"Nope. God's own truth. I've got nowhere else to turn, Mohammed."

He was silent, then: "The Haluk really did... that to you?"

"They had help from some stupid and evil human beings. But, yeah. Haluk did it as part of their Grand Design to take over the damn galaxy. Some nerve, huh?"

"Motherfuckers," he said, shaking his head. "It's for real? This alien plot?"

"It's a nightmare, and it's for real."

"Jeez."

"I gave Mama Fanchon the opal ring," I said. "When we get to the place in Cabbagetown, I'll see that you get some money."

"Okay," he said softly. "I'll take you where you want to go. You ruin those blueberry fools, hear me?"

"That's my plan," I told him. "Now let's eat."

Together, we went back to the dim corridor where the others were already sitting at the kitchen table.

The next day, after Mama Fanchon checked me out again with the diagnosticon and gave her reluctant approval, we were ready to leave. Santa Claus had supplied us with a pack of food and bottles of water. He'd even refilled my flask with some of his own brandy. I wore my dark track suit over heavy polypro underwear from the hope chest, the new car-coat, the Blue Jays baseball cap, and gloves. Mohammed was all in black. He still had my Ivanov and the magazine pouch of stun-bolts. I was armed with the exotic switchblade and the sedative injector. (Mama didn't want that for her hospital. She preferred to use minidosers, which were much more common and easier to steal than high-pressure drug cartridges.) The whole Grange Place Tribe decided to accompany Mohammed and me as far as the old Spadina Street utility tunnel, which was to be our principal route south. Santa Claus led the way with his blaster. The girl runaway named Leah was at his side, lighting the way with a brilliant argon lantern. Most of the others had glolamps. Mama placidly smoked her pipe, walking with the Thrown Away Omnivore executive called Johnny Guitar, who strummed his instrument in solemn march tempo: brrrump, brrrump, brump- brump-brump. Before long we were all whistling "Colonel Bogey."

Weirdly, other troglodytic figures carrying lights of their own emerged from shadowy side tunnels to join us as we moved through the debris-strewn Dundas West concourse.

When we reached the utility tunnel, a crowd of almost fifty people gathered around me, smiling and shyly wishing me good luck. I was astonished and deeply touched.

"The word got around," Santa Claus explained. "Mohammed never could keep his mouth shut. These other folks ... they heard you were a Throwaway, heard what the Haluk did to you. Most of them know how it feels to have a good life, then wake up one day to find the universe turned upside down."

So I made a little speech of my own, thanking them, making some wild promises that were greeted with disbelieving hoots and spatters of applause. Then the Dark Path people began to wander away.

Mama Fanchon kissed me on the cheek and slipped something into my hand. "Here's what you wanted, Helly. My pocket phone. Take it with you. Not too many of these down here. Most of us haven't much need of them, but sometimes other tribes call me when a person's really sick or hurt bad."

"I can't take this," I protested. "Let me make my call now, right here."

"I don't think that would be wise. Wait till you're in Cab-bagetown, after you've checked the place for a stakeout. You'll want to be sure your friend is at home-and I'd also suggest that you give fair warning about your big surprise." She turned to Mohammed and spoke sternly. "And you won't take any money from Helly! Not a single dollar."

He shrugged. "I'll bring back your phone."

The journey was long, tedious, dirty, cold, and frequently dangerous. Our convoluted route covered over eight kilometers and took seventeen hours. I was strongly reminded of my trek through the caves of Cravat, several years earlier. But there had been no human crazies in that little planet's underworld; Branson Elgar and his homicidal crew had been extremely sane, and the Haluk hiding in the Cravat caverns were unexpectedly lacking in malice.

On Toronto's Dark Path, there were malicious denizens galore. I never would have gotten to Cabbagetown without Mohammed.

He knew exactly how to calm nervous tribes ready to kill any stranger-especially one that looked like an alien-who entered their territory. Mention of Mama Fanchon's name turned them from enemies to cautious allies. The roving gangs of well-armed robbers and sex criminals infesting undefended no-man's-land regions would have been more of a challenge; luckily, we didn't encounter large groups of outlaws during the southbound leg of our trip.

Small groups and loners, yes.

A pair of knife-wielding muggers sprang at us out of the dark when we were halfway down the Spadina tunnel, just above King Street. Mohammed stunned them neatly, and after fettering them with the plastic wrist restraints I'd taken from the Haluk guards, he called the nearest tribe on Mama Fanchon's phone and coolly asked for "garbage disposal."

I didn't ask what that meant.

We continued on. A few minutes later a third robber dropped on me from a ceiling beam in the ruined King Street subway station. We grappled while my young companion danced around waving the pistol, afraid to shoot for fear of hitting me. The thug was a raving crankhead, the drug giving him almost superhuman strength. I finally thumbed his eyes and he turned me loose, giving Mohammed his chance. He plugged my frenzied attacker with three darts.

"That's usually fatal, you know," I told him when I managed to catch my breath. "Not that I'm complaining."

"Then I guess we don't have to bother the disposal folks. The rats'11 take care of him."

Mohammed helped himself to the late bandido's money and wristwatch before resuming his interrupted guide duties.

Our narrowest escape happened hours later, down near the Inner Harbor, almost directly beneath what had once been Galapharma Tower. I presumed the structure now contained Rampart's Toronto headquarters, or would very shortly. In either case, the place offered me no refuge. Au contraire ...

After a strenuous crawl through an abandoned sewer, we had come to a very old masonry culvert, part of some antiquated stream-diversion system buried deep under the old quay. The tall arched tunnel was half full of fast-moving black water. By that time I was exhausted, since we'd been on the go with hardly a letup for nearly eight hours.

I rested on a wide ledge with a lantern perched beside me, while Mohammed searched with his flashlight for the improvised bridge over the stream that existed in Dark Path folklore-and also, we hoped, in reality.

Suddenly, a pack of hideously diseased scavengers came rushing out of the darkness, screaming like wildcats, intent on separating us from our possessions. I think they were human, but the few glimpses I caught of them in the lamplight were inconclusive. We fought. I threw four of the smelly varmints into the rushing water, where they either drowned or ended up dog-paddling in Lake Ontario. Mohammed used the last of his Ivanov darts subduing the other five.

We finally found the makeshift bridge, crossed over, and entered the Queen's Quay Dark Path. It was an abandoned goods-delivery system that once served waterfront buildings, now inhabited only by rats. They minded their own business and so did we, traveling eastward for three miserable kilometers through passages partially flooded with icy water. We nearly perished from hypothermia before finding a friendly tribe of genuine Indians, Throwaways from Infinitum, the gambling and entertainment colossus, near the Parliament Street junction. They let us dry out in front of their space heaters and gave us hot food and coffee. My Halukoid appearance didn't seem to bother them in the least.

The last part of the trip was anticlimactic, 1,500 meters of dry storm drains-we were still beneath the force-field umbrella-cramped utility conduits with snarls of ancient fiberoptic and electrical cable, and the walled-off subbasements of vanished public housing units.

We arrived in Cabbagetown shortly before midnight, emerging through a drain grate into a small park.

"The town house you want is in the next block," Mohammed informed me. "Make your phone call."

I sat in deep shadows with my back against a tree trunk. The little park was forlorn and deserted, its shrubs leafless, the flowerbeds empty, and the fountain turned off for the winter.

Mohammed crouched beside me. "Go ahead," he urged. "What are you waiting for? I want to get home tonight."

I hesitated because I was afraid. The long, perilous journey hadn't terrified me, but the prospect of making this phone call did. I stalled. "How do you expect to get back to Grange Place tonight? It's too far. Too dangerous."

"Damn right it is, man. But only if you take the Dark Path. I'm going to walk crosstown on the surface, right down Dundas Street for three klicks, till I get to Spadina and our regular bolt-hole. It'll be a breeze, now that I don't have a fuckin' Haluk fugitive in tow. Make the phone call!"

Dex Assistance gave me the code. I tapped it in, keeping the viewer inactive. Got an answer and a face.

"Yes? Who is this, please?"

"It's Helly," I whispered. "I need to see you immediately."

"Helly?"

"Please listen. I'm in trouble. Serious trouble. You know what-what's going on in the Assembly. The free-for-all about the three hundred new Haluk planets. My own close involvement as Rampart syndic."

"Yes. But I don't see-"

"The demiclone spy accusations. They're true. The-The person using my name, giving statements to the media, is an impostor. A clone. I've been kept prisoner by the Haluk for seven months while this other man has used my identity to discredit Efrem Sontag's investigation."

A protracted silence. "This isn't... some sick practical joke?"

"No. It's true. I only escaped from the Haluk tower a few days ago. I've been hiding in the Dark Path. Under the city."

"Good God. And you want-"

"Your help. Please. There's no one else I can turn to. No one who would believe me."

"Your voice-"

"I know. I've been through hell. It's not the only thing about me that's changed. But I can prove who I am. Here's a secret password: Kashagawigamog."

"The lake where you almost drowned when you were five years old."

"Where Eve saved my life, then beat the shit out of me for disobeying orders and going out in the canoe alone, without a life vest. I told you about it when we visited that art gallery in Haliburton."

Another interminable pause, then: "All right. I'll listen to what you have to say. Come to my town house. Do you know where it is?"

"Yes. I'm only a block away. I'll use the back door. You wouldn't want your neighbors to see me coming in."

"Why not?"

"Trust me."

"Very well. I'll leave the rear garden gate unlocked. Come through the alley."

"There's something I have to warn you about. My appearance. I don't want to frighten you, but-"

"I don't frighten easily. You of all people ought to know that."

"Yes. I'm sorry. But I'd better show you what was done to me by the Haluk. I'm not the man you remember." I activated my viewer pickup.

"Jesus Christ," Joanna whispered.

"They demicloned a Haluk, gave him my DNA. This- This change is a side effect of the genen process."

Her eyes were full of sudden tears. "Oh, Helly!"

My name. She used my name. "It is me, Joanna. I need you so very much."

"Come," my former wife said.

So I did.

Chapter 8

I jogged wearily toward Joanna's place with my baseball cap pulled low, praying I wouldn't meet another night-runner who'd notice my filthy athletic clothes and outlandish features. I figured the chance of Haluk agents physically watching her place was vanishingly remote. More subtle varieties of spying were possible-even satellite eyes.

But I'd had no relationship with Joanna for years, and I was fairly certain that the aliens would have discounted her as someone I'd call on for help. They'd be concentrating their surveillance efforts on Karl Nazarian and my other associates, on my family, and on Efrem Sontag.

That night, the pleasant streets of Cabbagetown seemed almost deserted. Paving-stone sidewalks, lamp posts that simulated gaslights, big old trees. A two-meter-high ornamental iron fence surrounded each row of town houses. The locked gates in front of each unit had security boxes with viewscreens. Following inner-city guidelines, there was no private hopper pad anywhere nearby. You didn't fly into affluent enclaves like Cabbagetown; you drove or cycled or walked, and you didn't leave your vehicle parked overnight in front of the house, either.

There were six large town houses in Joanna's row, built in the gracious style of the previous century-gray clapboard facades, heavy white window frames, overhanging eaves, attic dormers on the third floor, multiple chimneys, little sheltering porticos with hanging lanterns above each front door. The houses shared a two-story mews in the rear that had garage space for twelve cars below, exercise and hobby rooms upstairs.

I jogged around onto a side street and entered the alley. The mews building sported brass carriage lamps. A single gate beside it gave admittance to the communal garden.

The telltale on its card-lock box glowed green, and when I tried the gate, it swung open silently.

Her back porch light hadn't been turned on and the lower part of her house was dark.

Blinds were drawn in two illuminated rooms on the second floor.

I crept up the steps. Before I could touch the bell pad, the door opened and I saw a tall, slender woman silhouetted against indirect light from an inner hall. She wore a tightly belted crimson velvet robe over a high-necked white nightgown. Her blond hair was still long, as I had remembered it. Freed from its chignon, a single glossy braid fell over her right breast.

She stared at me, austere features shadowed, eyes wide and touched with twin sparks from the carriage lights, lips parted in a soundless cry of trepidation. My grotesque face seen on a small phone viewer lacked the impact of solid, atrocious reality.

"It's me, Joanna," I said gently. "It really is me."

"Yes. Come in." Her voice was steady. She stepped aside as I entered and then locked the door. For a few seconds we stood still, studying each other in the half-light like cornball characters from an old grade-B science-fiction movie: the attractive woman in her nightclothes and the monstrous alien intruder.

Then she said, "Phew! Why didn't you tell me you'd been hiding in a sewer?" Before I could reply, she strode off briskly. "Come with me. Before we do anything else, you've got to have a long, hot shower."

I followed meekly through the kitchen and up the back staircase to a sumptuous bathroom on the second floor. "Put those nasty clothes of yours into the valet and use the DISINFECT setting. You'd better program a serious germkiller bodyscrub, too. The shower has an enormous spritz selection-although I can't say I've ever had to use the industrial- strength option myself. There are guest toiletries in the large cabinet. Toothbrushes and the like." She paused and gave me a quizzical look. "Umm ... you do still have teeth?"

I burst out laughing and bared them in an un-Haluk grin. They felt like my originals, even though the spaces between them appeared to have expanded. Then I playfully stuck my tongue out at her as well, and instantly regretted it. Earlier, I'd vaguely felt that the organ was a tad abnormal. Now the mirrors in the bright bathroom revealed that it had become obscenely long and agile. I could easily touch the underside of my chin with it.

And it was colored a rich plum-purple.

"Holy shit!" said Joanna DeVet, Morehouse Professor of Political Science. She backed away from me into the hall. When I made a piteous noise she forced herself to smile. "It's not such a bad tongue. Rather handsome, as those things go. Can you unfurl it like a chameleon and catch flies?"

"I'll have to give that a try one of these days," I said wretchedly.

"I'm sorry, Helly. I shouldn't joke about it. It's just so ..."

"Alien," I said softly.

"Yes," she agreed. "Are you hungry? Can you eat human food?"

"My last meal was rat stew, dished out by feral Native Americans living in waterfront catacombs. I'm famished."

"I have half a tandoori chicken with spicy yogurt sauce, nan bread, and rozkoz- poppyseed coffee cake from Granowska's." Joanna hated to cook, but she knew the best takeout and home-delivery places in the city.

I said, "The chicken sounds just great."