Fingers touched his head carefully, brushing the hair back delicately from the side of his skull. Then there was the biting sting of antiseptic, sharp enough to bring a groan from his lips. Sheila's hair fell over her face as she bent to replace his bandages.

Her eyes wandered toward his, and the scissors and bandages on her lap hit the floor as she jumped to her feet. She turned toward her room, then hesitated as he grinned crookedly at her. "Hi, Cuddles," he said flatly.

She bit her lips and turned back, while a slow flush ran over her face.

Her voice was uncertain. "h.e.l.lo, Bruce. You okay?"

"How long have I been like this?"

"Fifteen hours, I guess. It's almost midnight." She bent over to pick up the bandages and to finish with his head. "Are you hungry? There's some canned soup--I took the money from your pocket. Or coffee..."

"Coffee." He forced himself up again; Sheila propped the flimsy pillow behind him, then went into her room to come back with a plastic cup filled with brown liquid that pa.s.sed for coffee here. It was loaded with caffeine, at least.

"Why'd you come back?" he asked suddenly. "You were anxious enough to pick the lock and get out."

"I didn't pick it--you forgot to lock it."

He couldn't remember what he'd done after he found the badge. "Okay, my mistake. But why the change of heart?"

"Because I needed a meal ticket!" she said harshly. "When I saw that Legal cop ready to take you, I had to go running out to save you.

Because I don't have the iron guts to starve like a Martian!"

It rocked him back on his mental heels. He'd thought that she had been attacking him on the street; but it made more sense this way, at that.

"You're a fool!" he told her bitterly. "You bought a punched meal ticket. Right now, I probably have six death warrants out on me, and about as much chance of making a living as--"

"I'll stick to my chances. I don't have any others now." She grimaced.

"You get things done. Now that you've got a wife to support, you'll support her. Just remember, it was your idea."

He'd had a lot of ideas, it seemed. "I've got a wife who's holding onto a notebook that belongs to me, then. Where is it?"

She shook her head. "I'm keeping the notebook for insurance. Blackmail, Bruce. You should understand that! And you won't find it, so don't bother looking..." She went into the other room and shut the door.

There was the sound of the lock being worked, and then silence.

He stared at the door foolishly, swearing at all women; then grimaced and turned back to the chair where his uniform still lay. He could stay here fighting with her, or he could face his troubles on the outside.

The whole thing hinged on Trench; unless Trench had shown the badge to others, his problem boiled down to a single man.

Gordon found one tablet of painkiller left in the bottle and swallowed it with the dregs of the coffee. He made sure his knife was in its sheath and that the gun at his side was loaded. He found his police club, checked the loop at its end, and slipped it onto his wrist.

At the door to the hall, he hesitated, staring at Sheila's room. Wife or prisoner? He turned it over in his mind, knowing that her words couldn't change the facts. But in the end, he dropped the key and half his money beside her door, along with a spare knife and one of his guns.

He went by Izzy's room without stopping; technically, the boy was an enemy to all Munic.i.p.als. This might be neutral territory, but there was no use pressing it. Gordon went down the stairs and out through the seal onto the street entrance, still in the shadows.

His eyes covered the street in two quick scans. Far up, a Legal cop was pa.s.sing beyond the range of the single dim light. At the other end, a pair of figures skulked along, trying the door of each house they pa.s.sed. With the cops busy fighting each other, this was better pickings than outside the dome.

He saw the Legal cop move out of sight and stepped onto the street, trying to look like another petty crook on the prowl. He headed for the nearest alley, which led through the truckyard of Nick the Croop.

The entrance was in nearly complete darkness. Gordon loosened his knife and tightened his grip on the locust stick.

Suddenly a whisper of sound caught his ears. He stopped, not too quickly, and listened, but everything was still. A hundred feet farther on, and within twenty yards of the trucks, a swishing rustle reached his ears and light slashed hotly into his eyes. Hands grabbed at his arms, and a club swung down toward his knife. But the warning had been enough.

Gordon's arms jerked upwards to avoid the reaching hands. His boot lifted, and the flashlight spun aside, broken and dark. With a continuous motion, he switched the knife to his left hand in a thumb-up position and brought it back. There was a grunt of pain; he stepped backwards and twisted. His hands caught the man behind, lifted across a hip, and heaved, just before the front man reached him.

The two ambushers were down in a tangled mess. There was just enough light to make out faint outlines, and Gordon brought his locust club down twice, with the hollow thud of wood on skulls.

His head was swimming in a hot maelstrom of pain, but it was quieting as his breathing returned to normal. As long as his opponents were slower or less ruthless, he could take care of himself.

The trouble, though, was that Isaiah Trench was neither slow nor squeamish.

Gordon gathered the two hoodlums under his arms and dragged them with him. He came out in the truckyard and began searching. Nick the Croop had ridden his reputation long enough to be careless, and the third truck had its key still in the lock. He threw the two into the back and struck a cautious light.

One of them was Jurgens' apelike follower, his stupid face relaxed and vacant. The other was probably also one of Jurgens' growing mob of protection racketeers. Gordon yanked out the man's wallet, but there was no identification; it held only a small sheaf of bills.

He stripped out the money--and finally put half of it back into the wallet and dropped it beside the hoodlum. Even in jail, a man had to have smokes.

He stuck to the alleys, not using the headlights, after he had locked the two in and started the electric motor. He had no clear idea of how the battles were going, but it looked as if the Seventh Precinct was still in Munic.i.p.al hands.

There was no one at the side entrance to Seventh Precinct Headquarters and only two corporals on duty inside; the rest were probably out fighting the Legals, or worrying about it. One of the corporals started to stand up and halt him, but wavered at the sight of the captain's star that was still pinned to his uniform.

"Special prisoners," Gordon told him sharply. "I've got to get information to Trench--and in private!"

The corporal stuttered. Gordon knocked him out of the way with his elbow, reached for the door to Trench's private office, and yanked it open. He stepped through, drawing it shut behind him, while his eyes checked the position of his gun at his hip. Then he looked up.

There was no sign of Trench. In his place, and in the uniform of a Munic.i.p.al captain, sat the heavy figure of Jurgens. "Outside!" he snapped. Then his eyes narrowed, and a stiff smile came onto his lips as he laid the pen down. "Oh, it's you, Gordon?"

"Where's Captain Trench?"

The heavy features didn't change as Jurgens chuckled. "Commissioner Trench, Gordon. It seems Arliss decided to get rid of Mayor Wayne, but didn't count on Wayne's spies being better than his. So Trench got promoted--and I got his job for loyal service in helping the Force recruit. My boys always wanted to be cops, you know."

Gordon tried to grin in return as he moved closer, slipping the heavy locust club off his wrist.

"I sent Ape and Mullins out to get in touch with you," Jurgens said.

"But I guess they didn't reach you before you left."

Gordon shook his head slightly, while the nerves bunched and tingled in his neck. "They hadn't arrived when I left the house," he said truthfully enough.

Jurgens reached out for tobacco and filled a pipe. He fumbled in his pockets, as if looking for a light. "Too bad. I knew you weren't in top shape, so I figured a convoy might be handy. Well, no matter. Trench left some instructions about you, and--"

His voice was perfectly normal, but Gordon saw the hand move suddenly toward the drawer that was half-open. And the cigarette lighter was attached to the other side of the desk.

The locust stick left Gordon's hand with a snap. It cut through the air a scant eight feet, jerked to a stop against Jurgens' forehead and clattered onto the top of the desk, while Jurgens folded over, his mouth still open, his hand slumping out of the drawer. The club rolled toward Gordon, who caught it before it could reach the floor.

But Jurgens was only momentarily out. As Gordon slipped the loop over his wrist again, one of the new captain's hands groped, seeking a b.u.t.ton on the edge of the desk.

The two corporals were at the door when Gordon threw it open, but they drew back at the sight of his drawn gun. Feet were pounding below as he found the entrance that led to the truck. He hit the seat and rammed down the throttle with his foot before he could get his hands on the wheel.

It was a full minute before sirens sounded behind him, and Nick the Croop had fast trucks. He spotted the squad car far behind, ducked through a maze of alleys, and lost it for another few precious minutes.

Then a barricade lay ahead.

The truck faltered as it hit the nearly finished obstacle, and Gordon felt his stomach squashing down onto the wheel. He kept his foot to the floor, strewing bits of the barricade behind him, until he was beyond the range of the Legal guns that were firing suddenly. Then he stopped and got out carefully, with his hands up.