcat. After he rea.s.sessed his initial reaction, the anger didn't last long. The more active players in the field increased the odds of finding the two missing members of their party.

"Good enough," he declared flatly. "You think you can make your way over here?"

In a slightly surprised, vaguely troubled tone, Domi answered, "Sure. I guess so."

"Do it as fast as you can.""Sure-if that's what you want."

"It's what I want. Double-time it, but be careful."

He watched Domi stow her comm and the binoculars and begin picking her nimble way down the face of the heap. When she made a misstep, his breath caught in his throat. Domi quickly recovered her balance and kept moving, adopting a studiedly diffident att.i.tude as if to say "I meant to do that."

Grant lowered the binoculars and turned away, reminding himself of Domi's almost supernatural agility. He had often compared her acrobatic abilities to those of a scalded monkey's. He also recalled Domi's offer to show him interesting variations on how her gymnastic skills could be applied to their mutual benefit. She hadn't made an offer like that in several months now, and he wasn't quite sure how he felt about it.

Repressing a sigh, Grant ma.s.saged the aching tendons in his forearms and placed his hands on the pitted surface of the bell. Although it was rusted through to paper thinness in some spots, the bell was still heavy and ponderous to swing on its unlubri-cated pivots. The squealing it made was almost as loud as the tolling.

He took a deep breath, pulled the bell toward him in preparation for another swing-then he heard a sharp, door-banging report, like that of a gren detonating. Releasing the bell, Grant fumbled for bis binoculars, stepping to the edge of the bell tower and ignoring how the floorboards creaked and sagged alarmingly beneath his 230-odd pounds.

Although he couldn't be positive, he was fairly certain the explosion came from the direction of the fenced-in compound. He swept the ruby-coated lenses back and forth over the flat roofs of the buildings. A gray umbrella of smoke rose lazily from an alley between two of the brick structures. It didn't hold the mushroom configuration indicative of a high-explosive charge. In fact, it looked more like smoke exuded by black powder.

He continued to squint into the eyepieces, cursing beneath his breath at the buildings that obstructed his view. Then, rolling through the air came a booming crack like the breaking of a distant branch. Grant's stomach muscles tensed in an adrenaline-fueled spasm. "s.h.i.t!" he hissed. He tensed his wrist tendons and unleathered his blaster as he recognized the unmistakable report of a Sin Eater.

Pointing the weapon at the sky, Grant squeezed off a single round, listening to the echoes of the shot rolling over the fields of rubble. Within a few seconds, he heard an answering crack from the vicinity of the compound. He whirled toward the trapdoor, heedless of the bell in his way. It gave out with a feeble chime when his shoulder struck it, but he couldn't care less now.

As THE CONCUSSION jarred him to the marrow of his bones, Kane shoulder rolled away from the fiery flare and burst of smoke. He fetched up against the side of the building and heard the metallic rattle of objects striking the brickwork over his head.

Index finger hovering over the trigger stud of his Sin Eater, Kane cautiously lifted his head. The hot, sharp reek of black powder cut into his nostrils. Flat planes of gray-white smoke floated in the air like a dirty fog bank.

Rising slowly, Kane fanned the thick vapor away from his face, trying not to inhale any of it. He took atentative step forward, and saw more or less what he expected to see. The shotgun lay on the ground, the barrel split open and peeled back like a banana skin. The wooden stock was nestled within a red, wet mess that Kane had difficulty identifying as Zit's maimed hand.

The woman's face was far worse, flesh flayed open to the bone as if a flensing knife had been applied to it. Her jugular vein, severed by a razor-edged shard of metal, pumped out ropes of blood that oozed over the gra.s.s and turned the mud into a crimson-tinged sludge.

Kane coughed and shook his head, either in pity or disgust, he wasn't sure which. Home-forged blasters were notoriously untrustworthy. Although one of the first priorities of the Program of Unification was the disarmament of the people, books and diagrams survived the sweeps. Self-styled gunsmiths continued to forge weapons, though blasters more complicated than black-powder muzzle loaders were beyond their capacities.

Making gunpowder wasn't an easy process, either. Usually, outlanders practiced a great deal of thrift with their powder. Zit apparently decided to go to the other end of the spectrum, and in doing so turned her shotgun into a pipe bomb.

A rustle of cloth caused Kane to whirl. Hub, bis eyes slightly gla.s.sy, hiked himself up to a sitting position. He blinked in dumbfounded wonderment at Zit's mutilated corpse, then glared in unregenerate hatred at Kane. He made a move to push himself to his feet.

Kane tapped the firing stud of the Sin Eater and it boomed. A 9 mm round kicked up dirt between the man's thighs, barely a quarter of an inch from the crotch of his trousers. "Stay there or you'll have a lovely soprano singing voice."

Hub subsided, but his lips worked as if he were contemplating spitting at him. He contented himself with snarling, "f.u.c.kin' Mag!"

"I'm not a Mag and I didn't kill her. It was an accident." Kane's tone was curt and matter-of-fact.

Tears glimmered in Hub's eyes, and he wiped them away with angry swipes of his callused hands.

Bitterly he said, "Might as well chill me, too."

Before Kane could reply, he jumped at the sound of the shot. It wasn't close but it wasn't far away, either. A grin tugged at the corners of his mouth when he recognized the report of a Sin Eater. Raising his pistol he squeezed off two rounds into the sky. Hub misinterpreted the meaning of the grin and the shots.

He levered himself up by his arms, but he achieved only a half crouch before Kane kicked him in the chest. He sat down hard on the ground. Kane aimed his pistol at his broad forehead. "Give me some information and you can go on your way."

"What kind of information?" Hub demanded.

Kane jerked his head toward the rolled-up sha-dowsuit and opaque face mask he had left on the ground beside the outbuilding. "Information about the people who wear clothes like that. You call them night-gaunts?"Hub nodded.

"I saw a man earlier with a little metal bug attached to him." Kane tapped the side of his neck. "Right about here. You know anything about that?"

Hub nodded again, but this time he spoke. "Yeah. The night-gaunts shoot 'em out of little sticks."

"What do they do to you?"